Josune opened the aircar door for them. “Don’t take too long.”
Now to see if their disguises worked. Nika checked her weapons, added new darts to the tranquilizer cross. They both carried the blasters they’d stolen from the Boost—surely agents would wear weapons, even at headquarters. She set her blaster to stun and made sure Snow did too. Killing Justice Department agents, even in retaliation, would ensure they were hunted down.
Nika adopted Brand’s stance and swaggered down the street. Snow took on Bouwmeester’s heavier stride. Good. A good modder should be able to imitate other bodies.
They hadn’t even gotten to the security door, just inside the foyer, when two older agents stopped on their way out.
“Well, look who we have. The hicks from the sticks,” one of them said.
Nika swaggered up close, the way she thought Brand would. “Ooh. Rhyming now, are we? Think we’re so clever.”
The agent who’d spoken stepped back a pace. Good, he was a little nervous of Brand. Nika stepped forward again. This time he stood his ground. Maybe not so nervous, after all.
“We haven’t got time for this.” Snow’s voice was almost too high. The deeper “gah” that followed was closer to Bouwmeester’s growl.
The agent stepped around Nika, said to his companion, “They work on the edge of the legal zone, fancy themselves as hotshots because there’s so much scum out there that their arrest record is high. They haven’t worked out yet that only the dregs are sent out there, because they’re expendable.” He moved on, laughing at his own wit.
“Maybe you should have punched him out,” Snow said.
Brand relied on her mouth. “That’s more something Bouwmeester would do.” They moved on to the security doors, stopped. There were six ID stations. Nika took a deep breath. “Here we go.”
“This is not going to work,” but Snow put his eyes to the scanner, his hand to the finger pad, and moved his mouth in time to the recorded words, “My name is Agent Calista Bouwmeester.”
The entry opened in front of him. Nika did likewise.
They were in. Now for the next hurdle.
“Straight through to the end.” Those were the instructions Josune had given them earlier.
The passage was long and straight, stretching the whole five hundred meters, and security could watch them all the way. Some of the staff traversing it even used personal riders.
“This building takes up a lot of real estate.” Nika swallowed her nerves. Trust your work. They’d gotten in with no problems, hadn’t they? “We should have brought one of Jacques’s picnic packs.”
They were still laughing when two agents stepped out of a cross corridor in front of them. Both pointed weapons—stunners, not blasters. Nika was learning to recognize the difference.
“Agent Brand. Agent Bouwmeester. You are under arrest. Please come quietly.”
Was it their mod, or were they really after the two agents?
Brand would be the spokesperson. She had been on Another Road. “What’s going on? We’re Justice Department agents.”
“And you’re under arrest. Come quietly.”
Snow reached for his stunner.
One of the agents fired at Snow’s hand. “Away from the weapons.”
“Gah.” Snow shook his arm.
More guards approached from behind, running.
Nika lifted the cross with both hands, using one hand to hide the fact that she was curling her fingers around the cross. “What’s the problem?”
“The problem, Agent, is that you are under arrest.” The agent kept his eyes on her blaster, didn’t notice what she was doing with her hands. At least something was going their way.
Nika turned to face the agents running toward them. Two of them. She fired darts quickly and turned back to the original guards. No one would expect darts.
“On whose orders?”
So much for a quiet break-in. They were attracting guards from everywhere.
“Where are you taking us?” Weren’t they ever going to drop?
“Back to the nice, cozy jail cell you just escaped from. You’re surrounded, so don’t fight it.” His finger on the stunner twitched.
Behind her an agent crashed.
Nika dropped to the floor, an imitation of what she imagined the agent behind her had done. Under the cover of her fall, she shot two quick tranquilizers, one at him, the other at the woman holding her stunner at Snow.
The woman put her hand to her chest. “What—?”
Snow took advantage of the distraction to kick the stunner out of her hand.
The second agent behind crashed to the floor.
Nika watched from under her eyelashes as the first agent turned to Snow, not sure what was happening, not sure whom he should be aiming at. Snow had his own blaster out now, in his left hand, and it was aimed at the first agent. His right hand flopped at his side.
The now-stunnerless female agent opened a link. “Assistance required. We are—” She dropped to the floor.
“You can’t escape.” The first agent tried to keep his stunner aimed, but his arm drooped, too heavy to hold his weapon. He fired. His aim was off. He raised the stunner again, with effort.
Snow shot it out of his hand. Got part of the hip instead. “Sorry.” To both Nika and the agent: “I can’t shoot as well left-handed.”
Nika snatched the stunner as it fell from the agent’s hand. “Move,” she told Snow.
They took off running.
“Hold,” someone called from the same direction the third and fourth agent had come. They heard more running feet. “Stop, or I’ll fire.”
They ducked left into the nearest cross passage. Turned right into the next one parallel to the way they had been going.
“This building can’t be that big,” Snow said. “We have to be near the stores. Let’s hope they don’t have breach doors, like they do on a ship.”
It was easy to lose track of where you were headed. “Back into the main passage,” Nika gasped.
They turned right. Then left, straight into two agents.
Nika kept running, braced herself for the impact.
Snow must have done the same, for both agents went flying.
Nika nearly went down on top of them. She righted herself and jumped the prone body instead.
One of the agents raised his blaster. The other lunged for his arm. “Alive, you idiot.”
The blaster shot went wide.
“Hear that, Nika?”
“Yes.” It meant they didn’t have to worry about being killed, except by accident.
They still had to worry about getting caught. The next mod Nika designed for herself was going to be able to run fast. Sprinting relied on anaerobic energy, muscle strength, elasticity.
Although, maybe she’d have to work for longer-distance running, given this passage seemed like it would never end.
Snow stumbled, slightly off balance. Nika glanced at Snow’s useless arm. His arms were always getting injured. She’d have to sound him out about reinforced limbs.
The agents were back on their feet, following. Two more ran out of another side passage. Who had designed this building?
They reached the end of their corridor. Finally.
For a moment Nika couldn’t remember which way to go next.
“Right,” Snow gasped.
They turned right, shouting agents closing in. None were shooting.
“Room 313.” Snow was as out of breath as she was. Maybe give him anaerobic energy as well.
309, 311, 313.
The door was locked.
Iris on the scanner, thumb on the lock. Hurry, hurry. If the Justice Department had locked down their access, this was where they would run out of luck.
The door opened. They fell inside.
“Thank y
ou, thank you,” Nika said fervently. “Lock the door.”
Snow shook his head. “How?”
She called Josune. “We need to lock a door.” She sent the image through. “Like, right now.”
“Eye scan,” Josune said promptly. “Bring up the number pad. Type these numbers when I say. Seven, seven, three.” Pause. “Six, five, two.” Pause.
Outside a voice said, “On my count. Ready.”
“Seven, seven, three.” Josune’s “three” came at the same time as the three-count finished outside.
“Go,” from outside.
The lock clicked into place.
Nika sagged against the wall. “We’ve run into a slight hiccup,” she told Josune. “Be ready when we come out. We’ll be running.” She closed the link. “Where’s the Songyan?”
How hard could it be to find? Genemod machines weren’t exactly small. And given that, how did they get it out when they had agents outside the door?
Worry about that when they had it.
“Songyan ships their machines in a crate.” Surely they’d have crated it for the trip. It was a Songyan, after all. “The crate is green, with the black Songyan logo etched on each side.” At least both machines delivered to her studio had. “It’s about so high.” She raised her hand to her chest. “Two and a half meters long, and roughly one and a half wide.”
The noise outside the door was growing. It sounded as if they’d brought more people in. Nika heard the word engineer mentioned at least twice.
They found the Songyan at the back of the store. It was still on the antigrav trolley it had been delivered on. Right next to the loading bay exit.
“There is a god,” Snow said.
There was a noise from the shadows, and Nika spun around, raising her blaster.
“Well, well. Here we are.” Wickmore stepped out into the light, a needler aimed steadily at them. “As predictable as ever. And with all the drama on your heels. Hello, Nika. I must say, your mods are getting worse if that is the best you can do.”
15
ALISTAIR LAUGHTON
Paola arrived in Cam’s hospital room as the genemod machine lights went green.
“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“There’s a waiting room, you know. Any sane person would use that.” She’d called him a lot of things in their working life, but sane had never been one of them. “You’ve changed, Alistair, since you’ve been away.”
Everyone changed. Alistair was a lot more cynical, less trusting, than he had been, and no wonder. “Maybe it’s your memory of me, versus the reality.”
“It’s not that. It’s . . . you used to care, Alistair. Now you’re . . . I don’t know, you’ve lost your passion.”
Two years scraping to survive, then having the company who’d put you there try to kill you might do that. Besides, he’d never been more passionate about doing his job than he was about finding Nika Rik Terri.
The doctor came up as the genemod machine pinged completion. He checked the readings, then helped Cam out. “All done,” he said. “You’ll have a nice bill at the end of it. Hu-skin is expensive.”
“Thank you.” Alistair handed Cam a pair of coveralls he’d purchased from a vending machine. “Your clothes were wrecked.”
Cam looked at the coveralls as if he’d never seen vending-machine clothes before—he probably hadn’t, even on Zell he’d dressed well—then opened the pack. “What do you think?” he asked Paola. “Too large? Or too small?”
“Doesn’t he know your size?”
“Paola. You have the wrong idea.”
Her link buzzed. She held up her hand. “Got to take this one. It’s a priority three.”
Alistair had taken a number of priority calls in his time. Priority-one calls were major incidents involving a lot of people, such as an explosion that killed everyone at a function, or a large passenger ship being attacked by pirates in legal space. Priority two was for smaller incidents that had a big impact. Shanna Brown’s assassination was one of them. Most of Tamati Woden’s kills were priority twos. Priority three was important, but the impact was limited.
Cam was right. The coveralls were too big, and once they were out of the pack, they fluoresced with an orange luminescence—to Alistair—that increased as they took on the heat from Cam’s body.
“They have?” Paola started to walk, beckoned impatiently to Alistair and Cam when they didn’t immediately follow. “Restrain them. Don’t make a big thing of it, unless they try to escape. And for God’s sake, don’t kill them. I’ll have the Honesty League and the media all over it.”
“Shoes?” Cam asked.
Alistair shook his head.
Cam sighed. “You probably would have got the wrong size anyway.”
“Come on, you two. I need to get back to the office.”
They jogged to catch up to her.
“Did you have something you wanted to say to us?” Alistair asked. “I mean, you came to see me.”
“Or was it to warn us someone was trying to kill us?” Cam asked.
“Of course I want to talk to you.” Paola was almost running herself.
“What’s the hurry?”
“My prisoners have escaped.” She stabbed impatiently at the lift button, stabbed it again.
“Prisoners?”
Paola didn’t normally take prisoners. She prosecuted them, signed the warrants for them, but she didn’t do the hard labor. Not usually.
“You know, wrongdoers who get caught. They’re put behind bars.”
“Why do you have prisoners?”
“Because the Honesty League is on my back.” The lift arrived, took them to the roof, where an aircar swooped down. Paola was inside before the door was fully open.
Alistair grabbed the aircar door, held it while Cam got in, then jumped in himself. In the mood Paola was in, she was just as likely to forget they were there. She’d left him behind once, talking to no one as the aircar lifted. It had been ten minutes before she’d realized.
This time he made it in. Just.
“I spent the afternoon talking to them.”
“Slow down, Paola. Tell us who the prisoners are.”
“Rogue agents. I told you about them. In your apartment, when I offered you back your job. Remember? They were found unconscious on their ship.”
He had forgotten. That must have been what she had been doing at the spaceport earlier, on the news. Arresting the agents.
Paola called the jail and got Walter Lanzo, who was always on night shift. Alistair had been bringing prisoners to him since he’d started at the Justice Department.
“How did my prisoners escape?”
“Hello to you, too, Paola. Which ones are yours? I’ve a hundred and seventeen in the cells.”
“You’ve only got a hundred and fifteen now.”
“Tell me who they are, and I’ll find out for you.”
Alistair had never heard Walter raise his voice, not even to prisoners.
“These two.” Paola pushed images through.
Walter pursed his lips, looked at the screen in front of him. “Says they’re still in the cells.” He pushed the feed through to her; it came up on the aircar main screen. Two women in business suits. One paced the cell; the other sat back on a bunk, scowling. “Shall I go check?”
“Finally. Thank you.”
Walter left the view on-screen.
Paola switched channels, called her own office. No one answered. “Where the hell are they?”
Hopefully out arresting escaped prisoners. A silent alarm sounded on Alistair’s own link. He glanced at it. An incident at the Justice Department building.
“Oh, come on,” Paola said.
“I’m getting an alarm,” Cam said. “I have no idea what it means.”
“S
omething’s happened in our building. It’s a warning to stay away if you’re not at work, to be careful if you are.”
Paola finally got through to her office. “What the hell is going on?”
“The prisoners resisted arrest, ma’am. We’ve cornered them in one of the stores.”
“Gas them, then.”
“We can’t, ma’am. If we gas them, we gas the whole building.”
Walter called Alistair. “I thought I saw you with Paola and I can’t contact her. Is she still there?”
Alistair nodded.
“Tell her she was fussing about nothing.” He stood outside a barred cell. A woman stood close to Walter, clutching at the bars. She looked like one of the women Alistair had seen in the earlier image. The other woman remained on the bunk.
The woman clutching the bar yelled at the screen. “You can’t keep us in here like this. We’re from the Justice Department. We’ve been framed.”
Walter looked at Alistair. “Is it true?” Walter had a soft heart, but he’d never, so far as Alistair knew, let a prisoner go, no matter how much he sympathized.
“I don’t know.”
Alistair tapped Paola on the shoulder.
“Can’t you see I’m—”
He pushed the link to the main aircar screen, pointed to Walter, standing outside the cell, zoomed in so Paola could see who was behind him.
Her eyes widened. She cut off her other call. “Who are they?”
“Walter thinks your prisoners.”
The aircar pinged for descent to the head office.
“Then who are the people we’re chasing?” Paola demanded.
“Someone trying to get into the Justice Department,” Alistair suggested. It made more sense than someone escaping from jail and heading straight to the headquarters of their arrestors.
He didn’t believe in coincidences. How likely was it that two people she’d arrested turned up at the Justice Department headquarters just afterward? “ID them,” Alistair ordered Walter. “Let us know if their ID matches. We’ll investigate the intruders at head office.”
Alistair exited the aircar. “Do they know anyone at headquarters, Paola?”
Stars Beyond Page 19
