Insight

by Teyla Branton

  She believed that. She did. So why did she feel more afraid than when she’d lived back in Colony 6?

  Chapter 7

  REESE TOOK OFF her battle helmet to let the wind rush through her hair. Driving a two-wheel scrambler was one of the best perks of her job, as only enforcers were allowed that mode of transportation. Not only could she weave in and out of the public shuttles and private cars at rush hour, but the feeling of flying through the streets of New York like this was one only a few people would ever experience.

  Despite the encroaching darkness, she took the long way home, which was less crowded, even though it led her near one of the few empty zones that remained within the city borders. Two blocks of ruined buildings and destruction that had been caused by the bombs during Breakdown, and then eroded during the eighty subsequent years of neglect. Slowly, the city was reclaiming the area. This empty zone wasn’t near a desolation zone, which often birthed monsters—animals changed into things of horror by nuclear fallout—so it was a hangout for local youth. Enforcers let them use it for now, but they kept a close eye on the situation. For the most part, entering the empty zone was all the rebellion the average teen was willing to risk.

  Reese picked up her speed on the street that bordered the empty zone. Wind hit her face, no longer making her feel exultant, but more as if she were taking a beating.

  All day she’d been thinking about her pending testimony against Grogovit. Eight of the nine sick employees and two of the guards had died during the day, and Hap Zeka had informed them this afternoon that even if he had another year, he wouldn’t be able to fix her original recording. Whatever virus had attacked it, the damage was permanent. That meant the sentence the Magistrate Assistant handed down on Saturday morning would necessarily relate directly to Reese’s testimony. Grogovit deserved the maximum sentence, of course, in light of the many lives he’d destroyed. How many youths had jumped to their deaths under the influence of juke, or had been sent to a welfare colony as punishment for other juke-induced crimes?

  Yet Reese couldn’t help thinking of the janitor at Grogovit’s building. He’d once been an accountant; now, after enhancement, he walked with the cleaners. What if she was sending Grogovit to a living death?

  The janitor was probably a fluke occurrence, Reese told herself. Next week or the next, Grogovit would be back in his office, his desire to break the law excised like so much waste. He’d manufacture and sell more readymeals, make love to his wife, and celebrate the birth of their second child. She had to believe that. She trusted in the CORE and all it represented.

  Didn’t she?

  Sighing, Reese made a sharp U-turn on the deserted street. All the joy had gone from her ride, so she headed back to the apartment she rented eight blocks south of division. She wished Bay hadn’t refused her invitation to meet at a restaurant like they often did on Friday nights. After their meeting with Zeka, Bay had begged off, saying Letisha wasn’t feeling up to going out. With his wife’s new pregnancy, it was a logical excuse, but Bay had been acting strangely all afternoon. He’d been on the phone a lot, had a meeting with Captain Homer that she hadn’t been privy to, and he hadn’t even accompanied her on their usual rounds, staying instead at division to file reports.

  Well, Reese would go home, draw the two sketches she’d glimpsed from a couple of coworkers’ minds before they drove her mad, then step under the sonic cleanser, and eat a readymeal or two in front of the holoscreen. It wasn’t as distracting as a night out, but the plan contained considerably less worry about having to see more sketches, as she invariably would in a crowd.

  Unfortunately, it was also very lonely.

  Despite her loneliness, pulling up to her apartment building brought a sense of contentment. She liked this place because it was relatively close to division, but far enough away from the shopping district that the area didn’t see a ton of traffic. The nearest sky train stop was only minutes away on foot. These buildings were part of the few that had been built post-Breakdown, which meant they didn’t have some of the comforts of the pre-Breakdown buildings—like real water showers—but they also had none of the cobbled-together repairs that were the bane of living in older buildings, repairs that invariably broke down when it was least convenient.

  Most of the residents living near Reese were enforcers or workers in upscale offices. No certificate institutes were located nearby, and only one small school for younger children was within the district, so that meant less traffic. In all, it was a good place to live. Good enough that Bay, who lived in a different community, was doing his best to make sure his new apartment was somewhere near her.

  Reese parked her scrambler in front of her building and had started up the small flight of stairs to the entrance when she caught a sense of motion from the corner of her left eye. She stopped and turned as something slammed into her left shoulder, knocking her backward. She hit the stairs hard. Pain spread from the shoulder, under her uniform, which could stop the penetration of a bullet at point blank range. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop the pressure of impact.

  She’d been shot. No doubt about it. But by whom?

  The next second, they were on her. A foot lashed out viciously at her leg. Reese tried to raise her head from the stair it was on, but her body wouldn’t obey. She could feel blood gushing from a split in her skull. At least some of it dribbled down the back of her neck.

  “You didn’t kill her, did you?” barked a guttural voice.

  “Naw. Hit her in the shoulder.” The second speaker was also male but had a slight nasal quality to his voice.

  “You sure? She looks dead.”

  “She’s alive,” came a third voice from further away, a calm, cultured, confident voice that could have been talking about the weather. “And see that you keep her that way. At least until we get her to the warehouse and set everything up.”

  “What about the street cameras?” asked the second man.

  “Taken care of,” came the distant voice, “but only for five minutes. That’s how long it takes to reset three times. I’ll have to end the block then. Any more and a repair alert will be recorded on the Teev database.”

  “Grab her,” said the man with the guttural voice.

  Reese peered between her shuttered lids and saw two sets of arms reaching for her. The bare, hairy ones came from the direction of the thug with the guttural voice. He was a strong man with a full beard—one that wasn’t CORE approved because of identification issues. The second man’s arms were thin but clad in a black jacket, his curved fingers looking like wicked hooks angling her way. His entire frame had the gaunt, hungry look that reminded her of the inmates of Colony 6. His eyes were small and mean.

  The hands touched her.

  She rolled, kicked out, and found solid flesh. The hairy man grunted in pain. She tried to bounce to her feet, but her wounded shoulder hit the stair behind her. A new wave of agony spread through her body. She clamped her teeth over the moan that threatened to escape. Gathering her strength, she forced herself to roll again.

  She caught the briefest glimpse of the third man still down on the sidewalk, watching them with a dispassionate expression. Her glimpse of the man was interrupted as a fist met her face, though from which of her attackers, she didn’t know. More kicks rained down on her legs and stomach. She managed to reach her stunner, and fired, but the dart missed. The man with the hairy arms leapt on top of her, his considerable weight smashing her stomach as he calmly punched her face. Blood spurted out her nose. The next punch was to her left eye. The other man continued to kick her side again and again as she was pinned to the steps. She felt the bones in her left hand splinter.

  Someone laughed as she moaned. Hairy-arms punched her again in the face. More crunching sounds. Sketches came to her from one of the men, rapid flashes of two other attacks: a helpless woman in a red skirt and a blue-suited man with his mouth open in a scream. Bile rose in her throat.

  Then, as if at some unseen signal, the beating stopped. Rough ha
nds pulled her to her feet. Or tried to. Her feet and legs wouldn’t carry her, so the men dragged her down the stairs, not seeming to care what their treatment did to her ankles.

  Her left eye was swelling shut, but she could see a black shuttle waiting at the curb behind her scrambler. The third man stood near the shuttle, watching them approach, his shoulder-length hair appearing black under the dim light of the street lamp. He wore a gray outfit and a long black coat open to reveal an under-the-shoulder holster.

  She needed to get to her weapons—and fast. If she wanted to survive. Her feet finally righted under her, the adrenaline of the thought giving her legs energy. She ignored the pain as the impact of stepping on the sidewalk reverberated throughout her entire body.

  Hands as hard as iron patted down her left side, finding her stunner. It would be of no use to him with the fingerprint release, but without it, her chances of escape were that much lower. Not that her broken fingers on her left hand could have pulled any trigger. She fought the urge to curl into a miserable ball and die.

  She fought because that was what they wanted—for her to give up.

  She had no doubt they had been sent by Grogovit and the KC. Or maybe his advocate. It didn’t matter which. Obviously, someone didn’t want her to testify in the morning. And it was also obvious that they planned to kill her. The damage they’d already done was more than a simple scare. They might want her alive for the moment, but not for long. And she was pretty sure that meant her limbs and other parts of her were optional.

  More hands patted her right side, finding the nine mil. She grabbed a digit with her right hand, twisting and snapping it. A high, nasal scream met her effort. “My thumb!” the second thug screamed, “The pus bag whore broke my thumb!”

  At least she’d done that much.

  Still holding her arm in a blood-blocking grip, the hairy man drew back his bulky arm, his face twisting with rage on behalf of his companion. The blow landed on the side of her head, sending her crumpling to the sidewalk. Blood spattered over the ground. Hairy-arms jumped on top of her, pulling back his fist again. If his meaty fist hit her with all that fury behind the blow and with the sidewalk under her head, his boss’s command to keep her alive would have no meaning. Maybe it already didn’t. Reese jerked her head to the side, and his fist hit the cement. He howled with anger.

  She had to survive. At least five minutes. At least until the warning about the non-working street camera was recorded in the Teev feed. Whatever condition she was in, she had to survive that long.

  The fingers of her right hand touched the tip of her hidden knife. For long seconds, she fumbled on the hilt. Hairy-arms landed another hit, this time glancing off the side of her head. She lost her grip on the knife. Black edged her vision.

  “Enough!” the third man growled. “Get her to the shuttle. Now!”

  Where was the knife?

  Then her fingers had it. The familiar hilt was in her hands, and instinct took over. Instinct born and bred in Colony 6 and honed as an enforcer. Only her knife was far better than the stolen metal fork she’d used as a child.

  She plunged it upward and sideways at Hairy-arms. The knife entered the side of his neck with a wet, satisfying pop. Hairy’s face froze, and his hands, reaching for her, fell to his sides. He toppled over her, his chest landing on her face.

  Reese heaved him off, even as the other two men lunged in her direction. She was free! In horrible, wrenching pain, but free.

  In three steps, she was at her scrambler, the controls leaping to life under her handprint. The engine roared and she was off. Bullets pinged off the scrambler, and pain bit into the back of her uniformed left leg as one hit her there.

  She wavered a bit as the vision in her remaining functional eye blurred. She blinked furiously. Behind her, the roar of an engine followed. She glanced down at the display that showed the road behind her and saw that the black shuttle was following. Even as she stared, a gun emerged from a window. Shots whizzed past her. The display on her scrambler shattered and went dead. But the scrambler, on manual override, didn’t falter.

  She pressed the scrambler further, the engine whining with effort. She should be able to lose the shuttle, but somehow it kept up. Not regulation issue, she guessed. For a time, she sped nearly blind through the streets before she realized where she was heading. To her partner. To Bay. He was closer than division.

  She gasped as a bullet slammed into her back. She fell forward on the scrambler, trying to find breath, trying to stay balanced. Surely some of the passing cameras would catch the shooting. Why wasn’t she hearing sirens of rescue?

  Unless the third man was interrupting cameras as they went. The power behind that kind of technology made a sob rise in her throat. She had to get to Bay!

  Spying a park, she angled her scrambler up on the sidewalk and over the pathways through the lush garden. A stairway of marble steps beckoned her ahead. She gunned the scrambler, nearly losing her seat as it angled up the stairs. There, she’d lost them for now.

  “Call Bay,” she said to the iTeev on her sleeve. No response. The thugs must have smashed it.

  The pain in her torso had dulled slightly, but her responses were slow, her left hand nearly useless, and as she came to a stop outside Bay’s apartment building, the scrambler tilted sideways and fell on her wounded left leg. She gritted her teeth against the pain and dragged her leg out, feeling the warmth of blood gushing under her uniform. At least the snug material would help hold in the flow for now. The leg wouldn’t hold her weight, though, so she half hopped, half dragged herself up the stairs to Bay’s building. A thin light inside the lobby beckoned her. Somehow, she brought herself upright near the glass door. Her right handprint lit up the panel.

  “Bay Danvers,” she said. “It’s Reese. Open up. I’m hurt.”

  The Teev would alert Bay of her arrival, and he’d signal the door to open for her. Seconds ticked by. “Hurry,” she muttered. The door wavered in front of her, and she didn’t know how long she could stay conscious. She needed her partner.

  There was no response. Where was Bay?

  The roar of an engine made her glance over her shoulder at the street. The black shuttle hurtled in her direction.

  How did they know where she’d gone?

  Still no answer at the door. Why wasn’t Bay responding?

  Thoughts filtered through her head with blinding quickness. Bay hadn’t helped her at the drug bust; he’d only detained nine employees, all of which came down sick. He hadn’t wanted to go out on their usual rounds or for their Friday night dinner.

  Her stomach seemed to drop from her body. Drop and drop and drop and never end. Was Bay a part of the KC conspiracy?

  The black shuttle screeched to a stop. This was it. Reese couldn’t fight anymore. She could barely breathe.

  Without warning, the door in front of her gave way and she was falling inside. Arms reached out to catch her. She heard a spray of bullets.

  Then everything went dark.

  Chapter 8

  THE FIRST THING Reese became aware of was the urge to sketch. Images pressed in on her until they filled her entire brain with need. She tried looking around her, to see where she was and if her drawing pad was near, but the room around her was dark. Her limbs refused to move.

  The vague thought that she might be dead filtered through her mind, but her next sensation was pain—and lots of it. Her head, her face, her chest, her back, and her legs. Everything hurt. So, not death. At least not yet. Had the KC captured her?

  “She might be coming to,” came a woman’s soft, comforting voice. Reese clung to the sound and tried to follow it back to consciousness.

  That was when Reese realized her eyes were closed. With effort, she pulled them open. Or at least one of them; the other eyelid would only lift partway. Light poured in from at least one window, making her blink until her eyes adjusted. The blurry world around her slowly came into partial focus.

  “Hey sleepyhead.”

&nbs
p; The familiar teasing voice came from an indistinct figure to her left. Bay. She squinted and finally recognized the face of her partner. What was he doing here? Had he helped capture her? Somewhere in the room, a monitor began a furious beeping.

  “Easy now,” came the woman’s voice again. A gentle hand touched her right arm. “You’re safe, Detective Parker. Your partner got you to us in time. You’ve undergone a couple surgeries, and we were worried there for a while, but you’re going to be all right. You’re safe.”

  Safe. Reese let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. The monitor stopped its squealing. She blinked more until the room came into better focus. Unable to move her neck, she rotated her eyes in the direction of the female voice, seeing a woman dressed in a white uniform, her dark hair pulled severely back into a twist. A nurse then.

  “That’s better,” the nurse said. “Now I’ll leave you two alone, but only for five minutes. I’m going to get the doctor. He’ll want to see how you’re doing.” To Bay, she added. “Try not to upset her.”

  Reese waited until the nurse left the room before meeting Bay’s gaze. “How long?” Her whisper was hoarse.

  “You’ve been here three weeks.” As usual, Bay’s big face was flushed, but today his brown eyes glistened with uncharacteristic moisture. “We were beginning to worry that you wouldn’t wake up at all. You don’t know how glad I am to see you with your eyes open.”