by Ted Cross
“Every summer.”
He was about to speak to his father when there was a shout from his right. Zoya burst from the doorway of the apartment building, eyes wild, gun in her hand.
“Get in the car!” she cried. “Why are you still here?” She skidded to a halt by the rear of the vehicle and said, “Door open.”
“It doesn’t work,” Marcus said. “Are you being chased?”
Zoya glared at the door that refused to slide up, then looked at Marcus and the driver. “What do you mean it doesn’t work? How can it not work?”
“Zoya, are they here?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I…I’ll tell you later. We need to get out of here now.”
The driver said, “A car should be here any minute.”
A look of panic flashed across Zoya’s face. “No! I can’t stay here. And I need to check on Uncle Vasya.”
Marcus looked around. Other than apartment buildings he saw only a tiny deserted bread shop across the street and what looked like a coffee and pastry shop a little farther down. “Well, we can go, but wouldn’t we be better off when the new car arrives?”
Zoya practically hopped in place, but she seemed to be considering what to do. She pointed down the street. “It’s only about three blocks to the metro. We could be safe there until the car comes to get us.”
«Marcus!» It was his father. «Get in the car. It will work now.»
«What? Papa, you did this?»
«Of course I did. I still needed her at that point. Now I have the information I need, so let’s get you out of here and fast; that gang is on its way here right now.»
Marcus turned to look at the air car. “Doors open.” The doors slid upward. The driver was so astonished he dropped his sim-cig on the ground and had to kneel to pick it up.
“It works again,” Zoya said, and leaped into the back seat. “Come on!”
«How can you know they are coming?»
«I tracked them down through their colleague back at her place. I know where some of them are, and they’ll be here any minute. Go!»
He and the driver piled into the car. “To the embassy,” the driver said. The air car hummed off the ground and began picking up speed.
Something didn’t feel right to Marcus about his father’s actions, but he was too stressed and exhausted to think about it for the moment.
“Not to the embassy,” Zoya said. “Go to Proletarskiy Prospekt. That’s where my uncle is.”
“Sorry, lady, but my job is to get him to safety. I’ll drop you off at a police station when I get the chance,” said the driver.
«These guys were just at her uncle’s place, Marcus. She can’t help him.»
“Jesus, Papa!” Marcus said, then clapped a hand to his face when he realized he’d said it aloud. He turned to look at Zoya. “You can’t help your uncle now. I’m sorry, but they got to him already.”
“How do you…” Zoya’s face reddened. “…how do you know that?”
The air car had climbed enough and now sped forward toward the thicket of skyscrapers at the city center.
“My father told me,” Marcus said. “Trust me, he knows.”
Zoya stuck a finger in his face. “You’re gonna have to—”
“Shit!” screamed the driver, and the air car lurched down hard before smoothing out again.
“What?” Zoya shouted.
The driver pointed out the front view screen. “Look.”
A figure on a sky cycle had zipped in front of their car and was maneuvering to force their car to slow.
“And there’s a car behind us, too,” the driver said. “What kind of trouble have you gotten us into? I’m calling Security.”
Marcus and Zoya both looked out the rear screen and saw a long green air car settle into place on their rear bumper.
“That’s Tavik’s car,” Zoya said, her face pale.
“How can they do that?” Marcus asked. “Aren’t these things programmed to avoid collisions?”
“I told you,” Zoya said, “these guys own the police. They can do what they want.”
The sky cycle slowed further and the limousine’s programming had no choice but slow along with it to avoid hitting the cycle.
Zoya leaned over the front seat. “Tell it to climb or drop or something. Don’t just sit there.”
The driver scowled at her. “I’m talking with our security agents. They’ll send some help—”
The car rocked as the vehicle behind rammed them.
«Papa, can’t you shut their cars down like you did this one?»
«Not fast enough, I’m afraid. The firewalls on these things don’t use my code; it took me ten minutes to break through this one. I’m working on theirs.»
As he often did, Tavik used the manual controls of his Cadillac. Grinning, he forced the nose of his car up over the trunk of the black limo he was chasing. A glance in the rearview showed him that Bunny sat placidly in the back seat, a vacant look on his slack face.
Tavik gunned the motor and dropped the nose of the car to crunch it into the rear of the limo. The needle-like skyscrapers of the city center were looming now, and he wanted Zoya’s car halted before entering that twisting jungle of buildings. “Set her down, you bastard!” he cried.
«I warned you about hurting my son.»
The return of that spooky voice chilled Tavik to his marrow. «Not you again. Leave me alone. I’m not gonna hurt him. I’m just gonna make them—»
«Back your car off now, or I’ll fry your Goddamned brain!»
Could he do that? Tavik thought. Probably not. He lifted the nose of his car again and sped forward. «You broke our deal. You said their car was disabled. If we hadn’t happened to be there when they took off from that lot, I’d have lost them for good.»
The next moment pain blazed through his head. He felt like it was going to explode. “Fuck you!” He jammed his hands down on the controls and the car slammed hard into the top of the limo.
«No!» shouted the voice and then just as suddenly vanished along with the pain.
The black limo had spun out and was plunging straight toward a silvery skyscraper.
“Zoya! Oh God, no,” Tavik yelled.
Still at least thirty floors above the ground, the limo hit the building sidelong and shattered the glass siding as it smashed through.
“Slow down,” he cried at his car, whipping his head around to see what had happened to the only girl he’d ever felt anything more than lust for. A gaping hole marred the glittering perfection of the building. Oily smoke roiled out of the wound.
Tavik clapped his hands to his head. “Zoya. What have I done.”
He saw Boris’s cycle circling back toward the crash site. Taking the controls again, he spun the car hard around and accelerated groundward. He pinged Boris’s wireless.
«Yeah, boss?»
«Boris, get in there if you can and secure the cards. Bunny and I will watch the lobby in case they survived and make it down to ground level. And don’t hurt Zoya if she’s alive!»
«They might leave by one of the flyways.»
«Maybe,» Tavik said, allowing exasperation to creep into his mental voice, «but there are only three of us, so I’m playing the odds. Oh, and we all need to disable our wireless cards.»
«What! Are you crazy? Why?»
«You remember their invisible friend who called you. He’s already proven he can hurt us, maybe even kill us through our wireless. We have to shut it down.»
«How do we keep in touch?»
Tavik settled the air car into a recharge station on ground-level and glanced at the entrance doors on this side of the building.
«We’re just going to have to do the best we can. You know what we need; go for it. Once you have it, or if it just isn’t possible to do anything, head back to base and we’ll hook up eventually. Got it?»
«Yeah. I can’t see much through all the smoke. Th
ere are firebots spraying foam everywhere. I’m going in. Disabling my wireless now.»
«Good. Later.» Tavik ordered his own wireless to shut down and commanded the car doors to open. He turned to look in the back seat. “Coming or staying, Bunny?”
Moscow
Sunday, June 8, 2138
6:37 p.m. MSK
Zoya knew she should be stunned, even wanted to be stunned, anything to not have to face the unending insanity of this worst day of her life. The combat card wouldn’t let go of her mind. It flashed orders at her, pulsing with suggestions and seeming to slow time, along with the thudding of her heart. She saw lots of smoke through the car’s view screens, though as of yet the airtight vehicle still smelled only of leather and the sweat of the three occupants.
Crumpled in the seat next to her, Marcus was shaking his head and murmuring something unintelligible. The driver up front looked unconscious. Amazing, Zoya thought. This car must have some strong armor to survive such a crash.
Smoke swirled away from the front viewer as a thick white substance was sprayed across its surface. Zoya had never seen firebots in action, but she understood what they were, and even if she hadn’t known what was happening, the combat card was busy explaining. The most insistent directive from the card was to get the hell out of here, as she was on a level of the building restricted to Muckers without proper work clearances. Security would surely be here shortly.
She looked at Marcus and wondered again why this strange foreigner was following her around into danger that didn’t seem to have anything to do with him. The way he acted and the terrible shape he’d allowed his body to get into despite the advances in nanobot technology made her think of him almost like a child, though she guessed he might actually be a little older than herself. She weighed the idea of getting out of the car and leaving the young man behind. She had so much to do, and it seemed impossible to manage it all—escape this building she wasn’t allowed in; avoid the mafia assholes; somehow try to save any remaining family and friends. She reached out and shook Marcus’s shoulder. “Hey, you all right?”
Marcus groaned and held a hand to his forehead before looking up at her. He croaked something in English, and she didn’t have a translator card, nor was her love of old English rock sufficient to understand him.
Zoya shook her head. “Speak Russian. We need to get out now or security will catch us and hand us over to those thugs.”
A loud moan emanated from the front seat and the driver sat up, gripping his head with both hands.
“We’re…alive,” Marcus said, this time in his badly accented Russian.
“Only for a little while if we don’t go now,” Zoya said. She examined the view screen next to her and decided the fire was under control outside the vehicle there. “Door open!”
The door slid up and the heat seemed to suck the air from her lungs. Then the smoke poured in and set everyone to coughing. Zoya gripped Marcus’s arm and tugged. “Come on.”
Slowly Marcus began sliding out after her. Three firebots were still spraying white foam around the room, which looked like some of the rich apartments Zoya sometimes saw on vids featuring the wealthy classes. The outside wall was gone, the plastiglass a huge rectangle of jagged shards with black smoke roiling out into the early evening sky.
“Ah, Dios! Look at that!” Marcus cried out between coughs, pointing beyond the firebots.
Zoya followed the direction of his finger and would have gasped if her body wasn’t racked with coughs. Two expensive-looking Meshing beds were smashed against the far wall, their occupants pulped into bloody lumps. A third bed seemed untouched, a woman with long red tresses sleeping away blissfully a mere two meters from the flames, skin blistering from the heat. “Don’t look!” Zoya yelled above the noise of the sprayers and the crackling flames that still filled the rear of the room. Choking smoke filled her lungs and it hurt to try to speak. “Come on!”
Marcus was coughing continuously, his face smoke-blackened and slicked with sweat, but he rasped out, “Wait, what about the driv—” He coughed again. “The driver? We can’t leave him.”
Zoya could barely suck in any oxygen. The card flashed at her to leave by the door she saw past the firebots. The way the card seemed to slow time in dangerous situations was disorienting when she couldn’t make up her mind what she wanted to do. Her body wanted to cough. Her mind seemed to have all the time in the world to ponder whether to escape or turn and help Marcus pull the driver from the vehicle. She had always imagined herself as a decent person; she couldn’t have imagined herself as the type to desert someone in need. Even if he’s treated me rudely from the moment we met. As Marcus hauled the driver up from the seat, Zoya ducked under the driver’s arm to help prop him up. She coughed some more and pointed a thumb toward the doorway. Marcus nodded and both of them began to drag the heavy body across the carpeting.
The air was better once they stepped into the corridor. Zoya scanned the short hallway and saw no one coming. They’ll be here soon, though. Which way do we go? She looked at the choices presented by the combat card and saw that it didn’t know either. It kept flashing a command to get away and find a hiding place or an exit from the building.
“This way,” Marcus said, and started hauling the driver to the right.
“You just guessing?”
“My father tells me security is coming from the other direction.”
“When we get a moment, you need to tell me about your father.” Her throat felt seared and it hurt to talk, but at least she could breathe again. As she stumbled along under the weight of the much larger man, Zoya examined him for any obvious injuries. Other than a bruise forming on the side of his face, he seemed intact. None of his limbs seemed broken. Good. We need to wake him up so he can walk on his own.
As if he had read her mind, the driver suddenly hacked up several deep coughs and opened his eyes.
Zoya and Marcus stopped dragging him down the corridor. “Can you walk?” Zoya said.
“Where…? What…?”
“We crashed into the building. Remember?” Zoya saw understanding dawn on the man’s face.
“We must go back,” the driver said. “Diplomatic Security will come for us.”
Zoya shook her head. “Along with building security, and probably those creeps as well.”
“Well, you go on if you must,” the man said. “I can’t leave my car.”
“You have more obligation to your car than to your passenger?” she said, indicating Marcus, who had the look of someone having trouble keeping up with the translation software.
A look of uncertainty passed through the driver’s eyes as he glanced at Marcus, but he shook his head. “You can leave him with me, but I have to remain with the vehicle.”
Zoya blew out her breath and said to Marcus, “You coming or staying?”
Marcus thought for a few moments. “I’m not staying here and letting those guys get me.”
They left the driver leaning against the corridor wall and walked on at a much faster pace. Zoya’s knee was starting to ache again. She heard shouts behind them, but when she looked back she saw only the driver and a lot of smoke still pouring from the burning apartment. She looked at Marcus and said, “Can your father give us any more directions?”
“He says to take the fifth door on the left if you want a place to hole up. Escaping from the building will take more planning.”
“What’s in that door?”
“Ummmm…he says it’s a utility room, robots, repair…I don’t know. He says there are no people there.”
“Sounds good to me.”
An engine roared behind them, followed by gunfire.
“What’s that?” Marcus said, looking back over his shoulder as he sped up.
“Cars don’t sound like that,” Zoya said, “so I’m guessing it’s a sky cycle. There, that door!”
The pair pulled up at an unmarked steel door. “Door open,” Zoya said. No
thing happened.
“Just wait. Father’s working on it,” Marcus said.
The engine suddenly sounded very loud behind them, and Zoya’s heart raced even faster. “It’s in the hall, coming for us!” The combat card began laying out tactical options for her, and none of them looked very promising.
Marcus’s smoke-streaked face looked panicky. “Come on, Papa!”
“Why’s he having such trouble? I thought he could break anything electronic?”
“Depends on who designed the firewall code,” Marcus said. “He can break anything given enough time.”
Zoya watched the last turn in the corridor, expecting to see the sky cycle hove into view any second.
The door hissed open revealing a long, narrow room lined with metal shelving. Repair bots worked at two long tables, paying no attention to the intruders. The door slid shut behind them, and Zoya looked for another exit. There didn’t appear to be one.
“We’re trapped in here!” she said.
“Father locked the door. Even if the guy stops here, he’ll have trouble getting in.”
“What good will that do us?”
The gunning engine roared past the door.
“Maybe we can hide out here for a while,” Marcus said. “My father can look over the building plans and perhaps find some way to help us.”
Zoya walked to the back of the room. The bots continued their work uninterrupted. A pile of grungy canvas bags filled one corner, so Zoya pulled a couple onto the tiled floor and sat down on one. “I’m tired.”
Marcus sat on the other bag. “Me, too.”
“I’m glad I’m exhausted,” Zoya said. “It’s the only thing keeping me sane right now. I don’t have to think about everything that’s happened.”
Marcus nodded. His eyelids drooped and he rubbed his eyes with his fists.
“Why are you doing this?” Zoya said. “You should be at your embassy or in some hotel room getting some sleep. They aren’t after you, so why put yourself in danger?”
“My father—”
“No, don’t tell me it’s whatever your father is after. Would you really go through all this just because he tells you to?”
