Fusion

Page 2

“Tell you what,” said Takagi, “We’ve got some leave coming, no doubt. I’ll take you to a place I found in Rio called The Saint’s Hammock. We can get lazy. It’s where all the big names go to clear their heads, put on weight and find themselves.”

“Doesn’t really sound like me.”

“How about a hike over Tibet? They’re letting folks in now, a select few tourists. That’s world class culture at it’s finest, my friend.”

Fish said nothing. All he wanted now was to get on an aircraft, jet back to Pasifika city on afterburner, sit through whatever rehabilitation was waiting for them, climb into a cab and go home. The thought of getting back into his own body and face made a smile tug at one corner of his lips.
Misinterpreting the smile, Takagi pressed on. “Malibu? Don’t even pretend like you don’t like the sea, you’re a goddamn fish for chrissake.”

“This is about all the ocean I need right here,” said Fish, indicating the broad expanse all around them. Occasional chunks of rubble floated up from the wreckage below, the enormous facility still burning with chemical fire down at the ocean floor. The Freedom Farmer’s project had been a spectacular failure.

The evacuation vessel was nowhere in sight. There was a chance the pilot had other errands in this territory or was flying more carefully than was strictly necessary but Fish had hoped it would have been here by now.

“Can you see our ride?” asked Fish, aware that Takagi’s personal sensors included radar, sonar, full spectrum X-Ray and a multitude of illegally hacked links into various satellite networks.

“I haven’t been looking. Ah, there he is,” said Takagi. He offered no further information as to the direction or distance of their exfiltration vehicle, as if it were obvious.

He’s enjoying the swim. Thought Fish bitterly. While Fish tread water, considering the lives he had just taken, the ramifications of the project he had helped thwart, the potentially devastating information he had extracted from it and even the financial cost of what had only taken a few kilos of tailored explosive and some basic training to destroy…. Takagi was enjoying a swim? It didn’t seem appropriate.

“Sometimes you get on my nerves,” said Fish.

Takagi stopped swimming around. He focused on the normally implacable Fish, surprised. “Go on,” he offered after a silence.

“That’s it. Sometimes you get on my nerves.”

“What the hell? Did I leave the milk out again? What do you mean?”

Fish glimpsed the speeding heliojet just now cresting the horizon, racing toward them. Takagi was about to work himself up into one of his crazy moods. The stupid mission must have affected him after all.

Shouldn’t have said anything.

As the Class Four cyborg was about to launch into whatever tirade he felt appropriate for the moment, a huge tremor erupted beneath them. It did nothing more to the surface than cause a few ripples and dislodge some floating debris from the twisted metal hell below but it was enough to give Takagi pause in his speech. The tremor could have been caused by many things, most likely a further collapse of the devastated building. It seemed, however, full of malign promise.
“Should we get the hell out of here,” said Takagi. It wasn’t a question.

They swam, quickly, in the direction of the still distant heliojet. Fish missed the webbing on his fingers that had served him all his life. His gills remained, concealed by minor surgery, and he swam with his head beneath the surface.

Their rate of travel, while swift, was not enough to spare the two agents for what was coming. The explosions that had folded Rig 6X7 in on itself had apparently not been enough to destroy the artificial monstrosity inside – only its containment equipment. Fish cursed himself for his assumption that an increased charge in its proximity would blow the thing apart.