Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  "Ricey, I've got something. Over by the river ... Keep an eye on my position, but don't let the damn SIB know anything."

  "Damn right," Vanessa replied, "they haven't told me anything. They recognise the callsign, evidently. "

  Snowcat. Yes, she supposed they would. And they'd know that where there was Kresnov, there was Rice.

  "What've you got?"

  "I think he just made a call. Nothing specific, it's just a feeling ... I might know roughly where he is." Running faster now, hurtling down the narrow, one-way street, walls on either side. Nudged past forty kph, and kept accelerating, jacket flying out behind her as her limbs pumped in powerful fast motion.

  "You think?"

  "Hunch, Ricey. Weird software."

  "You're telling me. "

  The side street erupted into a busy nightlife zone, and Sandy skidded to a halt amid the busy pedestrian flow on the sidewalk. Up and down were restaurants, cafes and nightlife of every description. Low key, by some Tanushan standards, but busy, colourful and bustling enough. Groundcars cruised along the street in four lanes, tyres hissing ... She crossed at the first opportunity, knowing the grid sensors would probably bust her for "dangerous jaywalking," but that hardly mattered.

  Up a garden alley between premises, past park benches where parents were attending to a noisy rabble of children with balloons and party hats-strange hour for a kids' party, Sandy couldn't help thinking as she jogged, at slower pace now, through the moderate numbers of people. Maybe their parents were taking them bar-hopping.

  And out, then, onto the riverside walk. The water was dark and wide, shimmering with broken reflection. A curving walkway paved the bank, marked by decorative light posts. There was a public combooth to the right, by some garden bushes. It was the right area, she thought ... although the call had not been long enough nor precise enough to offer a clear location. But landlines were tougher to track than mobiles-landlines vanished into the mass of opti-cable- encrypted networks, airborne frequencies were more traceable and less directional. Unless they possessed quite her level of sub-harmonic technology, and she doubted that.

  She started jogging to her right, along the broad walkway. There were many people walking up ahead, some strolling, some out jogging for the exercise. But the road hubs came closer to the river up this way, and she just had that hunch again-and could see, then, a figure walking up ahead, among the many figures. In a long, dark overcoat with something clutched under his arm. She kept jogging, vision zooming close, but unable to make out more than his back ... A road joined the riverside up ahead, a cul-de-sac roundabout, cars parked to take in the view.

  "Ricey," she formulated sharply, "I think I've got him ... " Transmitting details as she jogged.

  "Got that, don't scare him. "

  She scanned the cars at the roundabout, saw one set of windows darker than the others, and vision-switched ... Saw someone watching in her direction. And caught the faint edges of a uni-directional transmission-the coated man abruptly turned around and stared. Sandy sprinted. The man sprinted. The car engine gunned to life.

  "Ricey, they're leaving!" Abruptly her traffic-links disintegrated, and local-com went to hell ... virus, she realised, weaving at increasing velocity past startled pedestrians as the coated man flung himself through an open car door, and the bright blue Ashanti sedan screeched away with no sign of speed buffers or central controls, and went howling out of sight up the street.

  Sandy took a fifty kph shortcut across a grassy lawn, hurdled some bushes and the couple seated on the adjoining park bench, and went hurtling onto the cul-de-sac in time to hear an enormous screech of tyres, and a loud, hammering crash from up ahead. Hit the road with boots skidding dangerously at velocities the basic human frame was not designed to cope with, muscles powering against the lack of traction. Shot past an oncoming car, rounded a mild bend and saw chaos up ahead-the blue Ashanti gracelessly entangled with another pair of cars, hoods and bodywork mangled, broken windows, smoke and wreckage fragments strewn across the road ...

  Doors were open from impact or escaping passengers-already two figures were off and running down the street, one limping ... A third emerged stumbling, turned dazedly about as Sandy launched herself and slammed him over backward in a tangle of limbs, thudding into the side of another car. Sandy unwrapped him from her embrace ... shielded from the worst of the impact but still unconscious. Checked pulse, pupils and breathing, and all were satisfactory. She'd made a dent in the side of the other car with her back, though.

  All about were shouted voices and running footsteps ... And above it all the clear shouts of "Clear the way! SIB!" She got up fast. A pair of plain-clothed women were racing up the street toward the gathering crowd about the auto wreck.

  "CSA!" she yelled at them. "Two more went that way, you take care of this guy!"

  "Snowcat!" one of the SIBs shouted back. "Is that Snowcat?!" Sandy ignored her and took off running. "Snowcat! You get back here right now! Stop or I'll shoot!"

  She wouldn't dare, Sandy thought disgustedly, accelerating up the roadway, past milling, uncertain traffic as the network tried to make sense of both accident and virus, and adjust for both ... And felt the tingling caress of a targeting sight brush the back of her skull.

  "Snowcat!" came the more distant yell. Sandy ducked right and slid hip-first behind a dawdling car ... Crack! And a shot went past, then up and sprinting through the sidewalk crowds amid panicking screams from frightened pedestrians. She ought, Sandy thought darkly as she ran, to turn and shoot the bitch-she was a public menace, and if some innocent bystander further up the road had taken that slug in the face, it would be no surprise. And she was shocked. The SIB were under instructions to shoot her, if they deemed necessary. Things were getting insane.

  A commotion up ahead, cars stuck nose to bumper (a traffic jam in Tanusha!!), the limping escapee accosting some passing cyclist for his bike ... Thud, as the angry cyclist decked him with an impressive right hook.

  "CSA!" Sandy shouted as she ran up. "Keep him down and wait for help, good job!" And ran off, leaving a certain cyclist looking rather pleased with himself. The last runner took a left up ahead, back toward the river ... It was the man with the coat, sprinting desperately, and Sandy closed the gap to the turn-off with effortless, powerful strides, shooting past the crawling traffic that was starting to block the road on the inbound lane.

  Saw two figures running in from the right up ahead-plainclothed, with weapons in hand, dodging past cars and onto the road ... Sandy skidded left, lost traction entirely and leapt with the last of her footing, crashing headlong into the front bumper of a parked car as shots popped, a hard smacking of rounds into metal bodywork. Sandy rebounded, rolled and leapt, pistol abruptly in hand and firing four machine-rapid shots while airborne. Landed hard on her feet, spun and kept running, while the two new SIB agents fell, clutching their legs and shrieking. Shoved the pistol back into the shoulder harness and sprinted off down the laneway.

  "Sandy!" came a terse, hard call in her ear. "Cruiser coming your way, they're onto you. Central's nearly got that disruption virus down, we've got audio now, three minutes and every damn unit within twenty zones'll be coming down on your head. "

  "Oh, fucking hell," Sandy retorted as she sprinted down the side road, "aren't they so fucking efficient all of a sudden." She could hear the engines keening nearby, drawing closer. "I just got shot at twice, they'll be using sniper cannon next."

  "Not if I can help it."

  Back onto the river walk then, pedestrians ahead ducking aside, shouted exclamations marking her target's passage. She accelerated again. The man was over a hundred metres ahead following her brief delay, but she could eat up that distance in no time ...

  Engines abruptly howled overhead, a large, dark cruiser swinging around the side of a tall building with running lights blazing, and a familiar, bulbous nose protrusion that meant electronics. It swung about sideways, slewing out over the river to the exclamation of many along the river
side. Some were now scattering, sensing trouble, the cruiser's side window winding ominously downward.

  "Oh shit," Sandy complained, at full sprint and gaining fast. "I was just kidding about the sniper cannon, guys. This is silly." Her left hand itched for the pistol grip-a few quick shots at full sprint, targeting out the corner of her eye, would put a quick end to the attemptedsniper now parallel with her and matching her pace along the riverfront. A weapon muzzle appeared. "Ricey!"

  A second howling engine, cutting in from the right past the towers. It cut straight toward the SIB cruiser on an intersecting trajectory, forward lights blazing off nearby windows and water. The SIB cruiser hauled up and over like a stalling acrobat as Vanessa's car went howling past in front. Sandy resisted the temptation to stare-not having been aware that you could actually do that with a civilian aircar-but now her man ahead was turning in panic with a pistol in hand ...

  "Oh hell, don't do that ..." She drew fast and shot it from his grip, closed the remaining distance before he could recover from the shock and pain, and nailed him with a shoulder tackle that might have only broken ribs, if he was lucky. About them, the remaining pedestrians either fell over screaming or ran at full speed somewhere else. She rolled on top of the man, who struggled, pinned beneath her effortless grip. Stared up at her with wide, frightened eyes, gasping for air.

  "You're a complete idiot," she told him testily. "You do know that, don't you?" He blinked, too stunned to reply. A young guy, no more than twenty-five. European, no identifying marks. He didn't look like a terrorist. He looked like a college student. In the air about, engines were throbbing loudly. She looked, and saw the SIB cruiser coming back around. And looked the other way, to see Vanessa doing the same in a low, flat bank across the dark water at speed. She nearly laughed. Wargames with civilian toys. How absolutely absurd. "Just don't crash into the bastard, Ricey!"

  Found the requisite frequency by reflex, and found SIB voices yelling in frantic protest as Vanessa's cruiser came screaming back at them ... There were more engines from nearby, and a quick scan of restored traffic-links showed many more marks on the way, CSA, police and SIB. Vanessa missed them by a couple of metres, and again the cruiser broke away, losing the rear end in an embarrassing airborne pirouette.

  "Freeze!" yelled a nearby voice, and Sandy looked with unsurprised calm at a pair of uniformed police officers emerging from a nearby lane between buildings, weapons levelled.

  "I'm CSA, you moron!" she called back, pistol out in one hand, just in case. Her cunning prisoner took advantage of her one-handed distraction to lash out and struggle-Sandy grabbed him more firmly with that one hand and smashed him back against the ground, hard. He stopped struggling. "Check your links!" She re-tuned to police frequency ...

  "... callsign Snowcat!" Vanessa was telling them, sounding utterly pissed off. "Yes, that's right, you check it with central, you do that right now ...

  Vanessa's cruiser was coming back low, decelerating as it headed toward them, and the SIB cruiser tried to manoeuvre around behind.

  Vanessa's car remained conveniently in their way.

  "Ricey," Sandy said plaintively, "I think they're trying to shoot me."

  `Jesus Christ, you idiot," came Vanessa's incredulous reply, "you think this is FUNNY?! You utter maniac." Slipping the car about sideways as the SIB cruiser continued to move, seeking a clear angle and not getting it. Sandy found the universal, encrypted SIB frequency and broke in.

  "Why are you trying to shoot me?" she asked them. "What'd I do?"

  Who the hell ... ?"

  "Who's on the frequency? Who's speaking ... ?"

  "It's her, you idiots, she broke in ..." And a mad scrambling of alternative subroutines and encoded adjustments ensued.

  "I don't think they want to talk to me, Ricey," she said, back on her private channel.

  "I don't want to talk to you either, you're crazy. "

  "Oh, please?" Her prisoner, she realised, was staring up at her as she apparently talked to herself, not bothering to formulate. "You think I'm crazy too, don't you?" Blink. "What's your name?" Another blink. "You like blowing people up? You think it's funny?"

  Nearby, the cops were walking over, weapons still drawn but no longer pointed. Satisfied, she guessed, that she was CSA, but confused as to everything else. For which she could hardly blame them. And her prisoner was now staring up at her with an entirely different expression. Absolute, unadulterated terror. Well, she supposed, the synthetic ferocity of her grip, at this range, could only be mistaken for basic augmentation for so long.

  "Oh." She smiled pleasantly at him. "You just figured out who I am, huh? That's flattering, really. I might just stay down like this for a while and let you shit yourself." In truth, she had no desire to stand up again while that be-damned SIB cruiser was still circling. Vanessa's engines were very loud now, as the cruiser came in for a landing alongside. The two cops arrived. One crouched beside her.

  "Got a badge?" he asked, nonchalantly. Looking curiously at the young man pinned beneath her.

  "Inside left pocket," Sandy told him.

  He reached and removed it from her jacket. Looked at it, eyebrows raised.

  "Well, Agent Cassidy," he said, "I reckon you can get up now."

  "That cruiser's trying to kill me."

  "Them? They're SIB."

  "That's what I mean."

  More footsteps were running up. Vanessa's engine was fading down, and more aircars could be heard in approaching hover from around about.

  "Get out of the way!" shouted a new woman's voice. The cop stood up. "SIB! You! Put the gun to one side now, and get up slowly." Sandy looked up. It was one of the two SIB women from back at the car wreck. On the surrounding frequencies, clamorous queries were calling for information. Someone nearby was hovering low. She hoped they didn't collide. Unless it was with those bloody SIBs.

  "This man just blew up the riverside back in Derry," she said mildly. "Don't you think you'd be better off pointing your gun at him instead of at a registered CSA agent?"

  "Shut up and put the gun to one side! NOW!" The woman was joined by her partner. Both pistols trained on her face. They looked very serious. And very scared, she thought. And the absurdity was no longer quite so amusing.

  There was a heavy clacking sound from the other direction. Both SIB women looked up. Sandy glanced carefully about.

  "You've got five seconds to stop pointing those guns at my partner," Vanessa said from the other end of a massive SWAT-issue assault rifle, "or I'll blow you both into very small pieces."

  At this range, Sandy's links had a clear sense of the weapon's powered armscomp, ranging ominously. Both women stared at the lean, dark muzzle. At the mean, beautiful face of its wielder. Two male cops stood by in utter silence, and offered no comment.

  "We can't just ..." one of them blurted, and stopped as Vanessa raised the rifle to her shoulder and sighted manually down the barrel.

  "One," she said.

  Double-click, both pistol safeties went on, both pairs of hands were raised, and both women placed their pistols carefully on the ground.

  "Don't ever fuck with SWAT," Vanessa told them. Her voice was nearly trembling. Sandy had never seen her so furious. "Ever. You got that?"

  Two nods, slow and careful.

  Sandy got up, amid the standing, unmoving SIBs, the cops, and the very slight, very angry and massively armed SWAT lieutenant. The air throbbed with hovering aircar engines, a mass of blinking running lights flared off the building sides and lit the dark river waters in a brilliant, multi-coloured display. She handed the stunned young man to the cops. Then scooped up both the SIBs' pistols. Lifted them casually to eye level, and broke the trigger mechanisms, one after another, with a hard compression of her thumb. Metal and plastics shrieked and popped, very loudly. Then Sandy handed them back to the two SIB agents, who took them with reluctant, trembling hands.

  And she paused a moment longer, staring them curiously in the face. She saw the fear there. The
pale faces, the dilated eyes. A shift to infrared showed blood pulsing very fast, hearts racing. She was between them and Vanessa's cannon. It wasn't Vanessa they were scared of. And she shook her head, with faint amazement.

  "What d'you think I'm going to do?" she asked incredulously, over the whining racket of hovering air traffic echoing off the surrounding buildings and out over the water. "You think I'm going to hurt you?"

  There was no reply. Just a couple of pale, staring faces, listening to her voice, but not hearing a thing. Sandy repressed a wince of disbelief.

  "What's wrong with you people? Why do you just refuse to get it?"

  "They'll never get it, Sandy," Vanessa said from behind, her voice hard. "Some people are just like that."

  Sandy turned and looked at her, ignoring the two SIBs entirely. "Someone has to get it."

  "I get it. That's enough."

  Sandy gazed at her for a long moment. At the small, dark-haired lieutenant in the obligatory patch-and-pocket-lined ops jacket, hair tossed in a gusting breeze, rifle now lowering along her forearm grip. Flaring light from many aircars lit her face from many angles. Her dark eyes were smouldering. And honest, beyond the anger. Watching her.

  "Yeah," Sandy murmured, beneath the echoing whine of many hovering aircars, shouts, running footsteps and approaching sirens. "I suppose it is."

  The guard on duty outside Senate Chamber 5-C looked nervous as Sandy and Vanessa arrived from down the long, echoing hallway. For a brief moment, Sandy thought he was going to ask for their weapons. Or her weapons, more likely. A long, flat stare convinced him otherwise, and he opened the doors instead.