Read Marauder Ramses for Free Online

and between her skin, and then I fire. The extra heat burns my fingers rather than her wrist, and as soon as the band is cut open, I throw it full force through the window. It shatters and explodes in mid-air before hitting the ground.
    “Shit,” she says. “Why the hell would it explode…?”
    “Having you infected isn’t...harmonious,” I say. “Easier to just blow you up.”
    Elise stands shocked and stunned. “Harmony wouldn’t….”
    “Wouldn’t she?” I say. “Why risk you infecting everyone?”
    She looks down at her wrist, then up at me. “It happened because you cut off the band! If you hadn’t –”
    “You really want to have risked that?” I ask.
    “We need to go to the station,” Elise says. “We need to tell them what happened and let them know that Harmony….”
    I can see the realization creeping across her face as she speaks. Harmony controls the police. It controls everything. There’s nowhere she can go.
    “Shit, Ramses,” she says. “All the implants in me. It can easily track me.”
    “Not on Venus,” I say.
    “There’s no way I can get off the planet,” she says. “And shit, I have a life here, I can’t just...leave.”
    “I don’t think there’s any choice,” I say.
    More doors open, and Seraphim start scowling at us. I grab Elise by the hand and take her down the stairs and out of the building as fast as I can. We reach the street, and it’s dark outside. But darkness won’t keep us safe from a godlike A.I. that controls the whole planet.
    “There’s always a choice,” I say. “Here’s yours: let me keep you safe, or hope that Harmony isn’t out to kill you.”
    I don’t even know how I will keep her safe, but I’ll do everything in my power to protect her. She is infected...with something. But I’m not. It’s most likely something engineered, and it seems to target humans while leaving Seraphim unaffected. So Harmony wants to kill her and end the infection. Getting her off Earth might just be enough.
    There’s no time for careful planning. There’s only time for action.
    I see a car float down in the distance, and it lowers to the ground to let off its passengers.
    I grab Elise by the hand. “Come on!”
    I run with her toward the car, and it begins to accelerate and float back up. Before it can fly off, I let go of Elise’s hand and leap up onto it. I crash onto the hood and hit the windshield.
    The car’s lights start to flash, and it immediately begins descending.
    “Please stay where you are!” an automated voice says from the car. “I will call a medical vehicle. Please remain still in case of a spinal injury!”
    The car lowers gently down, and once it’s grounded, I blast open the hood with my pistol. Alarms start to sound, but I activate my bioglove and hack into the car.
    My father gave me the bioglove as a last resort weapon. If anyone saw me using it, I would be executed on the spot, but Elise is as good as dead if I don’t take this risk.
    The bioglove is a small piece of material hidden under the skin of my palm, and when I activate it, it flows over my whole hand as a teal liquid. The liquid hardens as a glove that covers my hand and part of my wrist. Part of the glove stays in liquid form and interfaces with the car’s computer. Once it connects, I can will the computer to reprogram using mere thoughts.
    I sense the connection to Harmony, and I sever it immediately. The alarms are still blaring, and Seraphim are starting to come outside to see what is happening. First they heard two explosions, and now they see me punching through the hood of a car with a uniformed human cop standing right next to me and letting it happen.
    “Ramses,” Elise says. “What the hell are you doing?”
    I cut off the car’s alarm and make the doors open. “Get inside.”
    I remove my hand from the car’s computer, and the bioglove breaks the link. I make the glove sink back under my skin, and then I take out my hand.
    “Did you seriously just