Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  "Ari Ari Ari ..." Ahmed turned to him, much aggrieved, hands wide and imploring. "I do no such thing, I tell you he's gone, that's all he tells anyone, he doesn't exactly advertise, you know?"

  "Arnoud," Ari had briefed Sandy in the remainder of their lunch, was a close associate of Sal Va's. He lived down here with his own little tribe of friends, fellow netsters all, amassing considerable fortunes through legal work and paying taxes like any regular citizen ... which provided an effective cover for all his other favourite activities.

  "Ahmed," Ari said with measured calm, "if he'd left, I'd have heard. I haven't heard."

  "Hey, you know, even you can't keep up with everything, Ari," Ahmed said reasonably.

  "Don't bet on it. Now if I just walk in there, I'll trip his security systems and there'll be trouble ... I'll make sure you get blamed for it, Ahmed, believe me. . ."

  "They've been branched," Sandy announced the instant her netsearch found it. Ari and Ahmed both stared at her. "Someone's spliced the intranet triggers. I can see it clearly, it's a League format program, doesn't show up real well on Federation systems." Racing along internal visual schematics, a quick scan of relevant corridors and elevator shafts ... "There's at least another four ways into here. I think someone's inside, I can't pin where, that security's a different format entirely."

  Ari pulled the pistol from the back of his waistband and levelled it at Ahmed's chest with the cool expression of a man about to pull the trigger with no remorse at all. "I see the League XO-grid barriers you got from the Verdrahn GGs doesn't seem to be working today, Ahmed I just know you can read that stuff when it tries to break in."

  "How big's the leak?" Sandy asked, calmly pulling her own weapon, accessing as much from the local grid as she could without causing alarm to any tripwires the intruders would surely have placed alongside the usual security mess. Ahmed stood frozen, eyes wide and previously expressive mouth firmly shut.

  "Could be real big," said Ari, "not many people use League infiltration software around here, narrows down the options. Ahmed, talk."

  "'Bout what?"

  Sandy strode over, grabbed his arm and yanked him flying over the bar counter. He hit the ground with an awkward flail of limbs, face down as Sandy twisted the arm up behind him. Too startled to even yell.

  "As you probably just figured," she told him, "I'm a GI. Talk or I'll rip your arm off. Who's in there and what are they after?"

  "GGs," Ahmed gasped, recovering from the stunning impact, they want Arnoud, they think he helped Sal Va. Revenge, you know? Not real happy boys, don't like to be screwed around ..."

  "Let's go," said Ari, moving out from behind the bar, headed across to the pair of doors in the far restaurant wall ... Sandy saw the leftside doorway move from the corner of her eye, snapped her right arm out and levelled a rapid burst, sending the emerging gunman flying backward, heavy rifle flailing away ... tumbling slowly in the dazed slow motion of abrupt combat reflex. She registered the model. The falling body. The long cloak and jacket. The wild hair. The TS-4 assault sweeper, military grade and hardly befitting even Tanushan mafia. And she guessed what was coming.

  "Get down!" she yelled at Ari, whose pistol was only now coming up to meet the falling threat. Sprinted across the table-strewn floor, across the doorways as weapons fire erupted, destruction shredding tables, chairs and walls in a deafening roar as she reached the side wall at full acceleration. Sprang up and ran three paces across the vertical surface, gathered before falling, and leapt full power back across at the doors, firing in mid-air trajectory. Rounds struck the splintering doorway, already shredded from the other side, then she hit the wall in hard collision ten metres from her springboard, then hit the floor.

  The man she'd first shot exploded back through the door, apparently unharmed, his weapon swinging down onto her ... She scythed his legs from under him with an explosive twist, grabbed a shoulder in mid-fall to smash his head to the floor-noting the hardened thud of body armour even as she disarmed him-and smacked through the still-swinging doorway. Bludgeoned the big man beyond with the rifle and was amazed when he caught it and swung back with his meaty left ... which she caught, leapt an explosive knee into his midriff, hammered an airborne right foot into the corridor wall for the leverage to smash him into the opposite wall as he doubled over, crunched and rebounded as violently as the physics of a confined space would allow.

  The corridor beyond was clear, the doorway she'd just come through was a nuisance, so she kicked it off its hinges in an explosion of wood fragments, broken hinges taking pieces of old wall with them. Spun one-armed back around the corner in time to find Ari already going through the second doorway ... damn. Uplinks raced ahead through surrounding schematics-barrier functions locking down potential threats, isolating access points, colonising transmission nodes ... it triggered counter alarms and traps but she didn't care, an activated trap could not surprise, she hated surprises. She covered Ari's doorway, noting the scene of ruin in the restaurant, Ahmed scrambling terrified back behind the bar for cover, miraculously untouched amid the shattered kindling of chairs and tables, a huge swathe of devastation that included a vicious line of holes through decorations and paintings along the far wall. The server-bot stalked gingerly through the ruin, long-fingered arms reaching to remove bits of wreckage and place them on its body tray for transport, seeking the previous orderliness. Not so smart after all.

  Ari's doorway was missing a big central hole where the gunman had opened fire with something very heavy from the other side ... her own rounds had gone through that hole, she knew she'd hit something. But the body armour. She'd never heard of Tanushan mafia being so well armed. Or trained-remembering the big man catching her first blow. Seriously augmented reflexes to match her like that. Fast, augmented, heavily armed and seemingly ruthless. Not GGs. Which meant ...

  "This guy's gone," came Ari's voice on uplink. "You hit him, there's no

  bullet holes ... must be body armour, hallway's clean, you clear?"

  "Clear. I got two ... and a better weapon . . . " Crouching as she formulated, searching the fallen man's coat for magazines, her weapon still covering Ari's door and her own corridor simultaneously. "Who are they?"

  "More anarchist types ... call them assassins, we've got a few, don't advertise them much, GGs hire them for big jobs ... I'm going after Arnoud, take the other corridor, you'll get there faster ... "

  "No way, you stay there and wait for me. . . " The spare mags locked together on electro-lock, snapped in turn to the loaded mag, and she spun back to collect the big man's weapon where he'd fallen. "You go in there uncovered against this lot, you'll get killed ... "

  "Sandy, I can't wait, you follow the corridor to this point ... " An encrypted attachment came through in a rush of adjoining data that unfolded across her internal schematic ... "Get there fast and. . . "

  "Ari, I'm ranking combat ops here, I'm giving you an order! Ari!" Grabbing up the second weapon and mags, and wondering again at the lunacy of working in an organisation that only issued her with popguns on field ops against military-spec assault rifles and body armour ... Ari, you fucking lunatic!" And ... "shit" to herself, audibly.

  Couldn't operate with two heavy weapons out of a suit, she needed a free arm for leverage ... Placed one weapon's muzzle to the floor and kicked down on it, breaking it explosively inwards, and moved off at a light, springing jog down the dark corridor, reluctant to leave ammo behind but not dressed to carry it. Anyway, with aim like hers, fire volume wasn't an imperative.

  The local grid was a mess, it was difficult to get a clear look-individual barrier functions were activated, isolating and attacking her own probing seeker functions and disrupting her reception ... she winced as the schematic overlay flickered and buzzed, figuring the possible points of entry for the infiltrators as she ran, cross-referencing that with the location Ari had fed to her. The corridor ended in a T junction, a broad ferrocrete hallway lit by flickering neon ... the schematic showed her stairs, door
ways, adjoining rooms. Darted a quick look each way, found it empty and ran right.

  Macro-scan graphic had now pieced together enough glimpses of the entire layout to give her a general overview of the place-it flashed to life across her internal vision, a big, three-levelled rectangle of right-angled corridors, each lined with separate rooms. A few common rooms on the lowest level, a generator function that routed power from god-knew where, but mostly just accommodation, like a big, dull ferrocrete hotel. With corridor ambience like this, she reckoned it should have been damn cheap. But somehow she doubted it was.

  Locked doorways along the sides as she ran, residents typically asleep at this hour, she guessed. If they weren't asleep, they certainly wouldn't be coming out now. And heard popping fire echoing from where Ari could have been ... she couldn't reach him, had neither com nor scan reception in this much local shielding and fragmentation. But basic tactical awareness told her where he ought to be ...

  She took a hard left down a dingy narrow corridor, edging sideways past big protruding sewerage pipes, booted feet scuffing echoes off the walls ... the air smelt different, and that told her something of the ventilation too. Paused at the opening to the next, larger hallway ... it stood empty and shadowed with industrial fluorescent. Heavy doors lined the walls with irregularity, security keypads prominent by each. Sounds of muted footsteps echoed on maximum enhancement, voices, something high pitched that could have been a whimper ... plus the ever-present hum of ventilation, the tick of improvised water pipes, a rustling that might have been a small rodent. Super-enhanced hearing was not always useful, it was difficult to prioritise. Next corridor down, the schematic showed her. This was main-residential. People lived here, isolated, cut off from the teeming masses of the city above. Gloomy existence, she registered vaguely beyond the overpoweringly sharpened combat reflex.

  She darted a quick left, ran along several doorways, spotted the stairwell doorway, grasped the handle and yanked, flattening herself to the wall alongside ... the door-trap exploded, door, debris and dust erupting violently across the hallway. Sandy ducked straight into it and rattled down the stairs beyond, figuring the device was a recent plant, again military grade and anti-personnel, probably a five gram nitro-charge with laser trigger on the doorframe. It had been planted low on the opening side, standard operational boobytrap to cover an exposed flank. The lower stairwell door had one too, this time on her side of the door ... She took aim from the stairwell bend and fired. Everything vanished in a flash of blinding debris through which she ran and dived, rolling out into the hallway beyond.

  Shot the gunman ten metres away who was still flinching from the blast, then snap-rolled up into a spinning sidekick on the poor unfortunate who'd been sheltering beside the doorframe-he flew four metres through the air, bounced diagonally off the wall, tumbled and bounced away in a spinning flail of limbs. Rearranged her shoulder holster back into place as she resumed her fast jog ... The man she'd kicked was still alive, thanks to the body armour, and her kindly impulse to limit his flight to a mere four metres-when the far end of the corridor would not have been beyond her. Ditto the man she'd shot-one round low to the left abdomen where the vest would absorb enough power to keep the wound shallow. She'd seen blood, but heatscan showed the continual pulse of warmth through his jugular, he'd only lost consciousness. Shaved head but for a central strip of hair tied back into a long ponytail. Dark shades askew. Black trench coat, rings and a few tattoos. Self-appointed renegades, getting their jollies on some techno-warrior fantasy-serious enhancements, militarygrade weapons, pay cheques from mafia in need of jobs performed ... a great life for the anti-socially inclined. Utterly disconnected from the grander scheme of reality and consequences. This guy probably never reckoned on the real world ever leaping up and biting him on his tat tooed, unsuspecting, pathetic, ignorant arse.

  "Think again," she murmured to herself, the corridor ahead a mass of colour-swathed blues and greys, and red footprints of recent heat. And further distant sounds that echoed the corridors on frequencies the unaided human ear could not hear. Two rounds fired so far ... probably ammo wouldn't be a problem after all. Flank penetrated, it would probably take the remainder another few seconds to respond ...

  A rifle appeared around a corner ahead, scanning remotely ... Sandy shot it from the wielder's hands, and accelerated explosively as a grenade followed-standard timer-fuse, she had time to note as it flew. Someone had panicked and forgotten to count off. She was past it and diving across the adjoining corridor before it exploded, firing low on semi-automatic as she flew half-propelled by the blast, cutting the gunman's legs from under him. Came back around the corner as fast as she could recover her momentum, spared a brief check of the downed man as he sprawled screaming and convulsing-there was a lot of blood, but she guessed his micro-augmentations would shut off the blood flow before it got dangerous, and probably knock him out cold too for safety.

  Further progress was blocked by a heavy metal grill-door across the corridor, with full security precautions. She smashed it off its hinges with a front kick-not caring about the alarms it doubtless triggered through the complex-and proceeded around the twisted, sparking gate, noting the trailing wires and guessing their function. Crouched low, with rifle levelled at the heavy security doorway ahead that terminated the corridor. A bubble-recess in a wall alongside for full-spectrum scanners was the most obvious of the surveillance measures, and the door itself was heavy inset metal, chip marks around the frame where it appeared to have been ferry-rigged into a standard doorframe. She guessed it was locked tight like a bank vault.

  She put a round through the bubble, which exploded in scattering fragments, and another into a less conspicuous indentation alongside the door from which she could sense active scan emissions ... they'd know she was here, subtlety was pointless now. And tried a fast override-and-hack of the door systems with her most capable attack barrier on the network ... it broke through one barrier, was blind-sided by another, and then the whole visual picture in her mind's eye began to disintegrate as hidden counter-functions materialised from the network in swirling snarls of electronic mayhem. Secondary barrier elements reconstructed themselves behind the first, impeding further progress. Damn underground netsters, she should have guessed they'd have better defensive software against League attack barriers than the government did ...

  And she wound up her best sidekick, executed with full and proper technique from the close-combat manual ... WHAM! The impact reverberated through the narrow ferrocrete corridor like a pile driver concussion, billowing dust erupting from about the doorframe as ferrocrete shattered from the force, and the whole heavy door framework rocked backward several centimetres. A second kick, this time not connecting quite properly as a hip-flexor protested unexpectedly-she rammed herself backward several metres, flew through the air, hit and rolled backward to her feet, suppressing a curse. Overhead an exposed water mains broke, hissing water spraying the walls and floor. Damn muscles weren't allowing her to execute with proper technique. She only weighed sixty kilos, smashing something with a force of several thousand kilos pressure per square centimetre would throw her ten metres back down the hall if she didn't execute properly. The Chinese had figured the mechanical basics out over a thousand years ago ... now she just had to convince her less-than-optimum body to perform it properly. Though if she'd had another firm wall to put her back against, she could have just levered it open like a hydraulic jack.

  She walked back amid the drenching spray of water, feeling the slightly awkward, rolling gait brought on by the hard contraction of steely leg muscles. The door looked like it had bent away from the frame just a little at the top right corner ... she visualised the physics of it, the weakness and the required point of impact, tensioning and rippling the required torso, leg and shoulder muscles for the motion to come. Acquired the proper tension, a hard, bulging pressure beneath her skin, and leapt. Full shoulder rotation, the hips came about and slammed the right foot heel-first through the
door at blistering velocity, sending the impact straight back up her leg and thigh ... The door exploded off its reinforced hinges and rammed edge-first into the wall beyond, exposed circuits crackling smoke beneath the water spray as she completed the full spin and sprang through the twisted doorframe ... and found that someone had beaten her in.

  A broad living room spread to the left of the narrow entrance hall across which the main door was now impaled, sliced into the opposite wall. A huge hole gaped in the living room's ceiling, a pile of dusty, crumbling ferrocrete scattered upon the stone-paved floor ... she recognised the signature of an explosive charge immediately. Shaped for maximum downward force, it made a precise, clean hole through concussion-vulnerable materials like ferrocrete, bending the support struts like so ... She edged forward, rifle slowly pivoting, examining the hole through one side of her peripheral vision, noting the telltales.

  The partition to the second half of the room was low, the interior space spanning a broad floor paved with more dark stone. Low, dark, modern furnishings and dim, moody lighting. A big wall-vision unit on the left above the dining table, the sleek gloom cut brightly open by a large, brightly lit fish tank in the far wall, colourful fish floating dreamily in an oasis of light. But for the explosive entry, there was very little damage, and the heavy-security residence retained its intended darkly sophisticated feel of moody atmosphere. Underground techheads liked it, she guessed, edging past the main partition into the broad living space, noting the full VR headsets and immersion hookups trailing wires about the thick leather sofa set, and the broad bank of display units surrounding the twin chairs in the far corner by the fish tank. The floor beneath those units, she saw with little surprise, was soaked with blood.