Andus safe house, Spire, Vættaborgir and Hellisgata
Maya hopped deftly out of her pod into the alley. She turned to see Brock and Pieter following suit, looking slightly nervous. Maya pulled out her weapon, and switched it on as the pod disappeared up into the air.
She looked at the two guys, who nodded and started following her. She could sense their hesitation, but had done every little piece of preparation she could think of for this op. Besides, she’d been in dicier situations before now, and had never had the comfort of a weapon. She held the grip tighter, hoping to her ancestors she wasn’t going to need it.
She approached the door and saw that it indeed had a retinal scanner to grant access. Rather than stepping up to it, she pulled up her holo and typed to Oz. A moment later, the door popped open, allowing her to step inside.
The boys followed her through.
As she moved into the dark, dank passageway, she tried to hold her breath against the dust and the smell.
“Not the pleasantest of safe houses he could have chosen,” she commented, trying to put the boys at ease.
Pieter grunted. Brock stayed quiet, allowing Pieter to go ahead of him.
Maya kept walking down the passage, her wits on edge now that she was here, as the realization dawned on her that a bit of paper in her jacket pocket probably wasn’t going to do much against some heavy with a gun.
She was going to have to Maya Johnstone her way through this.
With that thought, she took a deep breath, her shoulders went back, and she grew an inch and a half in height. She even noticed a muttering from the boys behind her. Striding down the corridor now, she was alert but relaxed, energetically daring anyone to defy her.
The group found their way into the open area, with the elevators to the right and a little counter ahead of them. It looked unmanned.
“Hello?” Maya called out.
There was movement behind the counter, in the little room that visitors couldn’t see into from this side.
Brock pulled out his pistol, and Pieter tried to do the same.
The scrawny Ogg attendant appeared from the little room, and peered over the counter. “Greetings. Are you here for Mr. Andus?” he asked politely.
Maya did a double-take, and lowered her gun. “Yes. Yes we are. How did you-”
The Ogg’s face suddenly scrunched up in aggression, and a moment later he was pulling a gun on the trio.
BAM BAM, he shot over the counter.
Maya returned fire before running out of the way. Brock dove the same way, and Pieter jumped back into the dark passageway, out of sight.
There were more gunshots through the counter. Maya scrambled to sit up on the floor, and, in one movement, had swivelled around and was returning fire in the direction of the sound. A split second later, the little Ogg had appeared around the side of the counter, and not only was he exposed himself, but he had a clean shot on both Maya and Brock.
Brock cowered, and then panicked and aimed his weapon at the Ogg, getting three rounds off. None of them seemed to connect, because the Ogg was still standing.
Maya became aware of an alarm sounding. “We’re your new bosses, you idiot!” she screamed at the Ogg.
The gunshots kept happening. Maya couldn’t tell which direction they were coming from, but a second later she could see that the Ogg was convulsing on the floor. She looked over to the right, and saw that Pieter had managed to stun him.
The shooting stopped, but the elevator doors opened, and two heavies emerged. Both Estarian. Each built like the side of a space truck.
They stepped out, saw the attendant on the floor, and pulled their weapons.
Maya put her hand up. “Wait!” she screamed. She scrambled for her holo. “Let me show you! We’re your new bosses. You answer to us, now.”
The first Estarian pointed at her with his gun, but signalled for her to pull up her holo. His partner grunted at them. “We answer to no one but Mr. Andus,” he told them.
Maya shook her head. “You work for WBA Security, right?”
The Estarian nodded.
“Yeah,” she pulled up a holoscreen on the paperwork, “we own them. You work for us, now.” She started scrambling to her feet, as dignified as she could.
Once on her feet, she indicated to the Ogg. “So does he.” She waved her gun up towards the rest of the building, which housed a hotel and various restaurants. “So does everyone in the hotel.”
And then she pointed her gun at the elevator. “And everyone down there.”
The two Estarians looked at her in disbelief. The vocal one shook his head. “Wait here a minute,” he told her, and started pulling up his holo. He walked through to the passageway to make a call. The other lowered his weapon.
Pieter joined them properly in the foyer, and helped Brock to his feet. “Motherfucker!” he exclaimed, his face pale, and hands shaking. He whispered to Pieter. “Man, I’m getting my ass down to that range when we get back. No more Mr. I-can’t-fire-a-gun crap,” he swore.
Maya shifted on the spot, running through plan B and plan C in her head, praying she wasn’t going to need them.
The tough came back in and seemed strangely amiable. Almost pleasant. “It’s okay, Derek. It’s true,” he told the other Estarian. “They are the new owners.”
Derek looked at him, his mouth hanging open. “Just like that?” he asked, shaking his head.
“Just like that,” his friend agreed.
Derek turned and looked at the Ogg. “What about him?” he asked. The other Estarian looked down at him, almost without sympathy. “Suppose we should get him a doctor,” he commented.
Maya saw her chance. “That would be a sensible idea. But first, I’d like you,” she said, pointing at the Estarian who had made the call, “to take us down to Mr. Andus. He no longer owns the building, so he needs to vacate it.”
The Estarian looked shocked again, but quickly came to terms with the logic. A new thought seemed to cross his face. “Errr, so what does this mean for us?” he asked. “I mean, are our jobs safe?”
Maya shook her head in amazement. “I’m not sure. But if you cooperate, I’ll be sure to put in a good word with the decision-makers we bring in.”
The Estarian nodded vigorously. “Right. Okay. So, erm. As you know, that’s Derek. I’m Mo…” he hit the elevator button. “I’ll take you down to Mr. Andus now.” He looked over at his colleague. “Derek, get a doctor in for that guy, will you?”
He turned and looked at Brock and Pieter. “Are you all okay?” Mo asked, brushing Pieter down with his gun-free hand. Pieter was nearest to him, and in the scuffle had gotten cobwebs on his atmosuit.
Brock was the one to respond. “No, we are not,” he told him. “Getting shot at isn’t in my job description.”
Mo leaned in. “No, it wasn’t in mine when I first started, either.”
Brock looked at him incredulously.
Mo, relaxing and oblivious to his social faux pas, put his gun away. The elevator arrived, and he held the doors as he ushered the others in. “But you know, I don’t mind it. We get free dental if we agree to carry a weapon…”
Brock clenched his fists by his side and resisted the urge to thump the guy. Pieter was revelling in the win of being able to stun the guy that had attacked them.
Maya was the last to step into the elevator. Her dominant thought in that moment was figuring out how the hell she was going to tell this story later when they got back to base…
Iantrogen Offices, Downtown Spire
Jessica flicked frantically through the reports she’d been receiving during the morning. Her legal team was buzzing around in the conference room down the hall, but the constant interruptions— together with the influx of terrible news every five minutes— had her beyond irritated.
She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Scotch. Not her first choice. She would have much preferred a martini, but the effort and wait
ing that she would have to go through to acquire one right now was beyond what she could tolerate.
“Ms. Newld”, another interruption poked its head around her door.
“Not now!” screamed Jessica, her wits fried.
Her assistant didn’t disappear, though. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Newld, but the building is being evacuated.”
Just then, about a third of her security detail came barging in past the assistant and started ushering Jessica out of the office. “What in the name of my ancestors is going on?” she demanded at the top of her voice.
The assistant was whisked away.
The security team leader stopped short of grabbing her arm, but encouraged her towards the door. “Ms. Newld, there is a security breach. We’re under attack. Please come with us,” he explained as succinctly as he could.
Jessica couldn’t understand what was happening. “It’s the middle of the day. Are you telling me that Bates girl is coming in here, in broad daylight, with all these people around?!”
The cardboard officer took his weapon from its holster and glanced back towards the door. “Ms. Newld, I’m afraid she’s already here. We have to leave,” he told her firmly.
Jessica felt hands on her arms, and her weight being lifted from the floor. “I can walk!” she shouted.
The team leader released her arm. She rearranged her clothing and tried to gather herself. “Lead the way,” she told him, smoothing her hair, and picking up her compact mirror. It was one thing to be caught unaware in one’s workplace for an assassination; but it’s something else to have to stare down Molly Bates with her hair all dishevelled.
The security team led her out through the open plan offices, sweeping their weapons and muttering instructions and updates on their internal comms.
Jessica marched along, checking her appearance and following the guard in front of her, careful to communicate in her walk that she was not afraid. Once she was satisfied with her look, she popped the compact into her jacket pocket.
Halfway through the cubicle sea of the sales department, the entourage stopped dead. A second later, there was the sound of a stun gun discharging, and the slump of a body hitting the ground.
Then another.
And another.
Jessica looked around, desperately trying to see where the threat was coming from. “I know it’s you, Molly Bates!” she shouted out across the now silent office.
Another stun discharge and a slump.
There were three guards left. One in front of her, one in the aisle to her left, and one to the right. They were silently scanning the area, watching for any signs of movement.
Suddenly the one on her right fired.
She called ahead to the leader. “Where are your reinforcements?” she hissed.
He quietly spoke back to her. “On their way, ma’am.” He turned back to face ahead in the direction they had been moving, and suddenly grunted, and hit the deck.
Jessica looked up and there was Molly Bates, holding a piece on her.
“Well, if you wanted an audience with me, you just had to ask,” said Jessica coyly, trying to maintain the appearance of being in control.
Molly barely batted an eyelid. “It wasn’t an audience I was seeking,” she replied calmly. “It was all-out destruction… which, frankly, was well underway before I even stepped foot in the building.”
The rest of their onsite team will be here in three minutes.
Got it. Tell Crash.
They’ve just put in a call for a full squad of thirty, who will be coming from offsite. They are fifteen minutes away.
Okay. How many do we think are still left in the building?
Maybe ten - not including their general building security.
You mean donut eaters with guns.
Exactly.
Okay. We might be all right.
Molly started walking slowly toward Jessica, her weapon trained on her chest. “You will no doubt have seen that your trusted board of directors have been selling off your subsidiaries faster than you can say ‘caramel mocha’…”
Jessica’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose I have you to thank for that?”
Molly shrugged. “In part. Although, it’s been a long time coming… someone figuring out how you’ve structured your evil empire of Estarian exploitation.”
“Oh, please,” Jessica retorted. “Do I really need to listen to this? I take it you’re here to kill me. To make a point? To serve as a warning to all the other corporations that don’t pay out indefinitely on every single disease known to Sark?”
Jessica took a breath, folding her arms in indignation. “I’ll have you know that I and my family have built up these institutions to make the Sark system a better place for everyone. Yes, we make money… but that was never illegal.”
Molly couldn’t resist getting into an argument with the beastly woman in front of her. “Yes, it’s difficult to do anything illegal when you manipulate the legal system to suit your own ends; when you pass laws that make you richer and richer, as you actively exploit the very population you claim to serve!”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “Come, come now, Ms. Bates. I had you down as more than just the common activist. Surely you have something more than this?”
Molly stopped in her tracks, and stood almost too casually. It made Jessica nervous. “Actually, I do,” Molly told her.
“As you may or may not know… the price of your company’s shares is directly correlated to not just the number of smaller companies you own and control, but also the mechanism of buying or selling them. To be clear: when you sell them, the share price goes down. A lot.” Molly took half a step forward, her weapon now by her side. “One might even say it plummets,” she added.
Molly, the remaining security detail is going to be on our location in ninety seconds.
Okay, call for our own backup. We’re leaving soon. Have the pods ready by the windows.
Jessica’s face had paled. “Ah, you hadn’t realized that.” Molly smiled. “So what you may not have figured out yet, is that a total of 168 of your subsidiaries have been sold off, or are currently in auction.” Molly took another half step. “Now, I don’t know what happens when more than one subsidiary is sold, but, at a guess, I’m going to assume that the share price is going to go down more than just ‘a lot’.”
Jessica had taken a couple of steps backward, physically losing her balance as she tried to absorb the information. She grabbed onto one of the cubicle partitions.
“In a few hours, the authorities are going to cease trading shares in Iantrogen because the stock is effectively worthless. And that will be the end of the Newld Empire. Dismantled and destroyed.”
Jessica stumbled and fell to the ground as Molly advanced a few more steps. She raised her gun on Jessica, and Jessica’s eyes widened.
“Go on, just do it! Kill me! Get it over with, you little wench!” Jessica cried out.
Molly lowered her weapon. “Oh, no, you misunderstand me,” Molly sneered, finally getting to exorcise her pent-up wrath at the injustice that Jessica had been perpetrating. “I’m not interested in killing you; I just wanted to destroy everything that made your life worth living.”
Molly turned, and started walking away from a petrified and sobbing Jessica.
Okay, we’ve got incoming.
Molly could hear the rest of the security team coming in through the corridors on the left hand side of the open plan office. Straight away, she could hear Crash picking them off as they came through the door closest to him. Molly hurried over to help firm up his position. Standing behind a pillar, she too opened fire.
Oz, see if you can get Sean and Jack here. And Joel. If more reinforcements are on their way, we’re going to need some backup ourselves.
Roger that.
Molly swung around the pillar and fired stun rounds, taking out a security heavy with each shot.
Chapter 12
Andus safe house, Sp
ire, Vættaborgir and Hellisgata
Maya followed the three guys down the dimly lit passageway. Even Brock seemed to have gotten a spring back in his step.
Mo glanced back at the group. “It’s not much to look at, but inside the apartment, it’s pretty comfortable. You know, nice white furniture, fully equipped kitchen...”
The group kept walking, the sound of their footsteps being absorbed by the dark, brick walls as they made their way closer to where Andus had holed up.
“Yeah,” Mo continued, as if he were a real estate agent giving them the tour, “and then we bring in food… Whatever you want. Mr. Andus just tells us what he wants that day, and we bring it. Fresh-like.” He paused, and spun round as if confiding a secret. “And booze,” he winked at Maya at the back of the group. “Whatever you want,” he insisted, as he turned and kept walking.
They arrived at the door, and Mo got his key pass out of his jacket pocket. “This is the override,” he showed them the strangely shaped key fob. “In case we need to get in.”
He knocked on the door. “Mr. Andus?” he called.
Turning back to the group, he showed them the retinal scan panel on the door access console. “He uses this. But obviously that won’t work for us,” he grinned.
There was movement inside the apartment. Mo knocked again, and called out, “Mr. Andus, there are some people here to see you!”
He started accessing the panel with the key pass. “I’m coming in. No one is armed. Well…” he chuckled, “except for me.”
Mo opened up the door to find Andus standing in the middle of the apartment in a vest and boxers, a gun feebly pointing at the intruders.
Mo made his way through the door, his hands out to show he wasn’t a threat. “Sorry, Mr. Andus. These people are the new owners, and they wanted to speak with you,” he reported.
Andus looked perplexed. “What are you doing, letting them in here?” he demanded, vexation filling his very being and replacing the fear he’d originally been experiencing.
Mo gently stepped further into the room; now with one hand on his holstered weapon, the other out in front of him, palm to the floor. “It’s okay, Mr. Andus. These people are the new owners. They’re not here to hurt you.”
The Ascension Myth Box Set Page 80
