by Jody Wallace
“Why the fuck did you have to show up here, lady? You ruined everything.” Tim whacked at Boson Higgs, his free leg kicking. Boson Higgs skittered across the floor and disappeared with a jaunty flip of his tail.
“You’re running, aren’t you?” She and Tim, backs against the wall, regained their footing while the madness in the hallway raged. The satchel, half zipped, contained protein bars, electronics, and other barterable items. “Can’t blame you. Fly free, little bug.” She gave him her most vicious smile. “I can find you anytime I want you.”
Tim growled at her and fled. Now Steven had no minions on his side and he didn’t even realize it. In fact, he hadn’t even emerged from the cafeteria.
Briar resumed her rush toward the directors, whom she assumed had hightailed it into the lobby or back into the conference room. Steven would realize soon that she wasn’t headed for the stairwell, but if he was too much of a coward to catch up, so be it.
She shot out of the hallway at last, reaching the huge lobby. Where she skidded to a stop.
She’d thought she’d seen a lot of cats before. But this?
The lobby was full of racing, hissing, spitting, clawing, spinning, maniacal cats. People raced hither and thither, trying to hide, to escape. One of the front doors was busted, plasti-glass shattered in every direction. An employee ran screaming out of the building, yet there was no crowd gathered on the street. Were Su and Wil and the others helping conceal this ruckus outside?
But to her dismay, at least one person had gotten their hands on a gun. Unsteady but treacherous EE-blasts spluttered through the crowd at random intervals, and she couldn’t tell if anyone, cats or otherwise, had been wounded.
Was this the swarm the cats had proposed? And now that she wasn’t stuck to Steven, would he run upstairs and smash the part?
Not yet, he wouldn’t. He’d still try to get money from her, poison her, punish her. Smashing the part now, when the chaos might scare Jenna Banu away, would be premature.
Four directors stood on top of the reception desk, and Director Vidal was the one with the gun. He shouted and pointed at—well, she couldn’t tell from here—and squeezed off another yellow beam.
A human shriek of pain indicated the beam may have struck something besides the marauders.
“Stop, stop, stop!” She zigzagged into the crowd, waving her hands. “You’re hurting people.”
If she took charge of the chaos, involved the directors enough to force Steven to cooperate, would the cats leave? If Lincoln and Mighty had stolen the part, they’d have escaped and called off the cat cavalry. The huge distraction must mean they’d run into a snag.
An EE-blast screamed past her head, narrowly missing her. She shrieked and darted behind the drink dispenser. A number of humans huddled against the wall, heads covered and panicking, trying to protect their vulnerable areas until things calmed down.
The side of the drink dispenser exploded. Another EE-blast. Shrapnel bit into Briar’s arm, tearing through the coveralls. As she smacked her hand over the wound to stop the flow of blood, Briar stared desperately around for another place to hide. The furniture wouldn’t provide enough cover from whatever Director Vidal thought he was doing. He was going to kill somebody.
“Don’t shoot!” She waved her bloody hand above the top of the broken drink dispenser. “It’s okay! I’m a client.”
A wild blast struck the high ceiling, sending sprinkles of building material down onto the floor. Then a second barely missed her fingers.
She yelped and returned her hand to the burning cuts from the shrapnel. She didn’t see any human or cat bodies laying around, so how had the director suddenly developed such great aim?
And why did he have to develop it just for her?
If the cats hadn’t deactivated Axel, the robot could have stopped the frightened director. Cats and humans raced back and forth, some heading through the door, others just sprinting for what they thought was their lives. An EE-blast set one of the couches on fire, and a fourth, or fifth, maybe a sixth, sizzled into the other side of the drink dispenser. Brownish water sprayed in all directions, coating her with liquid. Soon she wouldn’t have any protection left.
As she searched for an escape route, hoping the deadly beams wouldn’t drill into the row of people huddled against the wall, a pale cat with black legs and face galloped up, leapt on top of the first employee, and bounded from back to back as if it were a circus performer. One of the humans whimpered audibly, a lady Briar knew was both very nice and very pregnant.
“You stop that!” she yelled at the cat. She didn’t know who the cat was, but they should all know who she was. This mayhem should give Lincoln and Mighty Mighty time to finish stealing the part, preventing Steven from smashing it. Then she’d pull a Tim Danger Danger and split. But first she needed to calm Director Vidal and his EE-gun and coax the cats back into secrecy. “I have got this. Tell…everyone. I’ve got this.”
The fawn-colored cat whipped around, its dark tail lashing behind it, and pierced her through and through with icy blue eyes. Its pupils were mere slits. When it saw her, it ran straight toward her.
“What are you…”
“Duck!” the cat demanded, and she did. The little fiend landed smack on top of the remnants of the drink dispenser. From there it bounced straight into Steven Wat, who was creeping up behind her with a gun in his hand.
The gun was pointed at her.
Steven shrieked as the cat tangled itself around his pin of a head, a blur of lashing claws and fangs. She’d never seen anything like it outside of a holo movie. Just as soon as it started, the cat flew in another direction, skipping out before Steven realized what had happened.
“Fuck, I’ve been poisoned by a rat!” Steven fell to the ground and shielded his head, the gun clattering off to the side. An EE-beam struck the wall harmlessly—this one from the director. Briar threw herself out from behind cover and onto Steven’s gun.
“How did these fucking ship rats get in here?” he raged. “Did you have something to do with this?”
Thank the stars, the cats had been able to push him enough to believe it was ship rats. She stuffed the pistol into a pocket and resisted the urge to kick Steven while he was down. She’d done that once before, after all, and it had helped precipitate all the bad things that had happened afterward.
“Were you trying to kill me?” she gasped in Jenna’s most shocked and disappointed voice. “You were shooting at me!”
Steven jerked upright, staring at her with vicious hatred. “If you had just gone through with the trade in the first place…”
“If you had gone through with it after my small and harmless delay,” she retorted.
“Fine. In the office, I’ll sell you the vac-damned part, if you will leave this planet and never come back,” he growled at her and stuck out his hand. “Help me up?”
She stared at the directors, huddled on the reception desk and yelling at staff members to look out behind them, and then at Steven, bleeding from multiple deep scratches on his face. If she assisted the directors first but Lincoln and Pumpkin weren’t finished, Steven still had time to ruin the part. Hide evidence. Cover his tracks. What would Jenna Banu do?
She wouldn’t help him, that was for damn sure. “Get yourself up.” As liquid dripped off her waterproof coveralls, she showed him what was in her pocket. “Before I shoot you with your own gun, you charbroiled jackass.”
He growled again and lurched to his feet, blood trickling down his pallid features. His nanobots were already healing him, but it wouldn’t feel good while they did it. “Just don’t forget what I said. I will destroy it.”
They had just reached the stairwell door when limping footsteps caught up with them.
“Yes, Wat, that’s the idea. Let’s go to the suite,” Director Vidal said, breathing heavily. He waved his gun around like it was a flag instead of a deadly weapon. “I’ve called reinforcements from the closest garage. They’ll be here soon to clean out these vermin. I swear, this ci
ty is getting overrun with trash. Hello, young lady.”
The other three directors had followed Vidal, giving up their dubious safety on the desk. “Where’s that damn robot?” one said. “What did we pay all those DICs for if it can’t even handle a few ship rats?”
They shoved through the stairwell door, panting, and slammed it behind them. “I don’t see any rats in here,” Vidal stated. “Must be safe.”
“This is going to kill my knees,” Director Nelda said. “All these stairs.”
“I’ll help you,” Briar said sweetly to Nelda. The frail old woman didn’t weigh much, and it was no trouble to let her lean on Briar as they climbed. And Steven couldn’t do a damn thing about the other directors being here.
“Why are you wet?” Nelda asked her as she gripped Briar’s forearm. “Is it blood? Did you wound a—”
“Oh, no, it’s from the drink dispenser,” she reassured the lady. “I’ll drip dry momentarily.”
Had Lincoln and Mighty succeeded? Could she make enough noise in the stairwell to give them a chance to hide? She wished the cats were better about relaying messages between the human participants, but they’d become a little savage during this swarm, for lack of a better word.
The stairs had enough flights that the older directors were groaning and panting when they reached the top. The elevator was in the conference room halfway down the hallway of horrors. Briar banged her feet as hard as she could against the metal treads, but she and Nelda were bringing up the rear.
Cat! Help, cat! she called in her head. Tell Lincoln we’re coming.
She had no idea how the telepathy worked with the kitties and whether thinking about yelling increased her radius. Director Vidal at the top of the stairs activated the touchpad.
The door hissed open.
“How the hells did you get up here?” Steven Wat said in a very angry voice.
Chapter 17
“Oh, it’s a kitty!” a woman’s voice exclaimed. Lincoln, pressed against the bathroom door and holding Mighty in his arms, wasn’t sure who the new arrivals were talking about, or to.
All things considered, it could be one of a thousand cats.
“Meeeeeeeeeeeow,” said a familiar, raspy voice. Pumpkin. The exact cat they needed to ask about the code had finally arrived when they didn’t dare try to open the safe. Anyone on this floor would surely notice someone in the bathroom repeatedly whooshing the bidet and the toilet.
Not to mention the minor flood they’d create.
“Bet he’s hiding from those damned rats,” gruffed a deeper voice. As Lincoln strained to hear, Mighty climbed up and perched on his shoulder. “Smart cat.”
“But how did he get through the locked doors? Come here, Mr. Kitty, come on, that’s right, I won’t hurt you.”
Balancing Mighty on his shoulder, Lincoln eased himself to the side of the door and ever so slightly cracked it open. Several older people in business attire, Steven Wat, and Briar still wearing Jenna’s face gathered around Pumpkin in the foyer. One lady had bent a knee and was trying to coax Pumpkin to come close enough for pets.
Pumpkin was not licking his butt, but he had that same expression. Needless to say, he was not approaching the woman.
“Isn’t this Wil Tango’s cat?” the thin, white-haired woman next to Briar asked. “What’s it doing in our building?”
Briar cut her gaze to Steven Wat, who scowled at the cat and then at the bathroom door. Lincoln held his breath, but the other man didn’t seem to notice, or care, that the door was ajar. Finding Vex in the directors’ private restroom—meaning he knew the code to get into the suite—would not please Steven.
“Hiding, I guess,” Steven finally said. He wouldn’t want the directors to know what he planned for the cat, and no one was present to dispute his account. “Maybe the rats chased it here.”
Tell Briar to keep them out of the bathroom, Lincoln asked Mighty. The cat’s warm fur pressed against his ear and head as he joined Lincoln in staring through the crack. We don’t have the converter.
After a moment, Briar lowered her chin and raised it twice, indicating she’d gotten the message.
“We’ll be safe here,” the woman beside Briar stated. The woman attempting to coax Pumpkin tsked at the cat and climbed to her feet, helped by one of the men. “Dear, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Jenna B—”
“Jenna Bag…ton,” Steven interrupted. “I’m interviewing her to replace that sales associate we had to let go. Whatserface.”
“Briar Pandora.” The oldest lady’s expression crumpled. Briar patted her on the shoulder, and Jenna’s face softened into an unfamiliar expression of sympathy—at least Lincoln had never seen such an expression on Jenna’s face. “She was such a nice girl. So thoughtful. I miss her.”
“She tried to kill me,” Steven whined. “Anyway, Jenna and I are going to finish our interview in my office. Right, Jenna?”
Briar pursed her lips. She’d been warned he intended to poison her, and Lincoln didn’t like the idea of the two of them being alone together. As Gullim Vex, could he interrupt them? “I suppose. Is the material we need in your office?”
Steven flicked a quick glance at the bathroom, frowned, and said, “Yeah. In my office.” But as he escorted Briar into the office and the directors went to their own rooms to wait out the rat raid, Steven cast another suspicious glance at the bathroom door. Lincoln had the feeling that their eyes met through the crack, but he couldn’t be certain Steven could tell what he was seeing.
On the plus side, Steven’s preoccupation with the bathroom door meant he didn’t see Pumpkin flick into his office. That meant Briar wouldn’t be in there with Steven alone.
When the lobby was empty, Lincoln eased the door shut. He wrestled with two separate urges—trying to crack the safe again and barging in on Steven and Briar. It wasn’t a guarantee Steven would sell Briar the part. This might be their only chance to open the safe before Lincoln and Briar’s disguises melted away.
Which could be soon. Very soon. Lincoln had to act, and quickly. Briar wouldn’t have his flexibility since she was stuck in Steven’s company.
“Did Pumpkin give you the combination?” he whispered to Mighty. Perhaps everyone would think the repeated flushes were one of their peers having a moment.
“Yes,” Mighty said with a whisker flick that tickled Lincoln’s head, “but it doesn’t matter. I am ashamed to admit I missed a vital part of the combination. You have to activate the switch behind the cooling unit in Steven’s office for the unlocking mechanism to function and the safety protocol to be deactivated.”
And it might mean that opening the safe wouldn’t flood the bathroom.
He reached up and gave Mighty a pet, as much to reassure himself as the cat. “Is there any other way to get that safe open?”
“Not without specialized devices that we do not currently have on hand, my friend. We did not think they would be needed.” Mighty leapt from his shoulder to the ground, the counter-pressure giving Lincoln a little shove. “We are out of time for you to try to reach the secret switch. I have to skip into the safe and attempt to steal the part.”
Lincoln stooped to the cat’s level and regarded him with concern. He’d never be able to stop his friend physically, and Mighty’s lowered tail and dispirited posture troubled him. “Boson Higgs said it could kill you. Push Steven to open the safe instead.”
“Pumpkin wasn’t able to do that. He’s trying something that may not work due to his sad lack of opposable thumbs. Skip, I must.” Mighty shook himself and regarded Lincoln with perked ears that didn’t fool him for one second. His friend—his dear friend—thought he might die, and he was willing to try anyway. “But do not fear. I will accomplish this task and I will save your mate—and all of my people. I will go so fast the poison cannot hurt me.”
Lincoln swallowed an inconvenient lump in his throat. He couldn’t order the cat around, anymore than Mighty could order him. Because of that, his relationship with Mi
ghty had always been different than the other humans and cats. If he knew he might die but it would save the Mighty and Catamaran—if it would save Briar—he would go through with it as well. “There are a bunch of other cats here. Can’t they help you?”
The tip of Mighty’s tail curled. “Their efforts to skip planetside and persuade everyone to perceive them as rats have drained most of them as well. Even Queen Bea, who is a tireless warrior. To think her first time off the ship had to be this.”
Mighty padded to the fourth stall and waited for Lincoln to open the door. Lincoln rose and drew the chefo tin out of his pocket. He needed somewhere to hide it. If he did get caught, if Mighty’s attempt alerted Steven or the other directors, he didn’t want the poison on his person. Would be too hard to explain, but a very, very extended time in a bathroom was slightly more reasonable.
“Do not look so sad, cat friend.” Mighty rubbed against Lincoln’s ankles, his fur shining blue-black in the light, marking him with whiskers and determination. “I might think you have no faith in me.”
Lincoln cleared his tight throat. “I have always had faith in you, Mighty. Since the moment I met you.”
“I would ask one thing.” The cat hopped onto the closed toilet lid but stared at the panel that hid the safe and not Lincoln. Lincoln latched the stall door behind him. “When you wake my human, tell her I—”
Mighty’s final request was interrupted. The outer door slammed open and one pair of feet thudded into the directors’ private bathroom, accompanied by a dragging noise and a moan.
Briar was ready for whatever Steven intended to throw at her. Especially considering the other directors were just across the foyer and Lincoln and Mighty were waiting in the restroom, poised to hack the safe. She would hand Steven’s ass to him on a platter and make him eat it.
Also, she had the gun.
She motioned for him to enter his office first, unwilling to allow him behind her for so much as a second. Though tempting, shooting him would attract the wrong kind of attention from the directors. It could also prevent the cats from reading his mind to get the correct combination. Mighty had affirmed there was an issue, but his mindvoice had been tired and weak. All the cats had exceeded their normal exertion levels, and she just hoped they remained energetic enough not to get caught.