Free Overload Flux by Carol van Natta Page A

berserker broke the first man’s neck as her feet hit the concrete. She ripped the throat out of the second with her other hand. The unlucky pedestrian who’d been passing by died almost as easily when his head smashed like a melon into the wall. The bodies were still falling when a quicker-thinking woman to the left drew her projectile gun and shot, but the berserker didn’t even notice the shoulder wound as she bellowed and tore the shooter’s arm off with a terrifying laugh.
    Mairwen knew none of her knives would penetrate berserker’s bulging muscle mass very far, so she scanned the crowd for visible weapons. Finally the universe deigned to favor her, because the man two paces from her, who clearly had more money than sense, was carrying a holstered, non-safetied Davydov plasbeamer, with only a thin strap to keep it in place.
    After confirming that no one was noticing her, except maybe Foxe, which she couldn’t help, she glided low over to the rich man and relieved him of the Davydov, careful to keep her shirt cuff between her skin and the grip. She waited the dozen milliseconds it took to get a clear line of sight and for the berserker to finish turning toward her. She focused her aim on the woman’s head and shot twice, then focused on the woman’s loud, rapid-fire heartbeat and disintegrated it with a final shot.
    Even though the berserker’s massive body was dead, it tried to follow through on the last orders it received, but the puppet strings had been cut, and she started to collapse. Mairwen dropped the Davydov on the ground, then pushed and tripped its owner on top of it, careful to thrust his body toward nearby spectators so they’d add to the distraction. She slid back to Foxe’s side, trying not to think about the fact that he might have registered her actions.
    She breathed deeply and pushed her tracker senses back into a corner of her mind. Time sped up and approached reality. Ten seconds had passed.
    She needed to get away, to get Foxe away, before the questions started. Now in realtime, she pulled his sleeve, and he followed behind her as she threaded them quickly through the crowd that was just now reacting to the stunning events.
    To Mairwen’s relief, Foxe sat in the back seat of the vehicle and said nothing for the entire drive back to the office. She desperately needed the time to choose the answers she’d give him once his brilliant mind found the right questions to ask.
    More immediately, she also needed to eat, and soon. Full-tracker mode, even the dozen actual seconds she’d indulged in, came with a price.
    She’d reacted on instinct, and although her rational brain was blaring very bad idea , she knew she’d do it again to protect Foxe. She had no idea why he was different. He just… was.
    The next two days Foxe worked at home, so that’s where she, Velasco, and Alhamsi covered the personal security shifts for Foxe’s waking hours.
    Mairwen thought his open and airy townhouse suited him, though its abundance of pretty morphglass windows and the exposed back courtyard weren’t much good for security. There were also no flitter pads anywhere within five kilometers, which explained the assigned vehicles. He kept the townhouse warmer than she was used to, though it wasn’t uncomfortable. He’d converted one of its back rooms to a combination office and exercise room, and he spent most of his time there with the door closed.
    She didn’t know what he did during the other shifts, but during hers, he ran in the late afternoons in a nearby park on a wide, well-designed trail, and she accompanied him. When he wasn’t running, he did a lot of reading, pacing and mumbling, and a few domestic chores. Mostly he ignored her.
    She always declined his offhand offers of meals, officially because she was on duty, but also because she wanted to avoid opportunities for him to ask her what happened with the berserker in front of the chems shop. He’d trusted her with a private piece of his