by John Appel
Upstairs they found the doors of all the apartments, neatly blown out by cutting charges, leaning against the hallway walls. A ‘Follow Me’ arrow provided by Sergeant Imoke led them to the living room of one of the apartments. Imoke himself stood in the middle of a crowded, partially furnished room nearly half the size of Toiwa’s entire apartment, directing the assorted uniformed constables, plain-clothes detectives, forensic technicians, and the military breaching team he’d borrowed for the occasion. A pair of individuals—Toiwa couldn’t make out anything other than that there were two people—slumped against the wall, surrounded by constables.
Imoke wrapped up his conversation with a Constabulary bot-wrangler and gave Toiwa a jaunty salute. “Fourth time was the charm, Commissioner.” He twirled his index finger in a circle. “The first three locations the signals team located for us were quite small. But as soon as we realized they had the whole floor plus the office downstairs, I thought we might strike water. I’m pleased to say we did.”
“You’ve secured their hardware?” Okafor asked.
“Indeed we have. Corporal?” Imoke flagged down one of the uniformed constables and sent Okafor and her temporary pack mules off to plunder the digital spoils.
“Have you identified them?” Toiwa asked.
He flashed the station sign for ‘No’. “Just the high-quality fake IDs they used to rent this property. But the medics took assays. We’ll have DNA traces and initial microbiome flora analysis in twenty-four hours. But if you’ll come this way, Commissioner, you’ll see why I asked you to come personally.” He led them down a hallway past the bathroom to a still-closed door, guarded by one of the uniforms. “We spotted her with the microbots before we executed the breach. She’s got a biomed feed into her djinn the medics were able to tap once they used the emergency overrides, so they determined she was just sedated. I had them pull her off the drugs. She woke up while you were en route.” He tapped the door twice, then pushed it open.
Councilor Walla, dressed for a normal day in a green sari with teal trim, sat on the narrow bed set against the far wall with a standard-issue emergency blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The room was small, perhaps three and a half meters in each direction, painted a cheerful yellow. An emergency services medic in her high-vis orange jumpsuit hovered nearby, surrounded by a dizzying array of biomonitor feeds. Walla switched from scowling at the medic to scowling at Toiwa. “Nnena! Why am I being held here? And why won’t they give me my djinn?” She shook her naked wrist in the medic’s face.
Toiwa slipped in to stand in the tiny room, leaving Imoke, Kala, and Chijindu in the hallway, and leaned down over the councilor. “We just need to make sure you’re all right after your ordeal,” she said in her best ‘soothing ruffled feathers’ tone. “As for your djinn, I imagine it’s evidence, and being scanned as part of the investigation. I’m sure it will be returned once the technicians have ensured it isn’t compromised.” And, no doubt, captured a gestalt for evidentiary purposes, but no need to trouble Walla with that little fact yet...
Walla pushed herself upright and stood, if not face to face with Toiwa, at least face to chin. Her anger was palpable. “You have no right to treat my djinn like that! I’m an elected councilor—”
“My people have every right to do so, this is a damned crime scene, madam,” Toiwa said, shifting immediately to ice-queen mode. “These people are under arrest for cracking the station’s infonet and your djinn likely was compromised. They kidnapped you so smoothly my people didn’t know they had you until Imoke’s team prepared to breach the door. We’re not taking chances.” She leaned in towards the politician and spoke softly but clearly. “And before you go off about sensitive political matters, I don’t give a damn about what you’ve got in your storage unless there’s evidence of a crime.”
Walla’s eyes blazed with a ‘We’re not finished yet’ glare Toiwa found refreshing in a politician. Why can’t I have more adversaries who just clearly hate my guts, instead of ones that act like they’re my friends while angling the knife?
Toiwa glanced at the medic. “Is she fit to travel?” After affirming the councilor was, indeed, fit to travel, but that the biomonitor sensors on her forearms should remain in place for another hour, the medic began packing up her gear. Toiwa stepped aside and pointed at the doorway. “Why don’t we get you to more comfortable surroundings, Célestine, where we can take your statement?”
“Already told them what I remember,” Walla grumbled as she shouldered past Toiwa and out into the hall, letting the emergency blanket slip from her shoulders for Kala to snatch up. The little party reversed their earlier journey, Chijindu in the lead this time as they trekked back into the living room, followed by Kala and Imoke, with Walla and Toiwa bringing up the rear.
Once Walla entered the living room, though,
her behavior turned bizarre. Her head jerked down towards the prisoners, now laid out on the floor and in restraints, still dazed from the breach team’s stunners. She stopped in her tracks abruptly. Toiwa turned to face the politician. “It’s all right, Councilor, they’re secure. They can’t hurt you again,” she said. Walla remained still, her jaw working furiously. Toiwa reached out one tentative hand, tapping the other woman on the shoulder. “Councilor?”
Walla suddenly twisted at the waist and smacked Toiwa’s hand away. Toiwa was about to apologize but the woman continued twisting and drove her fist with the full force of her body into Toiwa’s stomach.
Toiwa had taken her share of knocks as a uniform, and during training since, but no one had ever sucker-punched her like that. She folded over like an umbrella and staggered backwards, falling on her ass.
Walla spun around and kicked Valverdes precisely in the back of zer left knee, sending zer sprawling to the floor. Toiwa tried to right herself as Walla lunged towards one of the uniformed constables. She jerked his sidearm free from its holster and moved to straddle one of the prisoners. She aimed down at the supine figure’s head as her finger slipped over the trigger—
Chijindu hit Walla like a runaway lorry. One meaty hand clamped down over her right wrist and wrenched the weapon up and off target even as his body slammed into her. The force drove the politician into the wall with a resounding thud. The big man kept her pinned against the wall with his left hip while he planted one enormous hand on her right elbow. She squirmed and tried to wriggle free as he stripped the weapon from her. He tossed it to a surprised Sergeant Imoke who just managed to catch the weapon. Chijindu proceeded to put Walla into a submission hold, rumbling, “Now now, settle down, ma’am.” He arched, pulling her off her feet, and leaned his head back as the older woman tried to claw at his face. Failing to reach her target, she pounded ineffectually at his forearms.
The whole action was over in less than twenty seconds. Imoke blinked at the pistol in his hands, loaded with frangible anti-personnel rounds—the breaching team had expected armed resistance—before handing it to the clearly embarrassed constable who’d lost it. The sergeant helped Valverdes up before hurrying to assist Toiwa, an expression of concern on his face. “Are you all right, Commissioner?”
Toiwa flashed the ‘OK’ sign before taking his hand to pull herself upright. Well, mostly upright. She waved him off as she stood, or rather, hunched. “What the dust are you about, Célestine?” she wheezed at Walla, whose struggles grew more feeble by the second.
The councilor ignored Toiwa and instead did her utmost to elbow Chijindu in the ribs, but her arms moved like noodles left too long in the pot, loose and floppy. Her eyes opened wide and her face suddenly drew into a rictus of pure animus and she hissed loudly as she tried to pry his hands loose, but he resolutely maintained his vise-like grip.
“Enough,” Toiwa said, a little less wheezily this time. “Where’s that medic?”
Chijindu tightened his arm and Walla passed out before the medic arrived. At Toiwa’s insistence they tranquilized her anyway, and loaded the councilor onto a gurney for transport to the north ring’s trauma c
enter.
“I didn’t know she had close combat training,”
Imoke said with a shake of his head.
“She doesn’t,” Valverdes said. Ze’d suffered nothing worse than a bruised cheek and a bit of lost pride from zer trip to the floor. “I pulled her file when Sergeant Imoke told us she was here. Nothing like that at all in her history.”
Imoke and Chijindu exchanged glances. “She moved like someone with expertise and experience,” Chijindu said. “Just like...”
Toiwa cut him off with a raised hand. “I agree.” She nodded at her aide. “I don’t doubt your command of the official records. But the way she took us both down was too smooth for someone who’d never practiced. We need to know for sure.”
With a glance around the crowded room, Valverdes opened a secure channel among the four of them.
“None, Commissioner. Your Constabulary specialists did an admirable job locking down the server during the operation. Data loss should be minimal.”
“That’s good to hear. How long until you have a preliminary analysis?”
“Impossible to say for certain until we get a good look. But we should have the scope of things mapped by sometime this evening.”
“Very well. Let Inspector Valverdes, Sergeant Imoke, or myself know if you need anything.”
The alert for an incoming call from the governor flashed in her optics. “Shit,” Toiwa said, and opened the call, even as she tried to figure out how to tell Ruhindi that her main political supporter on the station was now a person of interest in the biggest investigation on Ileri Station since the war.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Noo
Aye Tuntun Specialists Manufactory,
Kochi
Dark clouds massed to the east, driving westward with uncanny speed as the team flew southward above the towers. “Roaring norther coming in,” the pilot told them. A quick infonet search told Noo this was the local name for a variety of coastal storm system that in reality originated from the south. The spinning winds of the system, though, assailed the coastline from the northeast. ‘Roaring’ was the right adjective, she thought, with typical wind speeds in the eighty kilometers-per-hour range, and ‘pockets of extreme turbulence’.
She tightened her straps and pulled an airsickness bag into her lap. Ogun’s balls, I hate coming down here.
The team was split between the two large aircars. She rode with Fari and the Kochi liaison in one while Teng, Ogawa, and Zheng followed in the trailing craft.
Kochi constables piloted the cars and filled the remaining seats.
The high-rises gave way to low-level blocks reminiscent in overall form, if not architectural style, of New Abuja as they progressed southward. They descended, following the monorail line as they approached the industrial park. Noo spotted a column of vehicles she pegged as Constabulary reinforcements headed to reinforce the officers on the scene.
The manufactory proved to be a nondescript two-level building located near a major intersection. The pilots put them down relatively smoothly despite the increasing winds as scattered raindrops speckled the pavement. Noo ran a finger under her collar, freeing her jacket’s hood, and pulled it over her head before ducking out of the aircar. The armor vest borrowed from the Constabulary tactical team made that a little trickier than it would have been unencumbered, but she welcomed the trade-off in mobility for the extra protection. She jogged across the street to join the rest of the team where they huddled at the rear of a Constabulary ground car which had pulled into the lot just as they landed.
“Surveillance got a probable hit on Mizwar about five minutes before the locals got here to set up the perimeter,” Zheng said, flipping data packets to them all. Noo popped it open and watched a video clip of four hooded figures carrying duffel bags exiting a van, who then entered the building as the van pulled off. The locals would handle the vehicle. Another clip, from cameras across the street, showed the quartet in profile. One of the figures was captured face-on, and with a start she recognized Mizwar. She felt a flush of exultation. Got you, you scum-sucking prick.
“What’s the plan?” Fari asked.
Zheng introduced Lieutenant Yazumi, the senior local officer, who ran down the situation. “We only got here a few minutes before you. I’ve got two teams covering the back and sides. The special operations squad is en route but they are about ten minutes away. District headquarters has rousted out all the standby teams and we’ll have a full incident-response contingent in about twenty—”
The muffled sound of gunshots reached them from inside the building, and Noo’s jubilant mood evaporated.
“Civilians inside?” Zheng asked.
Yazumi cursed, then nodded once. “Supposed to be five in there. Dammit. Duty of care. New plan. We go in now. Hue!” Ze shouted the name. A lean constable with a weathered face, bearing a shotgun, responded. “Breaching protocol! Entry team, stack up!” Hue sprinted across the lot, taking up position beside the door, his shotgun leveled against the knob. Another constable grabbed a ballistic shield from the trunk of the car and took up station along the wall next to the door, opposite Hue. Noo, Fari and the others from the station raced across the pavement with the locals, finding places in the line of bodies behind the lead constable. Yazumi pushed another shotgun-wielding constable into place behind the shield-bearer, took the third position for zerself, and drew zer sidearm. “Go!” ze shouted.
Hue blew the doorknob out, then shot away the hinges before stepping back smartly. The door fell outward with a crash, barely settling to the ground before the lead constable pushed into the building, shield raised high. The rest of the breaching party snaked into the building behind him.
Noo felt a tap on her shoulder and glanced to see Ogawa, right behind her, flip a packet her way. She opened it to find a floor plan of the building. A wave of her hand and a mental command projected a wireframe diagram of the hallways, doors and rooms ahead of them, even as she wondered how Ogawa had obtained the plan.
The officers in the lead rushed down the hallway at Yazumi’s command. Yazumi zerself remained in the foyer, directing the remainder in pairs to sweep through the manufactory. Teng pulled Ogawa out of the line, gesturing for her to remain in the foyer despite her brief but fruitless protest. Noo’s heart beat a trip-hammer rhythm and she forced herself to breathe evenly as she and Fari padded down the hallway. Fari took up position next to their designated doorway and Noo slid up to the other side, next to the handle. Huntress, watch over us and ours.
Stunner in hand, Noo flipped the door open and Fari swept into the room, weapon up, Noo at her heels. They found themselves in a feedstock room, bins and tanks of chemicals and materials for the fabricators stacked and racked on shelves. Two doors led out of the room, one across from the way they’d come in and another to their left. They took up positions around the partially open door on the far side. Flipping it open they found another storeroom.
And a pair of bodies.
Fari guarded the door as Noo knelt down in what she already knew would be a fruitless check for life signs, judging from the wounds and spreading pools of blood. Both victims had been shot twice, once in the chest, once in the head. Noo informed Yazumi about the bodies. The lieutenant acknowledged and directed them to continue their sweep.
They took up positions next to the next door when a shotgun blast ripped through the quiet from somewhere deeper inside the building. Fari kicked the door open with a snap of booted foot as a staccato of pops answered the shotgun. Within seconds a full-blown firefight was underway.
Noo stood
dumbstruck for precious seconds even as Fari dropped into a crouch and scuttled through the doorway. That’s an automatic weapon. How the fuck did they get those? Hastily scrunching down herself, she patted the armor vest. Would it help against that kind of firepower? She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and duckwalked forward into what the floor plan claimed was the main hall of the manufactory.
Thighs screaming with the effort, she made her way around an idle pair of mover bots to where Fari crouched. The younger woman sheltered behind a large fabrication tank, the gleaming metal vessel festooned with pipes, hoses, and other feed mechanisms. Fari swapped her stunner for her flechette pistol.
Noo tapped her on the shoulder, then pointed to a feedstock tank just a few feet away. Physical and AR signage announced CONTENTS UNDER EXTREME PRESSURE and FLAMMABLE. The other fabber vessels nearby displayed similarly dire warnings.
After the initial shock of contact, Yazumi’s people proved well-disciplined. The shooter’s probable location was triangulated, and ze calmly directed zer officers into flanking positions, but ordered them to stay under cover. “We just need to keep them contained until the tacticals get here,” ze ordered. “Keep them away from any surviving civilians but otherwise don’t risk yourselves unnecessarily.”
The gods of entropy had something to say about that, of course.