Captive Embers (The Wardens' Game Book 1)

by Brian Mansur

  Baylor complied until they crossed their second intersection. “Stop,” he said, using his bulk to reduce them to a stroll. “I can’t do this.”

  Rafe resisted the urge to slap the wheezing man. “I’m not going to drag your heavy backside all over Shine Town.”

  “We’ve gone far enough," Baylor said. "Let’s find a hard line and call your friends,”

  “Lilith’s people are too close," Rafe countered. He imagined her henchmen roaming the area like swarming spider bots. “And what’s to stop the police from checking with every store along this road? We need some distance first.”

  “Screw that. The cops don't want to be here any more than we do. We should go into one of these stores and get someone to help us.”

  “You Lakshmians are cowards, Baylor. When was the last time you saw anyone in this colony help somebody they didn’t know?”

  Baylor made an exasperated noise. “Try living where police arrest everyone anywhere near a crime until they cough up a bribe. But if you’re right about us Lakshmians, our guns should make it easy to demand a little service, right?”

  Rafe smirked. Baylor had shamed him. Slightly. He also raised a potentially useful tactic. Asking for assistance with a weapon in hand might prove persuasive. It could also draw the police to them very quickly.

  A deep buzzing overhead ended the debate. Rafe’s heart froze.

  “Drone!” Baylor yelled, his face draining a shade paler. The pair hurried to a tool shop’s door.

  The earlier gun-battle still had Rafe’s ears ringing, so he lingered at the entrance to see what the aircraft did. For a second, he had hope. James controlled some of his drones with non-cellular frequencies that might not have been disrupted.

  The more he listened, however, the colder the ice tendrils in his limbs grew. The engine’s pitch heralded something heavier and more dangerous than anything James flew.

  “It’s a Lakshmian police drone,” Baylor said.

  Rafe nodded as he spotted a silhouette high over the avenue. Great, Rafe thought as he ducked into the shop with Baylor. If the cops get us, Lilith’s thugs will buy us off of them. An obscene premonition of what would follow made him shudder. He took some comfort as the drone passed them by. Maybe the pair hadn’t been spotted.

  He turned to scan the store's interior. Baylor’s distressed remark about the police had drawn the occupants’ attention. A handful of customers had already angled behind the shelves. One person headed toward the rear exit.

  “I want to make a call on the optic line, please,” Rafe said as he stepped up to a middle-aged man behind the counter.

  A shrill alarm made the spy flinch. Someone had vacated the building. He glanced at the store’s emergency exit to see a lady and two men slipping out. Rafe figured he had three minutes before one of them reached a policeman. Without taking his eyes from Rafe, the clerk silenced the alarm.

  Rafe said, “Sorry to be of trouble. My friend will need your first aid kit.” He gestured at Baylor’s injured arm.

  The clerk said, "I am afraid I don't have one."

  Rafe bobbed his head and pursed his lips. “I do not have time for this.” He drew his pistol and pointed it at the cashier. “Would you check again, please? I believe you just got restocked.”

  The clerk sighed. “Yes, my mistake.” The balding cashier pulled out a tethered pad from under the counter and laid it in front of Rafe. "Medical kits are in aisle four," the clerk volunteered as he placed his hands atop his head. Baylor moved off. Rafe half-expected him to leave too, but the injured fugitive scooted straight to the indicated row.

  “Thanks,” Rafe told the clerk. “Now, get out of here.” The man moved around the counter and calmly left through the front door.

  Keeping an eye on the street-side windows, Rafe touched the pad’s voice control and said, “Phone.” The communications app appeared, and he punched in the contact code for James.

  “Good evening,” came the A.I.’s voice.

  “James, it’s me,” Rafe said. “We’re on a speaker, so be discrete.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “Can you pick us up at…” he read the backward sign in the window, “Cid’s Tool Emporium.”

  “Us, sir?”

  “My friend needs a lift.” He pivoted his head to find Baylor returning with a box tucked under his bad arm. “Take him even if I’m not with him,” Rafe said loud enough for Baylor to hear. Baylor threw him a look of approval.

  “Sir, my drones spotted several individuals leaving that store via the back alley. One person is headed for a police vehicle down the block. I can’t guarantee an extraction.”

  “Just tell me how many minutes before a cab is outside of the front door.”

  “I estimate in five, sir.”

  Rafe’s jaw gaped. “We don’t have five minutes, James.”

  “The jamming forced me to call in another taxi from dispatch.”

  “Make it faster,” Rafe said.

  “I’ll try, sir.”

  Baylor waddled up, first aid kit in hand. His voice quavered. “So, what do we do?”

  Rafe grabbed the kit from Baylor, ripped off its cellophane, popped it open and yanked apart a package of gauze. With practiced skill, he wrapped a pressure dressing around Baylor's wound.

  “Where is the pre-po ride, James?” Rafe asked.

  “It’s on the far side of the growing police presence. I can’t raise it. Also, there is a constabulary drone overhead.”

  Rafe cursed. “What about access to the maintenance level?”

  “Probably locked in this sector of the city, sir. Too much crime.”

  “Can you disable the police drone?”

  “Not without endangering people on the ground.” James paused for a beat, then said, “Sir, an individual who left your store just spoke to a squad car a few blocks away.”

  “What is that police car doing?”

  “Nothing yet. The occupants may be deliberating how to proceed. Their comms with headquarters wouldn’t be affected by the jamming, so they might be calling reinforcements."

  “Sounds like we have only a minute,” Rafe said. “Take out that drone by any means necessary. If you have anything left after that, guide us to a way out of here."

  “Hitting the drone will attract more assets to this area, sir.”

  “I know that, James, but under no circumstances can you allow our capture. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Baylor swallowed hard. “Capture?”

  Rafe ignored him. “Is the back-alley clear?” he asked James.

  “For the moment, sir,” James answered.

  “Then Baylor is going first.”

  “I’m what?” Baylor asked.

  “Go out, start walking to the left and try to stay out of sight. It won’t look as suspicious if they have eyes on you. I’ll catch up after James knocks out the drone.”

  Baylor frowned but did as he was told. The alarm blared again as he disappeared through the rear exit. Rafe crouched behind the counter away from the cameras he’d noted on the ceiling. He activated the pad’s video feature.

  “Can you see me?” Rafe said.

  “Yes, sir,” James replied. “You look like hell.”

  Rafe ignored the weak attempt at humor. He extracted the purloined envelope from his pocket, opened it, and held its contents up to the pad. After tapping in a few commands, Rafe asked, “Are the files coming through?”

  “Yes, sir. Scanning them."

  “Hurry it up.”

  A few seconds later, James said, “Got it, sir. Memory wipe complete.”

  Rafe felt a surge of gratitude for his electronic friend. No matter what happened next, he’d complicated Lilith’s plans. Rafe then tore up the letter Baylor had given him.

  James said, “You’re still clear out the back, sir. I’ve taken care of the police drone, and I’m rerouting the taxi to rendezvous at the end of the alley.”

  Rafe exhaled, imagining the awful sight o
f a police ship as it careened toward the ground.

  “Sir,” James said with renewed urgency. “I have one drone left in the air, and it shows the nearby squad car moving toward your location.”

  At that Rafe sprung from his crouch and zipped to the store’s rear. Along the way, he yelled, “Keep the line open until I’ve disposed of these!” He found a restroom and flushed the shredded pages down the commode. “They’re gone!”

  He heard James call out from the speaker on his data-pad, “Good luck, sir!”

  At that same moment, the police car pulled up, lights flashing. Rafe disappeared through the back door. While sprinting down the alley, he began to worry. He couldn't see Baylor ahead and feared that an officer might appear at any moment.

  When he skidded to a halt near the open street, he found nothing. No taxi. No Baylor. Even the alley remained empty. Only a smattering of pedestrians hustling along with the occasional roving car.

  He studied the surroundings and his eyes locked onto an oblong shape emerging from beyond the rooftops ahead. A robotic Warden blimp. He tried not to think about the black weapons pod on the thing's belly.

  Strolling beneath the airship, Rafe bent his neck to watch as it angled to match his speed and direction. An unpleasant tingle rippled down his spine. He turned at the next intersection and checked overhead again. Sure enough, the airship had spun up its propellers to follow him.

  He passed a folded Warden enforcer bot perched on the other side of the street. Like mailboxes of old, the silent sentinels littered the colony. Before exiling a handful of survivors from Earth’s solar system some two thousand years ago, the Wardens had been responsible for exterminating most of mankind. If they wanted to chat, they could have activated one of their enforcers.

  Then a chilling notion occurred to him: that this Warden ship could be a fake.

  Rafe immediately discarded the idea as ludicrous. The bots had electronic eyes everywhere, including full access to the servant-A.I.s like James. No one would have had the opportunity to make a fake blimp, let alone fly it. Anyone insane or stupid enough to try would be found out. The same went for framing him for violating the Warden code. Any conspirators would wind up in a system-wide broadcast being torn into several bloody pieces, along with their families and closest friends. No questions. No trials. Just torture and death for disobedience.

  The distant wail of police sirens spurred Rafe on. He cut through another alley and out of the blimp’s immediate line of sight. The thrum of the airship’s engines increased.

  Rafe pumped his legs harder. He crossed the service corridor’s midpoint and glanced over his shoulder. The blimp had climbed back into view.

  Why are they playing around like this?

  He checked ahead and saw a silhouetted figure creep into the alley. Rafe reached for the shopkeeper’s gun but stopped when he recognized what blocked his escape.

  He came to a heel-scraping halt. The obsidian form of a biped Warden enforcer bot strode for him. His gut twisted, remembering what every school child learned to say when dealing with the mechanical overlords.

  “Can I help you, Warden?”

  The robot continued to advance in silence.

  “Okay, that’s not a good sign,” he whispered and began to back-tread, palms half-raised in submission.

  A vehicle’s squeaking breaks wrested Rafe’s attention from the enforcer. He saw three armed men jump out of a car at the alley’s entrance. A male clad in black called to him, “Submit to the enforcer! You have nowhere to run!”

  Rafe looked between the newcomers and the robot. He’d never heard of such a thing, humans helping Wardens. The machines didn’t need anyone’s help. And given that they cared almost nothing about matters between humans, Rafe knew this little scene should not be happening.

  A hopeful thought forced its way through his confusion. The Warden hadn’t issued any orders. Perhaps evading it wouldn’t lead to the usual excruciating punishments.

  Rafe dashed at the mute machine. Sliding around it, he heard one of the men curse. The biped robot kept walking. Then, the man in black shouted at the enforcer to capture Rafe. Seconds later, a pneumatic hiss issued from behind and a fiery sensation gripped his body. He crashed to the ground with a sickening thud. Momentum raked his right cheek across a meter of pavement.

  The Warden had electrocuted him.

  Barely conscious, Rafe’s heart sank into a roiling pit of dread. Any hope of escape vanished. The only thing left was to make moving him as risky as possible.

  “Fire!” he screamed, remembering his anti-abduction training. “Fire in the alley! Fire!”

  “Shut him up!” a voice thundered.

  The next instant, Rafe felt a stinging in his thigh. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw what he guessed was a tranquilizer dart sticking out of his leg.

  While the footfalls of the strange men closed in on him, he had a fading moment to hope that James had recorded the bizarre encounter… and to pray that he would somehow see his wife and kids again.

  2

  Location: Officer’s billets, Zeus Station in orbit of the gas giant planet Belia_

  “Good morning Lieutenant Merrick. The time is Oh Six Ten local.”

  Chilled air from a ceiling vent jet-streamed across Sean Merrick's thin covers. He squirmed and felt his arm hairs prickle.

  “Claire,” Sean said in a dangerous growl. The artificial intelligence had an annoying tendency to refrigerate the room whenever he slept past reveille. Rubbing a palm over wavy locks of brown hair, Sean sat upright and threw his pillow across the room. It hit a glass wall, which lit up with a brilliant white glare. Exhaling through his teeth, he surrendered to the inevitable and squinted through his eyelids.

  A young woman—medium height, slender, better than good-looking—stood inside the panoramic vid-screen. Her porcelain face bespoke an arrogance that Sean didn’t appreciate so soon after waking. She wore an anachronistic, green wool coat with a broad, black, rabbit fur collar, black skirt, and leggings that all seemed to be saying, "I’m warm, and you’re not."

  “I hate you,” he said. “You know that, Claire?”

  In answer, she gave him a smug smile.

  Sean growled his displeasure then rose and plodded toward the shower. He shucked his boxers, not caring that the A.I. had transferred to the bathroom mirror’s display. She was only a machine—as he reminded himself.

  Activating the shower, he ensured that the water came out piping hot before stepping in. The stream reddened his skin, invigorating the corded sinews along his back. He closed his mouth and eyes as a soapy froth swept over him. The stall rinsed his body quickly then blasted it dry with hot air. He stopped at the sink for a swish of antiseptic. Revitalized, he exited the bathroom and went to his dresser.

  With a touch of schoolmaster crossness, he said, "Claire, I thought we’d agreed to raise the temperature of those morning breezes."

  "Ice cold is the only setting that wakes you up."

  “I hate the Fleet,” Sean muttered, shaking his head. “I hate the Fleet. You ship A.I.s don’t get how this works. You're supposed to do what I tell you. Waking me up with a freezer blast isn’t what I ordered.”

  The A.I.’s avatar tapped her foot. “We’ve had this conversation.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Sean said, recalling his shock at Claire’s sudden appearance when he’d first overslept his alarm. “You have no respect for my privacy."

  He glared at the woman in the touch glass, hands on his unadorned hips like a drill sergeant. At six-feet tall, he had a trim and toned figure from the daily workout regimen the military insisted upon. Claire scanned him head to toe.

  “Eyes up, Claire,” he said.

  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen, sir,” she replied.

  “I know exactly what you've seen."

  “So crass.”

  “Really?” Sean said. “I’ve never cared to see you naked.”

  Claire tilted her head, conceding the point. Then she said
, “On a loosely-related topic, I find it curious that you seem to have lost your interest in women.”

  “Did that come out of some psychotherapeutic subroutine designed to get me to move on with my love life?”

  “Since you bring it up, it’s been a year since your last date. That was before your advisory tour on Lakshmi Colony. Would you like to talk about any of that?”

  “I’ve got things to do,” he said, pulling on a fitted undershirt. “Now stop obsessing about my health.”

  The A.I. paused, then said, “Speaking of health, you need to work harder on your core muscle groups tonight.”

  Sean grunted. “After last evening’s session, you can work on your own core. I’ll be thinking about you from my bunk tonight. You can take that however you like.”

  “Now who's being inappropriate?” Claire said.

  Sean preempted any further discussion by opening his e-mail and calendar atop Claire’s face. She eased aside while he perused the contents. It promised to be a busy day. Muster at oh eight hundred to put the Tsunami back into space. That meant bye-bye to comfortable station-side quarters and full-gravity showers for the next several weeks. A waiting message from BELCOM, Zeus Station caught his eye.

  “They have scheduled a final interview with you for the Support Operations Officer slot,” Claire said, obviously tracking his gaze. “It will have to take place via televid since you’ll be away.”

  Sean ignored her. He tapped the message, took thirty seconds to read its contents, and swiped it away to the archive. He directed a snide grin at Claire. “With any luck, I won’t have to deal with you much longer.”

  “Are you sure the issue isn’t that you don’t like people?” she asked.

  “I enjoy human beings just fine. I don’t care for overbearing algorithms pretending to be them.”

  “You’re hurting my feelings, sir,” Claire deadpanned.

  “Anthropomorphizing yourself won’t endear me to you at this point. Are there any special alerts I should be aware of?”

  “You want your pre-shift briefing without breakfast first? Didn’t you once say that was bad for your digestion?”