Zeta Hack: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 3)

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “Where?” she asked.

  “North side of the District. Warehouse in the fourth machine sector.”

  “What is the exact address?” she asked.

  “I’m not telling you shit,” the man said.

  The two women stared at him for a few moments, and I felt the tension in the room rise. Z had crossed my lap to get away from Huyan’s body, but now she was sitting closer to the cluster of six armed goons. I wrapped my hands around her skinny waist and pulled her over to the other side of me.

  I’d meant the movement to be slow and not attract attention, but everyone else in the room turned to look at the blonde hacker and me. Perhaps it was the distraction that the two women were looking for. They both suddenly held sawed off shotguns in their hands, and they fired before the six men could react.

  The buckshot appeared to be made of flechette instead of balls. It ripped through the unarmored men as if they were made of red liquid, and they didn’t even get a chance to scream before their guts were sprayed across the brick walls behind them.

  I threw myself over Z to protect her from any stray shot, but the Twins aimed correctly, and there had been at least three meters of space between where we sat and the nearest dead man.

  “I did remember them, actually,” Kasta said as they both broke open their small shotguns.

  “I did as well,” said Paula as they both reached into their coats to pull out new shells. They didn’t even look at each other, but they each moved as if they were clones.

  “I didn’t like them.”

  “Me either. It is no loss. There will be more men around Larn’s location,” Paula said. “Once they find out Huyan and Jared are dead, they will go to the Baccalas.”

  “Maybe Adam will help us?” suggested Kasta, and they both turned toward me.

  With their shotguns pointed at my face.

  “I like him,” Paula said.

  “I as well. He is handsome and strong. His woman is beautiful.”

  “Who are you?” I asked as I stared at their sawed-off shotguns.

  “Does it matter?” asked Kasta. “You work for money. We have money. Will you be loyal? Or will you be a problem?”

  “We won’t be a problem!” Z waved her hands in the air. “Just put away your guns. Adam doesn’t--”

  “Good,” they both said in unison. Then they looked from Z to me, and they each raised an eyebrow.

  “You built him,” I said as I pointed to the corpse of the machine. They both smiled, but they didn’t lower their guns.

  “Yes,” Kasta said.

  “Why? How? It looks--”

  “Pick up his body, please,” Paula asked me, and I was glad that they wore the different colored shirts tonight so I could tell the difference. They looked identical.

  “Okay,” I said as I stood from the couch and took a hesitant step toward them. They moved aside, and let me pass. Then I put my hands on the dead android’s chest and threw him over my shoulder. He was heavier than I expected, but I was strong enough to carry him without much issue.

  “Now what? We can’t just walk down the street with him,” Z asked.

  “There are also a bunch of fuckers coming up the stairs,” I said as I nodded at the far side of the mezzanine. I counted eight men coming up the stairs there, and I doubted they would want to talk once they saw the bodies of their six co-workers.

  “There is a fire exit this way,” one of the twins pointed away from the men to the other exit of our private room.

  “Go,” I told the three women. Z grabbed Byron’s revolver and followed the twins. I brought up the rear, and spared a glance behind us to see where the suited goons were.

  The men were still a good twenty meters away from us, but I assumed they saw the bodies of their friends and judged us guilty because we were running away. They started to shoot at us, and I had to duck around the brick corner of the far archway to keep from catching a bullet.

  “Hey! Can you both run, or something? They are fucking shooting at us!” the twins were casually moving toward the far door with the Exit sign, and Z had already raced past them to hold the door open.

  “Yes,” one of them said, and then they both stretched their long legs to make it to the exit.

  “Behind you!” Z yelled at me as she pointed the revolver. The weapon shouted next to my head as I ducked into the exit doorway. A spray of bullets smashed through the wood as soon as she kicked the door closed, and I pulled her behind me just before another one came through the wall where she stood.

  “Give me the gun,” I said to her as I held my hand out.

  “Yeah. Don’t even think I came within ten meters of them,” Z said as she put the revolver in my hand. It was a chrome six shooter double action. Not as big a caliber as the one I had back on Persephone, but it would probably punch through two or three men who weren’t wearing armor.

  “Glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor,” I said as we continued our run. There was a short brick hallway, and one of the twins was holding the next door open for us. This one looked to be made of steel, and I wondered if there was a way we could lock it behind us.

  “Our whole plan has turned to shit, and we are getting shot at, just a usual day for the crew of Persephone. I’m a connoisseur of finely distilled tragedy. Shit!” Z shouted as the door behind us got kicked open. We were still a few meters from the next door, so I spun to point Byron’s revolver at the men that were peeking out.

  The weapon barked in my hand, and the shot hit one of them in the shoulder as he was leaning around the door. The force of the bullet spun him away, but there were five men behind him, two of which were still aiming around the door, so I pushed Z down and behind me with one hand while I took aim again.

  They fired, and a bullet slammed into my shoulder like an angry wasp. I heard Z shout, but then we were at the door, and my friend dashed with the other blonde twin.

  I realized the bullet had penetrated Byron’s body to hit me, but my shoulder actually wasn’t hurting bad. There must have been some sort of armor inside the android and I guessed the bullet had only left a bruise on me. To retaliate, I squeezed the trigger of my revolver again, and one of the bullets kicked a suited man right between the eyes. Most of his face disappeared with a red explosion, and I managed to pull the door shut before they could shoot again.

  We were outside the Benjo on a metal fire escape that clung to the brick of the building like a long dead spider. Most of the hinges of the ironworks were beyond rusted, and the movements of the three blonde women going down the ladders caused it to creak like an out of tune violin and smack against the building like an old drum.

  I waited for the women to get to the ground before I started to follow them, but then the metal door began to open. It quickly swung outward, so I shoulder slammed it, heard a muffled cry of pain, tore it open to face the group of surprised men, and then pointed the revolver at the nearest man’s face.

  Click

  The gun was empty, of course. Byron fired thrice and Z once before I even got my hands on it. The man I had the revolver pointed at gasped when my weapon didn’t fire, and he moved his own arm up to point his pistol at me.

  I punched him in the face with my gun, and the movement broke his nose. He stumbled back into another suited man, and I chucked the empty revolver at the face of a third man that was aiming his pistol. He pulled the trigger when my revolver smacked him, and his shot ricocheted off the steel door.

  I slammed the door closed again, and then clutched the handle. I felt some of the locking pieces in the lever grind together, and the metal bar bent upward. It wouldn’t open when I distorted it, but I imagined the men would be able to kick it open in a few minutes. Or they could just run around.

  I adjusted the weight of the dead android on my shoulder and then tried my best to get down the fire escape ladders as fast as possible.

  “This way,” one of the twins said as soon as I landed in the alley, and I marveled at how calm her voice was.


  “Where are we going?” Z asked as we followed the two women to the end of the alley.

  “Our home. It is around the corner and down two blocks beside the hotel,” the other twin said.

  “What about the--” Z began to speak, but the door above us broke open with a loud snapping sound. The remaining men poured onto the fire escape, and they easily spotted us at the end of the alley.

  “Go,” I told them, and the trio of blonde women turned the corner out onto the street. I followed right behind them, and the men didn’t have a chance to get a shot off at me.

  We were at the front of the club, and there was a crowd of well-dressed citizens milling around the front in a chaotic mess. I had worried people would have noticed me carrying Byron’s body, or noticed that he was an android, but the mob couldn’t decide if they were running, or in which direction to run. The twin blonde women weren’t sparing any backward glances, so I followed them and Z down the street toward the hotel.

  Then I heard the sirens.

  “In here!” I shouted as soon as I saw the dozen security guards round the corner about a hundred meters ahead. We moved into another alleyway and then retreated a good twenty meters toward a raised loading dock. It stood a meter high, was made of concrete, and it provided a place for us to hide while the first wave of cops ran by.

  “I’ll go scout the corner,” Z said as she stood up from our hiding spot.

  “No, I’ll go,” I said.

  “You’ve got to carry the… body,” she replied as she pointed at the oil dripping out of Byron’s head.

  “The other men are coming. If they see you--”

  “I’ll run back. I’ve got this.” the skinny woman dashed to the end of the alley. First, she looked right, toward the direction that the police ran and where Benjo was. I figured she didn’t see anything dangerous because she turned to the left and then motioned for us to come toward her position.

  I stood from the cover and then ran toward Z. The twins actually did run to keep up with me, but I turned to them before we took to the main street.

  “How much farther?” I asked.

  “One more block,” Paula said. Or at least, I thought it was Paula, but I couldn’t see the color of her blouse under her suit coat with the direction her torso was turned from me.

  “But it is across the street,” said Kasta.

  “It’s the gray apartment building. We are on the top floor.”

  “What is the security like?” I asked. “Are there any of Byron’s men there? Will they give us a problem?”

  “No, they are all out working on the explosives,” one of them said.

  “Working on the explosives?” Z asked with obvious concern.

  “Yes. All night,” the other twin answered.

  “What are they doing with the--” my friend started to ask, but I waved my hand to silence her.

  “We need to get somewhere safe, and then have the conversation. Let’s go.”

  I moved back onto the street, and the three women followed me again.

  The lights of the district were dimmed to emulate more of a “night” mode. I guessed it was to help citizens with their sleep cycle, but it was working now to conceal a bit of our travel. It didn’t really affect my enhanced vision, so I was still able to see the cops moving through the crowd in front of the Benjo. I didn’t see the men who were chasing us, so they must have decided to wait until the cops were gone, or they were taking another path through the alleyway to try and cut us off.

  “It is up there,” one of the twins said as she pointed to the gray apartment building. It was ten stories and had the curved roof, brick, and turret components of classic Victorian styling.

  “Cross,” I ordered as I checked behind us to make sure neither the men nor cops had noticed us. I was actually starting to get worried about the men. We couldn’t have lost the group that easily.

  We sprinted across the street and ducked into the entryway of the apartment complex. There was a security terminal on the side of the wall, and Z moved to insert her cord into the slot.

  “Don’t be silly. We know the password,” Paula said as she ran her hand over the terminal.

  “Oh right, force of habit. Not used to having--”

  A bullet bounced off the wall above my friend’s head, and she shouted in a language that I didn’t recognize. I pushed her and the two women away from the corner with my free arm, and then I glanced toward the direction of the gunfire. Sure enough, the men we earlier evaded had found a way through the alleys. The thugs emerged on the street some twenty-five meters on the other side of us.

  “Opened,” Paula said as she finished keying in the access code.

  The door was a thick pane of what looked like bulletproof armored glass, and it was wrapped with a fancy ironwork paisley decoration. It popped open with a hiss, and the twins pushed through it. Z came afterward, and I managed to swing the door closed behind me just as the gunmen got a line of sight on us. One of them fired at the door, but the bullet bounced off the glass as if it was made of rubber.

  “The elevator is this way,” Kasta said, and I felt Paula tug on my arm.

  A few minutes later we’d reached the top floor of the apartment, and the two women let us into the penthouse. There was another thick glass door here with a keypad, and the women opened it before they gestured for us to follow them inside. Z and I exchanged looks before we entered the place, but my friend just shrugged.

  The inside of the apartment was as I expected: dark wood floors, gaudy furniture, gold molding on the ceiling corners, and painted artwork wrapped with thick decorative frames. Everything looked expensive, and as if it had escaped an ancient movie set.

  “Lay him there please,” one of the twins gestured to a green couch made of plush velvet. Every piece of furniture seemed to clash with every other piece, but they all kind of worked together when I looked across the entire room.

  “Tell us about the explosives,” I said as I set down the half-headed body of the gangster.

  “They are being set in the security station,” Paula explained while Kasta walked into one of the bedrooms.

  “What? Why?” Z asked, and I saw her step around a couch so she could watch the twin who walked into the rear room. It was a wise move. I didn’t think these women would ask us to help them and then kill us, but they were a strange pair, and we now knew their “man” wasn’t a true human. They might want to keep it a secret.

  And there was only one safe way to keep a secret.

  “To take over the station, of course,” Paula said with a shrug.

  “Wait, back up. Who’s taking over the station? Why does bombing the--”

  “It is Nebula Gammon,” the twin that walked in the back room said as she returned to the main area with the couches. Z let out a gasp and stepped away as if the woman was pointing her shotgun at her, but she was actually holding a head. It was bald, and I recognized it as Byron’s.

  “You have a spare?” I asked with a chuckle.

  “Of course. It will take some time to re-attach it. Then a bit longer to reboot him,” explained Kasta. “We will explain the bombs then.”

  Paula moved to the coffee table and ran her fingers down one of the leg edges. There was a hissing sound, and the top of the dark wood piece flipped up and then rotated around to show an array of various tools. I’d never been much of a mechanic, but I’d been around enough repair sites to be able to recognize most instruments. I couldn’t tell what half of these did though, and I stepped away as each of the twins grabbed tools that looked like rotor bladed mini-axes.

  “How are you so calm?” Z hissed to me as Kasta straddled Byron’s lap. Paula moved around the back of the couch and tilted his ruined skull back so her sister could use the axe tool to pry off the skin at the robot’s neck.

  “This is interesting,” I said. “I’ve heard of androids, but I had no idea Byron was one.”

  “That is the plan,” Kasta said as she finished peeling off the skin around the man�
�s neck. There were little nubs around his Adam’s apple, and Paula moved back to the table to grab a strange looking tool that looked like a screwdriver, only with a sharp tip like a mini-knife.

  “Did you build him?” Z asked as she stood on her tippy toes to peer over the top of the woman straddling the corpse. She’d taken the tool from her sister and was using it to release the attachments at his throat.

  “Yes,” they both answered at once.

  “We will answer both of your questions in a few minutes, please let us work in silence,” Paula said as she pulled her long blonde hair back over her shoulder.

  “Sure,” Z said, and then she shrugged to me. “But what of the men downstairs?”

  “They won’t be able to get up here. Even if they get in the building, they can’t get to this floor without overriding the elevator. If that happens, our security system will alert us and our weapons will deal with them. We are safe here, for the time being,” the other twin answered.

  Z and I nodded, and then we watched the women work. They didn’t speak as they went about their task, and a dozen question flooded my brain. It took them a few minutes to remove Byron’s head, but twice as long to attach the new one. Once it was secured on his neck and re-bolted, one of the beautiful women worked on putting his skin back on while the other one ran a cable between the new head and the old ruined one.

  “He will reboot now. The bullet took out part of his processor, but not his memory drive. He’ll remember everything before the bullet hit him,” Kasta explained.

  “I would like to go into the room for a few minutes,” Paula said to her sister.

  “I understand,” her sister replied. “I will explain to them.”

  “Thank you,” the other twin said with a sob. Tears were streaking down her lovely face, and she gave us a nod before she ran into the back room.

  “Uhhh. She okay?” Z asked.

  “Yes,” Kasta said as she pointed at a purple loveseat beside the green couch where Byron was rebooting. “Sit down please.”

  Z and I sat, and the other woman lowered down on the sofa next to Byron’s body. The man’s eyes were opened inhumanly wide, as was his mouth, and his fingers occasionally twitched as the data poured in from the ruined skull he was connected to.