Worry gnawed in his belly as he drew closer. With no way to see inside the apartment, he had no way of knowing what awaited him once he got past the door. A force of Black Crows could be inside, ready to ambush them, or there could be a mounted machine gun turret aimed at the door. Hell, the entire apartment could be wired to blow if anyone other than Agent Styver entered.
Nolan crouched beside the door, studying the locking mechanism. Though it appeared to be a simple thumbprint scanner, he wouldn’t take anything for granted.
He extended his left hand toward the lock. “Bast, can you crack this?”
Filaments of smart metal extended from his gauntlet and slithered into cracks around the lock’s metal casing. “Analyzing now,” she said.
Nolan studied the hallway behind him, feeling terribly exposed despite his digital cloaking. Even with Bex pressed against the wall at his side, her rifle held at the ready, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to leap out at them. It wasn’t possible that a Protection Bureau apartment was so poorly guarded, was it?
“This will be no problem,” Taia said. Her smart filaments retracted from the lock, then wormed their way up Nolan’s gauntlet to form a thumbprint that matched Agent Styver’s. “That should work.”
To his disbelief, Nolan found that the lock beeped and clicked open the moment he pressed his thumb to it. Unbelievable! He shook his head. How the hell has the Protection Bureau earned such a terrifying reputation with men like Agent Styver running the show?
But that was the thing with shadow organizations like the Protection Bureau. As long as they remained in darkness, the thing of whispers and terrified rumors, their power appeared utterly unlimited. In the case of the Protection Bureau, it was possible that vast resources, technology far superior to anything the rest of the Empire possessed, and people in the right positions could maintain their façade of omniscience and omnipotence. The more Nolan saw behind the curtain, however, the less fearful he became.
The Protection Bureau had power, to be certain. A damned lot of it, if they could conceal every trace of his existence, provide him with a cutting-edge AI and armor, access ships and military-grade materiel at a moment’s notice, and throw him in the Vault. Yet it was limited, no matter how hard they tried to pretend otherwise.
All of this flashed through his mind in the time it took him to push the door open. His helmet’s auditory sensors were set to maximum, so finely attuned he heard the metal hinges shifting and the quiet whuff of the door sliding across carpet. No sound came from within the apartment, however. No coughing of nervous men, no shuffling boots or clanking armor, no click of metal gauntlets tightening around a gun barrel or butt. Only the quiet hum of household appliances and the steady tick, tick, tick of an analog clock.
Nolan’s rifle led the way into the apartment, and he cleared the interior in quick, steady advances, eventually coming to stand in the center of Agent Styver’s living room.
Calling it a living room was a bit of a stretch. Agent Styver’s furniture was all hard metal, glass, and sterilized mold-plast. Not a single scrap of fabric or carpeting anywhere—even the curtains were mold-plast, which made the space appear far more like the white clean room office in the Bolt Hole. It even smelled like fresh antiseptic and cleaning products.
Shit! Nolan shook his head. This is next-level.
Every appliance in the kitchen gleamed as if brand new and stood in neat rows, arranged by a very precise hand. The dining room had a single metal chair covered with transparent mold-plast, and the table was smooth metal with no space for germs or dirt to accumulate.
Nolan turned in time to see Bex’s heat signature shutting the door behind them, then her digital cloaking deactivated. He shut off his as well—no sense wasting his armor’s energy, given the lack of internal defenses—and turned to give the room another quick scan. No sign of whatever terminal Agent Styver used to access the Protection Bureau’s data off-site.
Nolan gestured toward the open door. “Kali, bedroom.”
“Now, now, Cerberus,” Bex said, a mocking tone in her voice, “is that really the best use of our time?”
Nolan rolled his eyes beneath his helmet. “Search for a terminal or datapad. I’ll check the kitchen and the spare room.”
“And here I thought you wanted to have some fun.” Bex chuckled. “Way to let a girl down.”
“I’m saving something for later,” Nolan shot back. The words came out before he realized it. He’d gotten so used to Bex’s not-at-all-subtle style of flirtation that he’d slipped back into old habits without thinking.
Nolan rummaged through the kitchen drawers, but found nothing except sparkling-clean, perfectly arranged utensils, dinnerware, and cookware. He was just on his way toward the spare bedroom when Bex’s voice rang out.
“In here!”
Nolan raced toward the master bedroom. It was equally sterile—even the bed had been covered with mold-plast to keep Agent Styver’s body away from dust mites and germs. However, Nolan had eyes only for the desk near the window.
“This has to be it,” Bex said, gesturing to the portable terminal that sat atop the spotless, clutter-free desk. “Problem is, it’s bolted down.”
Sure enough, Nolan saw that the terminal’s metal case had been secured to the steel desk with centimeter-thick rivets. Cutting through them would take far too long, even with their Echoblades. No way of getting it out of the apartment, then.
“We’ll just have to hack it right here,” he said, and placed his left hand atop the terminal. “Taia?”
“On it!” she replied.
Hair-thin threads of metal slithered out of his gauntlet and snaked their way into the cracks in the terminal’s case.
The blare of an alarm shattered the apartment’s stillness. “Intruder alert!” shrieked a robotic voice. “Intruder alert!”
Nolan’s heart leaped into his throat, but before he could turn or give Taia a command to withdraw her smart metal, a familiar voice echoed from loudspeakers hidden in the walls.
“Whoever you are,” said Agent Styver’s recorded voice, “you’ve made a fatal mistake by breaking in here.” Every wall in the bedroom lit up, and the screens displayed bright red numbers—00:30. “These are your final moments. In thirty seconds, you will die screaming.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Bex swiveled toward Agent Styver’s bedroom window, raised her rifle, and squeezed off three rounds. Instead of shattering the glass, however, the blaster bolts ricocheted off the window and drilled into the ceiling.
“Dick-kicking fuck!” Bex cursed. “Permaglass.”
“Go!” Nolan shouted. “Check the front door and the other windows! I’ve got this.” With his left hand tethered to Agent Styver’s terminal by smart metal threads, he couldn’t move to help her find a way out, not until Taia disconnected.
Bex charged out of the room, and Nolan returned his attention to the task at hand. “Taia, how long is this going to take?” The clock on the wall read 00:26, the numbers ticking down far faster than he’d like.
“I’ll need fourteen seconds to access the device’s drive,” Taia said. “An additional five seconds to prepare my system for rapid data download and upload the virus. I calculate that I will have roughly one-point-two seconds from the moment the terminal turns on until it receives the signal to burn all the data.”
Nolan worked to grasp a solution. “Can’t you just block that connection to the Protection Bureau’s system long enough to download all the data, then send the virus after?”
“Negative,” Taia said. “That connection is hardwired into the device’s operating system and hard drives. I could reprogram it via its base code, but that would require four minutes and eighteen seconds.”
Nolan cursed. “Then just do it!” He forced himself not to watch the ticking clock with its giant red numbers. Her time estimate gave him roughly five seconds after she was finished to get the hell out of the apartment.
Bex charged back in
. “Nothing! Door looks to be reinforced with durasteel, and the walls are solid, too. Our best way out’s the window.”
“Use this!” Nolan held up his rifle. “It can punch through the permaglass. The holes are small—“
“But maybe enough to weaken the structure!” Bex swung the MK75 onto her back, crossed the bedroom in two steps, and snatched the Balefire Mark 2.1 from his hands.
“Taia, sniper mode!” Nolan called.
The gun began to shift in Bex’s hands, transforming from its shorter, smaller-caliber DMR mode to sniper mode, which featured a longer barrel and heavier-caliber bolts of denser-concentrated energy. By the time she raised it to her shoulder, the Balefire was ready to fire.
Bex squeezed the trigger four times. A quartet of blaster bolts punched needle-thin holes through the window in a diamond shape roughly twenty centimeters wide and thirty tall. Passing the rifle back to Nolan, Bex reached into her combat pack and drew out one of the shaped charges she’d crafted over the long hours staking out the Protection Bureau building. She pulled the tab that mixed the two chemicals on the underside of the explosive, and the hardened materials suddenly softened to a putty-like consistency. Without hesitation, Bex slammed the now sticky charge onto the window and activated it with the press of a button.
“Just give me the word!” she shouted, stepping back.
Nolan was about to tell her to blow it, but something stopped him. Agent Styver’s trap had been designed to keep its victims locked inside and unable to escape their inevitable death—or make off with sensitive Protection Bureau data. There might be fail-safes put in place in case the windows or doors failed, back-up barriers that slammed down to cover the exits. He couldn’t risk their only exit being cut off with only—goddamn it! he cursed as he saw the clock—fifteen seconds left.
“Hold off!” he said. “Can’t risk tripping any secondary barriers.”
“Copy that,” Bex said, anxiety evident in her tone. “How’s it going, Bast? Tell me—“
“I’m in!” Taia said over comms. “Preparing the terminal for rapid data download now.”
Nolan’s heart hammered faster as the clock on the wall counted down the time. The intervals between each second seemed to drag on forever, yet the numbers also seemed to fly by so fast they hit 00:10 before he realized it. This had to be a part of the trap—along with Agent Styver’s audio message, it was one more torment to inflict on whoever had been foolhardy enough to go after the Protection Bureau’s data. Watching those seconds tick by and knowing there was no escape would breed feelings of helplessness and make anyone’s final moments absolute terror.
But Nolan was far from helpless. “Taia, we’re running out of time!” He glanced at the clock.
00:08, it read.
“Activating the hard drive now,” she said.
00:07.
“Commencing data download.”
00:06.
“That’s it!” Taia’s smart threads began to ripple. “The virus has been uploaded to the Protection Bureau system.”
00:05.
“I got as much data as I could before it was purged from the hard drive,” Taia said.
The metal retracted from the terminal, freeing Nolan’s hand. Instantly, he spun toward the window.
00:04.
Even as he sprang into motion, Nolan shouted, “Blow it!” Bex was a step ahead of him, charging the window at full speed.
00:03.
The shaped charge on the window detonated three meters from Nolan’s face. Taia shut off his helmet’s external sensors just long enough to dull the roar and blinding light of the explosion.
00:02.
The concussive blast washed over Nolan, almost making him stumble. Running blind and off-balance, it was all he could do to throw himself forward in the direction of the window. With a mental command, Nolan activated his rocket boots.
00:01.
Ion engines roared loud in the room. Nolan’s HUD winked back to life and he caught sight of shattered permaglass and a human-sized hole in the window.
Then he was through and rocketing out into the empty air.
00:00.
Fire billowed out of the hole in the window behind him, a voracious pillar of blistering heat and blue-white flames that reached toward him with greedy fingers. The force of the explosion blew out the remaining permaglass in a rain of razor-sharp shards that sliced past him and bounced off his combat suit. Nolan poured on the speed, desperate to escape before the blast slammed into him.
To his horror, his boot engines cut off suddenly, leaving him momentarily suspended by only gravity and his forward momentum.
Only then, too late, did he remember the EMP targeting system protecting Agent Styver’s building.
He began to fall. Slowly at first, but picking up speed with every furious beat of his heart. Below him, he caught sight of Bex plummeting through the air. The sixteen-story fall would be over in a matter of seconds. Their armor might survive the impact with the street, but their bodies wouldn’t.
Before he could shout for Taia’s help, his rocket boots suddenly came back online. His glider wings snapped out to catch the air, and his precipitous fall turned into a dive that carried him dangerously low to the street before he swooped upward, propelled by his ion engines. To his relief, he saw Bex had recovered as well.
“Sorry about that,” Taia said in Nolan’s earpiece. “That EMP blast would have fried your boot thrusters—and likely the rest of the suit, despite its shielding—had they been active. I didn’t have time to tell you—“
“Hah!” Nolan found his voice oddly shaky. “You saved our asses. That’s what matters.” With the momentary fear of death by fire and fatal impact passed, logic and rational thought reasserted themselves in Nolan’s brain. “Did it work? Did you get the data off Agent Styver’s hard drive?”
“I managed to copy just ten-point-seven percent of the information stored on the device before the burn code purged everything.” Taia sounded disappointed. “However, that is three-point-nine exabytes of Protection Bureau data that we didn’t have before. I’m analyzing and indexing it now.”
Nolan didn’t quite know how to feel. True, he’d wanted access to the Protection Bureau’s servers—mostly to find out how much data they had on him, Jared, Bex, Warbeast Team, and everyone else who the organization might use to threaten him—but Taia had managed to both get a portion of the data and upload the virus. With Agent Styver and their system as his hostage, he had a damned good position to negotiate from when it came time to meet with Raptor or whoever else called the shots.
All in all, he decided, it had been as close to a good day as he could ask for.
“Cerberus to all ears,” Nolan said over team-wide comms. “We’ve got the data and we’re heading your way.” It would be a simple matter to get to ground, find a skimmer-craft for Taia to hack into, and meet up at the safe house in the Iceglades.
“Wyvern copies,” Master Sergeant Kane responded. “ETA?”
“Thirty mikes,” Nolan said. “Our friend’s place was left a bit of a mess.”
“Thirty mikes, copy. Wyvern out.”
Bex had the lead, so Nolan followed her as she swooped low to land atop a forty-story skyscraper. Nolan found himself surprisingly shaky as he landed—he’d faced death before, but this had been a lot damned closer than usual.
“You good?” he asked Bex as he touched down on the rooftop beside her.
Bex nodded. “Five by five.” She pretended to brush a speck of dust off her shoulders. “Not even a whiff of smoke.”
Nolan chuckled. “Sure, play it cool all you want, but we both know—“
“Nolan!” Taia’s voice cut off his words. The worry and fear echoing in her tone sent a chill racing down his spine and froze him in place.
“Agent Styver’s last search was for property title holders in the Celestial Cascades,” Taia said. “He ran an algorithm to detect anomalies in the ownership documents, and it turned up five properties.”
Nolan’s breath froze in his lungs. He didn’t need to ask which five the search had turned up. Tanis’ cabin wasn’t the only property he owned in the Celestial Cascades—all of which should have been untraceable, yet somehow the Protection Bureau had managed to find them.
But Taia wasn’t done. “His last command before logging off his computer was to dispatch a team of Black Crows.”
Satellite footage popped up on his HUD, showing a ship bearing the logo of the Black Crows flying over the southern edge of the Bolt Hole, on its way out of New Avalon. And no ordinary ship, either. The contractors had somehow gotten their hands on a Mako-class troop transport, a vessel capable of carrying more than a hundred soldiers with supplies and combat vehicles to boot.
Agent Styver hadn’t just dispatched a strike team to the Celestial Cascades; he’d sent a goddamned war party!
Chapter Twenty-Four
Taia’s words sucked the breath right out of Nolan’s lungs. He tried to draw breath, but the fist of iron squeezing his heart made it impossible.
His eyes were riveted on the transport ship displayed on his HUD. That ship, he knew, carried easily a hundred armored contractors speeding right toward Jared, Jadis, and Roz. The three of them were alone in the Celestial Cascades, far from any help or backup. The nearest IDF precinct was more than an hour away, and even if it had been closer, the Doofs stood little chance of repelling the Black Crows.
No, their only chance of surviving now was for Nolan and Bex to get there before the enemy did.
“Taia, get the Phantasm—“ he began.
“Already going through an accelerated warm-up sequence,” she said. “However, it will take eight minutes to reach your current location.”
Eight minutes. Nolan’s heart sank. That on top of the two hours it would take them to reach the Celestial Cascades. Would they get there in time?
A part of Nolan—the animalistic, fear-governed primal back of his brain—screamed at him to leap off the building, to burn ion hard and set off south without waiting for the Phantasm. Anything to get him closer, to raise his chances of reaching Jadis, Jared, and Roz before it was too late.
Rampant Destruction (CERBERUS Book 10) Page 19