by M. R. Forbes
I went around to the other side and kicked the desk. The monitor turned on.
“Myra, how many of the subsystems have you gotten into?”
“Just the cameras and the door locks so far,” Myra said. “Why?”
“I need to login to a workstation, and I don’t know the password.”
“I see you. Let me check, one second. No. The computers on four aren’t wired into the same network as everything else.”
“Okay.” I looked at Frank. “We’ll take the whole monitor.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
I shook my head, reconsidering. “No. It’s probably wired for tampering. Look around the room, see if you can find any names or dates or anything that might be significant enough to use as part of a password.”
“I don’t think this is going to work, boss.”
I put my hands out. “What else can we do?”
Something landed on the rooftop, hard enough to shake the building.
“That can’t be good,” Frank said.
“Shit. We need a password.”
“Baron,” Myra said. “A chopper just dropped on your head. I don’t like the looks of the team that climbed out.”
“How many?”
“A dozen.”
And I had already used up the dice.
“Hey, what about that code that Myra gave us before we left?” Frank said.
I had forgotten about that. “Myra, what was that code you dug up again?”
“1-4-5-3-2-1-3-1. Why?”
“Could be nothing. Could be something. Hold on.” I typed the code into the password field and hit enter.
The screen vanished, replaced with the desktop. I stared at it for a few seconds in disbelief. Had something gone right for once?
“Frank, cover the door,” I said.
“Sure thing.”
He lumbered past me, ducking through the doorway, gun in hand.
I navigated through the menus. I didn’t like computers much, and I knew Myra or Prithi would have already found what I was looking for. I could sense the seconds ticking away in the back of my mind. It would take thirty seconds max for the kill team to reach us, and I didn’t want to be here when they did. If Black knew Sandman had contacted me here, those ghosts were most likely the best of the best.
I found it a moment later, a marked icon with an eject option. I hit it as I kicked the chair out behind me, reaching below the monitor to pull the card as it slid from its protective casing.
“They’re on the stairs,” Myra said.
“We’ve got it,” I replied, reaching the doorway. “Frank, let’s go. Where’s Shika?”
“She went to the stairs to meet them.”
“She’s either crazy or stupid.”
“Or she can take them all on her own.”
Guardian or not, nobody was that good.
I dashed to the stairwell, finding Shika waiting patiently just inside the door. I knocked on it to get her attention, and motioned for her to follow.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
“Giving you time.”
“They would have killed you.”
“Mr. Tarakona wanted me for a reason, Baron.”
That was all she needed to say about it. “We’ve got the card. We’ll go down the eastern stairwell.”
There was a second thump on the rooftop above us.
“Another chopper,” Myra said. “I think they know you have the card.”
Of course someone would be monitoring that workstation if it were that important.
“We need another way out,” I said. “Is there an emergency exit somewhere in the blueprints?”
“Give me a second.”
“We don’t have a second.”
She didn’t respond to that. I kept us moving east while she reviewed the diagrams.
“There’s an evacuation stairwell coming up, the third door on your right.”
We reached it. I pointed Frank at the door, and he bashed it in. We moved into a small service corridor, where all of the wires and pipes ran along the wall, with boxes attached to them for networking and monitoring. The stairwell was at the end of it.
We were halfway there when the first guard popped up from the stairs. Frank shot him, the force of the gun’s blast sending him back down the steps, the echo making my ears ring.
“Damn it, not in here,” Shika cursed, her ears flat on her head. That had to hurt her more than it hurt me.
“Sorry,” Frank said.
She darted ahead of us, reaching the stairs ten paces in front. She went airborne, hands out and curled, sharp fingernails like a set of nasty claws. I heard flesh punching flesh, the crack of broken bones, two screams of pain.
Four men were down on the steps when Frank and I reached them. Shika was still leading us down.
“Seriously,” Frank said. “Whoa.”
I couldn’t argue with him that time.
The stairs ended at the ground floor. We poured out into the corridor, scanning it for signs of more guards.
We were clear.
“We have to go out the front,” Shika said. “They won’t attack us in the streets.”
“Past experience suggests they might,” I said.
“Then we’ll escape into the growth. I can guide you.”
We headed for the front door. The coast wasn’t totally clear, and we hit a pocket of resistance as we neared the grand foyer. These weren’t Black’s best. These were the ground forces, the replacement level ghosts. They slowed us down for almost a minute, giving the kill teams time to reach us.
They almost did. I looked back just in time to see their user cradling a ball of water in one hand, a flame in the other. An elementalist, a user who was technically a wizard, but not quite. He could hear all of the elemental magic frequencies and nothing else.
It was more than enough to make him a massive problem if we hadn’t already been two steps from escaping.
I threw my hand up as ice and fire intermingled, launching at us in a spray of deadly projectiles. Death magic sat at my fingertips, pouring out and stealing the energy from the elementalist’s attack. The flames faded to smoke, the water splashed on the floor.
Bullets followed, striking the backside of the door.
We were already out.
35
Whatever works
“Which way?” I asked. The front of the building was set back a little from the main road, enough that there was room for a gate where two of the trikes were already parked outside, the doors still open and the keys likely still in the ignition.
We had already dispatched the former occupants.
“Not to the street,” Shika said. “We can’t risk hurting others.”
Personally, I didn’t care that much if we hurt others. Freeing Sandman was about the fate of millions. I would have said so, but she was already running to the left, where a high steel fence was holding back the brush beyond.
“Do we follow her?” Frank asked.
She was a kitsune. Human, yes. But also closer to nature than I could ever be. If she said the jungle was safe, I was going to believe her.
“Yeah.”
We kept running, staying behind her. She reached the fence and turned sideways, pushing herself between the bars. Her skeleton flattened as she did, allowing her chest and head to fit through.
“I’ll clear a path for you,” she said, whatever that meant.
Then she vanished into the foliage.
“I can’t do that,” Frank said.
“Neither can I,” I replied. “Keep some cover fire on the door.”
Frank turned and aimed, the augmentation in his eye giving him better than perfect vision. He hit the first of the kill team who appeared in the doorway right in the chest, knocking him back and down.
I put my hands on the bars and whispered the spell. The corrosion spread quickly up the metal, turning my hands red from the corrosion. I moved to the next set.
“Ba
ron, a little help,” Frank said.
I turned around and saw the elementalist had cleared the doorway. He was using a semi-transparent shield of ice to block Frank’s assault, while the other members of the team crouched behind it for cover, getting in position to shoot around it.
“Keep them honest,” I said.
“I’m almost out of bullets.”
“Just a minute.”
I drew in the death magic, sending it out like a tendril. It reached beneath the kill team, bypassing them to the corpse Frank had left by the door.
“Get up,” I said, feeding the power into him.
My stomach wrenched from the effort. I had never used this much magic in one day before. Even so, I felt his soul return to the body, confused, shocked, and under my control.
Frank’s guns clicked. Empty.
The kill team saw it and reacted instantly.
Or they would have if my zombie hadn’t started shooting at their backs at the same time.
A chorus of shouts rose from the team, the sound of a multitude of guns discharging followed. The elementalist dropped the shield, giving us only a cursory look before turning to help his team. My puppet wouldn’t last long, but he didn’t need to. I corroded two more bars. Frank did the rest, pulling them apart and shoving his way into the brush while I trailed behind.
We had gone about five feet before a path opened up, a narrow corridor in the dense vegetation that left us room to walk. We followed it fifty feet, catching up to Shika in a hurry. She was at the head of the path, her hands out, her head tilted back and voice lifted in a quiet song.
It was ethereal. Mesmerizing. I had never heard anything like it before. It was in Japanese, so I didn’t know the words. I didn’t need to.
I reached out to my zombie, checking his condition. They had gotten him to ground and severed his hands. I let him go at the same time I heard thrashing in the brush behind us.
“They’re still coming,” I said.
Shika stopped singing. “Too slow. Follow me.”
She headed off into the vegetation. I motioned Frank ahead of me and took the rear, letting him bear the burden of clearing space to fit through. We only went a hundred yards before the thickness subsided enough that Frank could move more freely. We kept going deeper into the growth.
“They’re still following,” I said.
“I know. We will lose them in here unless you saw another like me with them?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then we will lose them.”
“I’m not exactly blending in out here,” Frank said.
“It will not matter soon. Come on.”
We kept going, moving through the foliage as quickly as possible. It only took a few minutes for me to realize that the kill team was falling behind, unable to pick an efficient route. Score one for Tarakona.
“Where are we?” I said as we went deeper into the jungle. The canopy was so thick it blocked the entire sky.
“A small strip of land between buildings. The city is all around us, even though you cannot see it.”
It was surreal to know that we were so close to civilization, and yet feel so detached from it. “Are we almost to the other side?”
“We’re moving laterally, remaining inside the growth.”
“Why? We’re far enough ahead. We should be able to vanish.”
“You will see, Baron. Very soon.”
I didn’t know what she was planning. I didn’t ask. If it was good for us and bad for them, that was fine with me.
We stopped a minute later. I didn’t know why because this part of the wilderness looked the same as the rest. Lots of trees and vines and plants, and I guess the rest of Tokyo not far beyond. Shika had a reason for the pause. She lifted her head slightly, listening.
“Remain still. They won’t harm you as long as they know you’re with me.”
“Who?”
“Not who, Baron. What.”
The brush around us began to tremble as something large moved through it. I subconsciously took a few steps to get closer to Shika. So did Frank.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nue,” Shika replied.
“Never heard of it.”
“A chimera. Head like a monkey, body like a tiger, tail resembling a snake. They’re in the trees as well.”
I hadn’t thought to look up. When I did, I saw something large and striped bounce from one tree to another.
“They are the reason this part of the growth remains. The Nue remain strictly within their territory, but to disturb them would mean forcing them to find a new home, somewhere out there.”
“Why don’t they just kill them all?” I said.
“Don’t let them hear you,” Shika replied. “Nue are not an easy kill, Baron. Just getting close enough to one will make you sick, and they are incredible climbers. Their skin also changes pattern to better camouflage.”
“Nasty,” Frank said. “How come they won’t attack us?”
“They know kitsune. They remember.”
I heard the first screams mingled with a chattering roar that I assumed belonged to the Nue. The States had its share of monsters, but I don’t know if any were as frightening. Gunshots echoed through the greenery, cut off within seconds.
“Why are they attacking them?” I asked.
“They are trespassing,” Shika said. “They should have shown more respect.”
I nodded. Not out of understanding, but acceptance.
Whatever worked.
36
Love and marriage
We got back to the hotel half an hour later. I was dead tired by then, the adrenaline and magic washing out of me and leaving me feeling like I was made of a mixture of rubber and lead. The fact that we had gotten out alive helped some, especially considering the fatal gunshot wound I had taken. Even so, I wanted to drop and not wake up for a day or two.
I also wanted to cough my lungs up.
The end of the action had put the outcome of my magic use front and center, leaving me sicker than I wanted to be at this stage of the game. It was a bad spot to be in, especially since there was still so much to do, and less time than ever to do it. Hitting Black where it hurt was going to force him to up the pressure. How that came about, and what that meant remained to be seen, but there was no denying that he would be taking this whole thing seriously now.
As if he hadn’t before.
For the moment, I was content enough when we stepped out of the elevator into our suite. I ignored Myra as she made her way from the kitchen and I made my way to it, navigating directly to the fridge and opening the door. My Xenoxofril was sitting inside, and I grabbed it and headed to where I left the injector. A shot of meds, a good night’s sleep, and I would be as ready as I would ever be for tomorrow.
“What are you doing?” Myra asked, not letting me continue to ignore her.
“I need to heal up,” I said, coughing heavily afterward.
“Are you serious? You just stole from Mr. Black and killed two of his teams.”
“There’s no magic up here. He won’t be getting in. Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it? Conor, you started a fucking war tonight.”
“No. Tarakona started the war back in LA. Or maybe Black started the war when he hired someone to steal a dragon’s egg. I don’t know whose fault it is anymore, and I don’t care. I’m sick and tired.”
“There’s no time. Even if this floor is safe, what about the rest of the building. Black could tear it right off the foundation and knock it over if he wanted to.”
“And kill innocents? I don’t think so.”
“He wants to kill everyone who isn’t pure homo sapiens. You don’t think he’ll knock over a building?”
The fact that I had to think about it probably said a lot.
“I need the meds, Myra.”
“Prithi needs us.”
“You can wake me in two hours.”
“Conor-”
/> “No,” I snapped. “I fucking died tonight, Myra. Do you know what means? Because I sure as hell don’t. All I know is that I was dead, and yet my soul stayed put and waited for me to heal myself by stealing the unused life force from a fresh corpse. Believe me; it takes a lot out of you.”
“You were dead?” Myra said. “That’s impossible.”
“Yeah. It was a new experience for me, too.”
She stared at me, dumbstruck.
“I’m going to take the meds and sleep for a couple of hours. If Black shows up, tell him to come back later.”
That made her smile. “I have a feeling he won’t be very accommodating on that front.”
“At least try. Thanks for that passcode, by the way. It turned out to be a winner.”
“I’m happy to hear it,” she replied.
I stared at her. I was on the verge of collapse, and I could still tell there was something about that topic that she wasn’t saying, and didn’t want me to ask about.
So I did.
“Just out of curiosity, where did you find it?”
Her face turned red, and she looked at my feet. “I told you. In the Machine.”
“Does Prithi know what a lousy liar you are? Myra, where did you get the code?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? You got what you needed.”
Now I was sick, tired, and angry. “Yeah. There’s no such thing as convenience. Who did you get it from, and what was the price?”
“Conor-”
“What was the price?” I shouted. Nothing was free, especially in the Machine.
“You can’t put a price on Prithi’s life,” Myra said. She was on the verge of tears.
My shouting attracted Frank and Shika, who appeared in separate doorways.
“Myra,” I said, softening my voice. “You know what’s happening here. You know the stakes. If someone else knew what we were looking for and gave you information to help us find it, that’s something we really, really need to know about.”
She stared at me, trying to decide how much to say. “Fine. I got it from Aziban.”
I wasn’t expecting that.
“What?”
“Pree was in the Machine. I was surprised, too, and I wanted to tell you. She said I couldn’t. She told me you had to finish the job. She wanted you to finish the job.”
