The Rogue Spark series Box Set

by Cameron Coral

  They passed a vacant lot. Not the right place, thought Ida. No cover for a meeting.

  Past the deserted lot, they tread across concrete overgrown with wild grass and weeds. Ida spotted a side alley, and as they approached, Ida slammed her body into Gatz, using her weight to push him into the mouth of the alley.

  Damn. He was heavier than she’d expected, but what did she know about wolf-human body mass?

  He nearly lost his balance, then started to steady himself. She rushed him again with all her might, and used her foot to sweep one of his legs out from underneath him. He fell hard on the concrete ground. “What the hell?” He glared at her.

  She loomed over him, the gun trained at his chest.

  “Admit it. What we’re doing—this meeting. You’re selling me out. Even if you didn’t film me, you’re cashing out.”

  “Ida, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he said.

  “My name! I never told you my name. How did you know it unless you’re spying on me?”

  “So I did some research on you. You would do the same thing in my position.”

  “I think you calculated how much money you could make off me,” she said. “Deliver me to the highest bidder.”

  “Fine. If that’s what you think, leave. Keep the gun. But I need to get to my meeting. I can’t be late.”

  Was he bluffing? Ida couldn’t be sure. She didn’t want to go voluntarily into a situation where the powers that be were ready to buy her. Or worse.

  “So be it.” Ida turned and ran from the alley. She doubted Gatz would try to follow, and even if he did, she was faster on her feet. On another street, she spied a ladder, which she used to climb to the roof of a three-story building. She slid to the roof’s edge and lay on her belly.

  She could see Gatz in the alley, dusting off his fedora. As he exited the alley, he surveyed his surroundings, probably checking that a deranged ex-soldier lady didn’t run up and knock him down again. She smiled at the memory of taking down the mutant. It took a hard body slam, but she got that sucker on the ground.

  Would I have shot him? A chill ran down her spine followed by a slight pang of guilt. He was facing this situation alone. The fact she’d abandoned him hadn’t stopped him.

  He started jogging down the street, anxious to get to his destination. Ida made a quick check of her biocuff to view the GPS map. Nearest landmark was a condemned planetarium.

  In the distance, she spotted the abandoned museum with its large, circular dome. Although the city hummed in the distance, all sirens and bright lights, no people or vehicles traveled this deserted area.

  Until now. Two private sky cruisers soared into view and landed next to the deserted museum. Cabin lights off, she couldn’t tell their make or models from so far.

  She glimpsed Gatz circle one side of the building and disappear through a door.

  A few men exited the landed vehicles, huddled briefly, and then climbed the crumbling, concrete stairs to the planetarium entrance. She couldn’t make out any details about the men from her vantage point.

  She decided to move closer and see if she could learn any information about who Gatz was meeting.

  Would Vance Drem himself be in the meeting? He would find himself sorely disappointed when his prize healer was missing. Did he want her as an elite bodyguard, like Gatz had?

  A cold shiver rippled through her body.

  After exiting the roof, she tread through an alleyway where a rat darted in front of her. She must’ve knocked it from its home when she landed on a few old wooden boards and long-forgotten trash piles.

  Rats she didn’t mind. Hybrids with guns—that was another story. In the war, deep in the outer territories, humankind fought to survive, to keep this tenuous grasp on their planet.

  It was rumored that hybrids, frustrated with their inferior treatment by humans, had played a part in helping the invading alien forces.

  But without proof, hybrids continued to live in the safe cities, far from the wars. Ida and her fellow soldiers had been tasked with keeping them safe.

  And now, here she was following one into an unknown, probably dangerous, situation.

  Well, Ida had never been one to take the safe route.

  She made herself a deal. She’d find a way in. If the wolf had sold her out, she’d shoot them all, destroy the video evidence, and flee the city.

  A trio faced each other across a table inside a large, oval-shaped room with giant floor-to-ceiling panes. Nature was winning the battle to take back the damp, crumbling planetarium. Outside, the restless waves of the giant lake chopped at the windows. Gatz and two men quietly discussed matters while three men guarded the entrances.

  One of the men smoked a cigar. The other had a beard and a scar running down one cheek. Their meetings went like this: Each came with a new piece of intelligence. Tonight, Gatz had learned the mayor wasn’t just ill, as had been rumored, but he was terminal. Nobody knew how long he had, and they had spent a few minutes speculating.

  Gatz’s turn came. “I have something.” He paused. “I don’t have proof, but—”

  They heard a sudden clattering from another room in the building and flinched. If discovered, they’d be imprisoned or killed.

  “Edwards, go check on it,” said the smoking man to one of the bodyguards.

  The man took off in the direction of the noise.

  Turning his attention back to Gatz, the smoking man said, “Tell us quickly, we don’t have much time.”

  Edwards entered the museum’s old banquet hall kitchen. Probably a raccoon or a bum, but he worried anyway.

  The whole place gave him the creeps. The planetarium was old and smelled like rotting wood, and something worse he couldn’t place like dead animals. He shivered as his breath formed a cloud. Most of the giant windows had been knocked out.

  The full moon coated everything in a pale, eerie glow. Edwards scanned the large, dark kitchen, shining the light beam from his custom biocuff in two of the corners.

  Squatters had thrown a party on one side of the room. Empty bottles of wine, Jack Daniels, and beer cans surrounded a small deserted campfire.

  Earlier that day, Edwards had summoned the courage to ask his boss for time off. He’d said he wanted to take a trip to New York City to settle personal business. But Edwards planned to journey south and never come back.

  He was tired of this life, of following orders to make another man rich. He edged around the room cautiously with his pistol drawn, unsure of what lurked in the dark corners of the room. He’d started envisioning his new life. Once he’d read that if you pictured a thing often enough, you could make it come true. He dreamed of sitting on a beach with an ice-cold margarita and a beautiful woman by his side.

  This was the last thing Edwards remembered before he felt a sting in his neck and everything went black.

  That won’t feel good in the morning, thought Ida as she stood over the body in the kitchen. She eyed the dart poking out of the man’s neck. At least taking him down had been quiet. After noticing it earlier in Gatz’s arsenal, she had pocketed a small tranquilizer gun. She checked his pulse; he would be fine.

  She still needed to confirm her suspicion that Gatz had betrayed her. If he had, she would put a bullet in his brain.

  Before Edwards was sent to investigate the noise—she had accidentally kicked one of the old wine bottles lying around—she’d had a decent vantage point, and had heard pieces of what Gatz and the men were saying.

  She’d been about to hear what Gatz was going to reveal and hoped she hadn’t missed it. Edging her way to the kitchen entrance, she pressed her ear against the crack in the door.

  Seventeen

  “If what you say is true,” said the man with the scar, “then Vance will die! I’ll tear his throat out.”

  “Keep your voice down,” said Gatz. “I know you have a personal stake in this. That your son—”

  “Don’t you mention my son!” The scarred man suddenly drove a knife into the
tabletop. He leaped to his feet and glared at Gatz and the smoking man. “Nobody says anything about my son.”

  What had triggered the man’s outburst? If Gatz’s secret was about her, he wouldn’t have reacted that way. Maybe it was something else. Maybe he hadn’t tried to sell her out after all.

  The smoking man spoke up. “How are they getting it to the soldiers?”

  Gatz said, “I’m not certain. Perhaps it’s happening through medicine or food.”

  Why were they talking about soldiers? Ida wondered.

  “I have a very reliable source on the inside,” said Gatz. “I also know a former soldier we could monitor, test, try to find evidence.”

  “And who’s going to do anything about it, even if you find evidence?” said smoking man.

  Scarred man said, “He’s right. Nobody in the city council will stand up to Vance. And there’s not a judge within 500 miles who would rule against him. They’d be assassinated within twenty-four hours is my guess.”

  Gatz tapped his fingers on the table. “We need to do something. Take Vance out. Like we talked about in the beginning.”

  Both men silently nodded.

  Ida registered a glint of metal at the far side of the room. A tall, chrome android that resembled a human soldier carried an automatic rifle.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Suddenly, large canisters of gas landed on the ground with loud pops. Glass shattered from above and sprayed the room.

  At least five drones descended. Smaller, faster models equipped with guns, the robots had been built for hostage negotiations because they could fly and navigate buildings via small passages such as air ducts.

  Tall warrior robots appeared at the entrance to the large room, guns extended. Although a cloud of smoke had filled the air, they entered, oblivious to the noxious gas. Their red pulsating visors scanned from side to side, searching for targets.

  Behind her in the kitchen, Ida heard a thump at the door she had used to sneak inside. She had locked it in case anyone tried to follow her. Cold air blew in from a broken window overlooking a small beach path. She could easily escape and deal with a few police bots outside. She might get away.

  But Gatz. She’d come here to be his bodyguard. Should she abandon him?

  A hybrid. Would his death even matter?

  She drew the pistol and nudged the door open to survey the scene in the main room. The situation was grim. They were outnumbered and didn’t have the matching firepower.

  Gatz and the men had overturned their table and huddled behind it. Coughing and wheezing, they had maybe thirty seconds before they passed out from the gas, if they were lucky.

  Ida knelt and placed her gun on the floor while she drew her black scarf over her mouth and nose, securing it with a quick knot.

  She edged the door out a few inches again and scanned quickly: front, left, right. How the hell to get out of this? And then she spotted it. Just around the corner from the kitchen door, in the main room, a stairway led downstairs. Basement? Whatever was down there, it was their only chance.

  She grabbed the man’s gun, a semiautomatic rifle that would provide more cover than her pistol. She stuffed the handgun in the back of her jeans. Armed with the semi in her right hand and a giant cast-iron frying pan she’d grabbed in the kitchen, she took a running leap out of the kitchen.

  Did androids feel surprise? She hoped so. The robots had been scanning the perimeter of the room believing the men and hybrid wolf were their only targets.

  Ida struck a tall android with the pan and nearly knocked its head off. The robot stumbled sideways and fell. Its dented visor rolled to a far corner of the room.

  She fired several rounds through the dense smoke, then slid behind the large table with Gatz and the men.

  Gatz glared at her. “Nice of you to join us. Gentlemen, meet my bodyguard.”

  Scarred man grunted in surprise.

  “There’s a stairway leading down just behind us.” Ida tossed Gatz the pistol. “Head down, I’ll cover you.” Their eyes watered as they choked on the gas. “Now!” She pushed the smoking man toward the stairs. The others lunged toward the exit, except for Gatz, who stayed beside her.

  The smoke from the tear gas had started to clear as a breeze whipped through the planetarium. They could see at least six droids in the room. One said, “Warning. This is Spark City Police. Put your weapons down, you are under arrest.”

  As if to punctuate the warning, they started firing at Gatz and Ida.

  “You have ten seconds to drop your weapons, or we will fire.”

  “Guess the wiring is off,” said Gatz, who raised his gun and fired a few rounds in return.

  “On my command, we run to the stairs,” she barked.

  He nodded. A countdown began, “Ten, nine, eight…”

  The pair ducked as more shots flew by. The countdown voice was closer this time, “Seven, six…” Ida didn’t want to find out what happened once they really started shooting.

  She edged to the side of the table and fired off a round. The countdown robot continued, “Five, four…”

  “Now!” Ida tugged at Gatz to run for the stairs. She jumped up and fired several rounds as Gatz sprinted for the basement. She reloaded and fired, edging her way to the stairs when she felt a sharp, searing sting on her upper left arm. She scrambled down the steps to Gatz and the men waiting below. Then, she fell to her knees. “What’s down here?”

  Smoking man said, “Basement. Long tunnels. We should go north toward the city center.”

  “Let’s go,” she said, and started to get up.

  “Are you okay?” Gatz asked, pointing at her jacket, which had been torn at the shoulder where she’d been hit.

  “I’m fine.” She didn’t want to admit it hurt like hell. “We need to move.”

  Suddenly a live grenade clattered down the stairs. Gatz shouted, “Run!”

  They made it forty feet before the explosion rocked them off their feet. When the dust settled, they realized scarred man’s bodyguard had been struck with shrapnel. He groaned and pressed his hands against a large gash on his leg.

  Ida crouched beside him and slid off her gloves.

  Scarred man frowned. “How bad is it?” he asked.

  Ida examined the wounded man’s leg. “He’ll bleed out soon if we don’t help him.”

  As Ida placed her bare hands on his leg, Scarred Man pushed her aside and handed the ailing man a grenade. “Tom, use this when the time comes,” he said.

  “No, I can help him,” said Ida.

  Gatz nudged her uninjured shoulder. “There’s no time. We have to go now.”

  They heard thundering steps on the stairs as the police droids started their descent into the basement.

  Ida felt stuck. She had the power to save the man, but she would risk the lives of the others, and her own. “This isn’t right.”

  “Now!” yelled Gatz, and pulled her up with surprising strength.

  With no time to argue, Ida ran with Gatz and the men, heading north as they fled the battle zone. As the wounded bodyguard’s bomb detonated, the explosion rattled the underground.

  As Ida ran, she said a silent apology to the man they left behind.

  Eighteen

  “What the hell was that?” asked Ida after downing several large dregs from a whiskey bottle at Dox. Upon arriving, she’d immediately gone to the bar and helped herself.

  Gatz came out of his office carrying a small white medicine kit. They were alone after he’d ushered out a bartender.

  “Will the guy say anything about this?” asked Ida as he wiped her blood from the floor. She’d been bleeding steadily from her gunshot wound as they traversed the underground tunnels until finally emerging into the city streets.

  “He’s one of my best workers. I trust him.”

  “How much do you trust him?” She took another swig. “I trust no one.”

  Gatz smirked. “That explains a lot about your lack of social life. Sit here.” He motioned
for her to sit on one of the tables.

  She hesitated, eying the medical kit. He rifled through it, pulling out gauze, needle, thread, antiseptic, and a pair of tweezers.

  “You won’t need those,” said Ida.

  He waited for her to explain.

  “The tweezers. You won’t need those.” Another swig.

  Gatz realized he would need to restock his whiskey now that Ida had entered his life. “And why is that?”

  She sighed, “For some reason, when bullets or other metal enters me, it doesn’t come out.” It was Ida’s turn to shrug. “Don’t know why.” She held the bottle and pointed at her body, adopting a louder voice as the alcohol hit her system. “I’ve been shot before, trust me. I was in a war, you know.”

  She’d guzzled the whiskey fast and was starting to slur. He threw the tweezers in the box and snapped it shut. “I’ll take your word for it.” He spread the other materials on the bar across a towel he had laid out. “Can you please remove your jacket?”

  Feeling the effects of the booze, Ida’s vision blurred. “Why are you helping me?”

  “I have a financial interest in you,” said Gatz. He picked up the antiseptic, and she knocked it out of his hand and onto the floor. She started to pull herself off the table, but got dizzy. “Easy, racehorse,” said Gatz, holding her non-injured arm to steady her. Her head rolled to one side, she looked at him cross-eyed, and then blacked out.

  Ida felt the metal blade sink into her belly. The Heavy she fought had tricked her. Its arm slipped around and under and lodged a blade in her stomach.

  She staggered back. This meant certain death. As she bled, the creature took another step toward her. She didn’t resist. The Heavy scraped her blood from the ground and marked her forehead with a slash before it moved on to fight other soldiers.

  Ida stepped slowly, dazed, as fellow soldiers lay crumpled at her feet. Her blood landed in droplets and splatters on them as she staggered forward, holding her belly.