“Mimi, it’s a security door.” I note the print pad on the door. “We need the pass code.”
“Just put your finger on the pad, cowboy,” Mimi says. “I’ll handle the heavy lifting.”
After removing my smelly outer glove, I touch a symbiarmor-covered fingertip to the pad. A jolt of static electricity from my glove, and the door clicks open.
“Show-off,” Vienne says.
“Just proves I’m more than a good shot.” I hold the door open. “In case you hadn’t noticed.”
Vienne moves inside and signals all clear. “Who says you’re a good shot?”
Ouch. I’m not sure I like this newly found sarcasm of hers. “Give me a hand with the route, Mimi.”
“Follow the map to servers labeled Andromeda fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight. Row nine-C.”
We count out seven rows, then make a left. Most of the boxes are dead dark, but the Andromeda servers are lit up like a foundry at night.
Vienne watches the door while I insert a data chip into number fifty-six.
“Download under way,” Mimi says.
“How long?”
Mimi sighs. “Each server holds a hundred yottabytes of data. It will take oh, just a few days to sort through it all to find the files specific to Project MUSE.”
“Forget sorting, then. How long to download it all?” I ask. “And if you say indeterminate, I’m going to pash an icicle and give us a brain freeze.”
“Five minutes,” Mimi says. “But I think you have pashing on the brain, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” I say. “Start download now and keep me posted on the time.”
Vienne takes a defensive position with a direct line of sight on the entrance. “Wish I had my armalite. This gun is such an antique.”
Wish you had it, too, I think. Then I wouldn’t be worried about how we’re going to rescue the hostages. “Time, Mimi?”
“Two minutes, thirty-seven seconds left.”
Halfway there.
Click.
An instant later, the lights go out and backup power kicks in.
When the lights return, they are much dimmer.
“Mimi,” I say. “Tell me something good.”
“Server is still online.”
“Tell me something bad?”
“Access to the data center has been detected.”
“Tell me something worse?”
“Is a security alert worse?” Mimi says.
Much worse.
I tell her to open a telemetry link between me and Vienne. “Heads up!” I whisper sharply into the mic. “Company’s coming. Hold them off till the data’s downloaded, then we’ll drop smoke and bug out of here.”
“They’ll be coming in hot?” she asks.
“Sturmnacht always do.”
She locks and loads. “Just the way I like it.”
“One minute fifty-nine seconds remaining, cowboy,” Mimi reminds me.
Outside the server room, the sound of heavy boots. Then voices, trying to stay low. A few shadows dance across the glass, and I move into position.
The beep of the fingerprint scanner.
The lock clicks open.
Hinges creak as the point man’s head slowly emerges through the gap.
Whump!
The door flies open, and the shooters rush to positions.
I flick my safety off. “Vienne, I count five hostiles. Fire on my mark.”
“Wait.” She makes a slashing movement across her throat, countermanding my order. “Tight quarters, limited sight range, sensitive targets. We need to lure them in first.”
“So which of us is bait?”
She points at me.
“Why am I always bait?”
“Because,” she says, “the bad guys like shooting you.”
I put a hand over my heart, acting wounded, then step into the aisle. “Howdy, boys and girls. We’ve been expecting you.”
Phttt! A blaster shot flies past my ear.
I raise my hands but instead of surrendering, I backpedal. Four guards hustle toward me—and past Vienne’s position.
“Halt!” the leader, a blighter in a blue uniform with chevrons, barks at me.
I cup a hand to my ear. “Huh? What was that?”
Vienne pops out. Flattens two guards with the butt of her rifle. And steps back behind the servers.
The leader spins around.
His men lie unconscious on the floor.
I take the opportunity to thump the third guard and grab the fourth one in a sleeper hold.
“Stop!” The leader spins back to face me. “Don’t even twitch! Tell your friend to show himself, or I’ll cut you in half.”
Smiling, I let the sleeping guard slide to the floor. “Oops. He fall down.”
“Shut it!” The leader notices my missing pinkie. “Dalit? You’re a Regulator? You got some kind of death wish?”
The data chip beeps.
The leader snaps his head toward the sound, and Vienne nails him with a punch.
Face, meet fist.
He joins the pile of bodies at her feet.
I plug the chip into a data port built into my symbiarmor. Vienne gathers up their battle rifles and dumps them in a recycling bin. The blaster, she shoves into her belt.
“Crafty work,” she says.
I snag the guard’s cuffs and lock all their wrists together. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“Just the ones whose ass I can kick.”
“And how many would that be?”
“Oh,” she says, smiling. “Pretty much all of them.”
We hit the corridor running. Vienne sprints alongside me as the overhead lights dim and brighten.
Around the next corner and—
“Oh crap.”
A guard at the exit door.
I hesitate for a nanosecond, but Vienne hits the afterburners. The guard glances up as her flying dropkick slams into his solar plexus.
His body hits the floor.
“Next time,” I say, “leave one for me.”
“Next time,” she laughs, “run faster.”
Chapter 11
Outpost Tharsis Two
Zealand Prefecture
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 20. 07:51
“Mimi!” I bark out an order. “Scan the perimeter! Find me a vehicle. We’re going out hot and fast!”
“Yes sir!”
Vienne hits the exit ahead of me. She is beckoning me outside when I hear a scream. I stop, one foot on the threshold. You’re so close, I tell myself. Get out of here!
Another scream. It draws me back down the hallway to a thick metal door marked with the word “Brig” and the number thirteen.
Vienne follows. “Durango!” she calls. “Come on! We have a clear escape route!”
I step over the fallen guard and slide the observation slot open. “Hello?” I press my face against the wire mesh to get a better view.
Bam!
The frenzied face of a woman slams into the mesh. “Help us! Please!”
I jump back. “Gah!”
“Durango!” Vienne’s voice rises. “We don’t have time!”
“Please, sir,” the woman begs. She laces her fingers through the mesh. The tips are roasted black, her nails peeled back. “My name is Thela. I have a child and a husband at home. Please. Have mercy.”
I snatch the key card from the guard’s belt. “I can’t leave them here. We have to help.”
“Damn you,” Vienne says, eyes darting from the exit to me and back. “You’re going to get us caught.”
It’s not like there’s a choice. “They’re helpless, and we’re still Regulators.”
I open the brig door. Three farmers—two women and one man—in torn, bloodied coveralls lurch out of the cell. Their hair is matted with filth and mud, and they reek of human waste. They shuffle as if sleepwalking, but their eyes are rapid wild, and the irises have turned pink.
“It’s Rapture,” I tell Vienne as I lead them slow
ly down the hallway.
“Then they’re as good as dead already,” she says. “Let’s go. I’ll take point.”
I drag the guard into the cell, then lock it. “Why are you suddenly so hard-hearted?”
“Why are you”—she checks the exit for hostiles—“always breaking promises?”
“I—” I begin, but a scream from another cell stops me. “There are others?”
“I read several signatures in close proximity, cowboy,” Mimi says.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I ask her.
“You did not ask.”
Using the guard’s key card, I unlock every cell, swing open every door, and help every prisoner shuffle out.
“More?” Vienne head butts the wall in frustration. “More!”
There are fourteen in all, each of them bearing signs of torture—burns, lash marks, deep purple bruises—and each of them with pink irises.
“Hurry, hurry,” I keep saying as they line up along the wall, a collection of walking dead.
I join Vienne at the exit. “That’s the lot of them.”
“Fourteen hostages that can barely walk?” She slams her palm against my chest. “If you march the prisoners outside, the Sturmnacht will use them for target practice! So how in the name of the gods do you plan to pull off this rescue?”
“Easy,” I say. “I’m going to steal a truck.”
“Of course you are.” She smacks her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because I’m the one with all the smarticles?”
“No,” she says, her voice rising. “Because you’re the one who cares more about being a hero than a good boyf—soldier.”
“See? I knew you were mad.”
“Stop saying that! I’m not mad!”
“Your mouth says no,” I say, deciphering her expression, “but your teeth-barred, eyes-narrowed, scary face says yes.”
Her fist moves so fast, I don’t even see it. Just a blur of motion that catches me in the ribs, and despite two layers of armor, knocks me on my butt.
“Now I’m mad!”
“I can tell!” I get back to my feet. Behind us, the prisoners start moaning in response to the ruckus.
“You deserved that,” Mimi says.
“At least she didn’t shoot me. Look, Vienne, I’m sorry. I—”
“Stow it.” She knocks the dust off my armor. “I’ll keep watch on the prisoners. You’ve got a truck to steal.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I agree, because there’s no point in apologizing again and because I like my teeth.
“Your teeth thank you,” Mimi says.
“Yes, Mom. Got that scan for me yet?”
“There is a line of vehicles on the grounds approximately fifty meters from this location.”
Excellent. I hold out an open palm to Vienne. “Can I see that blaster you picked off the guard?”
She slaps it into my hand. “Won’t do much good in a firefight.”
“I don’t aim to get in a fight. Just use a little trick that Fuse taught me down in the Hell’s Cross mines.”
Her lip twitches. “Any trick that fossiker taught you is liable to blow your hand off.”
“Cut the bloke some slack, Vienne. He wasn’t that bad.” I pull the wiring harness out of the grip, twist the red and green wires together, and set the blaster to overcharge. “Yeah, well, okay, he was that bad, but he did know his explosives.”
“And how to act like a complete wanker.”
“It wasn’t an act.” The weapon starts to keen as I hand it back to Vienne. “There’s a couple of trucks parked outside. Give me a fifteen-second head start, then toss this at the closest Düsseldorf.”
“It will just explode,” she says. “Then we’ll be out a weapon.”
“But it will cause a distraction, and like you said, one blaster won’t let us shoot our way out.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s your grand plan? To cause a ruckus?”
“I admit it isn’t grand.” I check my gear. “But it’ll do in a pinch. Remember, throw it as far as you can. And not at me.”
Out on the grounds, I start jogging casually toward the lead truck, an armored Noriker. When I reach it, I yank the driver’s door open.
“Howdy.” I punch him in the jaw, then drag him, unconscious, to the pavement.
As I jump behind the wheel, I see Vienne step into the open.
She flings the overcharged blaster in a high arc across the lot. It hits the pavement with a clack, then slides perfectly under the cab of the closest Düsseldorf, which is equipped with two supplemental fuel tanks.
That’s a heap of petrol in one place.
“She’s got a good arm.”
“And good aim,” Mimi adds.
With a sound like a titanic belch, the blaster explodes.
Fuel vaporized by the blast hits a spark. The trail of flame rockets into the truck’s two fuel tanks. I see the explosion before I hear it, as the Düsseldorf’s rear wheels rise three meters from the pavement then—
Slam!
To the ground as the rest of the fuel ignites, and the truck seems to disassemble itself before my eyes.
That’s my cue.
I smash the pedal to the floor, and the Noriker lurches forward as the rear tires spin, leaving a strip of rubber on the tarmac as the bed whips around. The steering wheel rips from my hand, but I grab hold in time for the right side to bounce the curb.
The truck comes to a stop three meters from the exit.
“That’s what you call some carking fancy driving,” I say, checking the side mirror as blue, oily smoke rises from the tires.
“That’s what you call some carking dumb luck,” Mimi says.
“Better dumb luck than no luck at all.”
Slam!
Vienne kicks the exit door open and herds the farmers outside. She pushes them into the bed of the Noriker, yelling “Move! Move! Before I shoot you!”
As I scan the area for hostiles, my sight lines are hidden by a black ink cloud that spreads across the base. The exploded truck burns for a few more seconds until the fuel is exhausted, waves of heat rippling in the sky. The smell of petrol chokes the air.
Then abruptly, the fire dies down.
Across the grounds, the Sturmnacht begin to emerge from cover. They’re focused on the truck.
For now.
“Go!” Vienne shoves the last prisoner into the back.
I start the truck rolling.
She catches the handle of the passenger door, swings it open, and jumps inside.
“Righteous fireworks,” I say.
“Think so?” She pops a full clip into her battle rifle. “Get ready for the real show.”
The direct line to the gates is blocked by one wave of troops fleeing the fire and another wave running toward it. Downhill from the Düsseldorf, a pond of ignited fuel stretches across the pavement.
I steer toward it. “Mimi, calculate the risk of me blowing us all to kingdom come.”
“About forty percent if you drive at a safe speed.”
“What if I gun it?”
“The chance of explosion drops exponentially.”
“Now that’s my kind of math!” I stomp the pedal to the floorboard, counting on the thick tires and great height to give us enough ground clearance.
The Noriker’s six-liter engine roars like a Seneca gun, and we plow through the fiery pond, throwing waves of flames from the wheel wells.
“I bet this looks so cool from the outside!” I yell.
“You are such!” Vienne yells back, firing rounds to scatter the guards stupidly moving to block us. “A little boy!”
“Watch this!”
I turn the wheels so that the bumper is square to the iron gates and slam through them. The rust-mottled gates swing open, then back, crashing against the bed of the Noriker.
I look in the rearview and see the crumpled iron in our wake.
“We made it!”
A fist bump with Vienn
e, then Mimi ruins the moment.
“Cowboy! I’m picking up a sudden spike in electromagnetic energy! Look out!”
Phoom!
A mortar sails over the Noriker.
Hits the road ahead.
Emits a blinding light, a pulse of pure energy that sweeps over us like an invisible wave.
The dashboard goes dark.
The Noriker is dead.
Damn!
I fight with the wheel to hold us in the road, pounding the brakes—they’re gone, too.
Vienne bails from the cab as the Noriker rolls to a stop. She takes position beside the fender.
“Mimi, what the hell was that?” Static. “Mimi? Mimi? Where are you? Talk to me!”
A blaster round shatters the side window. I reach for my weapon and realize that it’s gone. “Oh wà kào!” Durango, how could you lose your carking rifle?
Another round rips through the cab, and I bail, too.
I squat-run the length of the Noriker bed until I spot Vienne beside the tailgate. She’s kneeling in firing position, picking off the guards.
“These sights are way off,” she says calmly. “And the drift is ridiculous. No wonder shock troops can’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
She takes out two more guards with shots to the legs.
“You seem to be doing okay,” I say.
“I was aiming for the gut.”
I call for Mimi again, and like before, just get static. Whatever that light was, it knocked Mimi out, too. I cross my fingers and say, “Begin reboot protocols.”
More troops start to mass at the gate. Soon, they will come together, then move ahead as a phalanx, laying down covering fire.
“How long can you hold them off?” I ask.
“Until this clip is empty. Which will be right about—”
Crack!
“—now.”
“The hostages are dead meat in a firefight.”
“You’re the one who wanted to save them,” she says. “We could make a run for it. The Sturmnacht take the prisoners back to the cells, and we can rescue them later.”
“Vienne,” I try to explain. “We just can’t abandon hostages.”
She jabs the gun muzzle into my chest. “You infuriate me sometimes! You tell me to ignore the Tenets, but you live by a set of rules that only you know, and you won’t break them, even if it means getting killed.”
“I thought you didn’t mind dying.”
Invisible Sun Page 10
