Never Fade Away: Never Fade Away (ch. 25) (Patreon)

Time slowed to a crawl the moment the force of the impact hit. Adam Smasher peered into the tank, his eyes glowing an ominous red. I didn't know much about him beyond vague mentions here or there. Mostly coming from David, because Adam Smasher was apparently the most renowned borg in the world. Ninety-six percent of his body was chrome and metal. I had thought it would make him an easy target. That was arrogance on my part.

I lashed out with a daemon, my gaze flashing red as I tried to trash his soft. Instead, to my eyes, Adam Smasher seemed to transform into a daemon himself. His body became outlined in red static, revealing a hint of what laid beneath -- a warning that I was being counterhacked. And fast. Too fast. My heart went still in my chest as I realized that if it wasn't for the Skeleton Lock then my systems would have been breached in a millisecond.

That wasn't an automated system. That was an AI. Probably more than one, because I instantly found myself on the defensive, my attempts to crack his ICE being rebuffed so easily it was like I had never made the attempt in the first place. How was that possible? How-

They had installed it. They had installed the Typhon cyberdeck. They had downloaded AIs and software into it and gave it to Adam Smasher. His single greatest weakness was patched over before we even met.

Time seemed to resume as the crash happened in real time, more blood erupting out of my nose. As I collapsed to a knee, Jack responded with force. She lashed out with a hand, catching Adam Smasher in the head and flinging him back while Kaiden caught us in a gravity field, sparing us the impact. Pain erupted between my temples but I forced myself to focus. "We can't have him follow us. Falco, Kaiden -- grab David and find us a ride."

"L!" Lucy shouted as I threw the hatch open to see Adam Smasher standing outside of the tank. He stood closer to eight feet tall than not, his body blackened steel, and it seemed to be more of a mockery of humanity than anything. I wiped the blood off of my chin and lips, before spitting out the little that was in my mouth.

"That's my tech you chipped in," I told him. I would be the distraction. I was the target. So long as the others got away, then it would be fine. They mattered more than I did.

"It's quality chrome," he said, the words sounding like praise as he leveled an assault rifle at me. I recognized it. An electric charge railgun with a magnetic load drum magazine. The perfect weapon to be fired with a Sandy.

"It's mine. I'm taking it back," I snapped at him, uncertain if the words were just bravado or not. I felt every single neuron fire as I tapped into my Sandy and began to move to the side, a hand going to my fanny pack to grab a grenade. For a moment, Adam Smasher stood still, but his body began to move, almost in sync with me. He pulled the trigger and the bullet leapt from the barrel of the gun, beginning its slow crawl towards me. He had a Sandy too. A good quality one. Comparable to the one I had designed for David.

I had the slightest edge in speed, I quickly noticed as I was able to take two steps before he managed to take one, but I would be feeling those steps a great deal more. Worse, he was able to keep up with me. His gun fired continuously, each bullet aimed center mass as I rushed straight at him. I dodged out of the way of the bullets that seemed to be moving in slow motion, pulling out a singularity grenade from my fanny pack and primed it. See me lobbing it at him, Adam Smasher threw himself back, but he underestimated the short timer. I had primed them with the expectation that they would be used in conjunction with my Sandy.

Between us, space began to warp. I had never seen it happen in slow motion before, but everything loose was pulled towards the center of the grenade. That center was a small black pinprick in space that hovered where the grenade collapsed in on itself. The bullets were dragged in, the paved floor was lifted up, and Smashed clearly felt the gravitational pull as well.

He countered it. Black and purple energy swirled around his body as he seemed to fade out of existence, surging forward through the singularity, and landing directly before me. An oversized fist raced to my skull -- even slowed, it was far too fast for my liking. I leaned out of the way of the fist, planting a foot on Smasher's body to throw myself back from. As I flipped through the air, I flung another grenade at him. Trapping him between two extreme forces of gravity.

The ground he stood on was ripped up, and I saw a section of his back get peeled off of him. The materials were flung into the black hole, where they collapsed in on themselves.

Landing on the ground, I saw Smasher was generating his own gravity field to counter the singularities. His dark red gaze never left me. The dark swirl of biotic energy gathered around his arms, telling me he was preparing something dangerous. I took aim with a pistol, my systems calculating the shot, and I tried to bust his eyes in.

Then time resumed and all I felt was pain. It felt like a gallon of blood erupted from my nose, rushing up my throat while every single muscle in my body was ripped to shreds all at the same time. My bones seemed to creak under the strain, the breath stolen from my lungs. It was pure hell. Flesh and blood and bone couldn't hope to stand up to the Sandevistan. It took everything that I had to not black out instantly. In that same moment, the grenades collapsed in on themselves, the materials that they sucked up were spat out into cubes with a flash of light.

Smasher threw his arm out at me, sending a wave of energy that I could feel tugging at me.

I didn't have a choice.

I tapped into the Sandy again to dodge the attack, and the bullets that he unleashed at me. Even that brief moment of hesitation cost me, because I could feel a handful of bullets digging into my flesh. A circle around my heart. I took a half step back, freeing myself of the bullets.

An alert appeared that my systems were under attack. The AIs inside of Smasher were trying to breach my ICE. Gritting my teeth, I knew I needed to formulate a plan. I wouldn't win a battle of endurance. I needed to set the stage for his defeat and quickly. I fired at the barrel of Smasher's gun, the both of us moving. The others haven't managed to even leave the tank yet.

The tank.

The power source was the size of a basketball, but it was shrunk down. Its true size was a small car. That was one hell of an explosive. But, to get him there…

I needed to damage his Sandevistan.

Pivoting on a heel, I darted to Smasher. The black ball of crackling purple lightning tore towards where I stood, ripping up the ground and lashing lightning at everything it neared. Popping a bullet in its direction saved me from the lightning that still moved fast to my eyes. They latched onto the bullet, letting me race forward. Smasher was firing his gun, knowing that I was up to something. I focused on his systems as I dodged the bullets, a hand going to my fanny pack for another singularity grenade.

I didn’t focus on breaching his systems. I focused on scanning them. The AIs inside of him cloaked them well, rebuffing the Skeleton Key with dangerous ease. Worse, the more they were exposed to it, the faster they got at refuting it. The red static appeared around his body again, warning me that my own systems were under attack. I maintained the connection, trusting the Skeleton Lock to buy me enough time-

I had it. A system check of what Smasher had along with the layout of where the tech was. My vision glitched, static making everything start to grow fuzzy, but I accepted the cost. The Sandevistan was in his back. Near where the damaged plating was. As I raced to him, he did something to the gun. It became cloaked in energy before the next bullet it shot tore a chunk out of my arm as it suddenly started shooting a lot faster. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I continued to race forward, and the near misses that I had experienced before were a lot nearer now.

More than once, I was forced to accept a grazing hit with my approach. One at my leg, another two along my ribs or across my chest, my neck and even my temple. Every single one of them was a barely dodged kill shot. All the same, I closed in. Smasher lashed out with a foot, intent on kicking me in half, only to provide me a boost up. I flipped over him, Smasher’s gun trailing after me as I deposited a singularity grenade in the back of his body where the damaged plating was.

Smasher lashed out with a hand and I just barely managed to land on the limb, using it as a platform to kick off of. I was flung through the air, shooting off like a bullet while Smasher tried to grab the grenade.

Then time resumed and all I knew was pain. More blood erupted from my nose, but it wasn’t just my nose anymore. I felt it dripping out of my eyes and it welled up from my stomach, forcing me to vomit it out. I collapsed to my knees, everything sounding like it was happening underwater, which told me that I was bleeding from my ears too. Through a haze of red, I saw the singularity grenade go off.

Smasher did something. I’m not sure what, but he somehow shielded himself from the worst of the damage. The back of his body was ripped up, a jet of flame erupting from his shoulder. However, instead of being dematerialized, he took a chunk of damage and I saw that his Sandevistan had gone offline. Along with a number of other things. Did I get my cyberdeck?

“That body of meat already failing you?” Smasher growled, turning his attention to me, “How disappointing. I thought you were going to be more fun,” he continued, striding toward me, uncaring of the damage.

“L!” Jack shouted, lashing out with her biotics. Becca came out of the tank guns blazing, bullets impacting a familiar shield that Smasher threw up. “You fuck!” She screamed, grabbing hold of a nearby car and flinging it at Smasher, who merely held up a hand to catch it with his own mass effect field. Lucy appeared by my side, and I saw her expression was one of horror when she looked at me. I was in pretty bad shape. The Sandy was necessary, but it was extremely taxing for me to use.

“Pathetic,” Smasher snarled, flinging the car at Jack, who struggled to catch it. Not that it mattered because then Smasher moved. Using a familiar ability that I had seen Jack use before, Charging at her with a translucent body and burying a fist in her stomach. She folded around the fist, making my heart go still. Biotic energy swelled around Jack before she shoved a ball into Smasher’s chest, pushing herself away to avoid the worst of the hit and getting flung away, smashing into the side of a car before falling limply.

“The tank. Get him to the tank,” I said, trying to get my breathing under control. If I couldn’t do anything physically, then I needed to distract him. I lashed out with the Skeleton Key, trying to distract the AIs before they tried to remote hack any of my friends. Becca opened up, bullets pinging off his armor for a moment before the shield was up. The ball of energy ripped his gun in half, so Smasher slowly walked to Becca, looming over her as she screamed at the top of her lungs, firing continuously.

He was going to kill her. Jack was out of it, struggling to pick herself up. Becca was refusing to back down, firing her gun and glaring defiantly as a cruel chuckle seemed to escape Smasher. Lucy’s eyes flashed red before she winced, her defenses not nearly as hardy as my own. I had never considered the idea that there would be a biotic out there as strong as Jack.

He was going to kill us.

Gritting my teeth, I made a decision. My body screamed in protest, even the surge of adrenaline coursing through my veins wasn’t enough to dull the pain. It felt like I set every single nerve ending on fire. None of that mattered in that moment as I darted forward, time going still. Becca’s gun wasn’t made for a Sandy, and there was a noticeable pause between each bullet being fired.

I grabbed her shotgun and leveled it at Smasher-

Then he moved. He had baited me out, I realized, feeling my arm get ripped out of it's socket when he grabbed me by it and lifted me into the air. I was jerked out of the slowed time, paralyzed with pain and could only gasp for air that refused to enter my lungs. He kicked Becca in the chest, probably shattering every rib that she had. I grit my teeth against the flood of blood that gushed between my teeth. Snarling at Smasher, I leveled the shotgun at his head, bracing it against the shoulder of the arm he had me by.

His face was incapable of expressing emotion. “Go for it, meat.”

Fuck.

I pulled the trigger and I felt the buck against my arm as I kicked off of his chest. His arm didn’t move and I felt blood splashing onto my face. My gaze never wavered, but I had to admit, I thought it would be the elbow. The part of my arm that would be ripped off, that is.

Instead, as the gun bucked, a slug slamming into his forehead, my arm gave out at the shoulder while my collarbone shattered from the force of the kickback. The dislocated shoulder probably had something to do with it, I thought as my back hit the ground, and everything hurt so much that I hardly felt it. Blood gushed from where my arm used to be, not so much of a stump left behind. I grunted as I came to a stop, a hand going to my shoulder. My head was getting light. My vision was darkening, and I knew then that I was reaching the end of my rope.

“Entertaining,” Smasher remarked, bringing my attention back to him. Steam waffed from his head, which sported a deep groove where I shot him, but that was it. How thick was the armor around his head? No… no, it was a biotic shield of some kind. I saw the energy swirling around him -- he put up a barrier at the last second, taunting me into shooting him where it was thickest.

“Get the fuck away from him!” Jack raged, sending a wild blast of pure raw power at Smasher. Not a second later, I saw Kaiden joining in, his face twisted in a rare display of anger. Lucy was picking me up, but my vision went black for a moment. All I saw was a lot of blood on the pavement. When my vision faded back in, Lucy was carrying me somewhere while Smasher was hit with a tossed truck that exploded on impact.

Lucy was saying something to me. I couldn’t hear it. She sounded too far away, but that couldn’t be the case, right? She was right next to me. I saw my feet being dragged across the ground… ah… I was going to have road burn on my toes. Maybe this was why everyone hated flipflops? I tried to get my feet back underneath them, but my legs felt clumsy, almost as if they belonged to someone else.

A flash of movement caught my eye and I looked over just in time to see another truck slamming into Adam Smasher, pinning him between the truck and the tank. I think I… blinked or something, because all of a sudden David was in front of us with Falco, Becca, Jack, and Kaiden with him. David grabbed a bubble shield from my fanny pack before tossing it into the ground, looking at me with a panicked expression. “L! Blow it!”

What? Oh. Right.

I input the self destruct command for the tank and everything became noise. I had theorized how big the explosion would be when the GN drive self-destructed. The math was… complicated, but the long and short of it was big. Really big. So much so, it felt like we were standing at ground zero for a nuclear explosion. Everything went white, there was heat on my face, and my ears were ringing like a bell. The dazzle shields on my optics kicked in a second later, sparing me the worst of the light.

A split second later, it began to die down and it almost looked like a nuke had gone off in front of Arasaka tower. Every single pane of glass was shattered, and a massive crater was opened up where the tank was. Red particles filled the air, intermingling with the sakura petals and falling like snow. The metal around the area glowed a cherry red, sweltering from the absorbed heat. The only place that was spared was inside the bubble shield.

The tank was completely vaporized as ground zero. As was the truck that kept him pinned.

However, Adam Smasher remained standing. He was missing an arm, his armor was twisted and melted, but he was still standing. Worse. He was moving. It was stilted, his body having suffered critical damage, but he was still moving.

“That didn’t kill him either?” David questioned, holding me up. He glanced my way and his expression tightened. The sounds of sirens filled the air. "We're leaving," he decided, ripping off his jacket and draping it over my shoulders. He threw my remaining arm over his shoulder, half dragging me out of the bubble shield.

My vision turned to static for a moment, my optics glitching out as my meditech was barraging me with alerts. The next thing I knew I was in the back of a truck with Becca and Lucy over me. Their expressions were concerned and I heard the sound of gunshots. Were we moving? I couldn't tell. I tried to rise to help with the fight, but the sudden strain made everything go dark.

More time must have passed because I was being dragged somewhere. "- Vik! He needs-" David started to exclaimed, dragging me to an operating table. We were at Vik's? That wasn't good. We could bring a lot of trouble to his doorstep, and I liked Vik too much to do that…

All the same, I was put on the table and Vik was above me. "Hey… Vik…" I tried to greet him, but my tongue felt clumsy in my mouth.

"Hey there, kid. Sounds like you've been busy," Vik remarked, quickly injecting himself with a stimulant. "Take in a deep breath because you're going to feel a pinch…"

I took in a breath… but I was out of it before I felt the pinch.

…

Consciousness returned to me slowly. I became aware of distant sensations first -- like how my toes itched, or how my arm felt numb because of my sleeping position. For a long while, my brain was decidedly blank as I tried to return to the blissful realm of unconsciousness. However, slowly, thought started to crop up -- where was I? How did I get here? And why couldn't I feel my arm?

It was the last thought that convinced me to open my eyes, my brain feeling like mush. Raising a hand up, I saw why -- instead of the flesh and blood of my left arm, I saw chrome colored metal. With my other hand, I reached up to touch the cold metal, following it up to my shoulder. My entire arm had been replaced.

"It's an older model," I heard a familiar voice say. "To reduce strain on your body during recovery," they continued and I struggled to sit up in a bed to see that it was V. She sat next to the bed, her legs crossed with one arm draped around the back of the seat. Instantly, I noticed that we were somewhere nice -- the floor was made of wood, the walls were cream colored, and there were rich scents in the air. "We're at one of my safe-houses. David and the others left you with me because Arasaka is tearing up Night City looking for you."

I didn't trust V, but I saw the logic. Where better to hide me than under Arasaka's nose? "How long…?"

"You were in a medically induced coma for two weeks. It should have been longer, honestly, but you were loaded up with healing stims," V answered, watching me carefully. Two weeks? That was… that was far too much time. I- "I've never seen anyone so close to death without actually dying. The missing arm was the least of your injuries, you know that? That Sandy of yours was something else and not at all meant for a meat suit. You're lucky that you were only out of it for two weeks. You should be dead, L."

My lips thinned. "Why aren't I?" I asked, an edge in my tone. "You're taking a really big risk harboring me here."

To that, V nodded. "Consider it repaying a favor. You're looking at the new director of counter intel. It was pretty easy to lead the trail to Abernathy -- the job you did for her served as a point of contact, then covering your trail was to keep you in her back pocket at the company's expense." V explained, a smug edge in her tone. "That, and I've seen what you can do. You have absolutely no idea how unthinkable what you did really was. You took a shot at the king of the city and you bloodied his nose. It's fucking crazy. So, I wanted to buy a little goodwill."

It was hard to be annoyed when she was so blunt with her intentions.

I swallowed thickly, leaning against the backboard of the bed. It was time for the question that I had been avoiding. "...The others?" I asked quietly, fearing the worst. Becca took a bad hit. So did Jack. I blacked out for most of the chase-

"They're alive. All of them. You were in the worst shape out of everyone," V told me bluntly. I let out a small breath that I had been holding as she continued, "But they're in hiding. Your base in Pacifica had to be burned -- everyone got out thanks to that shrinking stuff you got, and I've been able to throw false leads to keep them from being found. Your technology is such bullshit that stuff like invisibility or pocket dimensions doesn't seem as unlikely as it otherwise might."

"But they're okay?" I pressed, earning a small nod from V.

"As okay as they can be. It won't last forever, though. Arasaka's never going to give up on catching them if it'll lead them to you. The others have been making plans to hide themselves. Not really sure how, since I was kept out of the loop, but Falco let slip something about the Aldecaldos. They'll have more to say about that," V began before she reached down to a suitcase beside her bed. "So, I figured I should throw my own hat into the ring. Those kids can't stay in Night City. Arasaka won't stop until either you or they are found. And after that double feature of yours, the NUSA won't be any safer for the same reasons."

As she spoke, she took out a folder from the suitcase and passed it to me. On the cover of it, it was marked as classified and hard copies only. Meaning that the info was completely off the net for security reasons? Taking it and flipping it open, I saw an image. "... What am I looking at?" I asked her, looking at what seemed to be a really weird looking gun.

"It's something called a Mass Relay. We used to think it was just one of Pluto's moons, but that thing was encased in ice for who knows how long," V began and I started to feel my stomach clench. "We have some working theories on how it works, but with our current tech, it's a ten year trip to it and back, so all we have is drone footage. We know how it works, though -- that thing right there will generate a mass effect field that'll fling you out into the wider galaxy."

My grip tightened on the folder, looking at the mass relay, knowing what it meant.

Humans hadn't built it.

Someone else did.

"You want me to build a ship that can get there quickly," I ventured, earning a small nod from V.

"Arasaka already has a head start. I don't know how many people know about it, but Arasaka-sama seems pretty convinced that his company will plunder the stars," V admitted. "I have no idea if you can really take down Arasaka, but that doesn't really matter. What I do know is that until the company dies, those kids aren't going to have a moment of peace. Not on Earth, at least." She reached out and tapped the photo with a finger.

"And what better place to hide than in the stars themselves?"