Versim by Curtis Hox

with twin indigo energy spears snaking along both of his arms.  
    This is new. This is unexpected. He’s showing his hand early. He doesn’t think I have anything. He thinks I’m weak. Yes, he thinks I’m weak. I can handle it. I can take the blow. I can—
    Hark felt the impact of the strike on his energy carapace as if an uprooted tree trunk had slammed into him.  
    Without Magdalena, he couldn’t modulate a dynamic defensive posture, and Caleb’s attack smashed through his carapace into his reactive armor.  
    His Skinsuit did its best to deflect the force. Hark heard the reverberation explosion.  
    A man selling hotdogs shrieked and abandoned his cart, while two Nigerians with open brief cases full of fake designer watches both fell into the gutter.  
    Hark felt the heat sink into his torso. Autonomic painkillers released from synth glands.  
    The psychology of violence. I know this well. I have taught this course. I am one with the truth. The pain is gone. The damage can be repaired. What I am in this moment will define me. I am unwilling to lose. I am … Hark dove for Caleb’s legs in the most unexpected posture imaginable: a double-leg take down.  
    His carapace negated his opponent’s. And they tumbled into the street. Cars careened around them. The sound of honking was a faraway thing.
    Hark felt the rest of his clothes burn away, the smell of singed cloth in his nostrils. He smelled heated engine oil on the asphalt, the slick material of the old world coating him in grime.  
    Caleb, a master of distance.
    Hark, a master of … he opened his mouth and extended a series of electric teeth that he clamped down on his colleague’s neck. He felt Caleb punching holes into his back, his reactive armor unable to withstand the attack. But Caleb had used up his energy. And Hark bit down harder.
    In the last moment, before he felt the body beneath him die, he saw the familiar light in a specialist’s eyes blank.
    Caleb had an insurance policy.
    The hackers yanked him before the moment of death.
    Somehow Hark stood. He couldn’t feel much, not at this point. His HUD was off, all AbSys energy having been expended. His involuntary systems were keeping him upright. He knew his blood pressure was dropping. One lung was about to collapse. One heart was palpitating, the other working fine. His anti-shock mechanisms were struggling to keep him from passing out. Without Magdalena …  
    “Worth the price of admission?” he said to the crowd, gasping, smiling as best he could. He wanted to take a bow, but had to hold himself up with all his might.
    He glanced down, and already Caleb’s body was gone.  
    Just like that. And poof, no evidence .
    A few sturdy NYPD in their blues and police caps appeared.  
    Hark had already stumbled back to the sidewalk. People were helping the hotdog guy get his cart back up. The cordon of tourists who gawked was all talking about what they’d seen. He heard more than one person wonder where the other guy had gone.
    “Do you need medical assistance, sir?” one officer asked.
    “I’m good.” He steadied his breathing to not look desperate.
    “Causing problems?” another said. “Let me look at you.”
    Hark stood there in his Skinsuit, now fully reactive with armored parts in key areas from his chest, shoulders, elbows, knees, along the kidneys and abs. He looked like a futuristic superhero. He posed, hands on hips, and smiled. Already, his armor was mending the rent areas.
    “Guerrilla marketing, guys,” Hark said, feeling his left lung collapse. Still he smiled. He grunted like a hog and pretended that was part of the show. With a wheezing breath, he said, “New film. Street performance. I’m done, though. I’ll move along.”
    “You do that, buddy. Get a license next time.”
    Hark had charmed harder cases than those two. He turned, tunnel vision threatening, a weight like a stone in his chest. All sound was disappearing as he walked stiff-legged into the hotel.