Scorpion by Christian Cantrell (novel24 .txt) 📕

the first one he used was 1337. And 1337 is internet-culture code for ‘leet,’ which is short for elite.”

Van’s expression unambiguously conveys her opinion of Moretti’s explanation: that that’s some seriously dumbass shit.

“It’s a nerd thing,” Moretti says. “Mitchell’d get it.”

“And here I thought it was because he had expensive taste.”

“He may very well. I’ll be sure to ask once I have him in custody.”

“What else do you know about this guy?”

“I know he’s one sick fuck. Nineteen bodies so far. Threw some crippled girl off her balcony in Moscow two weeks ago. Then flew to Caracas, broke into some rich hombre’s estate, and swapped his nephew’s aluminum oxygen tanks for ones with nickel in them the day before he got an MRI.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Aluminum isn’t magnetic. Nickle is. Pulled the fucking things right into the machine like a barrage of missiles. Crushed the poor bastard. Put a radiologist in a coma in the process.”

Van’s eyebrows went up. “Points for creativity, though.”

“You have no idea,” Moretti says gravely. “I won’t even get into Cape Town and Beijing.”

“How’d he mark them?”

“Branded the girl’s arm somehow. Not sure with what. The guy in the MRI, stenciled his number on the tanks. They…left a mark.”

“What do all these people have in common?”

“That’s just it,” Moretti says. “Not a single fucking thing. Most assassins like this carve out a niche for themselves. They specialize in gangsters, or drug lords, or witnesses, or whatever. Politicians, well-insured spouses. Something. But not this guy. Either he’s killing completely randomly—which, no fucking way—or there’s something we’re missing.”

“Hence the need for an analyst,” Townes surmises.

“Bingo,” Moretti confirms. “So, what do you say? Think your girl’s up for it?”

Townes watches Quinn seal her fork up inside the chicken salad sarcophagus and slide the whole thing into her insulated lunch bag.

“You’re not really asking me, are you?”

Moretti shrugs. “At least my requests come with coffee.”

Van samples the drink she’s been holding. It’s “dirty coffee”—caffeine bestowed for the purposes of garnering favor—but caffeine is caffeine. And throwing it out won’t change Quinn’s fate now.

“Did you know, Al, that you have a reputation?”

“What?” Moretti asks innocently. “Me? A reputation for what?”

“For abusing your direct reports.”

“Bullshit,” Moretti says. “Have I ever abused you?”

“No, because you know I’ll give it right back to you. But you’re known for being an asshole to junior officers.”

“That’s because that’s what junior officers are for,” Moretti says.

“Al…”

“Is Quinn a junior officer?”

“Quinn’s an analyst.”

“Well, is she a junior analyst?”

“Not remotely.”

“Then she’s got nothing to worry about, does she?”

“I want your word that you won’t lose your shit around her.”

Moretti looks at her over his glasses, which had darkened the moment they stepped out into the sun. “Yes, ma’am,” he says. “Any other demands?”

“Yeah,” Van says. “I want you to promise me you’ll take good care of her. There’s something special about that one.”

Moretti gives Van what he probably thinks is his most reassuring smile. “You got nothing to worry about,” he says. “I won’t let her out of my sight.”

3

  HUNTING FOR PRIME

YŪGEN IS ONE kill away from a million-dollar payday.

She is in L.A., on an old, converted movie studio lot. Room by room, floor by floor, Yūgen is hunting for Prime through the biggest and most advanced v-sports venue on the planet.

Think e-sports, but virtual. Traditional video game tournaments are still played with mechanical keyboards, mice, and vast swaths of plasma glass. V-sports players zip themselves into form-fitting haptic suits, pull carbon-fiber helmets down over their heads, and slap full-face metaspec visors down over their eyes. Strap battery packs onto their backs and light-adapted tactical weapons to their thighs.

Matches take place inside vast physical structures painted entirely chroma-key green with plasma-light strips embedded in the seams and barrel cameras mounted in every corner. Players’ views are provided by 120 degrees of ultra-high-definition, one-thousand-hertz plasma screens lining their visors. The feeds the audience sees are the result of knocking out everything green and mapping exotic, photorealistic environments to invisible unique tracking patterns applied with handheld sprayers.

Maps can be anything from a derelict spacecraft, to a sprawling factory, to a ravaged embassy, to the shattered serenity of a ransacked suburban home. A glittering Las Vegas casino, or the long, austere fuselage of Air Force One. This one is the top three floors of two modern, adjacent office towers joined by a glass catwalk. It’s the middle of the night, in a savage and sustained thunderstorm.

Yūgen and her clan came to L.A. from Japan to compete in Black Horizon—the most-watched and highest-stakes v-sports tournament in the world. The American team—comprised mostly of washed-out special ops who grew up buzzing with ADD in small towns with no parents around and skipping school to stream Call of Duty all day—dominated the competition bracket. The top players from every round get to compete in what many consider to be the real event: the last-man-standing, winner-take-all, single-spawn Battle Royale.

No teams. No bombs to plant or defuse, and no hostages to rescue. No king of the hill, no skulls to collect, and no flags to capture. The final Black Horizon all-star event is a simple, old-fashioned, high-stakes death match.

The east tower has been cleared. As Yūgen crosses the catwalk, she is blinded by a bright white fractal of lightning followed by a godlike eruption of thunder. The point of the storm is to introduce the equivalent of random flashbang grenades, and to expose snipers camping in shadows. What Yūgen sees ahead of her in the lesser flashes that follow is an obstacle course of dead bodies.

The tunnel between the two towers is an intentional choke point. Yūgen has never played this map herself, but she’s studied it by analyzing dozens of past matches, and she knows that, by this point, the floor is always littered with bodies, bullet casings, and gore. Half the glass panels are shattered, and blood is splattered from high-velocity rifle shots and dripping from close-quarter shotgun blasts. There are wisps and tendrils of gun smoke suspended in