The Spirit of Artemis

Revelation

Alice could hear the soldiers with their armored boots, quickly running in pursuit.  ‘Well, isn’t this fuckin’ awesome.’  She thought as she darted the length of the alley.  There!  An access ladder leading upward.  She swarmed up it without pause to dart across the sagging roof.  Then a nanobot-assisted jump threw her across another road to a rooftop on the other side, which she also rapidly traversed.

She was on her third rooftop, the sounds of pursuit some distance behind her, when she caught sight of the rusty block jutting out from the battered buildings around it like it didn’t belong.  A flicker of relief went through her at seeing her goal in sight.

Another glance over her shoulder revealed two more of the sleek transports that carried the black armored soldiers had arrived, and were now slowly working their way over the rooftops.  That tightened Alice’s guts with apprehension.  The only way they could’ve gotten so close was if the data store’s signal was still leaking out.

Too late to worry about that now; now it was a sprint to the finish.

Nanobot assistance sent her streaking across the final rooftop and she jumped off the edge without hesitation to drop twenty metres to the ground, her legs flexing deep to absorb as much of the impact as possible.  Still, she hit hard enough that it made her nanonet display flash warnings about exceeding operating parameters and repair progress, which had immediately been initiated.  Ignoring it all, Alice reset and charged across the street, hung a left to race along the face of yet another battered set of housing units before a right put her on the street that ran straight up towards the guild hall.

With the hiss of escaping exhaust, all three transports swung onto the street behind her, weapons sliding out of their bays to target the human that was running faster than was physically possible.

“I can’t get a weapon lock.”  The pilot admitted, gauntleted hands dancing over its control panel. 

“Her nanites are scrambling her signal.”

“Just as well.”  The woman in red said into her comlink as she calmly followed the squads of soldiers sweeping the streets ahead of them.  Already several firefights had broken out with local gangs that had sauntered out from their strongholds in curiosity at what all the commotion was about.  Moving quickly and efficiently, her soldiers were ensuring none of them would be able to take a shot at her.

She glanced down at her gloved hand and watched the top shift of its own accord, the nanobots suffusing the tissues there already hardening her skin in response to her unconscious need to protect herself.  Not that she needed their protection,…

“This way we can follow her to the next drop and find out who Telso’s buyer is.”

“Do we continue the pursuit then, sir?”  The pilot wanted to know.

“Stay close enough to maintain Line Of Sight.”  A thought through her nanonet and the comlink switched frequencies.

“Commander, close in on the guild hall now.  I want Telso’s buyer alive, if possible.”

Alice’s exposure timer reached zero and began flashing just as she skidded into the guild hall’s empty foyer.  As she came to a halt to take a quick look around, she mentally activated a quick purge.  It would leave her vulnerable for a few minutes, but meant she’d stay alive in the long run.

And so her enhanced senses weren’t active to warn her of the small group of sapients that entered the room a few seconds later.  Only the sound of their booted feet on the dusty stone floor gave her notice.  Gritting her teeth against the bright flash of fear that surged through her at being so vulnerable, she spun around with the spitter in a two handed grip to take aim at the group of men.