***
At times like this, Captain Donovan hated to be stuck behind a desk. She yearned to be out on the streets, to bust the heads of looters and hunt for terrorists. Instead she had to sit at her desk and yap on the telephone and radio with her department, the state police, the National Guard, the FBI, and Homeland Security. Any moment she expected the NSA, the CIA, and maybe even the president himself to call and demand a status report.
There wasn’t much she could tell anyone. “We have all of our resources committed,” she repeated over and over. “We’re doing our best to maintain law and order.”
Indeed she had never seen her precinct so empty before. Every now and then a beat cop or officer would show up, usually with another scumbag to jam into the already-crowded holding cells. Others wandered in to fetch a cup of coffee or a donut before they headed back into the fight. Though no one said it where she could hear it, she knew they thought she was a coward, that she hid behind her desk so she wouldn’t have to be out in the thick of things.
Maybe they were right. She could let Cielo or someone else liaise with the various agencies. Then again, as with most things in the department, she couldn’t trust anyone else to handle it the right way. If one of the don’s men were in charge there’d probably be National Guardsmen three-deep around the Plastic Hippo to make sure no terrorists got in there. At least if Donovan coordinated something might get done.
A woman’s scream shook her from her thoughts. Donovan grabbed the pistol from her shoulder holster and burst out of her office. She expected to find someone with a machine gun or explosives strapped to his chest; what she never expected was to see a foot-long rat skitter across the floor, let alone one with an envelope tied to its back.
Donovan jammed her pistol back into its holster. “Someone call maintenance!” she shouted while she watched the rat cross the floor. The strangest thing of all was that the rat seemed as if it were headed straight at her.
This suspicion was confirmed when the animal came to a stop at her feet. It waited for a moment and then clawed at her boot as if impatient. Donovan saw her name written on the envelope. “What the fuck?”
She’d seen her share of rats in Rampart City over the years, but never one who could do something like this. She thought back to the even bigger one in the dorm fire, the one with the Sewer Rat. “Shit,” she said. She looked back towards the entrance to the homicide division, to catch a glimpse of him again, but there was nothing.
The rat scratched at her boot again and then squeaked. “All right,” she said. “Keep your goddamned shirt on—or whatever.” She untied the string that held the envelope to the rat. The rat scurried away the way it had come. Donovan heard the woman’s scream again and shook her head.
“This place is a fucking zoo,” she lamented as she opened the envelope. Inside she found a miniature audiocassette someone had neatly labeled with her name.
Donovan didn’t have a tape player in her office so she had to rummage around until she found one in Lieutenant Cielo’s bottom drawer. She sat at his desk, inserted the cassette, and then hit the play button. A man’s voice tainted with a European accent came on. “Harry Ward,” the man’s voice said. “He’s the one behind it all.”
As she listened to the remainder of the tape, her blood turned cold. This Harry Ward owned a company called TriTech, which he was apparently using as a front to stage the bombings across the city.
What she didn’t hear on the tape was any kind of motive. The man on the tape must not have been in the position to know Ward’s master plan. At the end of the tape, Donovan heard a familiar voice growl, “Be at TriTech headquarters at midnight. Make sure you bring the SWAT team. He’s not fooling around.”
The voice was that of the Scarlet Knight. Now that Donovan thought of it, no one had seen her since the bombings either, when ironically an armored vigilante was needed the most. She must have been after the real source of the attacks, this Harry Ward and TriTech. The problem became that if Donovan played this portion of the tape, the Anit-Vigilante Task Force would get wind of it and bring more heat on her. She looked around to make sure Cielo or any of the figurative rats in the department weren’t around, and then rewound the tape a few seconds before she held down the record button.
Then she went back into her office and got on the radio to coordinate a real response to the attacks.
Chapter 28
Emma met Jim at the site of the attack against him, a duffel bag over her shoulder. “What that?” he asked.
She unzipped the bag to reveal various daggers, all of which had some magical lineage. They would all be able to wound Sylvia—or kill her if it came to that. They could also penetrate the Scarlet Knight’s armor. The man they’d interrogated hadn’t said what had become of the armor, but Emma didn’t want to take chances. If Sylvia could find some way to use the armor, then Emma would have no choice but to try to destroy it.
At the very bottom of the bag were more conventional supplies: smoke grenades, flares, and firecrackers. Though Aggie’s basement contained enough firearms to equip a full company, Emma had refused to use a gun and she would continue to stick to that principle. While at Aggie’s house, Emma had also changed into a set of Sylvia’s camouflage fatigues, which included a cap she tucked her hair into so it would be less visible. This was a far cry from the magic armor, but it was the best she could do at the moment.
Emma stuffed some of the supplies into her pockets; she handed the rest to Jim. He had retrieved his ratskin coat, which was his idea of camouflage. She checked her watch and then nodded to Jim. “I guess it’s time to go,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. Before they moved out, he stood on his toes to surprise her with a kiss. “For luck.”
As they started down the sewers, at least two hundred rats of various sizes followed them. More fell in at every intersection. While the swarm of rats would help to fight Ward’s guards, Emma worried the rats might go too far. She never killed her enemies, but she knew the rats wouldn’t have any problem doing that. To them it would only be fair—an eye for an eye. Jim had stressed to them to only incapacitate the enemy, but in the heat of the moment it would be easy enough for animal instincts to take over.
When their makeshift army was about a hundred yards away from TriTech, Emma signaled for everyone to stop. Jim whispered instructions to two smaller rats to go on ahead as scouts and report back. While they waited, Emma checked the edge on a dagger and wondered to whom it had belonged. To Emma it looked perfectly ordinary; she hoped she wouldn’t have to use it to hurt her friend.
Since she’d left Dan’s house, the question of how to stop Sylvia had gnawed at Emma’s mind. Even if she wounded Sylvia, the witch still might not surrender. She was tough and strong-willed, but more importantly, she was in love. If she thought the only way to save Tim Cooper was to stop Emma and Jim, then she would fight to the bitter end, which would leave Emma with little choice but to kill her. Could she do that? If she could, would that change who she was? She hoped not to have to answer these questions.
The scouts said there were no humans near the pipe that led to TriTech. There were several rats there, though the scouts didn’t know to what tribe these belonged. “Rogues,” Jim said.
Emma shrugged. She’d spent a lot of time around Jim and Pepe; she still didn’t fully grasp all of the mechanics of rat society. “Could be,” she said. Still, she urged Jim and his friends to stay back while she went ahead to search for any signs of trip wires or motion detectors. She didn’t think Ward would be stupid enough to leave an easy way into his headquarters, but then again maybe he thought she and Jim were dead.
As she neared the entrance to the pipe into TriTech, she saw the rats the scouts had reported. They sat in a group by one wall; their black eyes seemed to stare ahead at nothing. This frozen gaze, their rigid stance, and the way they clustered together all told her something was amiss.
She didn’t have time to turn and run back towards Jim before as one the rats
began to move towards her. They rolled towards her on wheels beneath their feet. These weren’t ordinary rats—they were RATs!
***
Emma had seen the early prototype Tim Cooper had designed of the Remote Automated Traveler—she had even helped him to work out a problem with the leg actuators—but she hadn’t seen the finished product. These looked almost identical to actual rats, complete with fur. The wheels were the main difference between the RATs and the genuine article, to give the robotic rats added speed and maneuverability.
At least they would have added speed and maneuverability on open ground. Once Emma jumped down into the sewage water, the RATs could only follow her from the paved edges of the sewer pipe or forsake their wheels to jump into the water after her. In the water there was little chance they would be able to catch her before she reached Jim and the others.
The RATs decided to do both. Two of them remained on the bank while three others dove into the water after her. As they swam towards her, Emma reached into her pocket for one of the daggers she’d taken from Sylvia’s collection. She didn’t know how well a Bronze Age knife would do against a 21st Century robot, but she supposed if the blade was magic, it should be able to do some damage.
With the knife in one hand, she backed towards where Jim and the others waited. When one of the RATs came close, she swiped at it with the dagger to force it back. At least the RATs didn’t come equipped with machine guns; from what she could tell they didn’t carry weapons of any kind.
The RATs along the side of the pipe sped up, to get in behind Emma. She took out another knife and threw it at the RATs. The knife’s thin silver blade pierced the rear quarters of the lead RAT, which prompted it to spark and smoke. The robot attempted to drag itself forward with two feet while the others continued to come at her.
Then the undamaged RAT on the side of the pipe did something she didn’t expect: it picked up the tail of its damaged comrade and with a flick of its head, threw the RAT at her. The robot spun through the air like a football, to arc towards her head. Emma batted it away and then dropped into the sewage water the same moment the RAT exploded.
As she stuck her head up from the foul water, she understood the RATs didn’t need to carry machine guns or other weapons. They were the weapons. It also explained how Ward had nearly killed Jim—he must have used one of the RATs to infiltrate the sewers and then explode on command. Ward had probably used the remote detonator she’d found near the wreckage. Did that mean he—or one of his minions—was nearby with a controller?
She didn’t have time to find out as the four RATs closed in on her. If any one of them exploded near her she would be done for. Emma glanced over her shoulder to where Jim and the real rats waited. She couldn’t run in that direction or else she’d risk the RATs might explode in their midst.
Instead, she pushed herself onto the opposite side of the pipe and then began to run towards TriTech. The RATs changed direction; the three in the water struggled to climb onto the bank. Emma took advantage of this opportunity to reach into her pockets for one of the flares she’d taken. She couldn’t be certain what the RATs used to see with down here—night vision, infrared, or possibly a combination of both—but she guessed the flare would blind them in any case. She hoped she didn’t set off any gas leaks or else she, Jim, the rats, and everyone for a couple of blocks might be vaporized.
The flare came to life with a spray of crimson light. Emma waved it back and forth a couple of times, to gauge how the RATs would respond. They froze in place and stared straight ahead as if someone had activated their off switch. They were blind.
She pitched the flare at the RATs and then set to work with her dagger. She brought her blade down on the neck of the first one she came to and hoped she didn’t set off a self-destruct mechanism. The RAT’s head came off and its body sagged to the ground. She repeated this with the other three and then piled them up to one side of the pipe.
For a moment she stared at the robots, to wait for them to come to life again. Then her rational brain kicked in and told her to put some distance between her and them in case they had some kind of delayed self-destruct. She ran along the side of the pipe until she found Jim and the others. He took her hand and looked at her with concern. “What happen?” he asked.
“Just ran into some old friends,” she said. She hoped she sounded more cheerful than she felt. “Let’s go.”
***
The pipe that connected the basement of TriTech to the sewers was not in the original plans for the Fleischmann Building. Nor was it in revised blueprints she had checked in her research of the company. That could only mean Ward had added it later. The obvious reason was that, like her, he wanted to use the sewers to navigate through the city without being seen. In his case that would also allow him to easily deploy the RATs and send them throughout the city. How many had he used to destroy the various targets around the city? From what she’d seen, she doubted one would be enough to do any damage, unless Ward had equipped those with more powerful explosives. More likely he had used a dozen or more and concentrated them at one weak point of the target.
The most worrisome thought in her mind was Ward might already have hundreds or even thousands more of the RATs scattered around the sewers, prepared to do his bidding. It made sense to her now why he had wanted Jim out of the way; that way he wouldn’t have any competition down here. Jim would surely have noticed the fake rats and rooted them out, or reported them to her. In either case that would have drawn far too much attention to Ward’s operation before he was ready to finish it.
She led the way up the pipe and climbed up metal rungs installed by Ward’s engineers. As she climbed, she again checked for any trip wires or motion detectors. She didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Or maybe Ward had left some more RATs at the end of the pipe to dispose of any intruders.
She was wrong on both counts. Ward didn’t have any trip wires or motion detectors. Nor did he have any RATs. Instead, he had stationed a half-dozen thugs like those who had tried to kill Becky and Dan. They carried the same Uzis she had seen from outside TriTech, which put her at a serious disadvantage.
She did have an advantage in that they hadn’t seen her yet as she peeked from over the lip of the pipe. She found two smoke grenades in her pockets. After she pulled the pins, she chucked one to her left and one to her right. Gray smoke began to fill the basement; it obscured her from the guards as she leaped out of the pipe.
Though she didn’t have the scarlet armor with its augmented strength, she still had her quick reflexes—and her excellent memory. As she darted through the smoke, she headed for where she’d seen three of the guards. They looked around in confusion as she leaped into their midst. She chopped one across the neck, kicked one in the midsection, and swept the other’s legs from under him. A few good punches made sure they were down for the count.
When she found the other guards, they were already on the ground. Rats crawled over their bodies and nipped at the guards’s necks and ankles. “That’s enough,” Emma hissed at them in ratspeak. They didn’t acknowledge her.
“Enough,” Jim snapped. The rats finally obeyed. In the guards’s pockets, Emma found sets of zip cuffs to use on their wrists to leave them for the police to arrest later. Once they were secured, she motioned to the stairwell and they started up.
***
Emma didn’t head to Ward’s office immediately. She had another target in mind. From the blueprints she’d seen and from what she’d heard from Sylvia, she had a reasonably good idea where to find Tim Cooper’s lab. She hoped Tim would be there.
To get there took some time, as Emma moved slowly. She wished Marlin were here to help her locate the cameras and motion detectors. As it was, she had to do the best she could with help from Pepe and some of the older rats, who through necessity had become experts on how to avoid human traps.
Around a corner she saw a pair of guards in front of the door to Tim’s lab. Emma considered a smoke grenad
e but decided that would be too messy. Instead she took out one of the firecrackers she’d found among Sylvia’s weapons. She lit this and then tossed it to her left. The firecracker exploded a few seconds later; both guards’s head snapped around to find the source of the noise.
While they looked around, Pepe and a dozen rats slunk up to them and sunk their teeth into the guards’s legs. Their screams lasted for only a few seconds before Emma and Jim took them down with a punch to the stomach apiece. Emma squatted down to search the guards’s pockets until she found a keycard. This she swiped in the door; the reader turned green. She turned the knob and then stuck her head through the doorway.
Inside the lab, she saw at least a dozen men and women in white coats around a huge copper globe that reminded her of something from the Gilded Age. On the sides of the room stood another half-dozen guards, their weapons pointed at the scientists. This she knew would be more difficult than to incapacitate the two guards in front of the door.
She turned back to Jim in the hallway. “We’re going to have to make this quick,” she whispered. “And hope they don’t have itchy trigger fingers.”
“Let’s hope,” he said. They each clutched a handful of smoke grenades and firecrackers. When Emma gave the signal, they threw these into the lab at random intervals. As smoke filled the lab, the firecrackers went off.
“What the hell?” she heard a guard say.
“Everyone down!” Emma screamed as loud as she could. “Stay down! We’re friends!”
While smoke filled the lab and the firecrackers went off in all directions, the guards didn’t know where to aim their weapons. Emma and half the rats took one side of the room while Jim and the rest of the rats took the other. She caught one guard with a left hook an instant before he could squeeze the trigger on his Uzi. A bullet embedded itself harmlessly in the floor.
When the smoke cleared, she and Jim stood among the unconscious guards and the scientists who’d flattened themselves on the floor. One of these scientists stood up. His face was covered with a patchy beard and his eyes were red and surrounded by heavy bags, but Emma still recognized Tim Cooper.
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 60
