Guardians of Paradise (Hidden Empire)

by Jaine Fenn

  ‘Excuse me, friend,’ he called forward.

  The driver looked over his shoulder, his face impassive. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I don’t s’pose this vehicle’s got a—?’ He struggled for the right word.

  ‘A head?’ The driver jerked a thumb back. ‘Door next to the weapons locker.’

  As he got up he sensed Nual’s mixture of amusement and sympathy.

  The head turned out to be about the same size as the weapons locker. While trying to fit into it and close the door Taro knocked the paper-holder out of its niche. As he picked it up he saw a small logo on the rim of the dispenser: a gold-edged cream circle, and inside it a gold-brown shape which he identified after a moment as a stylised vaka, one of the islanders’ long wooden boats.

  He waited until he got back to communicate his findings to Nual, adding,

  They’d been issued vests of hardened material that covered vital body organs, and lightweight helmets with pull-down visors, precautions that did nothing to calm Taro’s nerves.

  The dark froth washing over the screen began to brighten as a silver glow grew in the distance. The driver said, ‘This is as close to the shield as it’s safe to get. We’ve got a few minutes before the man inside’s due to disable it.’ He stood up and went to the weapons locker, pulling out a pair of lightweight pistols and a piece of paper that he also offered to them. Stuck on the paper were two light brown strips the size and shape of Taro’s little finger. ‘Have you used com-strips before?’ he asked. His tone was neutral; when Nual had read him she said she’d picked up a mixture of respect and unease: he knew they were trained assassins, but they weren’t the kind of people he usually worked with.

  ‘Sorry, no,’ said Nual.

  The driver said, ‘Before you go in, stick them on the side of your throat, just here.’ He pointed to his own neck. ‘You only need to sub-vocalise and everything you say will be relayed to any attuned com-strips within range. Remember that range is short, no more than 500 metres, even less once you’re underground. I’ll be wearing one too, so as soon as you’ve got the target outside, call me and I’ll bring the car back up to the surface.’

  ‘Can we call you in if we get into trouble?’ asked Taro.

  ‘Depends on the nature of the trouble. If it’s safe, I’ll do my best to provide back-up, but this is a deniable mission, so I can’t take any risks.’ Taro decided not to mention the giveaway logos inside their armour; if the opposition got to see them then things would’ve gone to shit anyway.

  A minute later the silvery light ahead faded. ‘We’re on,’ said the driver.

  Nual stuck the com-strip just below her jaw. Taro followed suit. ‘Can you hear me?’ she whispered. He heard her voice twice: out loud, then with an echo in his ear via the com-strip. ‘Yeah, I can,’ he replied at the same pitch.

  A faint light-source became visible, coming from above. As the aircar broke the surface water foamed across the screen and the background shaking and bucking increased as they came up into the full fury of the storm.

  Taro eased the visor down over his eyes. The cabin became a blur of bright greens and blues, quickly fading as the helmet’s tech adjusted to the light-level. He tried pulling the hood of his shimmer-cloak over the helmet, but it wouldn’t fit. It would’ve looked pretty stupid anyway.

  ‘Good luck,’ said the driver, and opened the roof-hatch.

  Nual took his hand and they leapt out. The roar of the storm was muffled by the helmet’s pick-ups as they rose from the aircar. The rain hit them like a thrown pail of water and the wind tried to snatch them from each other. He had a moment of panic; he’d never flown in conditions like these, though his implants came with the knowledge of how to use them.

  Nual tightened her grip on his hand, pulling him up, saying,

  He did his best. Between the driving rain and the spray from the heaving sea, Taro’s arms and legs were already soaked and he could feel water trickling down inside his armour, cold and ticklish.

  The visor showed the rain as a faint blue mist overlaying a green-blue seascape. Numbers flickered at the edge of his vision, telling him all about the types and ranges of nearby objects. The island showed as a low hump of thrashing greenery a hundred metres ahead and they arrowed towards it.

  Suddenly everything went white, and a heartbeat later a great boom sounded around them.

  Taro froze in terror, but Nual tugged at him.

  Her silent words reassured him. The quicker he got moving, the sooner he’d be under cover again, he told himself. There was another flash as they approached the island; this time Taro managed not to jump. The storm was lashing the palm trees so hard they looked like great angry beasts nailed to the ground. When they reached land they slowed to fly carefully between the creaking trunks. No way would an aircar fit under here. Occasional scraps of foliage fell on them, though there was nothing big enough to injure them.

  A new image appeared in their visors as they picked their way through the trees, and a few seconds later they landed behind a cube just over a metre square with a round grille across the front. Nual, a red outline in his enhanced eyesight, took a small cylinder from a pocket in her armour and reached over to stick it to the top of the cube: some sort of scrambler, provided by their employer to mess with the local surveillance. She came round the front, took out a small blade and prised off the grille. An indicator on the anti-surveillance gizmo flashed once: it had intercepted the tamper warning. She clamped the rappelling gear they’d need to get their man out to the side of the cube. she said, then grabbed the edge of the opening and slid in. Taro attached the rappelling line to his belt and followed, hovering briefly as soon as he was inside until he was sure he sensed her waiting below him. She floated downwards; he followed.

  The screech of the wind died away as they descended. The shaft ended in a smooth-sided passage carved into the rock. Taro heard a faint rising-and-falling tone in the distance, possibly an alarm. As he was unclipping and securing the rappelling line a gold blip appeared at the edge of his vision he thought to Nual.

  The target had swallowed a tracer which was activated by stomach juices - Taro had no idea how that worked; all he knew was that while it was in their man’s belly, their visors would give them distance and direction to him. All they had to do was home in on it.

  A moment later Nual said out loud, ‘I think we should use the com-strips from now on.’

  Taro knew what she meant. Her presence in his head kept stirring up delicious but distracting echoes; right now they needed to share information, not emotions. ‘I guess you’re right,’ he said wryly.

  Flying along the passage was harder than dropping down the shaft. After the third time he banged his head on the low ceiling he gave up and crawled. At junctions they would pause to confer, and for Nual to stick a marker on the wall to show which way they’d come - not that they’d really need them, given the wide, wet trail left by their sodden clothes. Occasionally they passed over grilles in the floor, some of which housed recessed fans turning slowly over brightly lit corridors. The target was straight ahead now, but the passage was narrowing. Taro was crawling on his elbows, and even with the helmet’s pick-ups on full he couldn’t hear the alarm any more; he hoped that was a good sign.

  Ahead of him Nual was also having trouble with the cramped conditions. ‘I think we’ll have to come down soon,’ she said.

  ‘Reckon you’re right.’

  They stopped on either side of the next large grille. Before she levered it off Nual flipped up her visor. ‘If we do meet anyone I’ll be able to neutralise them
more easily if I can make eye contact. Can you keep monitoring the target?’

  ‘Sure thing.’ The further in they went the more confident Taro felt. The mission was beginning to feel like one of the virtual adventure games he’d played on Jarek’s ship. When and if the bad guys turned up he knew they could deal with them. Nual and him were Angels, flying killers. The opposition didn’t stand a chance.

  They floated down into the corridor, relieved to find it was deserted. He looked around until his virtual vision picked up the gold dot. ‘This way,’ he said, then wrapped his cloak around himself and set off on foot. Walking would be safer than flying, and just as quick, and the ability to unexpectedly take to the air might give the opposition a nasty surprise.

  The corridor ended in a T-junction. Irritatingly, the visor put the target dead ahead. ‘We could go either way here,’ said Taro. ‘Might be a good time for a little of that prescience.’

  He sensed how unfunny she found the joke, though all she said was, ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  He guessed left. After ten metres the corridor turned and ended at a locked door.

  They turned and retraced their steps, then took the other option, which led into a corridor with several turnings and doors off it. This was more like it.

  They started down the corridor, then Nual grabbed him. She pulled him into a side turning. He pressed himself against the wall next to her. Sometimes mind-speech was the best option after all.

  Four figures jogged past the end of their corridor, coming from the direction they’d been heading. The combination of the bulky shapes and the weapons data scrolling down the side of the visor display told him these were guards, armed and armoured, probably on their way to deal with the other team.

  He waited until Nual said they were clear. The next corner led them to another long corridor. According to the helmet display their man was about halfway along, off to the left. Taro was relieved to find that the door the signal came from didn’t have a lock on it. Though they’d been given a basic bypass kit, neither of them were experts. The target had been told to try and make sure he wasn’t behind a locked door.

  Taro got out his gun and clicked the safety off, just in case, while Nual closed her eyes for a moment. ‘One person inside, awake and expecting someone, presumably us. I can’t read more than that from out here,’ she said.

  Taro opened the door and strode in. On his first step into the room he saw the golden signature. On the second, Nual’s voice exploded into his head

  Before he could react something thudded into the floor behind him. He whirled round to find the doorway blocked by dark lines. A red shape reached out to touch the lines, and was thrown back. Someone shrieked, more in surprise than pain.

  He raised his visor to see Nual stagger back against the wall on the far side of the corridor. She recovered at once and bounced forward again, though she was careful not to touch the lines. With normal sight he saw what they were: thick vertical bars. Nual was looking past him, her expression grim. Taro turned to see a man on the far side of the otherwise empty room, standing behind some sort of floor-to-ceiling clear barrier. He wore loose sleeping-clothes and he looked pretty pleased with himself. His arms were crossed and there was a small smile on his face.

  Taro reckoned he wouldn’t look so smug if there was any chance they could get to him. He raised his hand and extended a finger in what he hoped was a universally recognised gesture. The man’s smile deepened.

  Suddenly the man clutched his head, his mouth opening in a silent scream. He collapsed to the floor and began to thrash. After a short while he stopped moving.

  Taro turned back to Nual. She wore an expression of fierce delight and was almost glowing, though it was more like some sort of anti-glow, a compulsive air of darkness. For a moment he was terrified of her. Then the effect faded and he felt her combined emotions: panic, fear, shame and overwhelming concern. ‘We have to get you out of there!’ she said. Taro reckoned she was speaking out loud because right now her head wasn’t a nice place to be.

  ‘I’m open to suggestions,’ he said, then swallowed to moisten his mouth. He had to stay calm.

  Nual started examining the doorframe and surrounding wall. He did the same on his side. The bars fitted snugly into holes in the floor and ceiling. Even if there hadn’t been some sort of repelling effect on them he doubted they could cut them, even with their blades. The walls, floor and ceiling were all solid rock.

  Suddenly Nual stiffened and looked up.

  he asked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  She hesitated.

  The idea he might die was bad; the idea she might die was unbearable.

  She came up to the bars. He reached through carefully to grasp her fingers for a moment. she said.

 

  She smiled. He felt the full force of her emotion as she both thought and spoke to him, Then she turned and left.

  He waited until he could no longer sense her presence, then he ripped off his com-strip and watched as it dissolved into sticky fibres on his fingers. He was just wiping his hand on his armour when the guards arrived. If he’d been smart he’d have moved to the side so they had to come in to get him, but it was too late now. He fired his pistol at the lead guard anyway, but the puny dart just stuck in the man’s armour.

  He stood his ground when the guard drew a rather larger gun, raised it, and shot him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Given what she was, Jarek should’ve expected Orzabet to be well-informed, but she’d still managed to wrongfoot him. He had hoped to use their initial one-to-one conversation to find out a bit more about her, but it was like trying to analyse a machine. She certainly wasn’t a people person.

  In some ways, with her unmemorable looks, cautious demeanour and lack of social skills, she was the opposite of a Sidhe. And that, if he was as paranoid as she appeared to be, could indicate he was in a lot more trouble than he’d thought. The pilot had known there were Sidhe abroad in human-space who’d undergone surgery to tone down their beauty, and who repressed their aura of majesty to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Perhaps that was what Orzabet was: a Sidhe in disguise. Maybe she was playing the long game to ensnare potential investigators who got too close to the truth. Up until now she’d just been monitoring him, but when she’d heard about the memory-core she’d realised she would have to get her hands on it before he managed to get it decrypted. And even if she wasn’t actually Sidhe, she could be one of their agents, knowing or otherwise . . .

  In which case he was fucked. He should run like hell, right now. Except it was probably too late: maybe he should just blow the last of his credit on the best night out this shithole had to offer, then wait for them to come for him.

  In fact, it was odd that they hadn’t come for him yet.

  He stared at the flatscreen view of the dock outside the Judas Kiss, waiting for someone official to stride into view, and listened for the incoming com-call telling him he was under arrest, or otherwise detained.

  After a few minutes during which his body went through all the usual fear reactions but nothing else happened, he decided that beyond a certain level he really couldn’t be doing with paranoia. Orzabet had helped him over the years, and he’d come a long way to meet her. Trust had to start somewhere.

  And it was worth remembering that she hadn’t tried to get anything out of him other than a copy of the data - which she could take anyway, leaving him none the wiser.

  If she was a Sidhe agent, he was already damned. And if she wa
s trying to con him, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

  He reached for his com.

  The address Orzabet provided this time was a mid-range apartment in a poor but respectable accommodation section, the kind of place where a couple of hardworking dockhands might make a modest family home. He knew better than to think Orzabet actually lived there.

  The door opened before he could press the com, revealing a small lounge, untidy and lived-in. The couch looked comfortably saggy and toys spilled from a box in one corner. Orzabet sat facing him across the dining table at the far end; now the book that hid her hands was a children’s storybook.

  He took a few steps into the room, stopping a safe distance away.

  She looked at the heavy holdall slung over his shoulder. ‘Is the core in there?’