by Rook Winters
“You knew some scientists when you were younger. They had a nickname for you.”
“Yes, that’s true. One of them died recently.”
She looked genuinely sad but Elle couldn’t let herself be sucked in by the woman’s charisma, this was too important. Too much was at stake and this woman showing up felt too convenient.
“Names?”
“You’re talking about Clint and Marsh. They called me the tour guide.”
A tingle went through Elle’s body that made her shiver. It wasn’t definitive proof but Elle knew, she just knew, that this was her. They’d done it. They’d found Nora Barrett. They’d found the tour guide. Everything was going to be fine.
“We brought this to show you,” Elle said with a shaking voice. “It’s from Dr. Donovan.”
Nora didn’t take the bag from her.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Who are you?”
“My designation is L… my name is Elle. Dr. Donovan raised me.”
“Why would Clint send me an Aldebaran suit? Why would he send me anything after all these years?”
“Dr. Donovan snuck me and this suit out of the Aldebaran research center where he worked. The Others killed him. Court found me.”
“Who’s Court?”
Elle touched Court’s arm and he stirred from the contact.
“Court found me and took me to Marsh—”
“Marsh Lapin?”
“Yes.”
“Out in the godforsaken woods?”
Elle told them about the village, the data vault, the cryptic message, the massacre of Court’s village, and her trip with Court to find Nora Barrett.
Nora covered her mouth in what looked like sincere horror as Elle spoke.
“Hearing what you’ve gone through, I feel awful about the way Bear brought you to see me.”
“It was a justified precaution,” Bear said in defense of himself. “She did try to break my leg.”
“You broke into our room and shot us.” Elle enunciated each word with force.
Court shifted in his chair again.
Ainsley checked his pulse. “He should be awake soon.”
“Now that you’ve delivered this suit to me from Clint, what am I supposed to do with it? I feel like I’m missing a piece of the puzzle.”
“There was a recording. The message from Dr. Donovan said for you to compare it to an A2 jacket. We’re hoping that means something to you.”
Nora tapped her chin. “Interesting—”
“Britt, we’ve got company,” a man shouted from the other room. He rushed in with a panicked expression on his face.
Elle looked at Nora in shock. “Britt?”
“Later,” she said. “Wilm, details.”
“Three men, armed, in state-issued uniforms but I don’t recognize the insignia. One’s stationed at the exterior entrance, two are going through the train platform, I assume to use the interior stairs. There’s a grav flyer hovering out front.”
The color seemed to drain from Britt’s face. “Shit.”
“We’re busted,” Ainsley said.
“Yes,” Britt said. “Roof evac it is then. Bear, you’ll have to carry Sleeping Beauty there. Elle, follow Ainsley and don’t forget that suit.”
“What about you?” Ainsley asked.
“I’ll buy you time.”
“No…” Ainsley said.
“It’s alright. I’ll be fine. Everyone, hurry, please.”
Bear had Court untied and slung over his shoulder when the doors blew open. Ainsley screamed. Bear dropped Court to the floor with a thud and jumped behind the now-empty chair. Something pinged as it ricocheted off the chair.
Bear returned fire with his Morris S7. The stunner slug sparked against the body armor of the intruder, illuminating the word WILKES over his left breast.
Wilkes fired again and a hole burst open in the padding of the chair where Bear had been taking cover a fraction of a second earlier. Wilkes tracked Bear’s movement and ignored Elle, either deeming her a lesser threat or having not seen her yet. Elle spun into a sloppy roundhouse kick, her inner thigh burning after weeks without practice or stretching, but she connected with Wilkes’s hand and sent the gun clattering.
Wilkes tackled her before she had regained her footing from the kick and crashed on top of her. The impact knocked the air from her lungs and he slapped her across the face with the back of his left hand, the one she hadn’t kicked.
“Stupid bitch,” he said with a snarl and slapped her again.
“Don’t move, asshole.”
Wilkes turned to see Ainsley pointing his own gun at him. He rose from the ground by pushing off Elle, grinding her shoulder blades into the cold floor. The gun shook in Ainsley’s hands and Wilkes lunged at her. She pulled the trigger but nothing happened. He laughed and punched her in the nose, sending her stumbling backward as blood poured over her lips and chin. He pulled the gun from her hand.
“It’s paired to my ID, you dumb shit.” He shot her in the knee. Ainsley screamed and collapsed. Without looking at her, he pointed to Elle and said, “Stay down.”
Elle craned her neck to see what he was looking at. A second attacker had a gun to Britt’s head. A terrified Wilm stood with his hands raised and his eyes locked on the gun.
The third attacker was exchanging blows with Bear, the big man’s bulk letting him go blow for blow with the smaller opponent despite his body armor.
Elle couldn’t see Wilkes’s face but she imagined a sadistic smile on it. He unclipped the Scorpion from his thigh and pressed his thumb into it. Blue sparks shot from the end. Before he could reach Bear, though, Wilkes fell to the ground. When Bear stepped back to dodge a swing, he stumbled over the fallen Wilkes. In the momentary chaos, the Scorpion’s live end hit Bear’s attacker in the leg and he shook violently before collapsing.
The attacker with the gun to Britt’s head swung his arm and aimed at the pile of bodies. Elle scrambled backward so she was further from the line of fire. The gunman swung the gun toward her then back to the group on the floor.
That’s when Elle saw Court gripping Wilkes’s legs. That’s what had taken him down.
Britt turned and drove her knee into the gunman’s groin. He grunted but his body armor absorbed most of the impact. He raised his arm to strike her and Wilm rammed his shoulder into the man’s torso, driving him back into a metal wall that rattled from the impact.
The gun clanged and fell.
“You’re dead,” the gunman said.
“Britt, the door,” Wilm yelled.
Wilm held the gunman pinned against the wall even while he pounded on Wilm’s sides with his fists.
Lights flashed and a klaxon rang out. The metal wall opened outward at an angle. Wilm kept pushing him back until the intruder had no more floor under foot and he slipped through the opening. Wilm dropped to his stomach, trying to decouple himself from the falling man who was desperately grasping at Wilm’s shirt.
The man’s bulky armor caught on the lip of the floor and the slack gave Wilm enough opportunity to roll to one side. The man clawed at the floor but it was too smooth and a moment later he plummeted from sight.
Court was still holding on to Wilkes’s legs while Wilkes swung his Scorpion, using it like a club on Bear. They were all shouting incoherently at each other.
A gunshot reverberated through the room.
“Enough,” Britt said.
All eyes turned to her where she held the gun of the unconscious intruder next to his limp arm so his ID would activate it. Wilkes stopped swinging. After several seconds, he let his Scorpion baton drop from his hand.
“Get his helmet off,” Britt instructed.
Bear moaned as he rolled to a kneeling position and forced the helmet off. The face underneath was pockmarked, and the man’s hair was soaked with sweat.
“Who are you?” Britt demanded.
“Kiss my sour split,” Wilkes said.
She kicked him in the mouth.
&nb
sp; “That close enough?”
“I’m going to flay you open, you old cunt.”
“Charming. Wilm, you alright? Can you check on Ainsley? As for you, Mr. Wilkes, assuming that’s your name, strip down to your underwear.”
Wilkes spit blood from his gashed lip at Britt’s shoe.
“Fine. Bear, you can do it. No need to be gentle.”
Elle got to her feet and went to Court.
“Hey, you’re awake,” she said with sarcastic playfulness in her voice.
“What is going on?” he asked.
“Hold on,” Britt said. “Let’s save it for when the trash is put away.”
When Bear had Wilkes stripped down to his tight-fitting, knee-length underpants and nothing else, Britt waved him toward the storage room full of crates.
“One last chance to talk,” Britt said, “before we lock you in here.”
“Go to hell. My team’ll have me out of here within an hour and you’ll be picking through garbage on red ships.”
“When you look back on this moment, I want you to remember that we gave you a chance to be a decent human being. Go ahead, Bear.”
Bear slammed the inactive end of a Scorpion into Wilkes’s nose. He stumbled back against a crate. Bear flipped the Scorpion around and jammed the active end into Wilkes’s bare stomach, causing him to fall back against the crate and then roll to the floor. Bear stripped Wilkes’s unconscious associate and dragged him into the storage room as well.
“Leave them some water and open an air vent. With their grav flyer floating outside, someone’ll be here for them soon enough,” Britt said.
Bear moved a pair of four liter jugs into the room and locked them in.
“This was such a great location,” she said with a sigh.
A pulsing chime played outside.
“Train’s arriving,” Bear said.
“Perfect. Throw their clothes out before it gets here. If we’re lucky, it will sweep them away and maybe buy us some extra time.”
While Bear did that, Britt checked on Ainsley, who had been moaning since Wilkes shot her.
“She’s going to need a surgeon,” Wilm said. “I’ll give her something for the pain but we don’t have anything strong enough for this.”
“I know someone who can help. We’d better get moving.”
“Elle, what’s going on?” Court asked.
Britt stepped toward him and put out her palm. “We haven’t met yet. My name used to be Nora Barrett. You can call me Britt.”
CHAPTER 37: PETRA
Petra watched the text messages flash on her tablet screen as a conversation went back and forth between two devices that the owners believed to be anonymous and secure.
In a bad box. Bushwhacked at the teapot. Need help shaking up a sawbone.
For?
Crew stoved up by barking iron in prayer bone.
Just one?
Yes.
Burning the breeze to your shack.
ACK. Will find a sawbone.
It wasn’t fair for her to be too judgmental. For amateurs, they were doing a good job. Bots would never single out their old cowboy slang from the noise of the network. But she was no bot and she sure as hell wasn’t an amateur.
She deleted the notifications from her tablet.
The camera feed from the grav flyer had just shown L37, the unidentified male, and four brokers leaving the building that Wilkes and team had entered. One of them had a leg wound. The coded message reinforced her conclusion: barking iron in prayer bone had to mean a gunshot in the knee.
They were going to see the head of security at the University of Toronto, a known Reclamationist. Since Petra wasn’t going to tell Kane where L37 was headed, she and her companions would be safe for now.
She tapped on another tablet and waited for Kane to answer. He was going to be pissed, but at least he’d be pissed at Wilkes this time.
CHAPTER 38: COURT
They were in old human-driven cars. Court rode with Elle and Britt. Ainsley, the injured woman, rode with the two men.
Britt turned around from the front seat to face them. “Black market taxis,” she said. “No ID records, no tracking, and anonymous payments accepted. Gotta love em.”
The cars left them outside a building that looked abandoned. From behind a mature tree trunk, Ursula stepped out from the shadows. The sun glistened off the decorative sword hilt when she raised her hand in greeting.
Without conversation, they followed her inside. Ainsley grunted as she limped, supported by the shoulders of Wilm and Bear. Her pant leg was dark with blood. In the village, that kind of injury would be life-altering.
Ursula took them to the lowest level of the building and down an unlit corridor. The darkness seemed to swallow up the meager illumination from her handheld light.
“These underground walkways connect the university buildings. I make sure the cameras stay vandalized around the entrances so I can get people in and out discreetly if need be.”
The dark walkway felt like a tunnel to Court. It ended at a nondescript metal wall. Ursula squatted and slid her hand into a gap at its base. Something clicked and she pulled the wall panel open like a door.
“Added this myself. It’s not fancy, but it keeps riffraff out.”
Behind the false wall was a storage space filled with shelves and boxes. Ursula stuck her fingers under another wall panel and it popped open to reveal a well lit hallway.
“We’re underneath the main university building now. I have a spot ready for you.”
They took Ainsley into a tiled room where the fumes from disinfectant cleaners burned Court’s nose.
“What about the surgeon?” Britt asked.
“Dr. Barton. On her way. She’s bringing a field surgical bot. It’s what I could manage under the circumstances. I sterilized everything as best I could. I need to go back to meet the doctor.”
Ainsley groaned as Bear helped her onto a metal table. Court took Elle by the arm and pulled her away from the others. Since he’d woken up, he’d been following her lead in the interest of basic survival but he needed to understand what had just unfolded. Britt had insisted they not talk in front of the taxi driver, so now was his first good opportunity for explanations.
“What is going on? Who are these people?”
Elle kept her voice low to match his. “They’re… actually, I don’t know any more than you yet. We hadn’t gotten much further than establishing that Britt is Nora Barrett before those people showed up and tried to kill us.”
“Why did the big guy attack us?”
“They wanted to know why we were looking for Nora Barrett.”
“They could’ve just asked.”
“I don’t get the feeling their world is that straightforward.” Elle squeezed the bag with her suit against herself. “Once the situation calms down, we’ll talk it through with Britt, we’ll leave the suit with her, and hopefully they can help you get back home.”
“The way you said that, it sounds like you aren’t going back. I thought… I mean, I assumed that… I don’t really know what I thought. What are you planning to do?”
“I still have friends back at the research center. They’re the closest thing to family I have. Maybe some of them will want to escape with me. Live life on our own terms, you know?”
The last few days, he’d come to think of her as the only family he had left. He’d just assumed they’d stay together, that their experiences would connect them permanently, or least for much longer than a few weeks.
The bruises forming on her face looked more pronounced under the harsh, artificial light in the room. He reached his hand toward her, letting it hang in the air close but not touching.
“Your face, does it hurt?”
“Yes, quite a bit, but I can’t complain compared to her.” She tilted her head toward Ainsley, who was moaning on the metal table while Wilm cut away the blood-saturated leg of her pants.
“Those were the same people from the village, were
n’t they?” Court said.
“Maybe. They were dressed the same.”
“I would’ve liked a few answers from them.”
Britt stood over Ainsley running her fingers through her hair, her gentleness a dramatic change from when she’d kicked a man in the face less than an hour earlier. Her hands were steady, unlike Court’s hands that had been trembling since the taxi.
The door’s hinges creaked as Ursula led in a blindfolded woman pulling a metal case on wheels.
“Everyone out,” Ursula said.
Only when Britt nodded did Bear and Wilm move from Ainsley’s side. They gathered in the hallway just outside the door. Ursula joined them a minute later.
“Doc says it’s bad but the bot can clean it out and rebuild the knee with restin. It won’t be as good as new but she’ll be able to walk instead of losing her leg.”
“Thank you,” Britt said.
Ursula pointed at Court and Elle. “Didn’t take long for you two to find trouble, did it?”
“Ursula, is there a place to talk?” Britt asked. “There’s much to discuss.”
“Follow me. I have a secure room.”
She took them down an old concrete hallway to a door marked ARMORY 2. She keyed in a long passcode, scanned her eyeball, and waved her forearm in front of a reader. Inside there was a single table with eight mismatched chairs, a cot, and a barrel labeled WATER with a mug sitting on its lid. The faded letters on the mug read UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PARENT. At least a dozen tablets and other electronics that Court didn’t recognize were scattered across the table.
“Excuse the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Not exactly an armory,” Bear said.
“On the contrary, these are the most important weapons we have. Sadly, I get very few opportunities to use Janice.”
“Janice?”
“My sword. That’s her name.”
“You named your sword?” Wilm asked.
“Your sword is a female?” Bear said before Ursula could answer.
“Of course. She’s sleek, well-balanced, and can tear out your heart with little effort. Why wouldn’t she be female?”
“I just thought—” Bear started to stay something but seemed to think better of continuing.