Fugitive

by Chris Bradford

  Mr Grey smiled a hyena-like grin at him and Connor felt his chest tighten at the pitiless cruelty in the assassin’s ice-grey eyes. He looked to Charley, but the despondent slump of her shoulders told him they were out of options. They had no alternative but to give up the drive.

  Then his smartband vibrated gently on his wrist. Connor sneaked a peek at the display, glimpsing the message from Amir:

  Green box – Oxygen Masks!

  Out of his peripheral vision he spied a green box to his left attached to the wall.

  ‘Well? I’m waiting,’ snapped the Director. ‘And my patience is fast running out.’

  Connor’s smartband vibrated again.

  Hold your breath.

  The fire klaxon was deafening – a screaming siren that brought the whole of the Hive to a halt. The windows and doors of the Director’s office automatically sealed shut and a white cloud of gas burst in a hissing roar from piping overhead. The sudden shock of the fire alarm caused everyone in the room to freeze – everyone except Connor.

  In the ensuing confusion, Connor – breath held – sprinted for the green box as the huge venting of carbon dioxide filled the room. He yanked the lid open and grabbed a gas mask. Heart pumping and lungs burning, he pulled it over his mouth and triggered the oxygen flow. Then he snatched a second mask and ran back to Charley.

  One of the guards had spotted him through the cloud of gas, but was slow to respond. As Connor drew level with him, he summoned up a ball of qi energy and drove an open palm into the man’s solar plexus. Connor knew the one-inch push was effective, but in this instance the technique entirely floored the guard and he didn’t get back up. It was as if the man had no strength left. He simply lay there open-mouthed and gasping like a fish on dry land.

  A second guard went to raise his gun, but he fumbled his weapon and dropped it. A moment later he passed out and joined his weapon on the floor. The sudden drop in oxygen levels – the result of a total flooding of the room with carbon dioxide to suppress any fire – caused the final guard to sway, then collapse too.

  Battling his way through the roaring fog of depressurized gas, Connor found Charley slumped in her wheelchair. He fitted the mask to her face and turned on the flow of oxygen. Her eyes blinked open and she quickly came round. Connor spun her chair towards the door.

  ‘What about the colonel?’ she asked, her voice muffled by the mask.

  Colonel Black lay sprawled on the floor in a drying pool of his own blood, his breathing rapid and shallow. Connor couldn’t abandon him to Equilibrium and the torturous evils of Mr Grey. So, seizing the comatose colonel under the arms, Connor hauled him towards the door. His mentor’s sagging body was backbreakingly heavy and only a super-human effort, aided by the polished glass floor, enabled him to drag the colonel across the room.

  The Director, like a ship’s captain in a storm, was weakly clinging to her desk, glaring in impotent fury at their escape, too debilitated by lack of oxygen to prevent it. However, she managed to trigger the intruder alarm under her desk before her knees buckled and her whole body caved in. Meanwhile Mr Grey crawled slowly yet determinedly towards the green box on the other side of the room.

  Grunting and straining, Connor heaved Colonel Black the last few metres. As the three of them approached the glazed office door, the lock turned green and Charley shoved it open. Connor pulled the colonel into the corridor and the door swung shut behind them, automatically locking itself and sealing in the suffocating gas.

  Panting from his exertions, Connor propped the colonel against the wall, took off his gas mask and placed it over the colonel’s mouth.

  ‘What’s … happening?’ groaned Colonel Black, the oxygen reviving him.

  ‘Amir triggered the CO2 fire system,’ explained Connor. ‘We have t–’

  All of a sudden the glass door exploded and a bullet ricocheted off the wall by Connor’s head, plaster spitting out in all directions. In the Director’s office, Mr Grey lay sidelong on the floor, still some distance from the green box and its lifesaving masks, but he’d picked up the guard’s dropped gun and blasted a hole through the doorway. The rush of air into the room saved the assassin’s life. It also began to resuscitate the Director and her guards.

  ‘I can’t carry you, Colonel,’ grunted Connor, heaving him to standing.

  Colonel Black swayed on his feet. ‘Give me another adrenalin shot and I’ll do the rest.’

  Charley reached into her trauma kit and handed him a syringe. He jabbed the needle into his thigh as another bullet ripped into the plasterwork millimetres from them. Mr Grey had by now got to his knees and was taking aim for a third time, trying to steady his hand.

  ‘Follow me!’ ordered Charley, propelling her chair along the corridor and down the slope.

  Taking one arm over his shoulder, Connor supported the colonel as they limped after her. A pair of guards came rushing towards them, alerted by the intruder alarm. Seeing the three fugitives, they drew their guns. With nowhere to hide, Connor and the others were little more than sitting ducks in a shooting gallery.

  But Charley kept going. Accelerating down the corridor, she threw herself and the chair on to its side as they began to open fire. Metal sparking and chair skidding, she smashed into the two guards like a battering ram. The men were bulldozed aside and tossed into the air like victims of a car crash. With a quick flip of her body, Charley righted the chair and rounded the corner at speed.

  Connor was stunned at her devastating attack and nimble chair work. Staggering past the battered and broken guards, they found Charley fending off another three men single-handedly. Wielding her armrests like a pair of nunchuks, she seemed to be channelling all her frustration and fury of the past few years into her defence. She swept one guard’s feet from under him, struck another guard in the jaw and caught a third straight in the groin. Even Connor felt sorry for her last victim.

  ‘You don’t need legs to be lethal!’ he remarked as they came up alongside her.

  ‘It’s just good to be back in control of my own body,’ she replied, clipping her armrests firmly back into place.

  The three of them cut across an air bridge and down to the fourth floor. Racing along the corridor, they barged aside startled technicians trying to evacuate the building and headed for a lower walkway. But, as they turned a corner, a unit of guards blocked their way.

  ‘Get down!’ ordered Charley, spinning her chair a hundred and eighty degrees and ducking behind the back of her seat.

  The guards let loose a volley of gunfire. Connor and the colonel sheltered in her chair’s protection, the Kevlar plates and liquid body-armour panels deflecting and absorbing the deadly bullets, the impacts sounding like heavy hail on a tin roof. They retreated rapidly back round the corner.

  ‘Is there any other way down?’ asked Connor, his heart pounding at their narrow escape.

  ‘Not without going the whole way round,’ replied Charley. ‘But we don’t need to.’

  Grinning, she reached under her seat and pulled out a flash-bang grenade. ‘I’ve always wanted to use one of these,’ she said, tossing the grenade down the corridor.

  A deafening explosion and blazing flare ripped through the building. The unfortunate guards were left disorientated and blinded while the nearby technicians were sent into an even greater panic.

  Charley, Connor and Colonel Black picked their way through the groaning men and took the walkway down to the next level. Zigzagging back and forth across the network of bridges, the Hive’s complex geometry played to their advantage as they evaded the pursuing guards and worked their way towards the ground floor. The rush of people heading for the fire exits only added to the chaos. But, as they went to cross the final air bridge, Mr Grey leapt from a walkway above and landed in front of them.

  ‘I haven’t finished with you, Colonel,’ Mr Grey called out. ‘And I’ve barely begun with you, Connor.’

  Their escape route blocked, Connor and the others fell back behind a pillar before the assassin
could raise his gun. Mr Grey slowly advanced as more guards could be heard charging along the corridor behind them.

  ‘We’re being surrounded!’ hissed Connor.

  Charley took out another flash-bang and tossed it up the corridor. They covered their ears and closed their eyes as the grenade exploded. Screams and the confused cries of men echoed through the atrium.

  ‘That won’t hold them off for long,’ said Charley. ‘And I’ve only one flash-bang left.’

  Colonel Black straightened himself and took his arm off Connor. ‘Charley, any more adrenalin shots?’

  She nodded. ‘But you shouldn’t take any more. You’ll overdose.’

  ‘Just give me it.’ He beckoned for the shot.

  Charley reluctantly passed him the last syringe.

  ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you the whole truth about Buddyguard,’ said Colonel Black, ramming the needle into his leg, ‘and I may have failed you both in many ways, but I won’t fail you now. Connor, I told you that sacrifices may have to be made. Well, this is my sacrifice for you.’

  With the roar of a lion, he leapt out from behind the pillar and threw himself at Mr Grey. The assassin was quick to react – a shot going off, clipping Colonel Black’s arm – but the sheer strength and rage of the colonel took him by surprise. Mr Grey was driven back as he fought off the onslaught of blows. The gun was knocked from his grasp and clattered over the rail. The two men began fighting hand-to-hand.

  ‘GO!’ Colonel Black yelled to Connor and Charley.

  The two of them sped past the battling men and headed down the slope. Connor glanced back, hoping to see the colonel following them, but he was locked in a life-and-death struggle.

  An elite soldier against an assassin, the brawl was brutal and ruthless.

  Eye gouges met kidney punches …

  Knee kicks countered elbow strikes …

  Headbutts returned strangleholds …

  Fuelled by adrenalin, the colonel tore into Mr Grey. Then the assassin drew a knife and the fight turned really savage. Colonel Black suffered a bone-deep slash to his forearm as he blocked a cut to his throat before managing to pin Mr Grey against the bridge’s handrail. He caught sight of Connor dithering. ‘I told you to go. That’s an order!’

  In that moment of distraction Mr Grey planted his knife in the colonel’s heart.

  ‘NO!’ yelled Connor, as he watched the blade sink in and Colonel Black slump to the ground.

  The assassin now directed his deadly attention towards Connor and stalked across the air bridge in his direction.

  ‘Come on!’ cried Charley, who’d reached ground level and was carving a path through the last line of guards, her adapted armrests flashing with glints of steel and blood as she laid waste to anyone who got in her way. The guards’ efforts to stop her were further hampered by the flood of Equilibrium employees evacuating the building.

  Against his every instinct to help the colonel, Connor turned and fled. Drawing his extendable baton, he fended off a reception guard. Then at last he and Charley were in the lobby and racing towards the exit.

  The glut of people spilling out of the Hive and into the street helped to cover their escape. Charley engaged her wheelchair’s electric motor and Connor ran at her side. His breathing was loud in his ears, the whine of the alarm and the guards’ angry shouts strangely dull and distant by comparison. It was as if another person, a different body, was fleeing from the Hive, someone else’s feet pounding the pavement. He felt disconnected from the world, numb to all his senses.

  Colonel Black was dead. His final link to his father had been severed and now he’d been set adrift. The colonel might not have been everything he professed, but he certainly proved to be a courageous man at heart, a loyal soldier and a true bodyguard.

  The zing of a bullet passing his ear quickly brought Connor back to his senses and he ran even harder. They turned the corner. Amir and Zhen were waiting for them by the auto-rickshaw at the side of the road.

  ‘Where’s the colonel?’ asked Amir, looking past them.

  ‘Dead,’ Connor gasped. ‘He sacrificed himself for us.’

  For a brief moment it looked like Amir had been knifed through the heart himself. ‘So we risked everything for nothing.’

  ‘No, we got Charley back,’ replied Connor, managing to find a smile amid his sorrow.

  ‘Of course,’ said Amir, reaching out and clasping Charley’s hand. ‘In more ways than one. Sorry I ever doubted you.’

  ‘Sorry I gave you reason to doubt me,’ she replied sadly. Her gaze switched from Amir to the Chinese girl in the black-and-orange fast-food jacket. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Zhen, our guide,’ explained Amir.

  ‘Then guide us out of here,’ said Charley, hearing a shout in the near distance. ‘The guards aren’t far behind.’

  Without needing to be told twice, Zhen leapt into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. The underpowered motor emitted a flatulent phut-phut-phut as Amir stepped aside to allow Charley into the back seat.

  ‘Are you serious?’ said Charley, eyeing the compact cabin. ‘We can’t all fit in!’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Connor. ‘Besides, this rickshaw will be too slow with four of us aboard. We need another vehicle.’

  An Equilibrium guard rounded the corner and immediately called for reinforcements.

  ‘Over there!’ said Zhen, pointing to a gleaming black motorcycle with a sidecar. ‘Use my rival’s ride.’

  A Shanghai Insiders tour guide had pulled up on the opposite side of the road and dismounted, giving a potted history of the 1933 Building to a pair of backpackers. With the tour guide’s attention on the unique architecture and the apparent fire evacuation, Connor and Charley dashed over to the motorcycle.

  Charley swiftly transferred herself into the sidecar. Connor collapsed her chair and hooked it on to the back luggage rack before leaping on the rider’s seat. Having ridden mini-motorbikes through Epping Forest as a kid with his father, Connor was familiar with the workings of a bike. He kickstarted the engine, startling the tour guide out of his patter.

  ‘Hey, that’s my bike!’ the man cried in outrage.

  But Connor engaged first gear and hit the throttle before the guide could stop them. The motorbike and sidecar roared away. Zhen and Amir followed close behind as four guards ran into the road to block their escape. Connor kicked up a gear and drove straight at them. A bullet whizzed past his head. Another pinged off the metal nose of the sidecar, forcing Charley to hunker lower in her seat. Holding his nerve, Connor kept his line and the guards scattered a moment before they were mown down.

  Chased by the sound of gunfire, Connor accelerated away, gripping the handlebars tight and counter-steering as the bike naturally pulled in the direction of the sidecar. At the end of the street, he bore right, Zhen staying hard on his tail.

  ‘Are you all right, Charley?’ asked Connor as they left the Hive behind and crossed a bridge back into central Shanghai.

  Nodding, Charley sat up in the sidecar.

  ‘What about the neuro-controller? Any chance the Director could hijack you?’

  Charley hesitantly shook her head. ‘I think … I must be out of range.’

  Now they were a good distance down the road, Connor slowed his bike a touch and Zhen’s rickshaw came up alongside.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Amir cried over the two engines’ combined roars.

  ‘Warehouse,’ Connor shouted back, weaving his way through the traffic. ‘Safest place. Good work on the fire alarm by the way, Amir. You saved our lives!’

  Amir grinned. ‘Thanks. With all the computer servers in the Hive, I guessed a CO2 system had been installed. It was separate to Equilibrium’s mainframe so I could hack in and control –’

  A bullet shattered the back window of the rickshaw and Amir cowered in the footwell, hands covering his head as shards of Perspex rained down on him. In his wing mirror, Connor spotted four motorbikes racing after them through the lines of tra
ffic. He twisted the throttle, and the motorcycle and its sidecar surged forward. Zhen did her best to keep up, the rickshaw’s puny engine straining at maximum speed. Only the jam of cars and the nimbleness of her driving allowed her to stay one step ahead of their pursuers.

  ‘We’ll never shake them off!’ Zhen yelled to Connor as a bullet disintegrated her wing mirror to a stub of metal.

  ‘American Embassy,’ Charley shouted back. ‘That’s close to here, isn’t it?’

  Zhen nodded, then swerved round a startled pedestrian crossing the road.

  ‘But what about Equilibrium inside agents?’ yelled Amir as the rickshaw mounted the pavement and cut through a red light.

  Connor followed, horns blasting as he narrowly missed a collision with a taxi. He drew back alongside the rickshaw. ‘We have to take the risk,’ he replied. ‘We can’t keep running like this. Zhen, lead the way.’

  Zipping in front of a bus, Zhen turned the rickshaw off the main road and headed west from the Bund. Connor swung the motorcycle round, rubber burning as the wheels spun. Behind, the bikers were gaining on them. A volley of rounds peppered the sidecar, most ricocheting off Charley’s bulletproof chair, the Kevlar panels once again saving their lives.

  ‘We need to level the playing field,’ said Charley, reaching back and taking out her last flash-bang. She tossed the grenade on to the road and into the path of the bikers. A second later the stun grenade detonated with a supernova of a flash and a thunderous bang. Subjected to its full force, the lead biker was dazzled by the blinding explosion and rode straight into the rear of a parked car, cartwheeling over the roof to crash-land in a heap on the pavement.

  ‘One down!’ cried Charley. But the three remaining bikers continued their relentless pursuit. The blast had also attracted the attention of the city’s police force. Lights flashing and siren wailing, a police car pulled out of a side road and gave chase.

  ‘That’s all we need!’ said Connor, gritting his teeth as he rode the motorcycle across a junction and through another red light. He caught up with Zhen just as she suddenly split left. But a taxi cut in front of Connor, forcing him to ride straight on. His last glimpse of Amir and Zhen was as their rickshaw ducked down an alleyway, pursued by one of the bikers. Connor had no choice but to keep going, accelerating along the road as the last two bikers and the police car hounded him.