After the attack on his corporate headquarters, Marko Byakko is out for revenge, and he will stop at nothing to get it.
Defiant Horizon is a Near Future, Alternate History Cyberpunk Adventure set in a world teetering on the edge of world war. As some discover that they have supernatural abilities, will they choose to use them for good, or their own selfish ends?
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The future is not given.
It is seized
By those whom
The present
Is found lacking.
Accept not what is.
Claim that which should be.
Byakko Industries Headquarters, Core Island, Hashishima City, Hashishima,
Thursday, August 9th, 2035
Marko Byakko stood in the ruined lobby of his company’s headquarters. Broken glass, chips of ultracrete, wood, blood, plastic bullet casings, and other debris littered the stark white marble floors. Bullet holes riddled the fine marble and slate walls. Seven security guards, and Gina, the night receptionist, had lost their lives in the attack, and three more guards were in the hospital. But why? Who would dare do something like this?
“Any update from HPF on how the hell they didn’t see this as it was happening?” Marko said to his assistant in New Russian. He knelt to pick up a plastic casing, reading ArmaMaxx XFactor Tac7 printed in white on the dull grey surface.
“They are still investigating. Agent Greaves, with their CyberSec department is looking into the possibility of a cyber attack. Our techs have confirmed that the telecom line, and wireless was unaffected, and the Razorback that they used was not equipped with signal jammers. Seeing as other data from the building was unaffected, and no Loss of Signal alert was pinged in their system, a targeted cyber strike is most likely,” Yura Sarkov, Marko’s assistant said.
Marko frowned, and kicked at some debris on the floor. Glass skittered against the marble. He was furious, beyond furious. Anger burned in his chest, pushing him to act, to destroy, to make someone hurt. His accent grew thicker. “What about ID’s on the mercs. Any orders found on them to indicate what they were after?”
“Nothing yet, sir. Even our own facial recognition AI couldn’t identify them.” Yura said, wincing at the sharp screech of the glass. “nothing in their pockets except for weapons, mostly from Defenstech, and hand tools.”
He cursed, turned, and marched to the elevators. A final reminder of the attack, a bullet hole in the wall just around the corner from the elevators sparked Marko’s anger again. “I don’t trust them to figure this out. I want our people on this. If this was a strike from one of our competitors, we will pay them back a thousand-fold.”
“I’ve already got Romanov and Braun on it.” Yura said as they stepped onto the waiting elevator.
Marko nodded. “I want Chang on it too.”
“Understood, sir. Sending orders now.” Yura said, typing away at her holo console.
They stood in silence as they ascended. Marko cracked his gnarly knuckles, trying to cool his anger. He wanted to raze the city to find who had the audacity to attack his company. He would do it, too, if he felt it would get him any closer to an answer. More likely he would burn anyone who knew anything in the process, and have even less to go on than he did before.
As the door opened to his office, he said. “I want patrol drones on constant surveillance around the perimeter. Set up our company of AutoMatik infantry bots we’ve been working on for the Future Combat Initiative ready to be deployable at a moment’s notice on every point of entry. Authorize armor piercing ammo, shotguns, and KA-449’s for the security team. This will not happen again.”
“Sir,” Yura started, sighing, “I don’t think the police will like us deploying military hardware like that.”
“They let us get attacked, an attack that cost eight of my people their lives. They can deal with it, or I’ll buy up Bastion’s contract and do their job myself if they don’t like it.” Marko said. He sat at his massive stainless-steel desk, and took out a cigar from his pinstripe suit jacket, a Rubio Especial. “They are lucky I’m not bringing tanks. And if they don’t want to do their job, I’ll call St. Petersburg, and had the streets flooded with OSP agents.”
Yura sat at the corner of his desk, which always made her look like a porcelain doll with her petite proportions, and pale white skin, in contrast to size of the gargantuan desk. Most would have called his desk a conference table. To Marko it was almost big enough to serve as his desk. When he really needed to think, he printed out all of the data he needed to consider, and splayed them out across his desk.
She put a hand on his shoulder. “Marko, we are going to figure out who did this, and we will deal with them.”
He cut the cigar tip, lit it, sat back in his cool steel chair, and puffed on the cigar. The acrid smoke teased his throat, helping him feel more himself again. “We better. We need to send a message.” Marko said, smoke billowing out of his mouth as he spoke.
Yura snatched his cigar and took a long drag for herself before handing it back.
Marko sighed, meeting her icy blue eyes. “We don’t have time for that right now.”
“Too bad,” Yura said with a smirk.
Marko looked her over again, golden hair pulled into a tight bun, tight black pant suit hugging her slight figure in all the right ways. Thin lips, and sharp nose. Just like…
He stood, scratched at his shaved head, and puffed the cigar again. “Push back the meeting for Transference. Push everything back. Call Viktor in.” Then he turned away from her, and walked to his old record player that sat on a metal bookshelf behind his chair. He set “Anthems of Victory” by Yeltsin on the player, and turned up the volume. Then he started to pace as a brisk, inspiring march barked in his cavernous office. It was called “Forward, for the Motherland.”
After a while, his cigar nearly gone, he heard the familiar nasal voice of Viktor, speaking in New Russian. “You still listen to this shit?”
Marko looked over to a mountain of a man, mounds of muscles barely contained in a red alligator leather jacket. He cursed. “You never have had any sense of taste.”
“You don’t pay me to have taste for all this old shit.” Viktor said, crossing his arms.
“No, I pay you to keep the other organizations from moving against us, keeping shit like what happened last night from happening. This ‘old shit’ is your cultural heritage, have some respect.” Marko said.
Viktor laughed and shook his head. “I say let it burn. We burned plenty in the Ascension”
“Well, we should be so lucky you don’t get to decide that.” Marko replied, then nodded to a seat at his desk. Viktor sat as suggested, leaning back in the chair.
Marko sat back down, and offered a cigar, to which Viktor waved a refusal, before extracting a cigarette from his jacket, and lighting it. Marko sighed. “And I expect you still drink that cheap goat piss vodka you always do?”
Viktor laughed, took a long drag on his cigarette, and then said, “And why not? It’s available, you can buy a lot, and if you drink enough, you forget about your problems just the same.”
“One day I’ll get through to you on just how much better the good stuff is.”
“And you forget what it’s like to not even be able to afford the cheap shit,” Viktor said, taking another drag. “What I drink and smoke now was the stuff of kings to us back then. Hell, even a scrap of bread was a small fortune to us.”
Marko shook his head. “Believe me, I haven’t forgotten, nor will I.” He puffed on the cigar one last time, and then snuffed out what little was left on an ashtray.
“Why did you call me here? The merc company attack?” Viktor asked.
Marko nodded. “The police are doing whatever it is they do, I have some my best looking into it, but your people can get where they can’t, can talk to people mine can’t.”
“And how will you make it worth the Kusnetsov’s time?” Viktor said with a nonchalant tone.
“For one, it is what I pay you for. But, do this, find out who attacked me, and I’ll get you those weapons you have been asking for,” Marko said. “assault rifles, drones, explosives—”
“What about those fighting robots you’ve been working on?” Viktor interrupted.
Marko’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”
Viktor chuckled, and took a long drag on his cigarette. “We all have our ways of knowing things we shouldn’t,” He leaned forward on the desk, “I won’t ask about yours if you don’t ask about mine.”
Marko considered for a long while, tapping his fingers on the desk as he thought, then said, “Find them, bring them to me, alive, and we’ll talk. It is a program still in development, so there are things to consider.”
“One regiment, when they are ready.” Viktor put out his cigarette on the steel desk, purposefully next to the ashtray, and stood from his chair.
“When they are ready.” Marko held out his hand, and Viktor shook it.
“We’ll start hitting the streets. The Kusnetsovs always get results.” Viktor turned to leave.
Marko nodded. “I’m counting on it.” The elevator door closed behind Viktor, and he was gone.
Yura stepped back in from the wet bar around the corner with a pair of glasses. She handed one to him, and he gulped down the vodka. He groaned as the cool liquid burned down his throat.
“Marko, are you sure about this?” Yura said, then knocked back her own glass.
“I don’t care how the dogs who did this are found, I just want to watch the life drain from their eyes myself. If I have to unleash the wolves to do it, so be it.” Marko said. He could feel his anger building again, mixed with the burn of the vodka in his stomach. “What else do I pay them for? He has as much to make up to me as the Police. They both failed to prevent this.”
“No,” Yura started, “I mean promising him AutoMatik. What would the Kusnetsovs want with a regiment of robotic soldiers?”
“Probably finally take over this town, pushing out the other gangs. It doesn’t matter, it’s beneath us.” Mark felt his anger near bursting out of his chest. He started breathing heavily, and his body suddenly felt so cold. The music on the record player warped and distorted as he fell over, barely catching himself from falling on the desk. Yura said something, but he couldn’t make it out. Nothing made any sense. Up, down, colors, why was he trying to stand up anyway?
Then his grip on the desk slipped. He was falling…
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