‘You think so?’
‘I think you won’t have long to wait. He’s fucked me up too badly to be fun. He can hit me, cut me. I guess he can rape me, but it’s not going to be as entertaining for him. He’s going to get tired of this soon and put me out of my misery. Or just make another mistake. You’re right, you know? Prison didn’t do much for him. He’s lost it.’
Hannah nodded slowly. ‘I tried to persuade him to go into hiding. We could have gone to Europe, perhaps England. He could have taken a few people there without much notice–’
‘I don’t think so. I think he was slipping when he came back to New York. He was getting cocky.’
‘Perhaps. I told him he should wait to take his revenge on you. He wouldn’t wait.’
‘Delaying gratification isn’t a characteristic of the type.’
‘No, but he used to have better self-control. His betrayal by Leonard Dandridge hurt him.’
‘He wasn’t betrayed, Hannah. Maybe they could have handled it better, but they should have kicked him out decades ago. People like him make really bad managers.’
‘He said his staff–’
‘Liked him? They were scared of him. He went through assistants like toilet paper. The LifeWeb board had to get rid of him because he was bad for morale and refused to progress the software the way it should have been. Of course, the latter was because it would have likely meant coding from scratch and he would have lost his backdoor into the client software, but still… He stalled LifeWeb’s development for years. And his self-control back then was probably because he got to take his aggression out on his staff.’
This time, Hannah said nothing to defend Grant. ‘You should rest. Tomorrow will likely be hard on you.’
‘Yeah… I think that’s highly likely.’
Tokyo, 22nd February.
‘Any progress?’ Helen asked as she showered the sleep out of her eyes.
‘I now have high-resolution images of the search area,’ Kit said. ‘I have image analysis software running in New York to determine whether any suspect vehicles are parked there.’
‘You know they may be under cover, right?’
‘Yes, but Fox always says that you have to do the obvious things which seem unlikely to work, because–’
‘You have to cover everything. Yeah.’ Helen pulled open the shower door and reached for a towel.
Kit’s avatar appeared just outside. ‘There is also a geophysics satellite moving into position to scan the area. It should be ready to make overpasses by late this afternoon.’
‘Geophysics?’
‘Specifically, we will get high-definition scans in several infrared wavelengths. It is likely that buildings in use will show a greater thermal signature than empty ones.’
Helen grinned. ‘That’s clever. Hopefully there won’t be many and we can move in to look them over on foot.’
‘I have requested a pair of Q-bugs, or the local equivalent, to be loaded into Pythia’s hold. Yuriko has already obtained clearance for landing in the area, and I have located several suitable sites where the vertol can touch down.’
‘Damn, girl, I have got to get me a Kit.’
‘I am sorry, Helen. I am a one-woman sort of infomorph. You’ll have to make do with an inferior copy.’
Chiba Industrial Zone.
Fox saw the fist swinging at her stomach, but there was really nothing she could do about it. It was a good, solid hit, and the jolt sent pain searing up her spine, but she did not do much more than grunt. Grant had been using her as a punching bag for the last hour and her throat hurt from the screams, but that had stopped now as she felt too weak to express herself.
Really, the physical punishment had been bad, but he had mostly just shouted abuse at her. He had returned late in the afternoon, his nose a better shape but his temper far from improved. Fox had not resisted as Hannah helped him string her up from the ceiling beam by her wrists, toes barely scraping the floor, and she had let Grant yell at her without interruption because the pain in her back was nauseating at best.
Grant pulled his fist back for another blow and then paused. Reaching out, he lifted Fox’s head and looked into her glazed eyes. With a grunt of disgust, he dropped her chin and started for the door.
‘Give her more of the drug,’ Fox heard behind her.
‘But, sir–’ Hannah’s voice.
‘Do it!’
‘Yes, sir. Can I take her down?’
Pause. ‘Yes. She’s useless. I’ll finish her tomorrow.’
‘Good,’ Fox mumbled. She could hear Hannah approaching, but she did not really care. ‘It’s about time.’
~~~
Grant’s room in the disused factory they had occupied was somewhat better appointed than Hannah’s. She made do with a cot while he had insisted on at least having a mattress. There was also a cheap desk and chair. The room was dry and still had paint on the walls, though there were stains in it caused by the seepage of salt water from the flooded foundations.
Hannah entered the room quietly, finding Grant sitting at his desk examining something on the internet. She had selected a beautiful, royal-blue kimono she had found in Narita to wear. Embroidered cherry blossom decorated the lower half of it and it fitted her perfectly, giving a pleasing silhouette. She paused, just inside the door, and posed for him.
Grant did not look at her. ‘You’ve seen to Meridian?’
‘She is having some difficulty in eating, but I’ve seen to her needs.’
‘Will she be more responsive tomorrow?’
‘More responsive, yes. If you can wait until–’
‘I’ve waited enough. I think I’ll skin her torso and peg her out in the water down below. If she’s still alive in the morning… Perhaps I’ll let her die.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Hannah undid the band around her waist, loosening her kimono, and then slid the garment off her shoulders. She was naked beneath it, aside from her pumps. She knew that he had had her face and body designed and sculpted by an expert designer. There had been certain specifications, but the man had taken them and created a thing of beauty which Grant had been very pleased with. In the early days, when Hannah had been new and novel, her master had barely been able to keep his hands off her. Now…
Hearing the fall of the heavy silk dress, Grant turned his head and looked around at Hannah. And she saw… total indifference. Perhaps even a hint of disgust. He turned back to his computer. ‘I went to a brothel in Narita after my operation,’ he said. ‘I don’t need you now.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hannah said, hurrying to pick up her dress and sash. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you.’
He said nothing else to her as she scurried out of the room.
Tokyo, 23rd February.
Chimes dragged Helen out of sleep and she groaned, turning onto her back. The sound stopped, replaced by Kit’s voice.
‘I am sorry to wake you, Helen, but I have finished analysing the infrared scans of the industrial zone.’
Blinking in the dark, Helen let the sentence sink in properly. ‘What time is it?’
‘Five thirty. It will be getting light soon.’
‘Right… You found something?’
‘I have five locations with increased thermal emissions near the coast. All are promising, but I cannot narrow it down further. None of the visual scans have revealed a car like the one from the car park.’
‘Well, we expected that. Okay, wake Yuriko and–’
‘Pythia is fuelled, stocked, and ready. I will upload to Pythia’s server to coordinate the search before you leave. I will start coffee brewing immediately.’
Helen smiled despite herself. ‘Just for that last one, I’m not going to complain about being woken up. Five locations, huh? How far apart?’
‘They are spread across four kilometres of coastline.’
‘Then we’d better get started as soon as possible.’
Chiba Industrial Zone.
From the air, the land to the east of Chiba seemed
to be one vast mass of concrete and glass. The industrial zone had grown out of need, a need for industrialisation under the pressure of the Chinese and Russian economies, and of the ocean trying to sap land away. Now, much as the Sprawls of America had taken over the habitation created for those who had largely been replaced by machines, so the Chiba Industrial Zone was decaying as cyberframes made factories more efficient. What was left there were the increasingly compact automated factories and the heavy industry which could not, yet, be streamlined so much.
‘What a mess,’ Helen commented as Pythia flew them out toward the coast. ‘Uh, sorry. This is your country.’
Yuriko gave a shrug. ‘It is accurate. Every government voted in says that it will clean up this prefecture. I believe it will only happen when we have true nanotechnology capable of processing minerals and handling top-down manufacturing.’
‘I have no idea what you just said.’
‘You don’t keep up with the lines of research MarTech conducts?’
‘Only when it affects my work. We’re coming in on one of Kit’s landing sites.’
‘And I would be happy to bring you up to date on dry nanofabrication at any time,’ Kit said from the console speakers. ‘We will be landing in fifteen seconds. I suggest moving to the hold and preparing the Q-bugs.’
‘You heard the lady, Yuriko.’
‘Indeed,’ Yuriko said, ‘and we would not wish to disappoint Kit-san.’
‘Damn right.’ Helen checked the time on her implant: five minutes to six, and the horizon was bright with pre-dawn light. ‘We’re coming for you, Fox. Just hold on a little longer.’
~~~
Fox heard the sound of the door opening and stirred from the half-sleep she had managed to pull out of the night. Grant was going to kill her in the morning and… Fox found she did not really want to die. Now he was coming…
‘I need you to put this on.’ Fox turned her head to see Hannah standing over her in slacks and a T-shirt, and holding a dark-blue kimono with cherry blossom embroidered onto it. ‘The sash will help hold your back stable.’
‘What?’ Fox said, confused.
‘I’m getting you out of here. It’s not dawn yet and it’ll be cold outside, and we need to stabilise your back.’
‘I… don’t know whether I can.’
‘You can. I’ll help you.’
It seemed to take far too long, far too much rolling around and far too much pain, to get Fox wrapped in the kimono and the sash strapped tightly around her hips. ‘Get… me something… to bite on,’ Fox said through gritted teeth once she was trussed up. She had managed with the kimono’s sleeve while getting the garment on, but she was going to need her left arm when Hannah carried her out.
Hannah found a knife with a wooden handle among Grant’s toys and gave it to Fox who clamped it between her teeth and then gave Hannah a nod. Pain lanced through Fox’s body as she was lifted off the ground. Her teeth sank into the wood as she tried not to scream. Then Hannah shifted her and Fox grabbed onto her shoulder with a death grip, and they began to move.
From knowing she was going to die to having a chance at escape in just a few minutes, Fox had to wonder what was going to happen now to screw things up.
~~~
‘This is the car,’ Helen said. ‘This must be the place.’ She looked up at the building opposite them, an old factory from the looks of it. It had once been a grand place, five storeys of white concrete with huge windows linking the lower three floors, until the ocean had come in. Now it was sunk up to its foundations in salt water and brackish pools decorated the shattered roadway which ran past it. Most of the larger windows were shattered and the remains of offices and a boardroom could be seen through the gaps.
The car park they had found the car in was overgrown and overhung by trees, which had probably once been decorative but now looked like something out of a dark fairy tale. Yuriko scanned around for any signs of life. ‘This is a dead place,’ she said. ‘If Fox is here, we must find her.’
Helen pulled her pistol from its holster and started across the road. She paused in the lobby entrance, looking inside. ‘The ground floor is a mess. Water everywhere. They can’t be down here.’
‘I have located the building plans,’ Kit said over their radios. ‘It indicates a fire escape on the northern side of the building.’
‘Okay, we’ll try up there first.’ Turning, Helen started around the front of the building.
‘Fire escape’ did not quite seem to do the structure justice. Balconies had been built out from each floor with flights of concrete steps connecting them. The structure seemed to have remained intact, perhaps because the ground was just a little higher on that side, but Helen moved out from the building to look up and check the upper floors. She lifted her pistol, aiming upward, and Yuriko tensed, but then Helen dropped her gun and hurried over to the foot of the first flight of stairs.
‘I saw Fox up there,’ she hissed, ‘but she wasn’t alone. We go up quick, but quiet.’
‘Hai,’ Yuriko replied, raising her own pistol. ‘Yes.’ And they started up.
~~~
The smell of the ocean was stronger now and Hannah reached out to push on the door ahead of them. A fire door. A door to the outside. Fox pulled in a deep lungful of air as she saw the sky again.
‘Wait,’ she said around her gag.
Hannah stopped and then reached up with her free hand to take the knife from between Fox’s teeth. ‘What?’
‘Wait… just for a second.’
Hannah moved them closer to the wall at the edge of the balcony, propping Fox against it. ‘We need to get out of here. He might discover what’s happened at any minute.’
‘Just a second. Please.’ Fox looked out over the ocean. The sun was just above the horizon, a blaze of orange in the sky. ‘I’ve always liked sunrise.’
‘I’ve never thought about it before.’
‘First time for everything.’ Fox took another second to gaze at the star she had not seen for several days. ‘Let’s go.’
Hannah put the knife back between Fox’s teeth and they began to struggle toward the stairs at the far end of the building. They were almost there when three loud bangs punctuated the near-silence and blood exploded from Fox’s chest.
~~~
Grant was awakened by the insistent scream of an alarm. He rolled over, reaching for the clock that was not there, and then realised what he was hearing. The intruder alarm. Someone had breached the area around the building.
Hannah would be up, armed, and investigating, but Grant struggled out of bed and dragged on his pants and shirt. Then he pulled a heavy, caseless pistol from a holster set beside his bed and started out into the corridor.
There was no sign of Hannah, which was odd. He had expected her to be there, and he started down the corridor to the fire door at the end. Perhaps Hannah was already outside and engaged with their visitors. Perhaps whoever it was could be persuaded to provide more entertainment than Meridian had. The woman had been a bitter disappointment. He had expected much of her, far more than she had delivered. She had spoiled his revenge. She had beaten him, cut him, locked him in prison, and then she had not had the decency to take a beating herself. The broken nose had been added humiliation…
He stopped as he reached the janitor’s storeroom where Meridian was locked up. He had a gun. Shooting her now seemed like a wise move… Except that someone outside might hear the shot. If Hannah was talking to police officers… No, Meridian could wait. ‘Stupid bitch,’ he growled and hurried down the corridor.
Pushing through the fire door, he turned… and saw them. Hannah and Meridian. Hannah carrying Meridian. Where they had got a kimono from to wrap the bitch in was beyond Grant, but he knew exactly what he needed to do now. He raised his pistol, sighted down it, and fired off three rounds. He was not exactly a trained marksman and the kick on the big ten-mil pistol surprised him, but one of the bullets punched through Meridian’s back, high up.
Hann
ah let out a wail and pulled Meridian around, shielding her as she lowered her to the ground. Grant fired off three more rounds, but they went wild. He closed the distance.
‘So this is how it is, Hannah,’ Grant said, aiming more carefully. ‘I can’t trust anyone but myself, it seems.’ He fired again, one of the rounds hitting Hannah’s back, causing her to jerk and wresting a cry of pain from Meridian. Still alive… Grant took aim again, he would fix that.
Just at that moment, an oriental-looking woman appeared on the stairs, turned around, and fired. Grant let out a shriek as the bullet punched through his arm. His pistol dropped from his hand. The pain was incredible. Turning, he struggled back through the door and into the building.
~~~
Fox looked up as Hannah uncurled from around her, raising her hands. Faces swam in front of her eyes for a moment. Shouted commands battered her ears.
‘Helen?’ Fox managed. The bullet had, it seemed, punctured a lung. The word came out with bubbles in.
‘You’re all right,’ Helen said. ‘Fox, you’re all right.’
‘So… fucking… not. This… one’s with… me.’
‘Uh… right. Yuriko, get the medical kit from one of the bugs.’
‘What of Grant?’ Yuriko asked.
‘Yuriko?’ Fox murmured.
‘Never mind Grant,’ Helen replied. ‘We need a first aid kit, and paramedics, and–’
‘Her back is broken,’ Hannah said. ‘We will need proper medical transport. There is a first aid kit inside. If your colleague wishes to guard me…’
‘Go with her. Get the kit, bring it back here. Kit?’
‘Kit’s there?’ Fox asked.
Helen began trying to stem the blood flow from Fox’s chest wound with the kimono’s sleeve. ‘She says she’s pleased to see you’re alive and she’s called in a medical team from the arcology.’
‘Good. Did–’
‘Stop trying to talk now, boss. You need to shut up because it’ll strain you and, frankly, it’s disgusting. Just shut up and concentrate on staying alive.’
Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) Page 24
