Odin reacted at once, moving with serpentine speed. Slovell let out an undignified yelp and scrambled after him, the surviving two Iron Hands following. More plasma fire spattered across the concrete floor, and Odin raced through the door that Skinner had taken, Slovell and the remaining two Iron Hands following him. The door clanged shut behind them, and March heard a lock engage.
He looked up at the half-ruined balcony and saw a man standing in the doorway, the glow of a cybernetic eye illuminating his lean face, a plasma pistol in either hand.
“Told you that Strykers were good shots,” said Eighty.
Chapter 9: False Flag
“Never doubted it for a minute,” said March, leaping to his feet and running towards the dead Iron Hands. “Didn’t mention that Strykers had such good timing, though.”
Urgency thrummed through him. March had to move quickly. If not, he was going to die – and so would Cassandra, Eighty, Winter, and every living thing in Northgate City. There was still a chance to stop Odin, but they would have to hurry.
“Cassandra thought they were deliberately jamming you,” said Eighty, scrambling down the ruined balcony. “Elizabeth thought you must have gone far enough into the utility area that radio signals couldn’t penetrate. After five minutes, Dr. Yarrow insisted that I go in and find you. Said you might be in trouble.”
“She is a genius,” said March, dropping to one knee next to a dead Iron Hand. He flipped the Iron Hand over, revealing the hive implant at the base of the man’s skull. March wrapped his cybernetic fingers around the implant and tore it free with a crackling, tearing noise, blood dripping from the device. This was always a grisly business, but if he did not disable the hive implants, the remaining cybernetics would take control of the dead Iron Hands. Probably Odin had counted on that to slow March down. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Some of it,” said Eighty. March ran to the second Iron Hand and ripped out the hive implant. “The old man in the eyepatch was gloating, and he sounded like he was about to wrap things up, so I figured it was time to move.”
“That old man is one of the Cognarchs of the Final Consciousness,” said March. He stripped the dead Iron Hand of his shoulder holster, donned it, and claimed the dead man’s plasma pistol and backup power packs. “And he’s going to use the triple-theta radiation weapon on Northgate City. It’s a false flag operation to cause a war between the Falcon Republic and the Kingdom of Calaskar.”
“Well,” said Eighty. “Shit. Can we stop him?”
“Maybe,” said March. “I don’t think he knows about Dr. Yarrow and the portable Eclipse device. If we hurry, we can run him down.”
Eighty looked at the closed door beneath the balcony. “We can shoot through that door.”
“No, we won’t cut him off on foot,” said March. “We’ll take the car. Let’s move!”
He clambered up the ruined balcony, Eighty a half-step behind him. March sprinted through the rooms with the printed catechisms and Slovell’s victims. He did not bother keeping his footfalls quiet. The time for stealth was over. If Odin was not stopped, millions of people were about to die.
His radio crackled in his ear as they passed out of range of the jammer.
“Jack?” came Cassandra’s voice.
“We’re on our way,” said March. “We need to get out of here in a hurry.”
“I’m bringing the car around,” said Cassandra, her voice tight with determination.
Wait. Cassandra was driving?
They sprinted through the studio and back up to the lobby of the Slovell Center. The scene in the lobby was a mixture of chaos and annoyance, with various well-dressed guests complaining loudly to University police, who were scanning the vents. March and Eighty drew a few odd looks, but March raced across the lobby, shoved through the glass doors, and onto the broad steps. A much larger crowd stood there, voices raised in argument, and March’s opinion of the University police dropped several notches. They ought to have gotten the guests well away from the Center in case the building exploded.
Though if Odin used the radiation weapon, none of that would matter.
“I’m parked illegally around the block,” said Eighty as they came to the sidewalk. “We…”
Tires screeched, and their car skidded around the corner, driving in the wrong lane. March glimpsed Cassandra’s face behind the windshield, and then the car slewed to the left, shooting towards the curb. The tires screeched again as the nearby guests frantically got out of the way, and the car came to a stop with one wheel resting on the curb.
March ran towards the car as Cassandra scrambled out. He glimpsed Winter in the back, her face wide-eyed. Cassandra blinked at him and then grinned.
“Oh, good, you’re alive!” she said. “I had an overwhelming intuition that you had gotten into trouble and needed help. I never thought intuition could be scientifically verifiable, but…”
“You weren’t wrong,” said March. “Get in the back and start tracking. The device is on the move. Eighty, you drive.” Eighty nodded and threw himself into the driver’s seat. March ran around the front of the car and got into the passenger’s side. “And I thought you didn’t know how to drive.”
Eighty snorted as he spun the car around to point in the right direction. “She clearly doesn’t.”
“I don’t, but I thought we would be in a hurry, and Ms. Winter doesn’t know how to drive, either,” said Cassandra, opening the Eclipse’s backpack and typing commands into her tablet.
“What’s going on?” said Winter.
“The Machinists have the triple-theta radiation weapon,” said March, “and it’s more powerful than we thought. Slovell and his friends are going to use it to kill everyone in Northgate City. They’ll try to blame it on Calaskar to start a war.”
“Dear God,” said Winter.
“And we’re going to stop him,” said March. “Cassandra, do you have it?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I do.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard. “The quantum-entanglement effect is moving…I think it’s heading towards the rampway to the slums. And it’s moving fast enough that I think it’s in a vehicle.”
“Eighty,” said March, and Eighty punched the accelerator.
“Maybe we should contact the police,” said Winter, gripping her door to keep her balance as Eighty sent the car skidding around a corner. “Or the military. There are over a hundred million people in Northgate City…”
“There are,” said March, “but that will take too long. By the time we talk to someone who will believe us and get around to investigating, it will be too late. If anyone’s going to stop Slovell, it has to be us.”
“And just how are we going to do that?” said Winter.
“We’ll find Slovell, shoot him, and take the radiation weapon,” said March.
Winter snorted. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” said March. “The best plans are simple.”
“I’m afraid he’s right, my dear,” said Eighty, skidding around another corner and running a red light as he headed for the entrance to the arcology’s rampway. “Courtrooms thrive on complexity, but in combat, it’s kill or be killed.”
“The quantum signature is below us,” said Cassandra, not looking up from the Eclipse display.
“He’s on the rampway,” said March.
“And so are we,” said Eighty, pushing the accelerator down. The car’s engine roared, and he dodged around a passing truck, ignoring the blare of the truck’s horn. Neon lights flared before March’s eyes in the gloom, and then the car screeched onto the rampway, shooting across three lanes of traffic and onto the downward side of the ramp.
“Were you a pilot or a stunt driver?” said March.
“The basic principles are the same,” said Eighty. He accelerated again and swerved around another truck, so close that they must have missed it by less than a centimeter. “Well, mostly the same.”
“Do we have any idea where Slovell is going?” said Winter
. “Depending on his vehicle, we might not be able to outrun him. We might have to cut him off.”
“I don’t know,” said March. “I assume he will head outside of the city. The radiation weapon has a directional emitter. He’ll want to be behind that when his Machinist friends fire the weapon.”
“Up,” said Cassandra.
“I’m sorry?” said Winter. “I thought you said that they were below us.”
“They are,” said Cassandra, “but triple-theta dark energy radiation generates a specific waveform. It will be most efficient to use the weapon from above the city, probably at the height of two or three kilometers or so.”
“That would put him above the level of the highest arcology,” said Eighty.
“A ship,” said March. “It has to be a ship. He must have a ship waiting nearby. Slovell’s yacht, probably.”
“The spaceport,” said Eighty at once. “He’ll be making for the spaceport. If we know that he’s heading there, we can cut him off.”
“It might not be necessary,” said Cassandra, looking back at the screen of her tablet. March just had time to think that her face did look lovely illuminated in the glow of the screen, and then he shoved the thought aside. “They can’t be more than a hundred meters directly in front of us.”
March nodded and looked through the windshield, ignoring the garish advertisements covering the ceiling and the walls of the rampway. There were dozens of vehicles ahead of them on the road, half of them trucks, the rest cars and delivery vehicles.
“Goddamn it, why are there so many cars on the road at this time of night?” said March, glaring through the window. Which one? Which vehicle had Odin and Slovell and the Iron Hands taken to escape from the University? It couldn’t have been a car. It would have been impossible to fit Odin, Slovell, Skinner, and the two Iron Hands into a car. That meant a van or a small truck, yet March spotted dozens of both on the road ahead.
“We’re getting closer,” said Cassandra. “No more than thirty or forty meters…”
Then March saw the truck.
It was a mid-sized cargo truck, designed to make deliveries in residential neighborhoods where a larger vehicle might not be able to maneuver. As they drew closer, March saw a familiar logo on the truck’s white side.
The insignia of the University of Raetia, Northgate City branch.
“That’s it,” said March. “Right there. The University truck. Slovell and the Machinists are in there. Cassandra?”
She tapped a command into the Eclipse. “You’re right. The quantum effect is in the back of that truck.”
March looked at Eighty. “Can you get us closer?”
“You bet,” said Eighty, and the car’s engine roared as he steered through traffic. The University truck was going fast, but it was stuck behind a larger truck pulling a trailer, and Eighty’s car could accelerate faster.
Bit by bit Eighty closed the distance, and March reached into his jacket and drew out the plasma pistol he had taken from the dead Iron Hand.
“Are you going to shoot out the tires?” said Winter.
“Maybe,” said March. “If I can get a clean shot.”
“If you do it here, we’re going to get a lot of people killed,” said Winter. “Pile-up accidents in rampway tunnels are always nasty.”
“A lot of people are going to get killed if Slovell gets that weapon into the air,” said March. But she was right.
“There are also cameras everywhere in the rampways,” said Eighty. “Once we get to the slums, we’ll have a better chance of dealing with the truck.”
“All right,” said March. “Keep on it. But if it looks like the truck is going to get away, I’m going to shoot it down.”
They followed the truck in silence, Eighty weaving in and out of traffic as he kept the bigger vehicle in sight. March’s fingers tightened against the grip of his plasma pistol. Had the Iron Hands on the truck spotted them? Perhaps. They hadn’t reacted to the car’s presence, and March was the only one they would recognize on sight. Yet Eighty’s aggressive driving would draw their notice, and Odin knew that March was still alive.
And unlike March and his allies, the Machinists did not care about civilian casualties. The entire purpose of their mission to Northgate City was to cause as many casualties among the civilian population as possible.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, the back door of the truck slid open. March caught a glimpse of Odin, his gray coat rippling in the wind of the truck’s passage. Then an Iron Hand in dark clothing stepped forward, and instead of a plasma pistol, he was holding a heavy assault rifle…
“Down!” said March, and the Iron Hand raised the rifle and opened fire.
He ducked, and Eighty swerved, and a volley of plasma fire raked through the side of the car.
The windows on the passenger side exploded, and March felt droplets of molten glass spatter against the side of his face and arm. The tires squealed as Eighty straightened up, fighting to keep the vehicle under control, and the car skidded back and forth, coming within a hair’s breadth of slamming into a nearby truck.
March straightened up, raised his plasma pistol, and started shooting.
His shots were wild, and his first blast missed the truck entirely, crossed the rampway, and struck a giant advertisement that featured naked women eating cheeseburgers. The screen exploded in a spray of sparks. March’s next three shots hammered into the side of the truck, blowing away shards of molten metal, and the bolt after that struck the doorframe an inch from the Iron Hand’s head. The commando jerked and vanished back into the darkness.
“Jesus,” said Winter, brushing broken glass from her jacket sleeve.
“Everyone all right?” said March, watching the truck as Eighty eased closer to it.
“So far,” said Cassandra, her voice shaking a little.
“Winter, can you listen to the local police radio?” said March. Attorneys, he knew, often listened to police transmissions, and he doubted things would be any different on Raetia. Winter bobbed her head. “See if you can listen to the local dispatch.” March glimpsed the Iron Hand start to lean out the back of the truck, and he fired again, forcing the commando to take cover. “Sooner or later the police are going to respond to the reports of a gunfight on the rampway, and…”
Horns blared behind them, accompanied by a flash of headlights, and a car started to pass on the right, putting itself between Eighty’s car and Odin’s truck. March caught a glimpse of the driver, saw the man begin to raise his middle finger in the ancient and universal rude gesture.
The Iron Hand sent a burst at full auto through the middle of the car.
March saw the top half of the unsuspecting driver’s head disintegrate, the dead man slumping and dragging the wheel to the left in his death throes.
“Shit!” said Eighty, and he punched the accelerator.
The car hit them on the right side, the vehicle shuddering. A horrible metallic screech came from the vehicle, and March’s door dented inward. Both Cassandra and Winter screamed, and Eighty let out a furious stream of curses as he fought to keep the car under control. The Iron Hand raised his weapon again, and March shot through the ruined window, forcing the Iron Hand to take cover.
Eighty hit the accelerator again, and they leaped free of the car with the dead driver. The other vehicle went into a spin, and its front half disintegrated as a heavy truck smashed into it with a spray of twisted metal and broken glass. The screech of brakes filled the rampway, and the flow of traffic came to a sudden halt as the crash blocked off several lanes of traffic.
March hoped no one had been killed in the crash, but he doubted it.
“Hang on!” said Eighty, and he swung back towards the truck.
“Try to ram them,” said March. “If this keeps going on for much longer, we’re going to get killed.” A darker thought occurred to him. Odin wanted to destroy Northgate City, but the Cognarch was smart enough to take only a slice of the pie rather than risk losing everything. If he t
hought the operation was about to go sour, he might trigger the radiation weapon while they were still on the ground. Depending on the angle, either thousands or perhaps millions of people would die, and Odin could easily make his escape in the chaos. Even the relatively smaller casualties might still be enough to create the false flag incident that Odin desired.
There was too much at stake, and March had to disable the weapon.
“We’ll crumple up if we ram them,” said Eighty, “and they’ll keep right on going.”
“Then get closer,” said March. “Get to the side of the truck so they can’t shoot at us.”
“On it!” said Eighty, and he accelerated to the left of the truck. They pulled up alongside it, and then the rampway ended. They exited Arcology Twelve and shot through the surface streets, into the slums and their neon lights shining in the gloom of Raetia’s night.
“What are you doing?” said Cassandra.
“This,” said March, and he seized the window frame with his left hand, using his cybernetic strength to pull himself up. He got his legs beneath him, still grasping his plasma pistol with his right hand, and he jumped.
He just had time to hear Eighty, Cassandra, and Winter all curse in unison, and then March slammed hard into the side of the truck. His cybernetic fingers caught the edge of the truck’s roof, and he dangled there for a moment. Then his metal arm heaved, and March pulled himself onto the roof of the truck, his shoes skidding against the smooth metal.
March just had time to note that the night’s activities had thoroughly ruined the suit Eighty had given him, then a patch of the roof between his feet exploded in a spray of twisted metal. Pain flared along his left calf from the near miss of the plasma bolt, and March jumped back as one of the Iron Hands in the cargo bed started spraying plasma bolts through the ceiling. He stumbled, almost lost his balance, and then grasped the pistol in his right hand and started firing into the roof of the truck.
The shooting from below cut off abruptly. March doubted he had hit anyone, but most likely he had forced the Iron Hands to take cover. He took a step back, intending to shoot through the ceiling of the cab in hopes of killing the driver. Slovell, most likely, or perhaps Skinner. Censor had told him to avoid killing Slovell if possible, but after seeing the room full of murdered actresses and students, March would have no qualms about shooting him.
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