by C. J. Hill
“Oh.” Taylor took a couple of quick breaths to push away the pain. “I guess I should have spent less time writing computer code and more time flinging myself from moving vehicles.”
He chuckled and leaned over to better see her hand. “People who are smart enough to write computer code generally avoid flinging themselves out of cars. They know too much about force and acceleration principles.”
“It’s not the acceleration that’s the problem,” Taylor said. “It’s the friction that accompanies the sudden deceleration.”
Allana let out a disgusted grunt. “First arcane sayings and now physics discussions. You’re positively the girl version of Echo, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Echo still didn’t look over at Allana. “I was just thinking that Taylor seems like the responsible type, the kind who can clean up indiscretions.”
Taylor wouldn’t have described herself that way. The words meant something to Allana though. She narrowed her eyes angrily at Echo, then turned away and busied herself by flipping through more news updates.
When Echo finished, he put the lid on the artificial-skin tube and tossed it to Allana. “Give it back when you’re done. I got nicked by some flames in the courthouse.” He turned his arm to check on the wound.
Until then, Taylor hadn’t noticed that one of Echo’s sleeves had a tear. He gingerly pushed the material aside, revealing an inch-long raised welt above his wrist. Not bad, but it had to hurt like crazy. Burns always did.
While Allana, grimacing, spread artificial skin on her wound, Echo unbuckled Taylor’s remaining boot. She felt oddly like a reverse Cinderella.
“I’ll need this,” Echo said, referring to her boot, “so I can find the right size shoes for you. I’ll also need your lock disabler. One of the apartments upstairs must have something you can wear.”
Allana blew on her hand to make the artificial skin dry faster. “How are you going to get past the elevator guard?”
“I’ll find a way.” Echo set the boot down, then sifted through the pack that lay open on the couch. “I might need a sleeping shot.”
“And no one will notice the guard slumped over his desk.” Allana stood up with a martyred sigh and flounced over. She held her hand out for the boot. “Let me do it. I know how to get around elevator guards. I’ll not only get Taylor shoes, I’ll find some clothes we can change into.”
Echo hesitated. His gaze cut over to Taylor. “What do you think?”
“I think you should have given Allana the boot a long time ago.”
Echo smiled, letting her know he’d gotten the double meaning. “All right,” he said, and handed Allana the boot and the lock disabler.
She slipped the disabler onto her belt, examined the boot, then tossed it onto the couch. “This will take a half hour—maybe an hour.” She headed toward the door. “I always chat with the lobby guards for a while before I ask them for favors.” As she went out the door, she shot Echo one last insincere smile. “And sorry about your burn. The artificial skin ran out. I guess you shouldn’t have used so much on Taylor.”
Then she left.
Echo stared at the door. His jaw looked tight, like he was clenching it.
“Does your burn hurt a lot?” Taylor asked.
“No,” Echo said. “I’m just worried she’ll borrow a comlink and call someone.”
“Then why did you let her go off by herself?” Taylor fluttered her hand toward the door. “Go with her. Keep an eye on her.”
Echo shook his head. “I’d rather know right now if we can trust her than find out later when it’s more dangerous.”
Taylor straightened. “I’m injured, we only have two laser boxes, and it won’t take a lot of Enforcers to trap us in this building. How is it going to be more dangerous later?”
Echo kept staring at the door, considering. “Later Joseph and Sheridan will be with us. Their lives will be at stake too.”
Taylor let out a sigh. He had a point.
Chapter 29
From the doorway of the parking garage, Joseph watched Lee and Ren march up to the side of the Rico Estates apartment building. They had been lucky to find two Enforcers who lived not only in the same building, but also on the same side of the building.
Ren and Lee had taken off their face dye and science overalls as soon as they’d all gotten into the car. Now they wore the bright clothing typical of Traventon. Lee had on lime-green checkered pants, a silky red shirt, and a hat with red horns that curled upward at the sides. Ren wore puffy orange pants, a striped blue shirt, and a yellow hat with tassels that swung around his cheeks. Distinctive. That was important.
Without hesitation, Ren and Lee took zip-line shooters from their belts. Lee squinted up at the curved windows that dotted the side of the thirteen-story building, judging the windows’ distance. “Think you can make it with one shot?” he asked Ren.
“I know I can,” Ren said. “If you’re not sure, you’d better shoot first. Once I go up the building, people will notice us.”
Lee let out a laugh. “I’m going to miss your arrogance once Santa Fe splits.” He held up his shooter, taking aim. “Actually, I’m lying about that. I won’t miss it at all.” He pressed the button, and his wire whizzed toward a window on the ninth floor. The hook connected right above the third window over. Lee grinned. “One shot,” he said, “and I was humble about it.”
Ren didn’t answer, just took aim and shot his wire. It flew in a nearly imperceptible line up to the building. It connected above an eleventh-story window, four windows over. Ren smirked at Lee. “One shot, and my target was farther away. What’s the point of being humble when you’re as good as I am?”
Lee hooked his shooter back onto his belt, connecting himself to the wire. “I’m also going to miss your competitiveness.” He put his hands on his belt near the wire, steadying himself. “Actually, I’m lying about that too.” With a press of a button, the wire drew in, pulling Lee upward and toward the building.
Ren joined him a moment later, and the two were half flying, half running up the building’s outer wall.
Joseph held his breath, watching, hoping the plan went as flawlessly as he’d envisioned.
Several pedestrians on the walkway between the buildings stopped and gaped as Ren and Lee skimmed up the wall. Joseph walked over to the gathering crowd, pretending to be a bystander so that he could listen to their comments.
“What are they doing?” a woman asked her friend.
“It’s probably part of an advertisement,” her friend replied.
“Maybe they’re fixing something on the outside wall,” a man farther down the walkway said. He didn’t sound like he believed his own explanation, though.
A couple of teenage boys edged nearer to the building; both held their comlinks out, recording the event. It was just like teenagers to record the climb—as though the streetcams wouldn’t do a better job. This might make the newsfeeds if nothing more interesting happened in the next hour. “Riot-sweet,” one of the teenagers said, then yelled up, “Where did you buy those brilliant lifters?”
“Lifters are illegal,” a woman near Joseph muttered. She wrinkled her nose disdainfully. “Those men are probably thieves or assassins.”
“They can’t be assassins,” someone else said. “Assassins aren’t that obvious, and they always give themselves a way to escape. How are those guys going to get away unnoticed?”
A man pulled his comlink from his belt. “They’re DW,” he said. “Once they reach the top, they’ll unfurl a banner on the side of the building.” He fingered a couple of buttons on his comlink. “I’m calling the Enforcers.”
Even though Joseph had known this would happen, his stomach still constricted. Hurry, he thought, staring at Ren and Lee. They were almost to the right windows now. In a few more moments they’d be inside.
A woman just joining the group let out a disappointed sigh. “You shouldn’t have called the Enforcers so soon. I want to see what their banner says.”
“They all say stupid things,” another woman said. “Freedom of knowledge, freedom of belief. Freedom to hang tacky banners where they’re not wanted.”
Lee reached his window. He stopped in front of it, feet planted on the wall, and pulled his laser cutter from his belt. With one swift motion, he jabbed the laser cutter into the glass.
“What’s he doing now?” one of the teenage boys asked. He stepped closer to the building.
The man with his comlink out had gotten ahold of someone at the Enforcement Department and was reporting the situation. “One is wearing green pants, a red shirt, and a red hat. The other man has orange pants, a blue shirt, and a yellow hat.”
Joseph swallowed hard. Hurry, he thought, hurry.
By the time Lee finished arcing the laser cutter around the window, Ren had reached his window and started the same procedure.
Lee put a suction grip on the top of the cut glass and nudged the bottom with his foot. A large section of the window gave way. He pulled it out and let it drop.
The crowd stepped back, gasping. No one wanted to leave the spectacle, but they didn’t want to get hit by falling glass either. Joseph took a few steps back toward the parking garage.
The window hit the ground and broke into pieces. Chunks shot upward like a small explosion. He hadn’t expected that. Window glass was supposed to be shatterproof. But then again, at terminal velocity, any solid would— Joseph stopped himself. This wasn’t the time to be calculating physics.
Lee slipped inside the hole he’d created, disengaging his wire as he did.
“They’re thieves,” a woman said with disgust. “They’ll be in and out of the building before Enforcers can get here.”
“They might be assassins,” one of the teenage boys said. “I give it odds they push people out of the window.”
At that pronouncement, two more people unclipped their comlinks.
The woman who had pronounced them thieves looked around at the crowd. “Someone will have to stop them when they come back down.”
The man who’d called the Enforcers shook his head. “They might be Dakine.”
A wave of murmuring went around the group, either for or against taking action against the criminals “The Enforcers will be here soon,” Joseph said, and hoped his voice sounded normal, unconcerned. “They’ll catch them.”
Ren finished his hole. He put a gripper on the glass, pried it away from the window, and let it fall to the ground. This time the crowd stepped even farther away from the building.
Joseph didn’t stay around to see how many chunks the glass broke into. He slipped back into the garage. Using the mobile crystal, he climbed into the nearest car, turned it on, and told it to wait at the garage entrance.
While he waited, he pulled his laser cutter from his belt and sliced a careful line along the side of the seat where the cushion met the car’s side. He kept glancing at the clock on his comlink. Five minutes had passed. Then six. He finished cutting the top off one side of the seat, then started on the other.
What if Ren and Lee hadn’t been able to hit their targets with sleeping darts? Enforcers were trained to be more careful, more aware than the average person, and they had weapons. What if Ren and Lee had been shot as soon as they’d gone through the windows? What would Joseph do then? What could he do? Maybe this hadn’t been a brilliant idea. Maybe it had been a miserable plan from the start.
Joseph gave the laser cutter a hard tug. Overconfidence. That had been his problem all along. He was smarter than most people, and so he thought his ideas would always work. He got caught up in applauding himself for his intelligence instead of paying attention to the details that could rip his plans apart.
He had saved his brother’s life, and it had cost him Sheridan. Details like that. Now he might have just gotten Ren and Lee killed.
When he finished slicing the seat cushions, he sat down next to the car’s control panel and held the mobile crystal to the map. “Wait in front of the Rico Estates building.”
The car glided outside, following the rail to connect with the main rail out front. Joseph glanced at the clock. It had been twelve minutes since Ren and Lee had gone inside, and there was no sign of them.
If they didn’t hurry, they would run into Enforcers. Joseph didn’t see any cars besides his waiting in front of the building, but Enforcers might have parked on the other street. They might be inside already.
The crowd stood around still, watching and talking.
Another minute went by. Joseph growled and fingered the laser box on his belt. This had been a stupid, stupid idea.
How long should he wait until he went inside searching for them?
Then the building’s doors slid open. Two black-clad Enforcers strode outside. One half carried, half dragged the limp form of a man with lime-green pants and a silky red shirt. His hat perched at a crooked angle, hiding most of his face. Behind him, the other Enforcer carried the second man. His orange pants were crinkled, and the blue shirt was no longer tucked in. His hat had been smashed down over his eyes. The tassels swayed back and forth with every step the Enforcer took.
The crowd turned when they saw the Enforcers emerge from the building. The teenage boys let out whoops of approval, and a couple of the women clapped. Several other people held out their comlinks, recording the event.
“Finally,” the man who’d reported the break-in said. “For once the Enforcers got to a crime in time.”
The Enforcers ignored the crowd and walked straight toward the car. Joseph watched them, every muscle in his body tense. When they got close, he pushed the button to open the door.
The Enforcers climbed into the car, pulling the unconscious men with them. It was only then, when Ren and Lee were close enough that Joseph could see their faces through the Enforcers’ smoky visors, that he let out a sigh of relief.
Before the door had even shut, Joseph held the mobile crystal to the car’s control panel. “Detention Center Thirteen,” he said, then dropped his hand away from the panel. “It took you long enough. If the real Enforcers had been faster, they would have run into you.”
“Sorry,” Lee said. “It’s harder to dress an unconscious man than you’d think.”
Ren straightened his belt. “I’m just glad I found my guy’s suit. His place was as messy as a viker camp.”
The car turned onto another street, and Joseph lost sight of the dispersing crowd. They’d done it. They’d gotten away.
Lee looked upward and laughed. “I can’t believe that worked.”
Joseph sat back in his seat, satisfied. “I’m brilliant. Have I mentioned that already?”
“A few times.” Ren pulled the holographic camera from his belt. “Let’s hope the rest of the plan goes as smoothly.”
For the next few minutes, Ren and Lee fiddled with the computer on the camera, trying to get a holographic picture of the Enforcers’ faces that looked normal. Even with their eyelids propped open, the Enforcers’ stares were vacant, expressionless, and the computer could do only so much to fix that.
“It’s good enough,” Lee finally said. “The guards will probably just wave us through.”
Ren kept adjusting the image. “They’ll ask us why we’re here off-shift. We can’t look like the dead when we answer.”
“Yes, we can,” Lee said. “Everyone knows Enforcers give up their souls when they take the job. They all look dead.” Stooping, he pulled off the top of his seat. “Help me move our friends to their new sleeping accommodations.”
Ren relented, and together the three of them hefted the drugged Enforcers into the hollows of the seats. When the car pulled up to the detention center, the crystal scanner would show that two Enforcers were coming in with a prisoner.
Everything would seem routine.
At least, that was what Joseph hoped.
Chapter 30
It took Echo longer than he wanted to scout around the perimeter of the building. The base was L shaped, it had three exits, and the o
nly windows on the bottom floor were in the restaurant. He was tempted to take Taylor and leave while Allana was gone. That way he wouldn’t have to worry that Allana was actually calling her father or contacting one of her friends—trying to find an alternative to leaving the city.
One moment Echo was convinced she would do something stupid; the next he was just as convinced she would be sensible. She had to realize she wouldn’t ever be safe in Traventon. If Echo took Taylor and left Allana, he would be leaving her to a death sentence.
So he would trust her, but he was also making an escape route. If Allana called her father, it would take Enforcers a few minutes to arrive. They would assemble by the building’s three exits to trap Echo and Taylor inside, then they would move in. Echo needed to find an inconspicuous place where he could cut a hole in the outer wall without anyone noticing.
The area in the crook of the L shape would work the best. Checking the scanner on Xavier’s comlink, he saw that some of the rooms on that side were empty. Good. He and Taylor would move to one of them.
He walked back to the closest entrance, still reading the scanner. He didn’t see any groups of people congregating at the exits. The DW scanners listed the name of every person in the building. He didn’t recognize any Dakine names.
Echo went back inside, going over details in his mind. Taylor’s ligaments should have healed enough by now that if he helped her, she could make it down the hallway to another room. He would have to use a holocamera to hide the hole. Fortunately, that had been one of the items Echo had taken from Xavier’s belt.
As Echo drew close to the room where he’d left Taylor, he saw the door was open. Why had she opened it and left it that way?
He quickened his pace and went inside. The room was empty.
His heart slammed into his ribs in a burst of panic. Who had taken Taylor? What did he do now?
He grabbed his laser box and checked the scanner, hoping it would give him some clue as to who had her.
Taylor came up behind him. “Good,” she said. “You’re back.”
