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Speaker 1: Chapter two, Rowland. He woke up suddenly aware of two

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Speaker 1: equally pressing problems. The acids worn off and eight people

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Speaker 1: are here to kill me. Both of these facts concerned

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Speaker 1: him equally. He couldn't remember his name or where exactly

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Speaker 1: he was, which made the impending killed him all the

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Speaker 1: more concerning. He opened his eyes, his vision was blurry

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Speaker 1: and unfocused. His head felt filled with sand. Roland, Oh ship,

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Speaker 1: that's my name. Roland wondered how long he'd been asleep.

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Speaker 1: He reflexively triggered his deck before the dim firing of

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Speaker 1: a synapse reminded him that he'd permanently disabled his data

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Speaker 1: connection well a long time ago, million two or twenty

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Speaker 1: six minutes. His hindbrain, what Roland called the acres of

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Speaker 1: microscopic processors and data banks, spun into his blood. Spat

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Speaker 1: the knowledge out, unbidden into his conscious mind. Roland tried

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Speaker 1: to curse, but wound up spitting out a wad of

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Speaker 1: brackish flim instead. His eyes settled on a quarter full

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Speaker 1: bottle of fungus whiskey. He grabbed it, drained it, and

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Speaker 1: rooted around on the table where he'd found it until

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Speaker 1: his digging turned up a sheet of acid. He ripped

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Speaker 1: the sheet in half, ate one half and pasted the

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Speaker 1: other on his sweat damp chest. Roland's brain didn't wait

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Speaker 1: for the acid to do its job. Nanomachines couriered the

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Speaker 1: lysurgic diethyl acid directly to his synapses. The drugs took

24
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Speaker 1: cold in a matter of seconds. Acid softened the world

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Speaker 1: around him. His hindbrains running commentary faded into a sort

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Speaker 1: of generalized hyper awareness of the world around him. He sighed, relaxed,

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Speaker 1: and remembered a woman hovered over him, her hands on

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Speaker 1: his shoulders, her knees on either side of his body.

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Speaker 1: Sweat dripped down from her short black hair on to

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Speaker 1: his face and chest. Her pupils were the size of

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Speaker 1: dinner plates. She smelled like acid and desire. She smiled,

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Speaker 1: revealing a row of damascus steel teeth. Roland pulled himself

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Speaker 1: out of the memory. He felt the strike team advance.

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Speaker 1: His hindbrain generated a map of the approaching assassins. They

35
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Speaker 1: were still a solid minute from his hovel. There were

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Speaker 1: six men and two women on the team. If he'd

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Speaker 1: wanted a micro seconds focus could have told him which

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Speaker 1: members of the group were vegetarians, where two of the

39
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Speaker 1: team were on their minstrel cycles and how recently each

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Speaker 1: of their firearms had been cleaned and oiled. But Roland

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Speaker 1: didn't care about that information. He was trying to remember

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Speaker 1: where he left his gun. The one room hut Roland

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Speaker 1: occupied was best described as squalid. He knew he'd lived

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Speaker 1: there for quite a long time, although he wasn't sure

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Speaker 1: if the home was his in any legal sense of

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Speaker 1: the word. It's one room held a filthy mattress, a

47
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Speaker 1: hot plate, several dozen empty bottles of liquor, and a

48
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Speaker 1: tinkling carpet of spent whippets. A large knife was embedded

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Speaker 1: in the door. Roland couldn't remember why he knew he'd

50
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Speaker 1: had a gun at one point, even though he couldn't

51
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Speaker 1: currently find it. He stood up, still wobbly from the

52
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Speaker 1: massive dose of g h B he'd taken with his

53
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Speaker 1: nightly tequila, and started kicking at the piles of bottles

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Speaker 1: and drug paraphernalia in the hope that one of them

55
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Speaker 1: might contain his gun. He found some bullets after a

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Speaker 1: few seconds search, at the bottom of a folder's coffee

57
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Speaker 1: tin that was half filled with marijuana. Next to the

58
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Speaker 1: tin was a large metal bowl of stagnant water. Roland

59
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Speaker 1: glanced in and caught sight of his own reflection. His

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Speaker 1: black skin looked ashen and clammy, unusually pale, he thought,

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Speaker 1: but he didn't recall enough about himself to know if

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Speaker 1: that was really true. His face was long and drawn,

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Speaker 1: with wide, jutting cheekbones and apache uneven beard. His head

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Speaker 1: was covered in stubble. The center of his face was

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Speaker 1: dominated by a crooked, heavily scarred nose. Roland had no

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Speaker 1: recollection of why it was scarred, but he knew the

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Speaker 1: injury must have happened back before the army filled him

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Speaker 1: with chrome. He turned away from his reflection and continued

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Speaker 1: to search through the house, scattering food and crusted plates,

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Speaker 1: empty coke bags, an old fashioned print pornography into even

71
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Speaker 1: less organized piles. No dice did I pawn it? He wondered.

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Speaker 1: As his machine assisted edetic memory warred with his profound intoxication.

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Speaker 1: Roland was now conscious enough to remember that not remembering

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Speaker 1: much was pretty normal for him, and he should really

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Speaker 1: worry more about the assassin's coming to kill him. Oh

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Speaker 1: ship right, the strike team was just fifty meters out. Now.

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Speaker 1: He felt a gust of wind d and in the

78
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Speaker 1: same way felt As two of the men began to

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Speaker 1: assemble a large sound cannon behind a rocky hill that

80
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Speaker 1: faced his hovel, he guessed it was a Callahan Mark

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Speaker 1: thirty eight. Roland didn't know how he knew the weapon's name,

82
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Speaker 1: but he knew it could burn out even his armored

83
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Speaker 1: synapses with a few seconds of continuous fire. One man

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Speaker 1: was on overwatch for the Callahan team. He carried a

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Speaker 1: two bore Ruger fusion anti vehicular rifle. The mingling odors

86
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Speaker 1: of fierce sweat and baby formula wafting off him triggered

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Speaker 1: since memories of someone holding a newborn infant, Roland guessed

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Speaker 1: the man must have a kid back home, a kid

89
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Speaker 1: he's scared of leaving fatherless of some chromed out asset

90
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Speaker 1: had phileas him. That was useful data. He filed it

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Speaker 1: away in the chunk of his brain least likely to

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Speaker 1: lose that information. Over the next four seconds, Roland's memory

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Speaker 1: was real good in four second chunks. Over the next

94
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Speaker 1: pico second, he caught equally informative whiffs of the others.

95
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Speaker 1: It was enough to suggest that two of the women

96
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Speaker 1: in the main assault team were lovers and they'd both

97
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Speaker 1: had millspecks subdermal armor implanted recently. The acrid scent of

98
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Speaker 1: fresh suitures hung heavy in the air around them. Roland

99
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Speaker 1: could also tell that one of the men in the

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Speaker 1: assault party took heavy testosterone supplements, either because of a

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Speaker 1: genetic abnormality or because he'd been assigned female at birth.

102
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Speaker 1: The fourth man was moderately addicted to ephedric's and riding

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Speaker 1: into battle on a high stimulant wave. The last member

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Speaker 1: of the assault team was the only one to give

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Speaker 1: Roland any pause. He could guess the man's heightened weight

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Speaker 1: six foot five hundred and forty pounds from the sound

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Speaker 1: of his footfalls. Roland could smell the sig Sour five

108
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Speaker 1: hundred submachine gun in his hands, but otherwise the man

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Speaker 1: was a sensory blank, no sweat, no hydraulics, and black

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Speaker 1: to thermographic sensors. The man was chromed, not so heavily

111
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Speaker 1: as Roland, of course, but the competent and well armed

112
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Speaker 1: squad he led might be enough to narrow the gap.

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Speaker 1: We're in the shooting shit, shit, shit did I leave

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Speaker 1: that gun? The static balance in the air chain changed

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Speaker 1: as the Overwatch team warmed up their sound cannon. The

116
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Speaker 1: assault team was close, now barely a hundred feet out,

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Speaker 1: waiting in the cover provided by several large bowlders at

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Speaker 1: the base of the rise that held Roland's ramshackle home.

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Speaker 1: He knew how this fight would go. They'd unleashed the

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Speaker 1: Callahan for a good five seconds while the killed team

121
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Speaker 1: moved into position and kicked in the door next the

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Speaker 1: big bruiser and the two women would enter, while the

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Speaker 1: remainder of the assault team fanned out to cover the sides.

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Speaker 1: Textbook post human kill team tactics. He thought he didn't

125
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Speaker 1: actually remember any of the fights this conclusion was based on,

126
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Speaker 1: but he'd clearly lived through similar encounters, and if he

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Speaker 1: trusted his body and hindbrain, he would again. Roland finished

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Speaker 1: searching the apocalyptic ruin that was his kitchen sink. The

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Speaker 1: pile of plates had been large enough to hide a

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Speaker 1: short barrel, a R ten, but his gun wasn't there either.

131
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Speaker 1: Funck Nuts, He cursed. The profanity brought a tiny serotonin spike,

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Speaker 1: and Roland felt himself calm down even as the noose

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Speaker 1: tightened around him. His combat wetware did most of its

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Speaker 1: work in the moments before meat met metal, so Roland

135
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Speaker 1: closed his eyes, slumped his shoulders, and relaxed while it

136
00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:06,799
Speaker 1: cross indexed his memories of past firefights with his current

137
00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:10,160
Speaker 1: sensory data. A moment later, Roland was presented with three

138
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Speaker 1: potential counter assault strategies. He selected the one that sounded

139
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Speaker 1: like the most fun. The Callahan fired, blanketing his home

140
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Speaker 1: and much of the area beyond it in a web

141
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Speaker 1: of noise designed to assault and eventually fry the synapses

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Speaker 1: of anyone dumb enough to stand too long in its wake.

143
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Speaker 1: Payne lashed from Roland's inner ear and sparked out to

144
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Speaker 1: every nerve in his body. It would have been enough

145
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Speaker 1: to leave a strong man curled on the ground, shifting

146
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Speaker 1: his guts out, but Roland just felt a distant ache.

147
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Speaker 1: His experience of the damage was more akin to seeing

148
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Speaker 1: the check engine light on a car than true agony.

149
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Speaker 1: He was aware that if he waited too long, the

150
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Speaker 1: sonic weapon would blow out the pain dampners on his

151
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Speaker 1: spinal nerve gates. Lucky for him, the assault team didn't

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Speaker 1: wait that long. Roland felt the big man arc his

153
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Speaker 1: leg up to kick in the door, trumpled in and

154
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Speaker 1: Roland lunged left. This helped him avoid the first spray

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Speaker 1: of covering fire. As the chromed man and both women

156
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Speaker 1: barreled inside, Roland flung himself into the hovel's main structural

157
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Speaker 1: support beam, which ran up the building's left wall. He

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Speaker 1: hit it with the rough speed and force of a

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Speaker 1: light truck going twenty miles an hour. His momentum carried

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Speaker 1: him and half the left wall into the rocky ground outside.

161
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Speaker 1: Roland's filthy little home tottered and swayed. It collapsed, first

162
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Speaker 1: on the left side and then on the right. As

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Speaker 1: the whole structure failed. Roland was already up. With a

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Speaker 1: jagged piece of two by four in his hands. He

165
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Speaker 1: rushed the ephedric's addict, holding down the left flank. The

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Speaker 1: man got two shots off, and to his credit, both

167
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Speaker 1: hit right where Roland's original heart had been, and then

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Speaker 1: Roland was on him. He shoved the wood into the

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Speaker 1: meat of the man's face. It gouged off enough flesh

170
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Speaker 1: to philippine glass and shattered the poor fellow's jaw. He

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Speaker 1: went down hard. Roland smelled the familiar scent of antihimiragic

172
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Speaker 1: nano machines. As they rushed to save the man's life.

173
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Speaker 1: He caught a slight sour whiff of the cheap clotting

174
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Speaker 1: agents in the man's blood. Roland guessed it was Traumax brand,

175
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Speaker 1: which was convenient. Traumax had based their whole line off

176
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Speaker 1: a piece of Brazilian military wet weare that itself was

177
00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:06,480
Speaker 1: based on a crude synthesis of horseshoe crab blood. The

178
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Speaker 1: organs worked well enough unless you happen to be an

179
00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:13,200
Speaker 1: amphetamine attitude suffered massive tissue damage, then your Tromax unit

180
00:09:13,200 --> 00:09:15,640
Speaker 1: would flood your synapses with ad aenocene to knock you

181
00:09:15,679 --> 00:09:18,960
Speaker 1: out rather than risk pushing more amphetamines on your stressed heart.

182
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Speaker 1: Something in the smell of the man's blood set off

183
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Speaker 1: a powerful sense memory buried deep in Roland's hippocampus vine

184
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Speaker 1: slashing his face boiling jungle heat, and his fist connecting

185
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Speaker 1: with the face of a heavily armed young woman, her

186
00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:33,400
Speaker 1: orbital bone broken to the blow. He smelled her blood

187
00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:36,200
Speaker 1: meat the air, and she dropped, dropped, dropped. The memory

188
00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:38,920
Speaker 1: flashed by, free of context and the time it took

189
00:09:38,960 --> 00:09:41,760
Speaker 1: the other man to hit the ground. It was frustrating

190
00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:43,920
Speaker 1: to only remember the what of an action and not

191
00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:46,600
Speaker 1: the why or the after it was like knowing how

192
00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:48,760
Speaker 1: to ride a bike without remembering who'd taught you, and

193
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Speaker 1: when only for everything. Roland found it somewhat unsettling. A

194
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Speaker 1: twelve gage slug hit him in the face. It dug deep,

195
00:09:56,440 --> 00:09:59,920
Speaker 1: hit reinforced bone and stopped. The little machines and roll

196
00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:02,320
Speaker 1: Land's blood were already cutting it apart by the time

197
00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:05,000
Speaker 1: he stopped musing and bounded over to the other flank man.

198
00:10:05,800 --> 00:10:08,120
Speaker 1: Roland chucked the two by four hard as he ran.

199
00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:11,559
Speaker 1: The wood impacted above the assassin's temple with an audible crack,

200
00:10:11,880 --> 00:10:15,520
Speaker 1: shattering the man's sphenoid bone. The battle drugs started to

201
00:10:15,559 --> 00:10:20,480
Speaker 1: trickle into Roland's synapses. Now a cocktail of endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin,

202
00:10:20,520 --> 00:10:23,680
Speaker 1: and epinephrin concocted to make violence as addictive as a

203
00:10:23,720 --> 00:10:27,760
Speaker 1: fat rock of crystal meth. Roland instantly wanted more, and

204
00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:30,200
Speaker 1: he knew he could trigger a greater dose by stomping

205
00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:33,120
Speaker 1: on the downed man's skull and ending his life. He

206
00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:36,280
Speaker 1: fought down the aarge and instead grabbed the man's a

207
00:10:36,280 --> 00:10:39,160
Speaker 1: a thirty two combat shotgun, and rolled for cover behind

208
00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:42,640
Speaker 1: a red rock boulder. He was almost fast enough, but

209
00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:46,280
Speaker 1: either the overwatch man had some aftermarket parts Roland hadn't smelled,

210
00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:48,520
Speaker 1: or all the hardcore drug abuse had done long term

211
00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:52,559
Speaker 1: damage to his reflexes. Maybe no more crack binges, Roland thought.

212
00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:54,960
Speaker 1: As a massive two bore slug ding most of his

213
00:10:55,040 --> 00:10:58,800
Speaker 1: left shoulder out into the desert behind him, Roland belted

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Speaker 1: out several fukwords as pain flooded the banks of his dampners,

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Speaker 1: and just that second, with truly exquisite timing, the Callahan

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Speaker 1: crew swiveled their weapon round and poured sonic fire at

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Speaker 1: him from above. For refraction of a second, everything went dark.

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Speaker 1: Roland's world was riotous, red, pain, and little else. If

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Speaker 1: his body had required the input of his conscious mind,

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Speaker 1: he would have been in a real pickle. During the

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Speaker 1: milliseconds it took for his dampners to cut through the

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Speaker 1: pain hayes, Roland's body dove ten feet to the left,

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Speaker 1: enough to take him out of the Callahan spray and

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Speaker 1: behind and outcropping of rocks. Two rounds cracked into the

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Speaker 1: rock above his head. Roland came back to himself as

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Speaker 1: the shards cut into his skin. He glanced down at

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Speaker 1: the ruin of his shoulder, His little blood robots were

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Speaker 1: already hard at work rebuilding the muscles, bones and sinews

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Speaker 1: blown out by the giant's slug. A couple of seconds

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Speaker 1: more and the limb would be usable again. But Rowland

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Speaker 1: had a better idea. He used his intact arm as

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Speaker 1: a flesh catapult and flung himself up over the boulder

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Speaker 1: towards the Callahan and its three guardians. The man with

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Speaker 1: the two boar fired again. Roland had known he would,

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Speaker 1: and his hind brain had already calculated the ideal emotions

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Speaker 1: to avoid the dozen most likely shot patterns. He sailed

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Speaker 1: over the half pound bullets with ease and used the

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Speaker 1: hand of his intact arm to rip his wounded arm

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Speaker 1: free at the shoulder. Roland landed hard in front of

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Speaker 1: the Callahan. He swung his own severed limb like a

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Speaker 1: club and knocked the barrel to the left. Then he

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Speaker 1: laid into the gun's crew with a mix of pounding

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Speaker 1: swings from the arm and stomps to the other men's

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Speaker 1: knees and ankles. Bone shattered, assassin screamed, The man with

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Speaker 1: the two boar and the newborn child at home wavered

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Speaker 1: and broke. Roland had expected this many normal humans, Even

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Speaker 1: hardened veterans, found it nauseating and unsettling to see a

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Speaker 1: man move as fast as he could move, add beating

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Speaker 1: their friends half to death with a severed limb, and well,

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Speaker 1: he'd predicted the guy would break. It's not your fault, buddy,

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Speaker 1: Roland thought, as he watched the man run. Don't feel bad.

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Speaker 1: He'd wanted to say that out loud, but he was

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Speaker 1: having trouble working his vocal cords. In roughly seven seconds,

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Speaker 1: Roland had eliminated five out of eight threats in the

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Speaker 1: kill team. His hind brain predictions had given him six

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Speaker 1: more seconds at least before the entry team cleared themselves

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Speaker 1: from the debris of his collapsed hovel. But the other

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Speaker 1: post human, the man who'd shone blank on most of

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Speaker 1: Roland's senses, had freed himself faster. Roland realized this when

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Speaker 1: a trio of fifty caliber slugs burst into his chest cavity.

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Speaker 1: He dropped, avoiding the last three rounds of the burst,

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Speaker 1: and rolled behind another pair of bowlders with his severed

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Speaker 1: arm in hand. The two female assassins were close to

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Speaker 1: freeing themselves now Roland could hear them struggle out through

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Speaker 1: the vibrations of their bodies in the red sand. He

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Speaker 1: couldn't see the other post human, but he'd triangulated his

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Speaker 1: most likely location. Unfortunately, the other fucker had him dead

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Speaker 1: to rights. If Roland broke cover, he'd be shot to pieces,

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Speaker 1: maybe more pieces than his traumel Organs could put back together.

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Speaker 1: All right, oh boy, to eat a bunch of lead

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Speaker 1: and charge the bastards, deploy the meat rockets and run

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Speaker 1: for a gun while they're blind. He suddenly remembered the

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Speaker 1: spring loaded assault razor embedded in his left forearm, and

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Speaker 1: then the twenty two millimeter grenade pistol buried in between

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Speaker 1: his small intestine and his sigmoid coal. Did I remember

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Speaker 1: to load it before shoving it in there? But before

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Speaker 1: he could take any action, the firefight was interrupted by

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Speaker 1: an oddly familiar voice. Hey, Roland, has its swinging. Roland

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Speaker 1: hadn't smelled or heard this new man coming. The voice

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Speaker 1: was very familiar. Roland felt a name on the tip

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Speaker 1: of his tongue, but it just wouldn't come. Weapons down,

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Speaker 1: lads and lasses. I've seen enough to guess the end.

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Speaker 1: Roland smelled frustration, waft off. The two women, now free

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Speaker 1: and angry, the other post human smelled like nothing, but

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Speaker 1: Roland felt him lower his weapon. Some gray, dead strand

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Speaker 1: of memory pulsed in the back of Roland's brain, and

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Speaker 1: he guessed that it was safe for him to stand

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Speaker 1: up now, So he did and put eyes on the

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Speaker 1: mystery man. The fellow had a lopsided, squarish jaw with

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Speaker 1: a very deliberate five o'clock shadow. His nose was thick

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Speaker 1: and bulby. His red hair was tangled into dreadlocks that

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Speaker 1: were more the result of in a tension than stylistic choice.

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Speaker 1: He was tall, muscular, but lean, with a bare chest

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Speaker 1: that was covered in tattoos of black snakes. They writhed

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Speaker 1: in time with the beating of his heart. He wore

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Speaker 1: nothing but a pair of red leather chaps and a broad,

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Speaker 1: calm smile. His bare penis swung pingulous in the breeze.

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Speaker 1: Both of his palms were extended out front and visible.

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Speaker 1: It was the kind of gesture one used to calm

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Speaker 1: an animal. Roland synapses fired and misfired, and a string

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Speaker 1: of fragmented memories ran through his mind. He recalled a

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Speaker 1: really good hot dog on a sunny day, push ups

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Speaker 1: in the mud, searing pain in his genitals and the

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Speaker 1: taste of shitty ditchweed. These memory fragments were all somehow

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Speaker 1: tied to the man in front of him. It took

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Speaker 1: Roland a moment, but as soon as he got a

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Speaker 1: full look at those cold gray eyes, the man's name

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Speaker 1: clicked in the place. Oh shit, he croaked, Jim. Roland

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Speaker 1: hadn't spoken to a person in months, at least maybe longer.

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Speaker 1: He sounded more like a suffering cat than an English

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Speaker 1: speaking human. But Jim understood him, he said. Roland's side

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Speaker 1: looked at his separate arm and crudely shoved it into place.

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Speaker 1: It had clotted a bit, and his stubb burned as

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Speaker 1: the tiny robots in his blood got to work reattaching

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Speaker 1: his once in future limb. Jim, he said, again, sounding

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Speaker 1: a bit less like a frog after a six day

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Speaker 1: coke bne, you funked up my house man. That's not cool.

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Speaker 1: Roland didn't know how long he'd known Jim. He couldn't

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Speaker 1: even pin down the man's last name, but he was

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Speaker 1: pretty sure they'd fought together back before the revolution, and

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Speaker 1: he was certain they'd had a threesome with a devilishly handsome,

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Speaker 1: spet SNAs man. He couldn't remember that guy's name or

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Speaker 1: why they'd all been in Panama, but he didn't expect

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Speaker 1: that was the sort of experience past him would have

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Speaker 1: shared with someone who wasn't a friend. Do you remember me,

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Speaker 1: Jim asked basically. Roland answered, good, because I got a

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Speaker 1: favor to ask. Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here. I hope

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Speaker 1: you just enjoyed the chapter you listen to. I hope

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Speaker 1: you enjoyed the chapters to come. If you would like

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Speaker 1: to read the text version of this book either on

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Speaker 1: the web or on your e reader as an e pub,

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Speaker 1: you can find those on the website a t r

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Speaker 1: book dot com. So again, the free ad free e

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Speaker 1: pub and the text of every chapter will be on

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Speaker 1: a t r book dot com. Thanks