Tempered

by Britt Ringel

  Chapter 29

  The sun broke over the horizon as Kat strolled casually past the Waytown police station. The building was open all hours but the front steps leading to the entrance were empty. Lights in the lobby spilled a fluorescent glow through the glass doors and windows. At her closest approach, she could see a desk sergeant with his head buried in his work behind a large, L-shaped counter. Kat kept her pace swift and steady, passing the station seemingly without a care in the world. She rounded the corner and continued down the sidewalk, heading east. Squinting against the full onslaught of the rising sun, she inspected the south side of the building. Three security cameras and five windows adorned the exterior wall between her and a small side door near the back of the building. A driveway cut across her sidewalk and under a glass and alloy shelter. It led behind the station to a rear parking lot equipped with two fuel cell chargers on one side and doublewide garage doors on the other. At the southeastern corner of the station, an automatic gate blocked the back driveway from unauthorized access. A fourth camera rested on the chip reader attached to the gate, covering a good third of the back of the station. Unlike the sweeping camera on the building’s corner, the stationary gate camera’s unwavering gaze would pose a problem.

  Kat crossed the driveway and continued on the sidewalk toward the next structure on the block, a two-story public works building. She slowed her pace and looked behind her to watch the corner camera’s sweep. Once the camera’s field of view passed beyond her, she immediately turned and sprinted for the vehicle gate.

  It’d be one hell of a thing if qualifications in the gun range are held at five in the morning, she thought fatalistically as she dashed. There was no accounting for luck, good or bad. She jumped over a curb and focused a little too hard on the back of the gate’s fixed camera. Between breaths, the camera along with most of the security gate jumped forward in time.

  Kat kept her speed up and rushed past the remainder of the fractured gate while rebundling her energies. The portal inside her mind, so recently opened, protested such rapid reuse. The pressure inside her stubbornly built until it threatened to shatter her skull. She gritted her teeth and grunted as she raced toward the solid wall. Finally, Kat battered open her mind’s portal and heaved with all her psionic might while simultaneously lowering her bruised shoulder.

  Just as she resigned herself to finishing what yesterday’s barricaded window had started, a two-meter opening fractured from nothing to grant her access. She jumped through the breach and dropped into a slide, skidding over concrete inside a room weakly illuminated by the light flowing in behind her. Even in the relative darkness, she knew she had guessed right and was on the floor of a three-lane firing range. She coasted to a stop before reaching the far wall and braced against the painful retaliation for her meddling with physics.

  The first jolt hit her almost as she stopped. The torturous pop felt like her eardrums were being forcefully extracted from her head. Reflexively, Kat pressed fingers into her ears to counterbalance the pain and tried to gulp quick breaths before the next assault.

  A low groan escaped through her gritted teeth as the outer wall snapped back in place, dousing the light inside the deserted room. Kat’s body convulsed and her legs kicked out. The agony passed quickly but left her utterly breathless. As her keening faded, she found herself in an almost perfect darkness. She lay on the concrete, listening to her ragged breaths and let her body relax. Okay, she thought contritely, two anomalies at once is one too many. Hey, Temporal Anomalies, that’s how the doctors referred to my apportations. She began to chuckle at the strange remembrance, trying to distract herself from the pain still rebounding inside her head.

  When she was able, Kat stood. She walked gingerly uprange toward the alcoves for shooters. A shaft of muted light shone through a square glass window in a door at the front of the room. She slipped under an alcove’s counter and crept to the door. A large, metal table in the small area opposite the door smelled strongly of gun oil.

  She held her head to the door, keeping below its window, and pressed her ear against the cold metal while holding her breath.

  An irritated voice carried through. “If it’s working again, what’s the point?” There was a pause. “Those cameras are crap anyway. Be thankful it came back at all.” More silence. “Frank, there’s nothing back there to take. Did the side door camera fritz out too?” A shorter pause. “Then I’m not going outside to see if someone stole the gate. I might be closest to the side door but that doesn’t mean I can leave the armory unattended.” A chirp from the armorer’s radio signaled the end of the debate.

  Kat rose and examined the tiny window. It was thick, bullet-resistant material, clouded over from the smoke and grime of cordite. She cautiously leaned forward, taking in the view through it. One slice of the pie at a time.

  The armorer’s desk faced away from the gun range, toward the room’s only other entrance. A balding man with greying, curly hair and a bull’s neck sat with his back to Kat. A quick inspection along the tops of the walls failed to reveal a security camera. Her instincts insisted there had to be one monitoring such an important area. She strained to inspect the far corners before realizing the obvious. It’s right above this door. The location made sense, its sweep would cover most of the small room including its main entrance. She tested the doorknob next. It turned noiselessly. The man at the desk was busy dumping a packet of sugar into what looked like very dark coffee. Three more packets lay stacked on his desktop. Kat’s heart rate spiked and she hurried into the room.

  She flattened her right hand into a blade and ran its edge under the man’s chin, across his neck and up the other side of his face. Her forearm followed and soon she had a blood choke on the officer before he’d finished emptying the first sugar packet. Kat grabbed her left bicep and locked the hold by placing her left hand behind the man’s head. She arched her shoulders and let physiology happen.

  The man struggled ineffectually for less than seven seconds before Kat felt his arms flop to his sides. She counted five more seconds to ensure good carotid compression and then gradually reduced the tension in her hold. The officer slumped into his chair. Kat looked up and over her shoulder. As she suspected, the security camera positioned high on the wall lacked the field of view downward to include the armorer’s station. She rolled the man and his chair backwards and stepped to the desk.

  Her hand snatched the coffee cup and she took a long pull. Her body screamed in ecstasy over the caffeine and the flavor nearly buckled her knees. Thank God I got to him before he could ruin it with more sugar. Still savoring the taste, she turned to the unconscious man. A shiny revolver hung from his duty belt. She wrestled with the polymer clip that secured the thick black belt around the man’s considerable girth. When it finally released, she coldly dumped the flabby man onto the hard floor rather than try to wrangle the belt from around his seated body.

  Kat smiled as she took inventory of her newly acquired plunder: a Dunnings revolver, radio, handcuffs, SEAR chemical spray, flashlight, speed loaders, stun baton, keys, disposable gloves, multi-tool and small first aid kit. The veritable treasure caused her to beam with delight. At first, she wrapped the belt around her hips but it became quickly obvious that it would never stay up. She eventually fastened the three-way buckle and wore the man’s utility belt like a bandolier.

  She looked up at the camera and cracked her jaw. The weapons and gear locker across the room was easily within its field of view. After inspecting the cage from afar, she flipped to the three most likely keys on her keyring and leaned against the door to the gun range, sipping her coffee until it was gone. She crumpled the paper cup, tossed it aside and blew out a slow breath. Anxiety and exhilaration ran through her, just as she had felt breaking into Porter’s office. “Well, I wanted to make a statement. Here’s my chance.” Her words echoed faintly in the sterile room.

  She took another fortifying breath and strolled calmly across the room to the far entrance. Sliding the deadbolt
above the doorknob closed, she turned with an aristocrat’s smile and made her way coolly to the locker. Through the alloy grate, Kat could see dozens of supports for side arms inside the caged walk-in booth. Most of the pegs were empty. Below them, ten rifles rested snugly in cradles. To the left of the firearm racks were several shelves containing assorted equipment including an EMP rifle and its backpack. A row of blue ballistic vests emblazoned with “Waytown Corp-Sec” in gold hung on the opposite side of the locker. An array of drawers ran the length beneath the vests and weapons.

  Mindful of the camera, Kat glided to a stop at the locker and began methodically testing her keys. The second key turned the lock and she carefully slid open the cage’s folding screen. She wished she had the capacity to take the body armor. Experience had taught her that no amount of training could overcome simple, bad luck. She’d seen her share of agents take bullets that had no business hitting them. Kat winced as names of agents who had perished under her supervision appeared from the depths of her amnesic haze. She pushed the list aside and stopped staring at the bulky armor. Instead, she began opening the drawers at the bottom of the locker in rapid succession. The third drawer contained loaded pistol magazines. The last drawer housed thirty-round magazines for the rifles above. Kat selected a pistol from the top right rack and slapped a magazine into its magazine well. The weapon was a standard issue Jamison Ani-10. The cheap, black handgun was a staple for provincial law enforcement agencies on a budget. It wasn’t especially accurate at medium to long range but boasted reliability nearly equal to a revolver’s when the trigger was pulled. She slipped the weapon into the waistband of her pants.

  The radio on her utility belt chirped. “Tony, who the hell is in the armory with you?” demanded an excited voice.

  Kat ignored it and extracted a long gun from the cage. She admired the battle rifle. It was obviously manufactured by Armstrong Weaponry but she couldn’t identify the exact model. She had seen these rifles before, possibly the one in her very hands, carried by the corp-sec guards controlling the long lines at Porter Mining Headquarters the day she applied for her first job. Unlike the pistols, corp-sec’s preferred rifle was a finely constructed weapon with a large caliber bore. Armstrong rifles had reputations for being finicky but they would offer unmatched firepower against anything an officer might encounter in Waytown. She loaded and slung it over her shoulder, opposite of her utility belt.

  “Tony! Report in now!”

  Kat calmly took and loaded a second rifle but kept it at the ready. Her eyes scanned the locker a final time before catching on a large, black block with a handle spouting under it. She peered at it curiously before recognition set in. The device was an artificial speech disturbance system, colloquially called a “shut up gun.” The less than lethal weapon used delayed auditory feedback to jam the cognitive processes of a target’s brain, forcing him into silence. Probably meant for citizens, not the Trodden, she thought cynically.

  Kat’s radio crackled again. “All units! Code Ninety-nine! One-thirty-one in progress inside the station! We have an ABPO in the armory!” She suppressed a grin. “Frank” was transmitting the crisis “All Out,” broadcasting on all channels, including the channel on her new radio. She looked up at the camera and glared. She jabbed a finger savagely at the lens and mouthed, “Parker, I’ll finally be your assassin. Just wait.” After shooting a final, withering stare, she walked without urgency to the desk.

  Out of camera view, Kat clenched her shaking hands. Her whole body trembled with fear and excitement. Frank would be raising hell from his control station, marshalling forces strong enough to overpower the lunatic in the armory. The deadbolt on the door gave her added security but even without it, corp-sec would be in no rush to enter. Time was their ally because they believed their prey was trapped. They’d prepare for a barricade, possibly a hostage situation, and only after she failed to respond to their calls, corp-sec would resign themselves to a breach and clear. When that happened, they would enter with such overwhelming force and numbers that any resistance on her part would be short and bloody.

  “She just appeared in the armory!” Frank exclaimed defensively over all the department’s frequencies. He was now answering individual calls while still broadcasting All Out. “She didn’t show up on any of the other cameras! Every unit, RTB! On scene officers are setting up near the armory door.”

  The last comment hastened Kat’s steps into the gun range and she checked its door for a lock. Failing to find one, she ducked under the counter of the nearest shooter’s alcove and trotted toward the end of the range. After reaching the back corner, she readied her rifle in her right hand while touching the wall with her left. The camera attached to the security gate would capture her apportation in all its splendor but that would only add confusion to corp-sec and headaches for the Society. With luck, Frank had greater concerns than watching the monitor at his desk covering the gate. She grinned like a wild woman, gathered her strength and pushed. Hard.

  Much of the corner of the Waytown police station blinked out of existence. Kat sauntered through the large opening and looked up, smiling when she confirmed that she had taken the corner camera along with a sizable portion of the building’s edge. She canted her head toward the security gate and volleyed her middle finger toward its camera.

  “Did anyone hear an explosion?” Frank yelled, his frantic voice too loud over her radio. “Did she just blow out the back of the goddamned station?”

  Kat tsked quietly, vowing to talk to Frank about his language. She forced herself to walk at a monk’s pace past the gate camera before breaking into a sprint once out of view.

  “Shit! She’s out of the building! She just flipped me off! All units, subject is positively identified as fugitive Kat Smith. She’s One-oh-three eastbound, Fifty-two-thirty-two and possibly Fifty-one-fifty.”

  The adrenaline coursing through Kat made the weapons and gear jostling against her body feather-light. She dashed down the sidewalk, past the public works building. The sun had cleared the horizon and pedestrians walked the streets in greater numbers now. They froze in place as she approached, as though willing themselves invisible until she passed.

  Despite her brazen heist and outward attitude, Kat was almost dizzy with panic. She rode the feeling like a junkie riding a high. She was exposed on the street and unable to defend herself effectively while burdened under such a bulky load. A single corp-sec aircar could end her mischief effortlessly. She turned a corner and sprinted down the next block, searching desperately for a rented flatbed VTOL craft.

  “Crap, crap, crap,” Kat cursed as her breath came in ragged heaves. Her get-away vehicle was late. What if I was wrong and Teki’s credentials were pulled after all? What if Teki abandoned me? Dread filled her to the brim. She began scanning the street, looking for an alternate plan. Ahead, a thick hedge separated the sidewalk and a nearby restaurant. She could dive in… and hope that the dozens of pedestrians watching her in terror would be kind enough to not point out her position to the brigade of officers that would soon be scouring the area. Kat groaned.

  The thunder of an aircar roared overhead. She upped her swear-game. “Shit, shit, shit.” Frank recalled all the patrolling officers in Waytown. Hell, he probably called for every officer in the Western District! Despite her impending death, the tenor of Frank’s frantic pleas over the radio brought a smirk to her face. She coasted to a stop at the corner, began to place pressure on her mind’s portal and looked skyward.

  Teki’s horrified expression behind the controls of the flatbed widened Kat’s grin. The craft’s nose rocked upward as Teki killed its forward momentum before placing the vehicle into a rapid descent. A weapon-laden Kat waved nonchalantly as the craft’s vectored thrust tore through her black hair. The vehicle settled into a hover next to her and the door pushed outward.

  Kat reached to the support bar near the door and pulled herself up. She tossed her rifle into the cab and shouted over the din of the aircar’s turbines, “They didn’
t have anything for a southpaw but I can go back and complain if you want.”

  Teki’s wild eyes met her own. “You’re as crazy as Lolz!”

  Kat climbed into the cab and yanked the door shut. Her slung rifle jabbed into her back and she wrestled it off her shoulder.

  The radio crackled again. “Did we lose her? Does anyone have eyes on the suspect? Last seen eastbound on Weatherly!”

  Kat jerked the radio off the utility belt and pressed the transmit button. “For God’s sake, Frank. Stop fucking broadcasting All Out.” She pressed the radio closer to her mouth and screamed, “She can hear you!”

  Teki burst into laughter.

  Chapter 30

  Kat sat low in her seat. The traffic over Waytown was picking up but she still felt conspicuous in the rental. They’d fled the central business district the moment after chastising Frank. Teki had kept the vehicle low, skimming rooftops as she flew east toward the mountains. Heading toward Porter’s mine had felt like the only logical course for a utility vehicle to travel unnoticed. Once they had cleared the settlement, Teki lowered their altitude further while Kat searched the sky behind them. They had landed in The Blight after feeling certain they hadn’t been followed. Kat insisted on waiting ten minutes on the ground, watching for any signs of pursuers.

  They were returning to Waytown now, going back into the lion’s den. Kat scrunched in her seat, watching the sky above them as Teki surveyed below. “As far away as possible but where we can still see the driveway to the motor pool,” Kat repeated for the third time.

  “I think I see a spot.” Teki banked the flatbed and started her approach. A minute later, they came to rest and the whine from the turbines began to fade.

  From below the dashboard, Kat asked, “Is it safe for me to look?”

  Teki nodded while finishing the shutdown sequence.

  Kat slowly sat up. Teki had parked on a back street that extended ahead and behind them. Beyond the flatbed’s hood, the narrow lane ran north to empty into a side street before continuing down another alley that reached the police station. Kat could see the squat, stout security gate guarding access to the back driveway, and past it, the profiles of the twin fuel cell chargers sheltered underneath an alloy roof. A slight curve in the driveway hid the double doors to the motor pool but she was confident that they had an adequate view to see a prisoner transfer.