Fuck. I must have missed some communication. I had only a few seconds to respond. I was good with a rifle but not exceptional, and the files on these morons stated they had adaptive armor plating inserted into their chests.
Headshots only.
If I missed all three, Marissa was dead.
Dammit.
“Jesus, you don’t owe me any favors, but if you could send Saint Michael my way for Marissa’s sake,” I said, shooting the one with his gun trained on her first. The back of Chambers’s head exploded backward, but I didn’t bother to look because I was already aiming at Mendez’s head. The second shot went through his skull as he turned around to see what had happened to Chambers. Harland wasted no time drawing his pistol and aiming it at Marissa, only for her to hit the ground.
I fired at Harland’s head.
I missed.
A gunshot followed seconds later, then a second.
Marissa had grabbed Chambers’ gun, shot Harland in the chest to stun him, and then put a bullet in his face.
“Clever girl,” I said, smiling. A sense of immense relief passed over me and all the tension inside me was released like a deflating balloon.
Marissa knelt down again to steal Harland’s earpiece. “G, is that you?”
“It’s not Simo Hayha.”
“Who?”
“World’s greatest sniper. Listen, I’d explain, but I don’t know how I know that. Ditch the gun, your fingers aren’t even in the system anymore, and follow my instructions. The police were already arriving when I got up here and they’ll move to secure the tarmac for the Feds next.”
“Right.”
“Are you OK?”
“I’ve killed people before.”
Huh. I hadn’t known that. It seemed her file was incomplete. “Listen, move down the side to the 747 in front of you and proceed—”
I was interrupted by a meaty fist grabbing the back of my shirt then slamming me up against the side of an air duct, knocking the wind out of me. Looking up, I saw the bare-chested form of a one-armed man with horrible but shallow burns across his chest and face.
The Zombie had returned.
Hugo Alvez smelled worse than he looked, giving off an odor of burnt flesh with chemicals that reminded me of the horrible memories of my own enhancements. The place where his arm should have been looked like a combination of charred flesh and leaking piping, wires visible through the burnt end of his forearm. He was a cyborg, all right, but not a partially modified human one like myself. No, he was something I’d only heard about a few times. A full-body replacement cyborg. A Shell.
“I’m really going to enjoy folding you in half,” the Zombie said, smiling. With one simple squeeze of his hand, I was going to have my neck broken, like how he already killed the security guards.
So, I pulled my hidden gun from my pocket and shot him in the face between the eyes. Alvez dropped me, but aside from more damage to the flesh on his body, he didn’t seem to be anything other than angry. On the ground, I even saw the deformed remains of the bullet.
Holy shit.
“Fucking bastard! You’re not even the target!” the Zombie shouted. He swung his arm around in a blow that would have taken off my head if I hadn’t ducked. “You were just a bonus for the Caesar.”
The head of the Carnevale. Interesting.
“I’ve got some friends here in Boston who would love to talk to you about that,” I said, trying to figure out how to take this son of a bitch alive. I was enhanced in other ways than the IRD implant in my brain, but that didn’t mean I was prepared to take down a fucking bulletproof super-soldier.
And who was their target?
I didn’t have time to work out a plan, because at that moment, a spotlight shined on us both from above. The sound of a helicopter’s rotors followed it. A Boston City police helicopter was hovering above us with two snipers hanging out the right side. The second officer had a bullhorn, and I couldn’t help but grimace at how much of a shit storm they’d unwittingly wandered into.
“Put your hands in the air and surrender. You are under suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities.”
The Zombie responded by reaching down with his good arm, grabbing the K2015 on the ground, and aiming it up at the helicopter. He didn’t even bother to use the scope, firing it in the air twice.
“Fucking gringos,” the Zombie growled, looking away from me.
Much to my horror, I saw the helicopter start to spiral out of control and realized the Zombie had killed both the pilot and co-pilot. With that, I made my decision to forego trying to disable the bastard and left a present for him attached to his belt.
The Zombie turned his attention back to me. “Now, where were we?”
I was already running.
“Don’t run away!” The Zombie laughed. “We’re just getting started.”
He then exploded. Pieces of metal, flesh, and gore flew in every direction.
By the time I reached the doorway to the terminal, I was out of breath. In my right hand was the pin to the grenade S had passed to me in the restroom. Behind me, there was a horrible crashing noise, and I tried to avoid thinking about how the International Refugee Society would spin this to our backers. One of the few rules they operated under was we weren’t supposed to make much noise. It was our job to be invisible and not let our business spill over into the world of civilians. Fat chance of that now.
Realizing this place was about to be swarming with cops, I tapped the side of my earpiece and said, “Marissa, are you there?”
“Oh God, G, are you okay?”
I paused. “I have no witty comeback.”
“Wow, that’s a no, then.”
“I’ll give you instructions in a few minutes. I need to get past the cops right now.” I set myself down against the bodies of the dead security guards and cradled myself into a fetal position.
“Can you?” Marissa asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m going to break contact now. We’ll speak in five minutes. Just stay out of sight until then.”
A group of SWAT team officers burst through the door with their weapons drawn. What they found, lying on the ground, was a babbling man in a security guard’s uniform talking about a terrorist with a gun that killed his friends and shot at the helicopter before blowing himself up. They sent me down with two plainclothes officers to take my statement. I managed to ditch them easily. I was, after all, a Letter.
Chapter Six
Escaping Logan Airport was… an interesting challenge. By the time I was able to get away, the place was swarming with every cop in the city, actual Homeland Security agents, and the National Guard. I was wearing a set of civilian clothes I’d lifted from a stolen piece of luggage, which put me in a black leather jacket, blue jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and a Red Sox ball cap. I had no doubt Persephone was going to chew me out for my part in the disaster, but given that I’d managed to take down five of the Carnevale’s assassins, I was hoping she’d be lenient. Fat chance of that.
The rendezvous point I’d texted to S and talked to Marissa about was underneath a highway bridge a safe distance away from the airport. It was five in the morning, pitch black, and S wasn’t present. Marissa was standing there, her arms wrapped around herself, still wearing her secretary’s attire and blood splattered on her blouse. Her pinkie finger was in a splint and I had to wonder if she’d done that herself and how she’d got the medical attention. I ignored both the gore and her finger to give her a comforting hug.
Marissa buried her head into my chest. “This is the shittiest night I’ve had since joining.”
“I’ve had worse,” I said, taking a deep breath. “We just need to get a car, get to the home office, and report in.”
The last text I’d sent S had been over a half hour ago and I hadn’t received any word from her since. She’d agreed to meet us here, but given the circumstances and the fact that we were only a few miles from headquarters, I wasn’t about to stay here to wait. The best-ca
se scenario was she’d just become preoccupied with whatever was going on. The worst? Well, I had to prepare for the worst.
God almighty.
“I sent a text to send a car here,” Marissa said, taking a deep breath. “They told me to hang tight.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“It was just a few minutes ago but—”
Almost as if on cue, a black 2015 Ferrari pulled up behind us. It was a two seater and not the sort of vehicle for transporting people to safety. Then again, the individual inside wasn’t someone I considered to be very good at thinking ahead.
It was F’s car.
Stepping out of the vehicle was an extremely handsome blond-haired man with shoulder-length hair and bright green eyes. He was broad shouldered and probably had an extra fifty pounds of muscle on me. None of that mattered, though, because F was one of the least enhanced operatives in the Society.
A near-pure human.
Obsolete.
F wasn’t dressed like a typical Letter, wearing the best in high fashion at all times when off the job. He looked like he was returning from vacationing somewhere tropical. He had on the typical tourist’s Hawaiian shirt as well as a set of khaki cargo shorts with sneakers. It was a disarming look which, ironically, put me on my guard. The point, after all, was not to look like an assassin, but he was overcompensating.
“Well, you’ve made a jolly big mess of things, haven’t you,” F said, shaking his head. “Hello, Marissa.”
I kept my hands in my jacket pocket, keeping my fingers around the trigger of my pistol. I wasn’t forgetting that S had warned me about a potential traitor. I didn’t think F was the kind of man to turn on the Society, but at the end of the day, all of us were capable. That was what happened when you reduced empathy and increased a person’s ruthlessness.
Hostage memories or not.
“We have a problem,” I said, keeping my voice level. “A big one.”
F noticed my demeanor and stretched out his arms as if to show he had no weapons. “I know about the traitor, the attack on Logan, and what’s going on. Delphi filled me in on the details.”
“Traitor? What traitor?” Marissa asked.
“Long story,” I said, keeping my finger on the trigger. My gun was invisible to Marissa but F, undoubtedly, knew it was there now. “You can understand my hesitation about trusting anyone right now.”
“I know,” F said, keeping his hands raised. “I’m going to tell you some things that will be difficult to hear, too. However, once you know everything, I think you’ll agree with me about what has to be done.”
“Yes, because that’s reassuring,” I muttered.
“You weren’t the target at the airport,” F said.
“I’ve heard,” I said, staring at him. “So who was?”
“Marcus Gordon,” F said, giving me a look as if expecting me to be blown away.
I was. The man Marissa had found linked to my past.
Possibly my father.
I couldn’t let F know I recognized the name. Instead, I glanced down at Marissa, who gave me a look of confusion in return. Faking disinterest, I said, “Who?”
F gave me an expression approaching pity. “He’s the lead researcher at Karma Corp’s Special Projects Division. One of the men chiefly responsible for the creation of Black Technology.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding my head. “That’s why.”
Karma Corp was the seventh-largest corporation in the United States and the world’s largest producer of AI, cybernetics, positron-based satellite weapons, robotics, and other weird shit that had started to appear only in the past fifteen years. It was considered black because the governments of the world had made a universal agreement to keep it from the hands of the public at large until its full implications could be understood. It was why deniable assets like the Society were almost its exclusive users.
Everyone had a theory where Black Technology came from. Aliens, time-travelers, and a still-alive Nikola Tesla were popular choices. I had the idea that Karma Corp’s AI, Daedalus, was the party responsible. An inhuman intelligence thinking millions of times faster than any human mind would explain a lot. Finding out that there were inventors and scientists responsible, presumably with budgets and oversight, was almost disappointing.
Even if it was my father.
“Can I lower my hands?” F asked.
“Sure,” I said, ready to shoot him if he drew a gun. “You still haven’t explained anything about how this turned into the complete clusterfuck it is.”
F lowered his hands. “Delphi has records of dozens of communications between the traitor and the Carnevale. They’ve apparently wanted to defect for some time. The Carnevale promised protection if shown they were willing to burn all bridges, explaining the targeting of fellow agents, and brought something suitably valuable to the table. The Carnevale has access to Black Technology, but only Second Generation, even if they have Shells. We’re Third, approaching Fourth. Gordon was the perfect man to hand over to the Carnevale if the traitor wanted to give them everything.”
“Everything?” Marissa said.
“Everything,” F repeated. “The traitor good at covering their tracks. Delphi never would have been able to put it together if they hadn’t done something stupid and put some worms in her hardware related to Gordon.”
“I see,” Marissa said, grimacing. “Convenient.”
“Are you sure he’s been taken?” I asked.
“Sure,” F said, sighing. “The Carnevale had ten agents on sight originally but four of them were filmed by their CCTV cameras transporting Gordon away. The others stayed behind to take you. Do you know any reason why they would?”
“No,” I lied.
If Gordon was my father and they knew, they might want to take me as a leverage to ensure his cooperation. Ha!
“I have my own theory as well,” F said, taking a deep breath. “I think you may have been targeted simply because the traitor wanted to tie up loose ends.”
I blinked. “Oh?”
F looked me straight in the eyes without a hint of guile or deception. “G, I don’t know how to tell you this, but your wife, S, is the traitor.”
That was when a feminine shadow became visible behind F, followed by the sound of three silenced gunshots—which were never as quiet as the movies depicted them. F fell forward, onto his knees, three holes in his back. They’d only hit the vest he was wearing, though, which is why he went for his gun.
S then put a bullet into the back of his head, causing F to fall to the ground, dead.
S was wearing a woman’s BPD uniform fitted for a woman shorter and less—well, endowed—so she didn’t quite fit the mold of a woman disguised to avoid attention. Still, as she was holding the R71 standard-issue pistol with built-in silencer, I wasn’t about to tell her she wasn’t intimidating.
“So, what time are you doing your act at the local strip club?” Marissa said, obviously not feeling the same. I was amazed at how well she was taking the execution of a person she knew right in front of her.
Then again, Marissa was full of surprises tonight.
“Ha ha,” S said, putting her gun down. “I’m not the traitor.”
“Obviously,” I said.
S looked between us. “You think so?”
“He referred to seeing Gordon transported away via CCTV, but the system had been hijacked by the Carnevale. They also shut it down, which meant Delphi couldn’t have accessed it in order to inform him of what happened. Also, you killed the Yellow Spider in the bathroom, something he obviously wasn’t aware of my knowing about. The Carnevale might be willing to expend its agents to acquire a new asset, but I doubt this involves sacrificing one of their veteran agents.”
“Maybe they intended to silence me after they got what they wanted,” S said, taking the car keys from F’s dead body. She proceeded to open the Ferrari’s trunk and dump the corpse inside before closing it.
“The thought had occurred to me, but I like to thin
k better of people.”
“That’s your mistake,” S said, frowning.
“Besides, F arrived too quickly. He had to have been at the airport the entire time.”
“I imagine he had the Carnevale’s hackers intercept Marissa’s messages,” S said, frowning. “Too bad he didn’t know about the backdoor signal we established for communication.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Marissa looked between us suspiciously, then shook her head. “Well, whatever the case, S, thank you for helping. I owe you my life.”
“I didn’t do anything,” S said. “I prioritized finding the traitor over your life.”
“I know, but you killed one of the assassins and that helped keep me alive. My hermanas always taught me to say gracias.”
S looked guilty. “You’re welcome.”
“Try not to be a psychopath. It doesn’t suit either you or G.”
S smirked then suddenly laughed. “I’ll try not to. By the way, get out of the secretary outfit as soon as possible. It really doesn’t suit you.”
“I prefer the punk girl thing myself. Can I catch a ride with you to the home office?” Marissa looked down at her bloody blouse. “I’m rather conspicuous here.”
“Sure,” S said, looking over at the Ferrari. “Get in.”
“I take it you’re leaving me here?” I asked.
“You’re a big boy. You can find your way home.” S smiled, walking to the driver’s seat.
“I suppose I can,” I muttered.
Marissa smiled and gave me a peck on the cheek. The two women in my life proceeded to drive off, leaving nothing but a bloody spot covered in brain matter where F had met his end. I couldn’t help but look at it and wonder about what sort of circumstances had led to him to this death. Had he decided getting his memories back wasn’t worth the compromises? Or was it like Redmond and he’d been offered a quicker way to get them back? In the end, it didn’t really matter. Whatever his reasons, his journey was over.
And mine was continuing.
Departing from the crime scene, I couldn’t help but think it was awfully coincidental that the information about Marcus Gordon had fallen into Marissa’s hands right before his kidnapping. It might not be a trap. After all, F implied Delphi only found out about the event because of Marissa’s snooping around. However, that answer didn’t sit well with me and I couldn’t help but imagine several scenarios where I was being played.
Agent G: Infiltrator Page 5
