He jumped out of bed and ran for the bathroom, retching as he found the bowl.
“Do you know how long it took me to get into Division 13?” he yelled from the bathroom in between gasps and continued retching. “You’ve ruined my life!”
“Actually, my getting you out of Haven saved your life. Tigris was going to erase you.”
“I think that would be better than throwing up my intestines.” More retching followed by some loud gagging. A few minutes later, he stumbled out of the bathroom looking mauled. “Tigris? What…like the river? And where are we?”
I was about to answer when he held up a finger and rushed back into the bathroom. It wasn’t vomiting this time. I ignored Jude’s moans of gastric destruction, fished out the USB drive, and plugged it into the techbrace.
“Cait, download the information and cross reference to today’s activities. Erase the drive when done.”
“Understood.”
“Can you give me the coordinates to the cache Reese mentioned?”
“Using the code word and excavation time he provided, I’m afraid that without being connected to the Division server I can only give you a close approximation to the location of the cache. Should I proceed?”
“Yes, narrow the location to the cache as close as possible.”
Jude staggered out of the bathroom and collapsed on the bed, looking like death would be the preferred option. Perfect time for more training.
“What have you put together from what I told you, rookie?”
He groaned and waved me away. “That I should’ve never been partnered with you.”
“Astute, but irrelevant. Focus, grasshopper. I know you feel like shit, but we still have a job to do.”
“Feeling like shit would be a step up from what I feel right now.”
“We have a few hours to get it together and stop Delilah and her merry band of psychopaths. I didn’t rescue you to hear you whine all night.”
“This is a rescue?” He sat up and stuck his tongue out at me. “Why is my mouth on fire?”
“Side effects. Use your brace.” I pressed a few buttons and activated a medkit for him. “That should make you feel better.”
“Wonderful.” He grabbed a glass of water and proceeded to drown his tongue.
“You have a choice: I can leave you, call Luca, and she gives you a ride to Sheol where you’ll be interrogated for a few days before they either bounce you out of the Division, or disappear you.”
“What’s behind door number two?”
Sarcasm. He was learning, good.
“Door number two is Tigris puts a bullet between your eyes when you walk out of Hybrid. Early retirement.”
“Is there a door number three because both those options are non-starters.”
“We stop Delilah and get the women and children back.” I smiled and tossed him a bread roll, which made him turn a nice shade of green. “You’d better eat and get your strength up after worshipping at the porcelain god.”
“I have a location for you, Ronin,” Cait said seductively.
“Where?”
“Spector Playground just off the 86th Street Transverse. I should be able to pinpoint the location once we are there.”
“Perfect, we’ll leave as soon as the padawan can safely keep his head out of the head for more than ten minutes.”
I looked at Jude, who tried to glare at me and failed.
“I would just like to go on the record and say that your rescue methods leave much to be desired, sir.”
I let the ‘sir’ slide due to his poor state of health. “Duly noted. Now assess.”
He took a deep breath, bit into the bread with a wince and began.
“We’re currently in what you consider hostile territory. Which buys us time, but also puts us at risk.”
“It prevents Luca and the Bloodhounds from reaching us, at least for tonight,” I added. “There are, however, other threats to be concerned with.”
“This Pollux person who doesn’t like you.”
“We’ve had some difficult moments in the past.”
“I’m noticing a trend, sir.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me. Anyway, at some point tonight, Pollux will arrange an ‘accident’ for me. Delilah being here wasn’t a coincidence.”
He nodded. “We’re here to facilitate my recuperation.”
“Yes. I didn’t feel like having you lose it inside the car or on the sidewalk while Luca is shooting at us.”
“Thank you. That almost sounded considerate.”
“You’re welcome and don’t get used to it. Continue. What’s the next move?”
“If Delilah said she had a ‘shipment to expedite,’ I think it’s safe to assume she meant the women and children. This means they’re still in the city somewhere. To me the use of the word ‘shipment’ sounds like she’s using a port of some kind. Air cargo or marine container.”
“Most likely air. Easier to beat their runic sensors. Marine officials will be too thorough for her.”
“It’s also faster. Wherever she’s sending these people, she wants them there fast. A ship increases the likelihood of fatality.”
He was sharp. “Yes, especially if she was using Cerberin to fake deaths, which means?”
He blanked for a moment and then it dawned on him. “We need to go to this Trinity Memorial Services you mentioned. They would prep the bodies there before shipping them.”
“There’s hope for you yet, padawan.”
He was about to answer when he ran back to the bathroom. I guess it was still too soon for the bread roll.
TWENTY-EIGHT
AROUND THREE IN the morning, Cait woke me with a jolt down my arm. It was the same sensation of slamming your elbow and hitting your ulnar nerve. Most people referred to this jangling effect as hitting your funny bone. Except Cait ratcheted the sensation up a few notches on the pain spectrum, removing funny from the equation.
I gritted my teeth against the pain and shook out my arm.
Delilah sent a hand. Seems the house rule of ‘no business on the premises’ was suspended for the evening. More likely, Pollux gave them free access to remind me of how much he cared. I drew Thorn and nudged the grasshopper.
“Wake up,” I said under my breath. “We have guests.”
He woke with a start. “What? Where?”
“Keep it down. Five hostiles. Three will come through the door. Two through the windows. How do you feel?”
He recovered quickly and checked his weapon, putting one in the chamber. “I’m good.”
“You sure? Can’t have you run off to the bathroom in the middle of a firefight—wait a minute. Go to the bathroom.”
“Are you serious? Now?”
“Yes. Remember how you felt earlier? Crank that up to eleven and really die in there.”
“I’m the bait? Really?”
“We’re all bait at some point. Get going, grasshopper.”
He padded to the bathroom and I stepped to one of the two windows. I knew he wasn’t ready and keeping him in the bathroom ensured he didn’t become collateral damage.
I checked my magazine. I had switched out for neural disruptors before my nap. Neural disruptors, or ND6 rounds, were designed for non-fatal threat containment. The rounds were self-contained mini-Tasers that interrupted neural activity.
By targeting the primary motor cortex, all voluntary action hit a brick wall. It left the target alive, unable to move or function. Since the round was runically enhanced, no convulsions, just brain shutdown after a few seconds of excruciating agony.
I opened the window closest to me, grabbed a small mirror from the dresser, and angled it up. I saw the two men hanging from ropes. They were bouncing lightly on their toes, getting ready for a drop and crash through the windows.
I heard Jude dying in the bathroom and walked to the adjacent room, keeping the lights off. With Thorn drawn, I crouched down, opened the window, and squeezed my torso through the opening.
I looked up, took aim, and fired. Both men let out short grunts of pain before ragdolling on their lines.
I secured their lines and made sure they didn’t fall seven stories to their deaths. I walked quickly to stand next to the main door, careful to position myself on the side where the door wouldn’t block me, and aimed. The door clicked open, which meant a spare keycard. Thanks, Pollux. A head poked through and quickly retreated.
I waited motionless until the head poked through again and I shot him. Another grunt and he collapsed in the doorway. The remaining two, if they were professionals, would try shock and awe.
I moved quietly behind one of the sofas and used my gaze to shield my eyes. I saw the flashbang sail into the center of the room, raised Thorn and took aim at the door. The grenade went off with a thump, flooding the room with light and smoke. The implants filtered out the excess light and switched to infrared.
They charged into the room a second later, right into several rounds of ND6 each. Two more yells of pain and then silence. Except for the moaning coming from the bathroom.
I knocked on the bathroom door.
“Great job. Come on out, rookie.”
He stepped out of the bathroom with his weapon drawn.
“I can’t believe that worked.” He holstered his gun and helped me with the three at the door.
“The simplest strategies work best most of the time,” I said, pulling their unconscious bodies to the nearest sofa.
Jude looked around. “Where are the other two?”
“Two more hanging outside of the building. Go reel them in while I wait for our next guest.” I switched the magazine for entropy rounds and waited in the dark.
TWENTY-NINE
I SAT ON one of the large sofas, faced the door, and waited with Thorn on my lap. I heard Jude in the backroom pulling in the two hanging men from the lines. A few minutes later, there was a soft knock and then the door opened slowly.
It was Pollux, dressed in his usual black suit. His features were more rugged than Castor’s. He wore his brown hair long and disheveled. The real difference was in the eyes. Where Castor was mostly amused and reserved, Pollux fixed me with a gaze of barely contained anger and a heavy sprinkling of madness.
He took in the scene in silence for a few moments.
“Ronin, are you well? There were reports of noise.”
“You have some aggressive room service.” I adjusted Thorn in my hand.
“These are not my staff,” he said, his voice hard.
“That would explain the weapons. Since when does Tigris conduct business in the Hybrid?”
“I can assure you they will be dealt with. This was not my doing. I dislike you, but this isn’t an action I would take.”
No, but it was an action he would allow.
“I understand. Hard to know who to trust these days.”
“Indeed, and as you know, I prefer to be more hands on.”
It was possible he was telling the truth, the same way it was possible for me to sprout wings and fly. Allowing Tigris to take me out gave him plausible deniability in case it went sideways. It didn’t get more sideways than this.
Jude walked in to the living room. “I secured the two hanging outside. I didn’t find any identifiers. These guys are ghosts. Even their weapons are—”
“Jude, this is our host, Pollux. He’s just checking up on us. There were reports of noise.”
“Noise? What noise? I didn’t hear—”
“My partner isn’t feeling well,” I interrupted. “He may be coming down with something. Thank you for checking up on me. I’m honored.”
Pollux stiffened at my last word. The implication was clear. His visit to the lost histories would evaporate the moment I spoke to Honor. He held up a hand and smiled.
“I apologize for this intrusion. Let me arrange for some new accommodations.”
I didn’t want to push it. Castor’s warning was still fresh in my mind. Pollux was a slightly unhinged demigod and I didn’t feel like tangling with him in his house. I holstered Thorn.
“No, thank you. You’ve been very gracious, but we’ve really overstayed our welcome.”
I looked at Jude, who nodded. “Thank you for letting us stay but we do have to get going.”
“Are you certain?” Pollux asked. “It would be no trouble.”
“Absolutely. Thank you again, Pollux.”
“I’ll arrange for your vehicle to be brought up.”
Jude left the room and I made to follow, when a cough brought me up short. I stopped at the door and turned.
“Yes?”
“You’ve entered a world you don’t fully understand. Tigris isn’t the Division. They have powerful allies. This”—he looked around at the unconscious men—“is them getting started. They are everywhere.”
“Everywhere, like in the Hybrid?”
“Tread carefully, Ronin. You can’t catch a tiger unless you are willing to enter its den.”
“It’s not the entering I’m concerned with, it’s the exiting.”
THIRTY
“CAIT, HOW LONG until I need to excavate?”
I drove down 59th Street and headed across the city. At Columbus Circle I made a right and shot up Central Park West.
“Thirty minutes. Spector Playground is just inside the park. ETA ten minutes.”
“Got it.” I floored the gas and let the Duster chew up the road. We’d make it under ten minutes.
“Sir, I wanted to ask you what did Bruce mean when he asked you if you had forgotten what kind of troll he was?”
“Bruce is a stone troll from an old lineage of trolls. Most of them live in isolation and away from cities. They’re smart, crafty, and capable of using limited magic.”
“Like the teleportation circle?”
“Exactly. Your bullets would’ve bounced off him making him angry. Bad for you and me, but mostly me.”
“You mean he wasn’t angry in the Abyss?”
“No. Angry Bruce would’ve put his hand through my chest and be done with it, not use me to redecorate his office.”
“I see,” Jude said quietly. “Trolls are quite dangerous. Can your bullets stop him?”
“Entropy rounds should stop him. I don’t know. Honestly, I’ve never tried to apprehend a stone troll and I hope I never have to.”
We pulled off Central Park West and headed into the park. I pulled off to the side, used my gaze, and handed the keys to the rookie.
“You want me to drive?”
“No. I’m not feeling particularly suicidal this morning. If you need to access the Duster, those will help. You’re not calibrated to the vehicle and I can’t have you getting tasered out of commission.”
“Tasered out of commission?” He put the keys in a pocket and followed me into the park.
The playground was empty as expected at this time in the morning. I switched my ammo back to ND6 rounds.
“Cait, scan for hostiles.”
“The playground is clear. The cache is located under the center structure and affixed to a stone subsection under the maint
enance panel.”
We walked over to a small pyramid designed with stairs and slides along its sides. In the center was a narrow, hollowed-out passageway for the kids to run through. In this small tunnel on the floor, I saw what appeared to be a small metal maintenance panel.
“Over here, grasshopper. When I tell you, pull that panel and step back.”
Jude moved into the small hallway. I didn’t want to pull the panel and deal with the cache at the same time. Once I entered the code, I had sixty seconds to hook up Cait and download what I needed. Fumbling with a panel would eat up valuable seconds.
At five a.m. sharp, I gave him the signal. He pulled the panel and I scrambled in.
“Cait, interface with the cache. Use the code and make it fast.”
“Interface initiated. I’m detecting movement one-hundred yards north.”
“It’s Central Park. There’s always movement.”
“What is it?” Jude asked, peeking out of the hallway. “More Tigris?”
“Eyes open, rookie.” I pointed in the direction Cait indicated. A homeless man shambled into the playground, holding a bottle.
“Download complete,” Cait said followed by the crackle of static.
“Cait? Give me a sitrep.”
More static.
“Check your brace, padawan.”
“Sir, my techbrace is down.” Jude tapped his brace but I saw the dead screen.
“Shit, only one person knew we were coming here at a specific time. He must have told Luca to convince us to do the ‘right thing.’ Damn boy scout. They must be jamming the braces.”
“Who told Luca?”
“Lock and load, grasshopper. Goddammit, Reese, when I see you…”
“It’s a trap?” Jude said, his voice jumping into the near panic range.
“Don’t go Admiral Ackbar on me. Keep it together. Remember your training.”
“Sir, this is my training.”
“Oh, right. In that case feel free to panic and fire at anyone who isn’t me. Go create a distraction.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Shooting usually works. Start with him,” I said, pointing at the shambling homeless person.
The Operative : A Division 13 Story Page 10