Heavenfall: Genviants Book 1

by Franklin, TG

  "No, I won't," she whispered, knowing when the door closed, she'd never see the tower again. The commander only sent for her when a sensitive job needed her expertise. Probably a rogue controller scheduled for termination. Despite all of the electronic devices embedded in their bodies, controllers were hard to find when they went missing. She estimated it would take her...oh, about five days to find and eliminate him.

  The thought made her smile as the vehicle trembled from contact with a pot hole in the pock-marked pavement. Road maintenance hit the bottom of the government's to-do list after the riots. The frenzied crowds had looted or destroyed everything in their path, including roadways, leaving little unblemished in their wake, and almost caused the end of the world they feared coming. It had taken a year or so, but people had calmed down. Most went back to their lives on the hope that Palisade's technology would save them. It didn't last long, four years or so, and people had starting flocking to Knoxville, thinking if the Sentinel energy web worked at all, it would be protecting its creator. Guilty as charged, she thought. The only reason she'd been recruited for the wall and citizenship was because she'd proved she could kill with speed and efficiency. And they'd lost one or two, or ten, guards to her skills.

  The ride smoothed as they approached the Security Center on the outskirts of Oak Ridge. The "Secret City." Once a massive conglomerate of laboratories and a nuclear powerhouse, it now housed Palisade. A memory, the kind made pleasant from the surprise of it surfacing, gave her a little laugh. An image of the president when she was a little girl who always mispronounced nuclear as nucular. It seemed a lifetime ago. Now, the president and most of the world's leaders were nothing more than puppets controlled by Hadrian, the founder of Palisade, Earth's savior.

  Yeah. Right.

  The vehicle stopped at the first of the guard posts along the old parkway, and the engine idled while soldiers scanned the interior. It only took a few seconds for the handhelds to skim the passengers and clear them through. She'd have to endure two more stops before being allowed out of the vehicle, and she had to tamp down the urge to scream. This feeling of claustrophobia was something new. The night air smelled stale, felt hot and thick against her skin. The stop and start movement to the checkpoints made her queasy. The total opposite of the feeling of freedom she had on her motorcycle.

  They stopped at the entrance and a guard opened her car door. With a sigh of relief, she took in great gulps of fresh air and followed the man inside. They walked in silence through the maze of corridors to the commander's office. In contrast to the stark, utilitarian gray walls, concrete floors, and metal desks of the center, his office held the quiet opulence of power. Soft, thick rugs with strong reds and golds in the pattern beneath burgundy leather wing chairs. A dark cherry wood desk dominated the center of the room. Matching barrister bookshelves, with their spotless glass and books perfectly symmetrical like the buttons on a uniform, stood guard on each side of the window. The only window in the building.

  He wasn't alone. "Commander," she acknowledged straight-backed and with the respect due his status. "Reporting as ordered."

  The commander motioned for her to sit. "I believe you know our guest."

  "Hello, Dex. What a surprise to see you here." She let the sarcasm drip from her voice and sat in the chair next to him. "Another sec mech gone rogue?" The members of Hadrian's elite mech security tended to develop a god complex, and when one short circuited and went rogue? Hellish.

  "Not this time." His easy smile and the commander's clenched jaw indicated trouble in this little paradise. Not a standard termination.

  "Ursula." The commander's tone brought her to attention. He held out a file, and she took it without asking any questions, preferring to evaluate the contents without outside opinion.

  She scanned the information and closed the file. "You want me to terminate a drug dealer?"

  "Yes." Dex shifted in his chair to look her in the eye. "He's one of the few who has access to A, and he's selling to sec mechs and controllers. He's costing Palisade time and a great deal of money. An irritant which must be removed."

  "So, why not send Palisade mech security after him. This isn't covert." She dropped the file on the edge of the commander's desk.

  "He's gone under." Dex's gaze never wavered, but she saw a flash of wicked anticipation in his eyes.

  She had to stifle the laugh which threatened to escape. "In other words, you did send a Palisade security team after him, and they screwed it up? What's his name?" She picked up the file again, flipped through it. "Yeah, this Niko, caught their scent and rabbited. Figures, most of those testosterone infused mech cops couldn't find their dicks with both hands and a map."

  A vein in the commander's temple throbbed. She'd probably just insulted his best retrieval team. "The damage is done, Ursula. Can you find the guy?"

  "Sure. It'll take more time, but I can get him. However, we need to talk about compensation first."

  Dex leaned back in his chair. "The usual—"

  "This isn't a usual situation," she interrupted. "If you want me to go into the fringes, I'll need money. Lots of it. On top of my fee."

  "That's understood," Dex answered.

  "And Commander, I have four days left on the wall. I want my release papers signed today, and loaded into the mainframe. I'll need civilian ID with proper clearance to get through the city checkpoints with weapons."

  "I've already started the paperwork. Your new credentials should be here any minute."

  She nodded in acknowledgment. "And, I want a bottle of A now, plus I keep everything I take off the dealer."

  Dex's faced showed a hint of amusement at the demand, but the commander's face turned red, and his eyes bulged. "You want it on a freaking silver platter? In case you missed the fine print, Ursula, we're sending you out there to kill this guy for dealing A. What the hell makes you think we have any here, or that we'd let you keep his stash?"

  "Because I'm the best damn covert you've got, and the only one who has a chance of finding the guy. And, because you know I won't deal. Look, the headaches have eased off, some, but my head still hurts like a bitch. I need the pills. I know you have some, and you need me. Otherwise, I go back to the wall for a few more days."

  Teeth clenched, the commander leaned forward. "I can make it so you stay on the wall a lot longer." His voice held the heat of his anger, but his eyes lacked conviction.

  "You could, but I won't be so particular about who I shoot. I know those two idiots in the box with me will meet with an...unfortunate accident. As will others."

  Dex stood. "She's right, Commander. I need her, and I've got no problem with her...unusual request for compensation."

  As Hadrian's right-hand man, Dex outranked the commander, and his approval settled the matter. Out of bluster, the commander relaxed and leaned back in his chair. "Damn." He pointed a finger at her. "You get it from Dex. Make sure you keep it hidden, and if you're caught with the shit, I'll lock you up myself."

  "And my release?" She pasted an innocent look on her face and coated the request in her sweetest voice.

  He swiveled to face the computer beside him, connected a thin wire to the port in his neck, and in a few seconds her release spit out of the slot. Without bothering to remove the wire, he took a gold pen from its holder and signed the slip of paper. He scanned it into the mainframe, barked orders, and her new identification and pass slid out of the port.

  "There." He shoved the card and documents across the desk. "Dex, get her the hell outta here, and the next time you come back, you'd better have the dealer's head on a pike."

  Dex turned, and faster than she'd imagined he could move, pulled her to her feet and took hold of her elbow, not allowing her a chance to make any smartass remarks. "Thank you, Commander, for your time and assistance. Ursula." He picked up the file, ushered her to the door. "I'll give you the details on the ride into the city."

  With the door closed behind them, Ursula pulled her arm free of his grasp. "What about my
A?"

  He kept walking. "Already in the car."

  She waited until they were safely seated in Dex's vehicle and on their way before asking the important question. "So, why did you really pull me off the wall? I know a bogus file when I see one, even if the Commander doesn't."

  "It's not completely false. He is a dealer, and not just A. If you want something, weapons, ammunition, drugs, any kind of contraband, Niko can get it for you. Charges out the ass for it, but he doesn't deliver knock-offs or low quality merchandise. Tonight is his last drug delivery because the supply of A is dwindling. He knows part of what's happening, though. Guy's got a brain like a frickin' computer."

  "Why isn't he working for Palisade? I thought they snatched anyone who was a halfway decent hacker. The geek types make great controllers. Present company excepted, of course." No one would ever describe the man sitting next to her as a geek.

  "Of course." Dex smiled at her, and not the usual "I'm humoring you" kind. "Palisade tried to recruit him, a little too hard and a little too enthusiastically. I think that's when he started putting the pieces together. The A, the rumors. A lot of his former clients are on the verge of total brainwave transformation."

  On the street, the mech gangs called a failed transformation a "brain blast." Probably a good description. She'd seen it once while in training. Palisade had upped the wattage on the Sentinel energy web early in the morning, and by the afternoon a pink cast coated the sky. The poor guy had spent about thirty minutes on the firing range, hitting the death shot every time. She was a couple of spots down from him, about ten or fifteen yards, and had just fired her last round when she'd heard him scream. It took only seconds before he collapsed in a puddle of his own blood. It had gushed out of his nose, ears, eyes.

  "On the verge myself. You almost blasted, didn't you? Averted it with controller mech?"

  "You're not going to blast." Dex said it with such certainty, she almost believed it.

  "Niko turned Palisade down," He continued. "And because of their tactics, it was easy to convince him to join us. Niko doesn't know anything about our plan, yet. And no names. I'm fairly certain he's figured some of it out, though, because he didn't ask any questions. Even when we supplied him with the doctored A for Mary. However, we needed a legitimate excuse to go after Niko and get him out. I generated the report and fed the Commander false intel." He smirked. "The man is too much of a hot head and easily manipulated. He still needs his mother." Dex relaxed into the seat and closed his eyes. "Wake me when we get to the city."

  Watching the scenery slide by, Ursula tried to remember her mother, and if she was pretty, but couldn't bring any childhood memories to the surface. Didn't remember her mother at all. Not because of the Wave, or the riots. No, one morning dear mom had taken a look at her three-bedroom rancher with its beige carpets, neutral counter tops, white appliances, nondescript furniture, and artist prints of serene landscapes on eggshell colored walls and decided she needed more zest in her life. More color. Apparently, the greens and yellows of baby shit and snot didn't fit the bill, and the blue of her husband's blue-collar job wasn't quite royal enough. So, she packed a few precious items, her credit cards, and left her husband to raise their only child.

  Not that her father ever uttered an angry word against her mother. No, she'd heard the story in whispered snippets all her life from sympathetic neighbors, teachers, and even the pastor's wife at First Baptist where Dad took her to Sunday school.

  No one had ever said her mother was pretty.

  But sometimes she wondered, and how could she help but wonder, if the lack of motherly affection during the formative years had somehow contributed to the killer she'd become. Dad had done the best he could, but Sunday school and silly faces charred onto grilled cheese sandwiches didn't fill the void. Didn't ease the heartache of her mother not wanting her.

  And sometimes she wondered if her mother ever found the color she craved.

  Ursula remembered the power boost earlier in the afternoon and the hideously abundant color which turned the sky more reddish purple by the hour, and thought she'd had about as much color as she could take.

  The car slowed to a stop and a spotlight shown through the windshield. Even if the driver wanted to evade the checkpoint, the glaring light made it impossible to see. The speakers on the tower crackled and overlaid the guard's voice with static. "Please exit the vehicle."

  Ursula nudged Dex into motion. He opened the door and Ursula followed him out of the car.

  "ID and destination."

  "Municipal garage," the driver answered and held his ID in front of the scanner. Dex stepped up to the scanner and produced his ID, followed by Ursula.

  "Identification and destination cleared," the disembodied voice announced. When they re-entered the car, Ursula heard the click, click, click of the electronic locks disengaging over the sound of the engine, then the weighty groan of the metal gates as they opened.

  "The municipal garage?" Ursula asked as the car rolled through the checkpoint.

  "Another part of the intel I didn't gave the commander. One of my dealers was picked up. He'll never make it to the detention center, though. The security team is mine. Unfortunately, a second team, not mine, joined them, and an old friend got caught in the middle. She took off when the second team arrived and is hiding in the garage. She's okay, but there's someone else we need to acquire first."

  Dex opened the file. "Niko is meeting with a special customer at the Downtown Diner on Market Square."

  "That's not in the file. You wouldn't give the commander any pertinent info on Niko. Where'd you get the intel?"

  "I'll explain later. You've missed a lot of meetings while you were on the wall."

  "Yeah, well I was busy letting people over who are better at all the meeting stuff. I'm better at shooting than planning."

  "No shooting tonight, no matter how tempting." He checked the display. "Good, they're still there. We'll wait outside until she leaves. Once she's outside, you go in and get Niko while I go after the girl."

  "Who is she?"

  Dex never took his gaze away from the screen. "Nathan Sullivan's daughter."

  Ursula let out a low whistle. "Does she know?"

  CHAPTER THREE

  "That she's his daughter? Yeah, I'm pretty sure she does."

  She hit his shoulder, just above the biomechanics, but not with enough force to cause the fluid to react. The stuff hardened like steel under pressure, and she didn't want to damage her trigger hand. "Asshole. You know what I meant. The nanite project?"

  He looked at her fist, then dead into her eyes. "Don't push it, Ursula. And no, she's oblivious."

  Under his hard stare, she forced her hand open and willed herself to relax. In that moment, he showed her a glimpse of the legendary mech gang leader, Danger Extreme, stupid nickname, but the look in his eyes frightened her more than she wanted to admit. She'd forgotten, for a little while, that his easy smiles, the camaraderie, the emotions, were all affectations. And a slight lapse in memory could get you slightly dead.

  The car stopped in front of a boarded up shop on a narrow side street. Dex pocketed the locater and opened the car door. "She's on the move. I've got to find her before mech security does. We'll split up. You need to stick with Niko, get him into the car. I'll join you soon."

  Ursula exited the vehicle and walked across the square and into the diner, but her casual strides didn't stop the customers from tensing. And with good reason. The only people who wore guns inside the wall were either a member of Hadrian's Security Force, or a member of a retrieval team. Hell, the guards at the checkpoints only had electroshock weapons and batons. Of course, they didn't need more than that to take down a mech. Nasty stuff, electrical currents, when they arced through a mech body. Stunk, too. Although, not a whole lot more than the food in this place.

  Just for the hell of it, she rested her hand, palm open, on the butt of her gun. Nobody pissed their pants, but one guy shook so violently food spilled off his pl
ate. She gave him a grin. "Hey, a girl's gotta eat, and I heard the burgers here are to die for."

  He flinched. A few others signaled for their checks, one girl never even looked up from the book she was reading, and Niko sat low in a booth munching on fries.

  "Niko!" She crossed the floor and slid onto the seat across from him. "Fancy meeting you here. Man, it's been years."

  "Yeah, seems like forever since we last saw each other." He stayed relaxed, just two old friends, but his pupils contracted and a cocky grin broke across his face.

  She snitched a fry from his plate. "So, how's the burger?"

  "Great, made with fifteen percent real reconstituted beef product. Smother it with enough mustard, and you can almost pretend you're eating the real thing."

  He had to be confused, wary of the little game they played, but it didn't show. Dex made a good choice in Niko. He wouldn't give them up if he got caught. At least not right away.

  The waitresses stayed on the other side of the diner, behind the protection of the long counter. Ursula waved at them and yelled her order. "Burger, loaded, fries. To go." She reached across the table and took Niko's hands in hers. "Why don't we go somewhere and catch up on old times?"

  Damned if a twinkle didn't light his eyes. "Sounds good."

  "To go order's up!" A waitress tossed a flimsy cardboard box by the register, clearly anxious for the pair, and any trouble they might cause, to leave.

  Ursula stood, walked to the counter, and threw some bills next to the box. "Keep the change." The tip was generous enough to lend credibility to the scenario—happy to see an old friend. It might have been a little too much, too memorable. People with guns didn't leave tips. Hell, they didn't pay. If the commander had doubts and decided to do a little checking of his own, the waitresses could tell him every detail of her meeting Niko.

  She took the box and headed to the door, not bothering to check and see if Niko followed. Once outside, she slowed her pace and allowed him to catch up.