Doran's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

The road north ran wide and empty under a black sky. Doran kept to its center, away from the tree line. His map showed a checkpoint ahead, corporate guards who scanned every traveler. His grafted rifle carried a serial code from the company that built him. One scan and they would know him. So he could not walk through. He needed another way past. He stopped to rest at dusk. Atlas folded down beside him, its blue optic dimming to save power. Then the mech's optic snapped bright. "There is a fire ahead," Atlas said. "Two hundred meters, off the road." Doran followed the mech's gaze. A small flame flickered in the dark. Atlas ran a long scan. Its optic pulsed as data streamed. "One person," the mech said. "Armed. Corporate gear." It paused. "It is Kira Vance." Doran went still. Kira Vance, the bounty hunter the company sent to drag him back. She had shadowed his trail since the clinic, always ahead of him. Now she waited, camped on the only road north. "She knows we head this way," Doran said. "She set the fire so we would see it." "We should go around," Atlas said. "Into the metal forest. The beetles are thick there, but Vance is worse." Doran shook his head. The forest would swarm them. And he was tired of running from her. "No. The checkpoint blocks the road. She sits between us and it. If I take her gear, I can walk past the guards as her." He stood. "We go to the fire." They crossed the open ground. Doran moved low. Atlas held back in the dark, ready. At the fire's edge Kira sat cleaning a pistol, feet crossed, calm as if she owned the night. She did not look up. "Took you long enough, prototype," she said. "I've been holding your seat." Doran raised his rifle arm. It hummed and glowed. "Drop the weapon." Kira smiled and rolled sideways as she fired. Her shot grazed his shoulder. Doran fired back and burned her pistol from her hand. She lunged. He caught her wrist with his left hand. She twisted, drove a knee at him, but Atlas stepped from the dark and clamped one huge hand around her arms. "Enough," Doran said. Kira went still in the mech's grip, breathing hard. Doran pulled the scanner badge from her jacket. Then he took her coat and her ID tag. "The checkpoint reads gear, not faces," he said. "Now it reads yours." Kira laughed. "They'll figure it out. And when they do, they'll send more than me." Atlas set her down and shoved her back from the fire. Doran folded her coat over his rifle arm, hiding the serial code beneath the corporate cloth. He had his way past the checkpoint now. But Kira watched him go, alive and free, and she knew exactly where he was headed.