SINdicate

by J. T. Nicholas

  “Fuck you very much,” Hernandez called sweetly. “Here’s my badge, asshole.” Without giving anyone time to think, much less aim or fire, she pulled it from the clip on her hip and tossed it blindly inside the room. I heard it clack once, metal side down, before making a more muffled sound as it flipped to the leather cover and slid along the floor. “You’re shooting at cops, dickwad. Best case for you, if you somehow manage to kill us, the whole fucking world is going to come down on you. Or maybe, I just shoot you myself. You sure you’re ready to commit to that?”

  A long silence answered her from the other side of the room, then another sound of movement. I almost went for the shot, since it had to be someone climbing out of cover to grab Hernandez’s credentials. If there was a chance, no matter how slim, that this ended with the bad guys locked up, and my face and name kept out of it, then I owed it to Hernandez to let that happen, so I remained motionless. Another muttered conversation from the other side, low and fast, almost panicked filtered out to our ears. If nothing else, Hernandez had at least gotten their attention.

  Another sound of movement, and then something else came bouncing out through the door. My first instinct was to dive for the deck, fearing a grenade or incendiary device. But a quick glance showed me that what had been tossed was not an explosive, but rather a leather, bifold credential wallet. Not Hernandez’s, but, presumably, belonging to one of the men inside. It was sitting right in the middle of the doorway, with clear lines of fire for the people inside.

  “We’re private security for Walton Biogenics,” one of the men inside called. “Tracking down a criminal who stole privileged information from the company.” There was a pause, then, “Self-defense. He attacked us when we tried to take him into custody.”

  Hernandez wasn’t having it. “You got no authority to take anybody into custody. You’re not law enforcement. You’re a fucking rent-a-cop with a machine gun. I’m not going to tell you again. Throw down your weapons, and lie down on the floor with your hands outstretched above your head.” I moved while she was talking, stripping off my shirt and twisting it into a rough rope. I knelt and flicked it out, just far enough to encompass the credentials. A quick tug and they slid across the concrete to my feet. I snatched them from the ground, gave them a quick read, and tossed them across the doorway to Hernandez. Neither my flicking shirt nor the thrown credentials drew any fire, which was, at least, a start.

  She caught the wallet and flipped it open, giving it a quick read. I’d done the same, so knew she was looking at the mug of one Peter Emerson, male, white, close-cropped hair and hard features, as per the photo. The badge identified Emerson as a “security consultant” at Walton Biogenics—the company that held the monopoly on the production, indoctrination, and distribution of synthetics. The genetic engineering company having any involvement at all with whatever had brought a body to my doorstep did not inspire any good feelings in me. The cops and feds were dangerous to me, but I doubted they would go in for the wholesale slaughter of synthetics should they find us. They wouldn’t take any extraordinary measures to assure anyone’s safety, but we’d at least be given a chance to surrender. If the “security consultants” from Walton Biogenics found us, I had no doubt that their orders would be to kill anything moving, then set fire to the whole place, to eliminate as much evidence as possible.

  Hernandez dropped the wallet and pulled out her screen, the blue glow lighting her face in the dim illumination. She held it higher as if trying to get a signal, then shook her head and put the phone away. She looked over to me, raised an eyebrow. I pulled my screen, saw the “no signal” indicator and shook my head in turn. I wasn’t terribly keen on the idea of Hernandez calling in backup, but if the other option was untimely death, I’d consider it. Looked like it wasn’t going to be an option, though. “You’re running out of time, Emerson,” Hernandez called. “Make the right decision.”

  “Am I, though?” a man, presumably Emerson, replied. “What are you doing down here, anyway, Detective? Long way from any beat. And I know for a fact that NLPD didn’t send you down here.” That was interesting. How did Emerson know that for a fact? Unless Walton was in collusion with the police. The thought didn’t surprise me—the top brass did more politicking than they did policing, and the mega-corporation certainly had enough bought-and-paid-for politicians to give it leverage over just about any branch of government. “The way I see it, you’re off the reservation. Maybe doing a little freelance work on the side? I notice your partner hasn’t said anything. Why is that? Maybe because they aren’t a cop at all, eh? I think we both know that the smart thing for you to do would be to turn around, walk away, and pretend none of this ever happened. I can guarantee you, there ain’t nothing in here worth dying over.”

  That was a mistake. Hernandez was a cop’s cop, and she divided the world into three groups—police, civilians, and bad guys. I wasn’t sure where I fit with that anymore, but I was pretty damn sure that anyone who shot at her fell firmly into the bad guys category. No way in hell she was just going to walk away.

  “Guess we do this the hard way,” she said.

  The answer from the men inside was a burst of gunfire that peppered the doorframe, sending bits of wood and powdered concrete flying.

  Despite Hernandez’s tough talk, we were in a tight spot, and she knew it as well as I did. Outnumbered and outgunned. We probably had the better position, but we couldn’t be certain of that, since we hadn’t been able to get a clear picture of the layout inside the room before the bullets had started flying. If we had the full support of the New Lyons Police Department, we’d just hold position and wait for SWAT with their ballistic shields, body armor, and flash bangs. With no other way out, the people holed up in the control room would be in a world of hurt. But we didn’t have that support, couldn’t call for that support, and it sounded like Emerson and his crew knew it.

  We were going to have to go through the door. And I couldn’t let Hernandez go first. That wasn’t some macho bullshit. I was Homicide, she was Guns and Gangs. She’d undoubtedly kicked down more doors in her time than I had. But this wasn’t a call for NLPD. She was here because I’d asked for her help. Besides, she had a little girl at home. I didn’t even have a houseplant that needed watering.

  I met her eyes, then pointed at myself and gestured through the door. Then I pointed at her and mimed covering fire. She didn’t look happy about it, but she nodded, dropping to both knees and edging closer to the doorframe so she could lean out and fire with minimal exposure. I drew a steadying breath, muttered a brief prayer, and tensed my muscles, preparing to charge the door.

  The lights in the tunnel went out. At the same time, the lights inside the control room suddenly brightened to the point that they were painful to look at. The shift took me by surprise, but not as much as it did the people inside, who started cursing as the dim interior blazed brighter than the sunniest summer day. I didn’t even think about it—I just moved, instinct honed in the military, on the police force, during the countless hours on the mats, kicking in and urging me to take advantage of any momentary weakness.

  I was in the room in a an instant, forty-five extended in front of me in a two-handed isosceles grip, eyes pinned to the front post while I rotated my body like the turret on a tank. Hernandez had leaned out, and I heard the staccato pop-pop-pop of her nine millimeter, firing more or less blind, not really trying to hit the bad guys so much as to draw their attention away from the target I was presenting. The blinding lights had momentarily drawn the enemy’s eyes away from their sights, and that combined with the fire from Hernandez bought me about a second and a half of time.

  It was all the time I needed.

  It wasn’t nearly enough time.

  My mind registered facts about the first target, even as it crossed my sights. Male. Crouched behind what looked like an overturned standard government-issue gray steel desk. Black fatigues. Plate carrier with MOLLE webbing. B
alaclava covering the face, despite the heat. Full on tacti-cool getup that, depending on the wearer, could be intimidating as hell or make you look like a complete and total poseur. Target one fell into the intimidating camp. At least for the heartbeat it took me to squeeze off three rounds. I Mozambique’d him—two in the body, one in the head, always leaves the target dead. I couldn’t tell if the body shots had done any damage—unless he was wearing the plate carrier for show, the forty-five rounds weren’t likely to do much. The headshot resulted in a cloud of pink mist, though. Target one down.

  I had entered left and sighted left, betting that Hernandez’s fire would keep heads down to my right. I started tracking right, hoping the bad guys weren’t very good at this sort of thing. They were. Very good.

  I had barely cleared the first target when I heard the rapid pop-pop of a two-round burst and felt the double impact against my chest. Unlike the enemy, I wasn’t wearing a plate carrier.

  But I wasn’t stupid.

  The rounds impacted against my ballistic vest, feeling like getting punched in the ribs with the butt-end of a screwdriver. Contrary to popular belief, the impact of the rounds—nine millimeter sub-gun by my best guess, definitely not the higher-powered five-five-six I thought I’d heard earlier—did not send me flying through the air. Okay, they made me stumble some, took my balance, but a quarter ounce of lead wasn’t going to move two-hundred-plus pounds of me all that much. Hurt like hell though.

  My sights found the shooter, and I started squeezing the trigger as fast as possible. He got off another burst, maybe two—I didn’t feel the impacts, but some part of me knew that didn’t mean I’d escaped injury. The brain did funny things in combat, and adrenaline was a hell of a drug. My magazine came up empty the sixth time I squeezed the trigger, and I was three-quarters of the way through a reload before I realized it was over.

  I’d taken only headshots at target two, and I’d missed most of them. From the cursory glance at the damage as I moved forward and started kicking weapons away from outstretched hands, I missed all but one. Fortunately, I’d yet to meet the person—human or synthetic—who could stop two hundred and thirty grains traveling at eight hundred and fifty feet per second with their face and still have any fight left in them. Hernandez had taken down target three, and it was a damn lucky thing for me that she had. Turned out, I had correctly identified the report of a five-five-six cartridge, and though it wasn’t a particularly high-powered rifle, it would have punched through my ballistic vest without much in the way of a problem.

  “We clear?” Hernandez asked, crouched outside the door and leaning forward, weapon still in action.

  Three bad guys. Four bodies. “Yeah, we’re clear.”

  I holstered and half-collapsed onto the edge of the overturned desk, rubbing my hand against my chest where the bullets had impacted. I’d been right—they’d come from some sort of sub-gun, and as the adrenaline faded, damn if they didn’t hurt.

  “You’re hit!” Hernandez said, holstering and hurrying to my side.

  I waved her off. “I’m okay, Hernandez. Two in the vest, but it held. Hurts like a son of a bitch, though.”

  “Good,” she said, and I blinked at her in surprise. I mean, I knew Hernandez wasn’t exactly the mothering type on the job, but damn. I had just been shot. “What the fuck am I supposed to do about this, Campbell?” she demanded, waving her hand at the array of bodies on the ground. “I’m a cop, for fuck’s sake. How am I going to explain all these dead people?”

  I looked at Hernandez. At the dead. And realized how far I’d moved from being a cop. Didn’t matter that the bastards had opened fire on us. Didn’t matter that they had killed someone practically right in front of us. The first thing that was going to matter to the brass was, what in the hell was Hernandez doing in the sewers in the first place?

  “Shit, Hernandez. Hell if I know.”

  Chapter 13

  Silas returned while Hernandez was examining the deep purple bruises forming on my chest. My vest lay on the ground next to us—it had done its job, but now that it had taken a few rounds, I couldn’t trust it anymore.

  “Are you well, Detective?” the synthetic asked as he slipped into the room. His thin lips formed a moue of distaste as he took in the bodies on the floor, and mine formed their own as he fell back into calling me “detective.”

  “I’ll live.” I grunted, then winced as Hernandez probed at a particularly sensitive rib. “If Hernandez doesn’t kill me, that is.”

  “Quit your bitching, hermano,” she replied, still probing. “I think you cracked a rib.”

  “We’re lucky that’s the worst of it, I suppose,” I said. “If the lights hadn’t blinked out like that…” If they hadn’t, we might still be in a standoff.

  “I’m glad I could be of some assistance,” Silas said.

  “That was you?” Hernandez demanded.

  The albino inclined his head, and I snorted. “He’s pretty good with computers,” I said, beating Silas to the punch. “If it’s connected to a network, any network, he can pretty much make it his bitch.” Then I pushed myself of the desk, grunting at the strain on my bruised ribs. “I can’t tell you what to do with all this, Hernandez. But before you do anything, I think we need to see if what we came for is actually here.”

  The bodies of the Walton Biogenics security personnel didn’t tell us much. All three were human, all three male. One white, one Asian, one black. All three with the athletic builds of professional soldiers. Apart from their corporate identification, they weren’t carrying any wallets, cash, or anything else. Just primary and secondary firearms—two with nine millimeter sub-guns, and one with a five-five-six, all sporting forty caliber sidearms—reloads scattered in dump pouches, flashlights, a knife or two. First aid kits, one of which we’d already cannibalized while Hernandez checked over my ribs. No screens. No other communications gear.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Hernandez muttered. “They didn’t just appear in these sewers. They had to come from somewhere, be directed here somehow. If they were worried about operational security, why carry ID at all? If they weren’t worried, why not carry screens or communicators? Why leave the electronics behind?”

  “Maybe to prevent being tracked?” I half-said, half-asked.

  “Tracked by whom?”

  I looked at Silas, but he shook his head. “Not me or mine, Detectives. Many among my kind are very skilled with computers, but we do not make a habit of electronically monitoring every corporate security guard.” He frowned. “Even those that we know to be a danger to us, which is true of every member of Walton Biogenics.”

  I had moved my attention to the actual victim—if the word could be applied to the person who had, presumably, left a body on my doorstep. There hadn’t been any need to check for vitals. There were two neat groupings of nine millimeter holes in the corpse’s chest and a smaller shot to the center of the forehead. I wasn’t a forensics expert, but I’d been on the job long enough to recognize the stippling and powder burns for what they were—a close-range, execution-style shot from no more than a foot or two away. At least the full metal jacketed round left the head intact. It was a messy enough job without having to deal with that. There was a firearm a few feet away from the corpse, in much the same configuration as the guns I’d kicked away from the bodies of the security guards.

  “Looks like whoever this was put up a fight, but the bad guys took him down—then put one more rifle round in the brainpan to make sure of the job,” I said.

  I didn’t want to touch the gun—no sense putting prints on it—but I leaned down and wafted the air from near the barrel toward my nose. I could smell the acrid tang of cordite. “Definitely took some shots back, though I don’t think he hit anything.”

  “Looks like the body is relatively undisturbed,” Hernandez noted. “We interrupted them before they could do much more than shoot the bastard.”


  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Guess that means I get to go diving into the pockets of yet another dead guy.”

  Without a word, Hernandez reached into her own pockets and pulled out a pair of blue latex gloves. She passed them over to me, and I nodded my thanks. She might have been thinking about contaminating the evidence—I was more concerned with not leaving anything that could be traced back to me on the body.

  I started with a quick pat-down, feeling along the most likely places where an item might be concealed. I didn’t have much hope of success—most data storage methods were so small these days that a pat-down was unlikely to uncover them. I went about the less pleasant task of sticking my gloved hands into the various pockets of the corpse’s clothing. Still nothing. Next, I ran my fingers along all of the seams of the clothing, closing my eyes and focusing my attention on the tips of my fingers, concentrating on searching for any anomalies and burrs in the fabric or unusually rough stitching that might indicate a hidden pocket.

  I didn’t find a hidden pocket. Instead, I found an honest-to-God slip of paper, stapled to the inside hem of the deceased’s left leg. I’d almost torn the paper in my search before I realized what I was feeling and stopped. I pulled my knife—a four-inch quick-release tactical folder with a tanto-style point—from my own pocket and turned up the cuff of the corpse’s jeans. I worked the tip of the knife into the metal tines of the staple and pried them up, working as slowly as possible to not damage the paper itself. From my vantage, the paper was blank, a simple slip roughly the size of a fortune you could find in the terrible cookies at bad Chinese restaurants. I silently prayed there was something, anything, of use on the other side.