by P. R. Adams
“I’m sure of it. I’ve worked with the person behind it.”
“Oh my God, you’re from the Agency? Ravi said he thought you might—”
“Not for some time.”
“Well, apparently things have changed since you’ve been away. They wouldn’t go after my mother, not without some radical incentive. I’m absolutely certain.”
Her confidence was misplaced. I was sure of it. This was Stovall’s work. It had all the signatures, especially the coldblooded and callous disregard for human life.
I caught Ichi’s glare. She needed to know that I was sure. I nodded, but doubt began to gnaw at me. She hurried past with a bag of cameras with built-in motion detectors. She carried them to the entry and began planting them on walls around the auditorium at about six feet.
I stepped closer to Gillian. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe—”
Danny’s voice sounded in my ear. “Um, we’ve got a vehicle approaching. Fast. Ten minutes out but accelerating and driving aggressively.”
I shouted over my shoulder, “Ichi, five minutes!”
Gillian staggered backwards. “What? This android? Did you—?”
“The word went out a little early.” I squatted next to the bases Ichi had set out and set them in a hexagonal formation around Chan’s spare system, one base corner pressed flush to the other. “You’re going to be safe. All we need you to do is sit right here.” I tapped a toe in the middle of the hexagon. “Just you and a computer system. Safe as can be.”
Her cheeks reddened. “I need to get out of here.”
“Gillian. We know what we’re doing.”
Danny’s voice was in my ear again. “She likes speed. Maybe seven minutes.”
I pulled the top of one of the bases up, exposing black fabric. After it stretched to six feet, I pressed a stud on the top of the base, and the fabric stiffened. “This can stop those flechette rounds they use. Inside this wall, she can’t get to you with her gun.”
Gillian turned toward the stage where her mother had nearly died. “I…”
I took her by the arms, looked deep into the emerald of her eyes, and kissed her on the cheek. “I would never allow anything to happen to you.” It was true, and it drove an icy dagger into my gut. I had no idea where it had come from, this intense need for her. The words seemed to surprise her as much as me.
Ichi shouted from the main entry doors, “Five more to position.” The bag barely sagged off her shoulder.
Gillian pressed herself against me. “I don’t want anything to happen to either of us.”
I breathed her in and ran my hand through the waves of her hair. “We’ll be fine. Trust me.” The same line I kept feeding to Ichi. “You can watch from the system.”
Danny’s voice followed a crack of static. “She’s on the main road outside, decelerating. Wait. She’s turning around. Um, about two blocks out. Parking with the nose pointed away. Ready for escape. You sure this is Jacinto?”
I pushed Gillian toward the protective hexagon. “He worked with us enough to know what we did. Or he could be following Stovall’s directions.”
“Well, she’s getting out. Looks like she’s wearing a skintight getup. Black.”
I set a small headset over my ear, synced it to my data device, and tapped to open a connection to Ichi. “One minute.”
Her breath was rapid. Her steps echoed in what must have been the hall outside the balcony. “Cameras are in position. I am heading back now.”
I pulled the last of the fabric sheets up and activated the batteries, then twisted out stabilizing feet along the bottom of each base. The corners of the bases magnetized and the feet snapped together, compensating for the lack of weight. I shook one of the panels to test the integrity; it held up. The lightweight flechettes were terrifying against soft flesh and clothing, but they wouldn’t do more than knock the panels around a little. They couldn’t penetrate the fabric or tip the enclosure over.
Danny blew into his mic. “Um, you guys ready? She’s running the steps to the front of the building. She’s as fast on her feet as she is driving.”
I pulled on an R60 holster and took one of the swords from the weapons pile to go along with the Night Eel. “Ichi?”
She burst through the main entry at a run, then spun and dropped to her knees, sliding backwards the rest of the way to the weapons pile. She brought up the wakizashi and a smaller blade I hadn’t seen before. It was like a sai, but with a chromed look to it.
She saw my curious look and smiled. “She is not the only one with special knives.”
The glass doors boomed open. Ichi got to her feet and jogged wide to my right. I sidled left, the blade held up in front of me.
I whispered to Danny, “She’s in.”
The main entry doors boomed open next, and Maribel stepped through. Dressed in a skintight black bodysuit and boots, she moved as if her leg had never been damaged. She had both hands, which drew two of the plastic-looking knives from sheathes on her hips. Her head tracked my movement before turning slightly to watch Ichi.
Ichi padded a few steps forward. I did the same.
Maribel waited for a second, then she charged Ichi.
The trap had been sprung. I just wasn’t sure whose.
Chapter 28
Maribel was a black widow, a flash of long, wiry limbs. Her steps whispered across the polished wood as if it were her web, a sound quickly overwhelmed by my own heavy steps as I dashed to cut her off. The oily smell of machinery curled behind her like rot off a corpse. She had dragged even more of the cold outer air and snow in with her, chilling my gut, slicking the floor, making it impossible to close before she reached Ichi.
All the warnings I had given Ichi about Maribel’s speed would never be enough. When the android sprinted across the auditorium floor, I was afraid Ichi would misjudge the angle of attack.
I should have known better.
Ichi leaned into the android’s charge, slashed high with the wakizashi, then threw herself back onto the floor.
Maribel swung high with her left arm, catching nothing but air. The second blade dove down as she passed over Ichi, going for her shoulder.
Ichi caught the plastic blade in the sai-like weapon’s prong and twisted her wrist.
Before Maribel could pull the blade free, it snapped with an ear-piercing whine.
In that instant of distraction, Ichi kicked her powerful legs up and just behind the knee joint of Maribel’s trailing leg, knocking her off-balance.
I was on the android by then, swinging my sword at the wrist of the hand holding the broken weapon. Even though I was using an old broadsword replica I’d picked up more as a bludgeon and distraction than a real weapon, I caught Maribel off-guard. The metal blade cracked against her wrist with a discordant ring, sending a jolt through the hilt and into my own wrists.
The blade held; her wrist didn’t. Her broken blade clattered to the floor, and her hand hung limply from the ruined wrist joint.
Maribel regained her balance and brought her good blade up, slashing through the sword blade and part of the hilt. I was vaguely aware of the tip cutting through my forearm.
I threw the hilt at her, missing badly.
It gave Ichi time to get to her feet. She circled to the android’s opposite side.
Maribel’s head whipped back and forth. I was the better target.
She lunged, swinging the ruined hand at me and scything her last blade toward my gut.
I fell back, barely avoiding the lethal blow. At the last second, I pressed the button and flailed with the Night Eel.
Maribel ducked it easily.
Ichi closed again, this time plunging the wakizashi into Maribel’s neck. The tip slid through whatever armor covered the android but became wedged in the muscle filaments and plastic bones.
Maribel brought her ruined arm around, catching Ichi in the ribs, knocking her back with a sickening crack that wasn’t all padding.
Ichi rolled across the floor and instantly curl
ed up, dropping her sai.
The android turned, probably sensing the opportunity. A quick grip shift on the plastic knife, and Maribel leapt.
I recovered. Caution and strategy were gone. Giving Maribel a clean strike would mean losing Ichi, possibly forever. That would put Gillian at risk. That wasn’t an acceptable outcome.
Maribel stopped a few inches from Ichi and pivoted.
Too late, I swung the Night Eel, realizing I had been lured in.
The plastic knife caught my wounded arm at the heel of the palm and dragged along my forearm, nearly splitting my arm down the middle.
Once again, the Night Eel flew wide, and this time Maribel’s damaged arm connected when it was swung around. The forearm caught me in the jaw, and the flopping hand slapped me in the cheek. It was like fire against my skin, which was still tender from the earlier bruising. Fireworks exploded behind my synthetic eyes, and I collapsed.
My humanity had proved too frail against the indestructible machinery after all.
Maribel turned toward the curtains hiding Gillian and sprinted.
There was just enough awareness in that dazed state that I could feel my heart racing with terror. I couldn’t lose Gillian. I wouldn’t. I gasped, “Chan!” It was almost lost in Gillian’s scream as Maribel’s remaining blade slashed through the fabric as if it were paper.
Something popped in my head, and the world lost all resolution and color for a second. The comforting chatter that had marked my constant connection to the Grid went silent. Despite the dizziness and confusion, I saw things with a fresh clarity.
Gillian was pressed against the back wall of the fabric screen. Terrified. Defenseless.
And not the irresistible beauty that had stolen my heart. Pretty, yes. But I had plenty of experience with pretty women. She was nothing special, and what should have been a connection that ran deeper, beyond the physical, just wasn’t there.
Ichi, though. She was staggering to her feet. Pain creased her brow. Her black hair spilled over her face. Her lips—Tae-hee’s lips—quivered.
My best friend’s daughter. The daughter of the one woman I’d allowed myself to fall for since leaving Idaho.
Beautiful. A powerful spirit. Someone I would die for.
I got to my feet and reached for the Night Eel. It evaded me at first, then I had it. I stumbled toward the android, which seemed equally dazed.
It turned in a slow circle, as if seeing the auditorium for the first time, as if the same sort of veil over its—Maribel’s—awareness had been lifted with the Grid going silent. She glanced down at her broken wrist and the knife in her hand, then raised the transparent blade toward me.
Ichi wheezed as she leaned into a trot. “Now, Stefan-san.”
“Now.” I almost let myself fall toward Maribel and moved by fighting to stay on my feet. It was a drunken ballet, the three of us barely able to function, and me the clumsiest of the lot.
That drew Maribel toward me. She was quick but clumsy, like a baby testing the limits of legs that had just learned to run.
She slashed at me, and I managed to slap her forearm with the Night Eel.
The blow knocked the weapon from my grip, but not before I caught an audible hum. The knife fell from her convulsing hand. Her spine arched and her jaw clenched. Fabric melted where the stick touched.
She yanked her arm free and lurched backward.
Ichi launched herself, shoulder-first, into Maribel’s back, knocking her to the ground. She struggled to get up, but the shock seemed to have stolen her balance.
I grabbed the Night Eel and brought it down again, this time near her neck.
Fabric melted again, and along with it, hair. Maribel writhed.
And then the Night Eel was dead.
I planted a foot on her back where kidneys should have been and wrestled the R60 out of its holster. Her head twisted around to stare at me with cold brown eyes.
I pulled the trigger, and the rounds shattering her face seemed a mercy.
A soft hum in the back of my head became a quiet whisper, and I felt panic starting to seize me. Gillian…
No!
I jerked the wakizashi out of Maribel’s neck, smearing thick liquid and brains around on the cracked wood, then put the tip of the blade against the base of my skull, where the cybernetic implant was.
Gillian’s face screwed up in surprise. “Stefan? What are you doing?”
I jammed the tip in, felt it pierce flesh and ride into the implant’s metal channel. Fire ran through my ear and jaw. I fell to my knees, nearly blacking out from the pain.
The chatter stopped. The world regained its clarity. I retained control.
Ichi blinked at me, glassy-eyed. She was up on her elbows. “I do not—”
I shook my head and got to my feet, waving off Gillian as she approached. Maribel’s knife was a few feet away, almost lost against the hardwood. I picked the weapon up by the handle and put it into my pants pocket, then reached my good hand out to Ichi and pulled her up as gently as I could. “Your ribs?”
She ran gloved hands beneath her right breast down to the bottom of her ribcage. “The padding took the worst.” Her face said otherwise.
“We’ll get you to the clinic.” I chuckled. “I know someone who can patch you up while yelling at you about how irresponsible you are.”
Ichi smiled crookedly as she took the wakizashi from me. She toed the android’s shattered head. “She is dead?”
Small clumps of circuitry fell away from the shifting head. “There’s nothing left for them to control her through.”
“Stefan?” Gillian put a hand on my shoulder. “Your arm.”
I glanced down. If it had been a real arm—my arm—I would probably have gone into shock. The blade had gashed both plastic bones and destroyed the synthetic muscle filaments. Instead of the dull numbness shrouding intense pain that would have come with such an injury, I just had an awareness that my arm wasn’t functional.
“It’ll be okay.” It seemed the right thing to say, even though I doubted Dr. Jernigan would be able to save it. “I’m sorry this became more dramatic than I’d intended.”
“I thought she was going to kill me.” Gillian looked away from the ruined android.
“I waited too long to call for the Grid shutdown. We had to be sure she was close enough.” And I thought we could get her to the ground before it went off. Stupid. “Gillian, listen—you’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
Gillian glanced at the ruined android. “But it’s destroyed. You said so.”
“Not the auditorium, the city. You’ve got to get out of the area, out of this mess of a political nightmare.”
She frowned. “I’m a grown woman. I can take care of myself.”
“We’ll get your mother out of here, don’t worry.” It was Ichi’s turn to frown; I waved her off. It wasn’t the time. “But you…you’ve got a life ahead of you. Don’t blow it.”
“Don’t tell me—”
My data device buzzed. “Just a second.” I pulled it out, expecting Chan or Danny.
Jacinto’s avatar glared at me. “What have you done with her?”
I turned the data device to capture Maribel’s blasted head, and waved away Gillian’s mouthed “Who?”
The data device vibrated as Jacinto’s face shook. A simulacrum’s rage seemed no different than a human’s. His eyes danced. “Where is Chan?”
“Safe.” I disabled the data device’s cameras and walked away from Ichi and Gillian. My head was finally starting to really clear, but not fast enough. “Never here, actually. I apologize for the deception. Is your master there? Mr. Stovall?”
Jacinto’s soft cheeks puffed out. “No one is my master.”
“You’re not even real, Jacinto. Let me speak to Stovall.”
Jacinto’s face disappeared, replaced by Stovall’s smirking mug. “Always so ready with your celebration, Stefan. And as always, two steps behind. When will you learn you’re not special? You don’t know more than
everyone else.”
“I’m not the one with a multimillion-dollar pair of assassins going to the scrap heap.”
“Every experiment has expendable resources. You know that.” There wasn’t even a hint of anger or irritation. Stovall was unflappable as ever.
“Everyone’s expendable to you. You ever wonder when you’ll be expendable?”
“It’s just the way the business works.”
He was buying time. Maybe he thought he could still influence me. “If you’re curious, the connection’s completely dead. You blew your opportunity.”
“Not really. This has been an exceptional success, and we’ve learned more than we could have hoped when this all began. And when this is all done, you’ll be disposed of the same as our little terrorists.”
“Perhaps.” I tried to add Chan and Danny onto the connection. Something—Stovall or Jacinto—had it locked down. There would be no recording it for evidence, no sharing it with law enforcement. I stopped at the door to the lobby. “Maybe I stumble upon you before then and we finally get to see if you’re really the tough guy you imagine you are.”
“Not likely. When we’re done with you, you won’t even know it. Just a bullet to the back of the head.”
Like he’d always said. I moved into the lobby to the glass doors looking out onto the parking lot; Ichi followed but gave me some room. It was getting dark. “You were wrong about that when I met you. You’re wrong about it now. But I think you know that. I think you realize your control over me was never as good as you thought it was.”
He chuckled.
“Did they do the same to you? Did they steal away your ability to give in to torture and beg for a quick death? Did they? I think we’ll find out one day. I think—”
Stovall shut me down.
I cycled the data device and stepped into the cold. The wind stung my face but brought a cleansing freshness. The data device vibrated: online again.
I reconnected to Chan and Danny. “I just had a call from Stovall. Something encrypted and probably bounced through a million Grid points. See what you can do to track it. I want the same thing from the android’s vehicle. But I want you mobile. Get Heidi to find a new place for us. Ten, fifteen miles away. Leave anything non-essential behind.”
