Haven - a Steel Falcon Novella Read online

  Haven

  A Steel Falcon Novella

  N. K. Quinn

  Contents

  Foreword

  1. Show No Fear

  2. Not Your Damsel In Distress

  3. Clinical Shades Of Grey

  4. Blood, Corruption And Fear

  5. Horrific Tableau

  6. A Feral Rage

  7. Malevolent Intent

  8. Blood and Dust

  Continue the Journey with Team Falcon

  Foreword

  Thanks for picking up Haven, a Novella set in the world of the Steel Falcon, written by N.K Quinn.

  Please note that N.K. Quinn is a UK based author and all spelling and grammar conforms to British conventions.

  For more from N.K. Quinn and a sneak peak at the first book in the Steel Falcon series sign up for the mailing list at the end of the book.

  Enjoy!

  1

  Show No Fear

  The girl wasn’t much older than eighteen. Her pale skin made her look ghostlike in the evening light as she moved with hurried pace, casting furtive glances over her shoulder. After a time she stopped to catch her breath. A gloom hung over the city that had once been called London like a veil. Its shadows reached out from the darkest corners, with a hungry clawing energy. Once, this had been a place that people would have killed to have lived in. That was a time long gone; a time when Governments controlled the country and looked after their people. This city belonged to the Sentech Corporation now. In this time of Corporation rule, people were commodities to use as they pleased. If the Corporation decided that someone had value, they would snap them up. Feed them, clothe them, and give them four walls to call their own. And all it would cost them was everything. They would belong to the Corporation, heart, body, and soul. The girl moved through dark side streets, keeping her back to the walls and not dallying in one place for too long. Lifting her arm, the girl cast a green glow that flooded her surroundings. The light came from the mounted computer system attached to her forearm. They called it a TRIST, part communication and all round indispensable utility device, part tracking and monitoring system that Sentech insisted that its Members and Affiliates wore. The girl’s manicured nails clicked on the screen, but it remained the solid shade of green, refusing to wake to her touch. She huffed and her breath came out as a plume in the frigid night air.

  Life wasn’t better on the flip side of the equation. If a Corporation didn’t want someone, they’d be cast out, and not allowed to live in the safety of the Corporation infrastructure. They would become Non Corporates or NCs for short. It would take all their wits and street smarts to survive in the lawless areas of the country where strength and the power to intimidate was the only currency that mattered. With luck, they could keep their heads down and scrape together a meagre existence in peace. The unlucky ones would likely be pulled into the terrorist group known as the Scorps, a ruthless band of criminals and thugs, hell-bent on ripping down every facet of Corporation life. In recent months the Scorps had been more active, spreading across the city like a virus. They were targeting NCs and Sentech Members alike, peddling designer drugs called Augs that supercharged one of the users’ senses, depending which poison they chose. Sentech had responded by ramping up their autonomous drone surveillance and increasing the number of patrols their Enforcers, the Corporation loyal “peace keeping force”, undertook.

  Squinting in the dim light she moved on but stumbled. Her fingers caught hold of a ledge and she narrowly avoided ending up flat on her face. With a shake she pulled her foot out of the pothole it had sunk into. As it came free, the stagnant water in the hole sloshed out over her other shoe. At least she hoped it was water.

  “Great!” she muttered making a face. She looked at the once pristine cream leather shoe and sighed as she saw the state it was in. Its outer surface was scratched and scored beyond repair, any scant protection they may have once provided now a distant memory. The low buzzing of a drone zipping by made her forget her shoe and duck into a doorway. Pressing herself against the door she tried to ignore the scuttling creatures around her feet, irritated at the intrusion to their home. She stayed there, hardly daring to breathe until she heard the noise of the drone fade away. The grime clung to the door like a new coat of paint. It was tacky against her palm, and some of it came away with her.

  “So gross…” she said, doing her best to suppress her gag reflex.

  Looking down at her jacket she realised that it too was grubby and beyond saving. She glimpsed her reflection in a glass pane of the door and stopped cold. It felt as if her reflection was passing judgement on her with its storm cloud grey eyes.

  “Izzy Ferguson for Prom Queen,” she said with a shake of her head.

  She looked down at her TRIST unit and gave a sigh.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a map,” she grumbled as she eased herself back out into the alley and looked around, trying to get her bearings. The building she stood outside of was one of many houses crammed together in a row. NCs and Scorps had picked them clean of anything of value long ago and it'd been even longer since they'd sheltered anyone. Izzy looked at the warning signs with the Sentech logo liberally smattered around the place and the thick planks of wood and metal grills that blocked anyone curious from going inside. With a shrug she adjusted the weight of the backpack and moved on.

  “Hey there, pretty girl,” a voice called out from the dark. “Something I could help ya wit?”

  Izzy yelped and spun, trying to locate the voice. A laugh bounced around the narrow alleyway and enveloped her. Backing away she struck something hard and as she spun to get away her foot caught on a cobblestone and the weight of the backpack slammed her onto the wet floor. If she hadn’t been so terrified, she’d have taken a moment to mourn the passing of her favourite white top, now grey and sodden with grimy water. A strong hand wrapped around her top and pulled her to her feet. The first thing she saw was the tattoo on the man’s hand. It was unmistakable, the black scorpion sign of the terrorist organisation known as the Scorps. Izzy thrashed free and lost her sleeve in the process.

  “WOAH there, girlie,” the Scorp said. “I ain’t meaning to hurt ya.”

  Izzy continued to back away, but then her veins turned to ice as she heard footsteps coming from the other direction. Another group of Scorps, three strong, blocked the exit and Izzy had nowhere to go.

  “Show no fear,” her father’s voice said in her head. “Control the situation; manipulate the outcome to how you want it. Use brains to overcome brawn.”

  “What d’ya want then?” Izzy asked, trying to sound gruff and irritated.

  The first Scorp was young and lean, not much older than she was. Izzy took stock of him again. He carried a handgun of some description that hung prominently on his belt. She’s seen enough guns in her time to appreciate how mismatched the gun and the owner were. It was likely that the recoil from a gun of that size would snap the boy’s chicken neck like wrist. It gleamed in the night light, beautiful and menacing in equal measure.

  “I’ve got supply if you lookin' ta score,” the boy said with a frown after a brief pause. He clearly wasn’t used to being spoken to with such disrespect.

  “Do I look like a twitcher to you?” Izzy snapped, using the fear she felt to blossom and splash her words with anger. She felt a hand on her shoulder and from the corner of her eye she saw it was one of the other Scorps. This one was almost wide enough to take up the width of the alley. His head, complete with prominent neanderthal-like forehead looked like someone chiseled it, and his whole head, from a boulder. Izzy swung her arms around, using the uncoiling of her hips to put power into the motion, just as her father had taught her. The metal casing of her TR
IST slammed into the side of the Scorp's jaw and Izzy saw two teeth ping onto the floor. The big Scorp crumpled to the ground like someone had unplugged him.

  “Make them fear you. Plant a seed of doubt in their mind. Make them think you're more than you appear,” her father’s mantra sang out in her mind.

  “You don’t get to touch me!” she said and levelled a kick at the Scorp’s inert body. She followed it up with a stamp to his midriff to emphasise the point. Izzy slipped her hand into her pocket and pointed her fingers to make it appear that she had something concealed there. Then she turned to level a scowl at each of the remaining Scorps who had backed up a few paces.

  “I had to perforate the last guy that tried that without my permission. I took this garbage as a souvenir,” she said holding up the TRIST for them to see. The Scorps made low sounds of appreciation and nodded to her, parting to let her pass. Izzy forced herself to stay calm and walk not run. She put swagger into her gait for dramatic effect and kept it up until she turned the corner and was out of sight. Then she took off running, using the tingling effects of the adrenaline still coursing through her system as fuel. Izzy kept going until her body gave out and she braced herself against a wall whilst she doubled over and threw up.

  “That’s just great,” she said to herself as she wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Sentech are spending Credits on more Enforcers and drones, but they still can’t catch a bunch of losers like that. Aren't I lucky to be a fully fledged Sentech Member?”

  She stopped to consider her words. If she went through with her plan, she’d never be a Sentech Member or even an Affiliate again. That would be it. She’d be an NC, for now and forevermore. Taking a deep breath, Izzy reached a hand into her backpack and felt her fingers wrap around the cold metal cube there. She gave it a squeeze and all her doubts and fears evaporated away.

  “Okay…better get a move on,” she said.

  * * *

  It took another half an hour of trudging in the dark and dodging Enforcer patrols until she made it to where she thought she was supposed to be. Her encounter with the Scorps had sent her senses into overdrive, reaching all around her to look out for trouble. It was both physically and mentally exhausting.

  No one will bother me here, she thought. No one came here anymore. No Corporation Member, no Scorp, no NC. They’d all grown up hearing ghoulish tales about it. Tales that became more outlandish and gruesome with each generation. Izzy’s grandmother had told her that a mansion had once stood at this very spot, filled with four generations of the same family. She shivered as she remembered her grandmother’s wizened and grave face recounting how one night, death itself had come calling, leaving only the severed heads of the family mounted on pikes outside the building.

  “It’s just a story,” Izzy muttered to herself as she tried to suppress the icy feeling meandering up her back. “The family probably made it up to keep looters away.”

  A wall of tree trunks and foliage stood in front of her, a natural physical barrier for anyone brave enough or stupid enough to venture beyond, Unfettered, the trees had grown into each other, branches intertwining, supporting each other and standing resolute. Izzy found a gap in the tree line and edged through to the other side. Another obstacle stood in her way and she let loose a sigh that came out as a groan. The wrought-iron gate in front of her was unscalable and had not one but two chains winding around the bars like a snake. From out there she couldn’t make out any detail of the structure beyond the gate, only how large the building was, dwarfing everything else around it. She turned around to look at the way she had come. From this side the ring of trees looked even more impenetrable. The vision of the high gate on one side and the looming trees on the other made Izzy feel claustrophobic. Daylight was a distant memory and the light from her TRIST, although dimmed, was a beacon for all sorts of bugs, none of which were put off by her attempts to swat them away.

  “Come on! Come on!” she muttered, looking around. “Where are you?”

  Then an arm slithered around her waist and pulled her back, making her jump. She tried to scream, but a hand clamped onto her mouth stifling it.

  2

  Not Your Damsel In Distress

  Izzy spun and lashed out with an elbow. It cracked into something and she felt a twinge of satisfaction as her assailant cried out. She shifted her weight into a fighting stance that had become like a reflex after years of practice. Izzy took a half step forward, looking to follow up with a kick square between the legs but stopped as the figure raised their hands and spoke.

  “Izzy stop! It’s me!”

  The girl dropped her guard and then held the TRIST up to the boy’s face.

  “Damian?”

  The boy stepped into the light and rubbed his face. His dark hair matched his eyes and complemented a strong, albeit sore jaw. His clothes were a bunch of cobbled together hand-me-downs, but somehow he made it work. A well-worn leather jacket hung off broad shoulders and his ripped jeans looked like a by-product of scrambling around the city rather than a fashion statement.

  “Ouch,” he said, wincing whilst he opened and closed his mouth, testing it. “Remind me not to do that again.”

  She reached up and touched the welt on his face. Damian flinched, but then let his head sag into her palm and the warmth of her touch spread to his skin. Pushing herself up onto her tiptoes, Izzy kissed the side of his face and then gave him a dazzling smile.

  “All better?”

  He returned her smile and pulled her in for a hard, urgent kiss. In that moment Izzy forgot about the fear and uncertainty she’d fought through to get there and just sank into it. The sound of rumbling Transports pulled them apart. A flash of terror crossed the boy’s face and Izzy took his hand in hers and gave it a squeeze.

  "Damian?" she asked. "What now?"

  At the sound of his name the boy’s dark eyes regained clarity, and he stooped down to his overfilled backpack.

  “We'll hide in here,” he said, cocking his head towards the building behind them. Izzy’s eyes fell back on the thick chain and then gave the back of Damian’s head a skeptical look.

  “Unless you’re secretly the Operative and can rip through metal, I don’t see how that’s happening.”

  The boy held up three thin metal rods and flashed her a smile.

  “Hey, I might not be superpowered like him, but getting into places is my speciality.”

  His hands ran the length of the chain, fingers searching until they grasped the chunky lock that held the chains together.

  “Is he superpowered?” Izzy asked looking over her shoulder, “The Operative, I mean?”

  “If half the stuff I’ve heard about him is true, I don’t think he’s even human,” Damian said as he peered over the lock and twiddled the rods into the keyhole. “I heard he blasted a hole straight through a Mech when he was fighting Sentech over in the Quantril territory.”

  “Give me a big enough blaster and I could do that!” Izzy scoffed. “What about that new guy, the vigilante?”

  There was a loud click as the lock disengaged and Damian hefted the chain away. He stooped to grab his backpack and lifted it onto his shoulders with a groan.

  “You mean that guy running around in that funky costume?” Damian asked. “He calls himself the Steel Falcon I think.”

  “Hmmm...” said Izzy, “It doesn’t get much cheesier than that.”

  “I wouldn’t laugh,” Damian said. “He’s been tearing a path through the Scorps. That makes him A-Okay in my book.”

  Izzy's face pinched into a glare that brought colour to her cheeks even on that chilly night, but the effect was wasted on the back of Damian's head.

  He gave the gate a pull, but the years of rust and grime clung fast, holding it in place.

  “A little help?” Damian called over his shoulder. Izzy shouldered Damian to one side and wrapped her slender fingers around one railing. The metallic shriek as the hinge gave way set Izzy’s teeth on edge, but she kept pulling until she could squeeze
through the gap. Damian tried to follow but found his frame too wide.

  “Hey!” he called, “Wait up!”

  He caught the full force of her glare as she turned back to look at him and fell silent. Izzy spun back around and she stalked off alone. Damian wriggled through the gap and caught up to her. He tried to take her by the hand, but she pulled free and whirled at him.

  “You’re actually supporting a vigilante?” she said, giving Damian a shove. “He goes out and just beats the heck out of anyone he feels like.”

  “And how is that different from the Enforcers?” Damian shot back. "Apart from the fact that they do it with a Sentech badge on?"

  He regretted the words even before he saw the impact they hand on Izzy. Her face hardened, and he thought for a moment she might hit him.

  “Izzy, I’m sorry I said that, but you can’t just run off like that. The streets aren’t safe, now more than ever."

  He studied her face as if he could decipher her emotional response. He opened his mouth to ask, her but the way her brow furrowed and the set of her jaw warned him that now was a time to hold his tongue.

  “Let’s get going,” Izzy said when the silence between them threatened to become awkward.

  The green glow from Izzy’s TRIST gave their surroundings a ghostly appearance and the chitter-chatter of life in the overgrown gardens did little to settle her nerves. Forgetting her anger she gripped Damian’s hand a little tighter and fell into step behind him as he followed the pathway. As they neared the building Izzy could appreciate its true splendour. Pillars rose from the ground and disappeared in the darkness above them. Ornate stone lions guarded the approach. They were covered with moss and dirt that obscured most of their once proud faces. They took the steps past them, two at a time until they reached the enormous double doors that barred their entrance.