Expelled

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  “I’m not going to look at the hardware, I don’t know anything about the hardware!” Merry snapped at him. “That’s your job! You look at the hardware!”

  “If you would listen to me for half a second—“

  “I would, if you would say something you haven’t said ten times already!”

  “Stop being so touchy!”

  “Stop telling me how to do my job!”

  “Would you two get a room already?” Alfonso interrupted, impatient. “Jesus Christ, you sound like my parents.”

  “They’ve been at that since we started,” Madison said from the driver’s seat, looking weary.

  “We get it, you’ve got enough sexual tension to damn a nunnery,” Bill added, cranky. “Could you keep your traps shut about it for half a minute?”

  Merry turned scarlet. Vlad cleared his throat, fumbled for a blunt, then remembered he’d been forbidden to smoke in the van and stopped. Alfonso rolled his eyes.

  “Do you know where the device is?” he asked. “Is it on site or is he doing this remotely?”

  “It’s got to be on the premises somewhere,” Merry said, biting her lip. “He could control it remotely, but the actual jammer wouldn’t work at range. I can’t track them, but I have to assume there’s more than one, probably four or five around the building.”

  “Above ground?” Alfonso asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “I— probably?” Merry stammered. “It’s working on the ground floor and several levels above it and I think the effect would be dampened if they didn’t have a clear view of the sky.”

  “What? You mean the bloody things are just sitting out there somewhere?” Bill asked, his pitch rising dramatically with disbelief. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  He grabbed his mask and began fishing something out from underneath his seat. Madison unbuckled and reached for his mask as well.

  “What are you doing?” Merry asked, confused. “It’s not going to be any easier to hack them in person than from here.”

  “I’m not going to hack them,” Bill scoffed, holding up the baseball bat he’d had under the seat. “I’m going to smash the bloody things!”

  Merry froze as the realization dawned on her. Vlad covered his face with his hand.

  Alfonso grabbed a mask and a crowbar.

  “Back in a jiffy,” he said, and slipped out the back to join Bill and Madison.

  Not fifteen minutes later they returned.

  “You did it!” Merry said, exuberant. “Comms are back!”

  “Excellent,” Alfonso said as he removed his mask and threw aside his crowbar. “Open a line to Jayne immediately. Then work on getting eyes inside that place, and make sure Burrett can’t listen in this time.”

  “Already on it,” Merry replied.

  “Brought you a present,” Bill said, sliding into the passenger seat and thrusting the shattered remains of one of the jamming devices at Vlad. He winked. “Think you can do anything with that?”

  “I think it would be my fucking pleasure,” Vlad replied, eyes widening. He stared at it in awe, touching its trailing wires with something approaching reverence. “Even smashed to hell this is the single most advanced piece of tech I’ve ever held. Is this what holding your child for the first time feels like?”

  “Jayne, can you hear me?” Merry asked as the comm line connected. “Jayne? Please don’t be dead!”

  “I’m alive!” Jayne snapped, followed by an explosive sound that temporarily overwhelmed the mic. When it returned Jayne was snarling a string of highly creative expletives. “—and play tug of war with a backhoe and the largest god damn pineapple I can fucking find!”

  “Uh, is this a bad time?” Merry asked, a bit stunned.

  “No!” Jayne shouted back. “This is the perfect fucking time! Tell me you can remotely disable those – son of a bitch – those cheap little motion detectors you can get at the hardware store?”

  “Yeah, absolutely,” Merry said immediately. “Anyone with a cell phone can hack those things.”

  “Great! I need you to disable a metric fuck ton of them. Do you know where Cameron is?”

  “Hold on, I haven’t contacted him yet—”

  “Well do it!”

  Merry could only assume from the frantic note in Jayne’s voice and the dramatic noises in the background that the situation inside the factory was bad. She opened a line to Cameron as quickly as she could, working on getting visuals at the same time.

  “Cameron, are you alive?”

  She heard heavy breathing on the other side of the line.

  “More or less,” Cameron replied. “Is Jayne okay?”

  “Alive, and very, very pissed off.”

  “Good,” Cameron said with a small, pained laugh.

  “What’s your situation?” Merry asked, concerned by how defeated Cameron sounded. “Are you hurt?”

  “Took a couple hits,” Cameron admitted. “Nothing too serious. But it’s slowed me down and this is… not a good place to be slowed down in. This whole area is flooded with some kind of gas and my mask is fucked. I’ve been crawling to try and stay under it but…”

  “Jesus,” Merry whispered. She’d finally broken through into Burrett’s surveillance system, dozens of tiny concealed cameras all throughout the labyrinth. The nightmarish maze of sadistic traps spread out across the monitors around her. She found Jayne by following the rooms that were on fire.

  Jayne dodged a razor wire flail and flipped nimbly over a laser, kicking its emitter to direct it at a device in the other room that fired sharpened metal spikes at her a second before the laser melted it into slag. She could see why Jayne hadn’t been exactly chatty. Cameron was several levels up, crawling down a long, winding hall full of a dense white gas.

  “Is this what Burrett’s been doing all this time?” she asked, baffled. “Setting up some kind of death maze?”

  “He says it’s a play,” Jayne said over coms. “He’s trying to make some kind of statement. Fuck me if I know what it is or what it has to do with all these fucking lasers though!”

  “Called it,” Vlad said from the other side of the van, not looking up from working on the signal jammer.

  “What’s the metaphor Burrett?” Jayne snarled. “Are the lasers an allegory for your shitty childhood? Huh? Do they symbolize the time your high school girlfriend gave you an STD? Get it? ‘Cause they’re red and burning and annoying as hell!”

  She slammed her heel into a laser emitter so hard it broke free of the wall entirely. She picked it up and, after a few moments of fiddling, had it active again. She laughed maniacally as she began setting the room on fire, charging forward to burn down the next room as well.

  “I’ll have those motion detectors disabled in just a minute,” Merry told Jayne, scanning the rooms ahead of her. “And I can get you a clear path to the stairs as well.”

  “Just don’t turn off the lasers,” Jayne replied, baring her teeth as she lit up another room full of traps. “This is the most fun I’ve had all week! Just wait till I get down there, Burrett! I’m going to go Raiders of the Lost Ark on your fucking face! How’s that for drama?”

  “Vlad—” Merry said, turning to look at the other man.

  “Busy,” he replied, not looking up from the tablet he currently had rigged to the jamming device.

  “What do you need?” Alfonso offered instead.

  “I need you to guide Cameron out of there and help him catch up with Jayne,” Merry replied, handing him an earpiece and pointing him at the section of the monitor where Cameron was. “I’ve got to focus on keeping Jayne from burning the building down with everyone in it and trying to locate Fred in this bullshit.”

  “Got it,” Alfonso agreed, putting the earpiece in his ear and studying the maze of camera angles.

  Jayne progressed fast once Merry had disabled the traps. Jayne had learned early on that not all the traps were motion activated. Just enough of them to lure her into a false sense of security. Then she’d stepped on a pressur
e plate and nearly blown herself up. But she also knew most of these traps, not just from academy training but from studying Burrett’s notes. Once she’d seen enough of them to recognize a pattern, they didn’t often catch her by surprise. But that didn’t mean they weren’t a pain in the ass.

  Alfonso coached Cameron through the gas and on, moving much more slowly with several injuries. On the upside, his path was much less actively impeded. They could only assume Burrett was throwing everything he could at Jayne. He still had control of the lasers and many of the traps. And while Burrett was focused on Jayne, he wasn’t paying attention to Cameron slowly but steadily working his way deeper.

  Merry’s eyes darted between Jayne and the deep sections she was searching, until finally she gasped in excitement. She almost immediately followed that with a groan.

  “What’s wrong?” Jayne asked.

  “You’re not going to like this.”

  “What, more than I like running through a medieval torture chamber?”

  “I found Fred.”

  Everyone in the van and Jayne simultaneously stopped breathing.

  “Is he—?” Jayne asked, her voice tight.

  “He’s alive,” Merry said quickly, and everyone began breathing again. “That’s the good news.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “He’s strapped to a bomb.”

  “I’ve got more bad news,” Vlad said before Jayne could even respond. “I used the signal jammer to track where Burrett was controlling them from. He’s not even in the building.”

  Jayne paused as a wave of simultaneous fear and anger washed through her, her fists clenched tight at her sides.

  “Shit.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Abandoned Factory, L0, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros

  “Tell me about the bomb,” Jayne said, dodging a swinging club, ripping it loose of the armature it was attached to, and using it to smash a gas nozzle closed. “Is it the one he was getting the caesium for?”

  “I don’t think so,” Merry reported. “I mean, I don’t know a ton about bombs—”

  “It’s not,” Alfonso cut in. “Looks like C4.”

  “Is it enough to bring down the building?” Jayne asked.

  “Probably not,” Alfonso replied. “Unless we’re very unlucky.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Merry said, shaking her head.

  “Yeah, but it’s still a bomb,” Alfonso continued. “It’s more than enough to reduce your friend there to a thin paste.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen,” Jayne said, not a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

  “Are you certain?” Alfonso asked. “Burrett isn’t here. It might be wiser to back out, let a bomb disposal unit deal with it while we pursue him.”

  “No,” Jayne answered immediately. “If I leave, Burrett will absolutely set the bomb off. If I stay, he’ll give me a chance to defuse it. The man loves suspense, he’s the Hitchcock of terrorists.”

  “And what if you accidentally set it off?” Alfonso asked. “Bombs are not your area of expertise.”

  “I think you’re forgetting about my little bomb adventure,” Jayne replied. “I can handle this.”

  She repeated the words to herself, trying to make herself believe it. Alfonso undercut her reassurance. “I still count that as beginner’s luck.”

  “First things first,” she said, ignoring the pessimism. “Call the police, Takahashi private security, whoever you can get to listen, and start getting this building evacuated, just in case our luck doesn’t hold up.”

  “Already on it,” Madison said from the front seat, his voice faint through Merry’s mic.

  “Vlad, get me an address for Burrett,” she said. “Whatever you have to do. I want to be on his doorstep as soon as we’re done here, before he has a chance to rabbit again. Alfonso, focus on getting Cameron out of here. Merry, just get me to Fred as fast as humanly possible.”

  “Alright. You’ll want to go left up ahead and—”

  A rumble shook the building, strong enough to make Jayne stumble. Her heart stopped in her chest.

  “Was that—?”

  “Hang on!” Merry cut her off, sounding panicked. “It scrambled my cameras!”

  For those tense few seconds of silence Jayne’s heart didn’t beat, her mind playing out all the horrible possibilities.

  “It wasn’t the bomb,” Merry said finally, and Jayne could breathe again. “I mean, it was a bomb, but it wasn’t the bomb. Fred is alright.”

  Jayne leaned against a wall for a moment, just trying to steady her nerves.

  “It was some kind of small, directed charge,” Merry reported. “Burrett must have set it off remotely to slow you down. It collapsed the corridor up ahead.”

  “Is there another way forward?” Jayne asked, growing tense again.

  “Yeah, but it’s going to take a lot longer.”

  “Can I just cut through the rubble? I’ve still got that laser.”

  “No, the blast weakened the stability of the whole building. If you shift it you could bring several floors down on your head.”

  “I’m guessing the other bomb wouldn’t do us any favors either?” Jayne said through clenched teeth.

  Before Merry could reply, Alfonso cut in.

  “How long will it take her to go around?”

  “Another fifteen at least, depending on the traps,” Merry replied.

  “Cameron has a clear path. If he moves quickly he could be there in five.”

  “No,” Jayne interrupted. “He’s injured. He needs to get clear.”

  “How much time do we have before the bomb goes off?” Cameron asked.

  “Not enough,” Alfonso answered. “We can’t be certain until someone is in the room.”

  “He doesn’t have the training,” Jayne protested.

  “I have a basic familiarity from the police academy,” Cameron corrected her. “You can coach me through the rest.”

  “Cameron,” Jayne said sharply.

  “Jayne,” Cameron replied affectionately.

  “This is my responsibility. It’s my fault Fred is even involved in all this. I’m the one who should be getting him out of it.”

  “Unfortunately, I’m the one who can get to him in time.”

  “I’m not going to let you risk your life to fix my mistake!”

  “We don’t have any other options, Jayne. I’m going to be there in a minute. So, are you going to help me or not?”

  Jayne pursed her lips, not wanting to accept this but realizing she didn’t have a choice. Being stubborn about this would get Fred killed, and probably her and Cameron on top of it.

  “Alright,” she said, giving in. “I’ll walk you through it and get there as quickly as I can. You sure you want to try this?”

  “I’m sure we don’t have any other choice.”

  “Just be careful,” Jayne said, her voice tight. “I don’t want to lose you. Either of you.”

  “…We’re going to save him together, Jayne. See you soon.”

  Jayne took a deep breath, steeling herself.

  “Alright, Merry,” she said loudly. “Tell me where to go and make it fast. I’ve got a date after this and I do not want to be late.”

  +++

  Abandoned Factory (basement), L0, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros

  “Just through the door up ahead, detective.”

  Cameron limped down the last hallway, a wary eye out for any traps. He’d taken a razor wire flail to the leg that was making walking incredibly painful and had soaked the leg of his pants in a worrying amount of blood. His head was still throbbing from the impact that had damaged his mask. Or maybe that was a result of inhaling the smog for so long. Or possibly blood loss. It was hard to tell at this point. Despite that, the path down towards where Fred was being held had been surprisingly unobstructed.

  “Is it just me,” he said as he approached the door. “Or has this been too easy? Shouldn’t Burrett be losing his shit that I’m this close
?”

  “Merry has been masking you from his cameras,” Alfonso explained. “It helps that he’s quite focused on Jayne at the moment. We don’t believe he’s really noticed you yet.”

  “That’s lucky,” Cameron said, scanning the door. “About the only luck we’ve had tonight. I don’t trust it.”

  “Then you’re smarter than you look, detective,” Alfonso said, so casually that Cameron almost didn’t register it. “Surprising, actually. Jayne’s tastes don’t generally run towards intellectuals.”

  “How about you just tell me if this door is going to explode when I open it?” Cameron said, choosing to ignore the implication.

  “I’m not picking up anything,” Alfonso reported. “Besides, at this point it would be much easier for Burrett to just wait until you’re in the room and set the bomb off, rather than kill you at the door.”

  “Do me a favor and don’t give him any ideas, alright?” Cameron replied, flustered, as he searched the door for any manual triggers Alfonso might not be able to see on the cameras.

  “He can’t hear us,” Alfonso reassured him. “Merry managed to block the outgoing audio channel entirely. She’s still wrestling with him for control of the video, and I’ve advised her not to try too terribly hard. Wouldn’t want him to feel like he might miss the end of the show, as it were. The last thing we need is for him to rush the finale.”

  “You can say that again,” Cameron muttered, finally deciding the door was safe and reaching for the handle. He braced for something terrible to happen, but the door swung open without incident.

  Beyond it, a shallow staircase and the darkness of an unfinished basement stretched. A sulfurous light glowed somewhere out of sight from the top of the stairs, providing just enough illumination to distinguish the bare dirt floor from the cinderblock walls. Cameron made his way carefully down the stairs, his weapon drawn, unease twisting like a knife in his gut. He could hear faint music playing. Cameron couldn’t place it yet, but it sounded classical. Late-classics, to be specific.

  As he descended, he felt the air grow colder. He warily eyed discreet air filters to either side of the stairwell which were providing a wind barrier, keeping the smog from creeping down here. They stirred his hair and clothes as he passed and he breathed deeply, relieved not to feel it burning his lungs at last. He removed the broken remains of his mask.