Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  That's why the basement door was unlocked. They planned to exit through our entry point. Almost no one thinks about the steam tunnels, especially in summer. Someone had thought this out. But why take the hostages in the first place? I reminded myself to ask them later on. First I had to walk very calmly towards a man with a machine gun and explosive bullets to take him down without alerting the people on the other side of the door. He looked in my direction when I appeared in the hall, but didn't otherwise act. Dear God, he was leaning against the door. "Come on, stand up and take a step forward," I hissed softly

  "Hey," he said, his voice muffled by the mask. I gave a curt nod, unsure if it was meant as a greeting or not. "Wait..." He stepped towards me. I closed the distance in a stride, flicking the selector on his weapon over to safe as I wrapped my other arm around his neck and kicked his knees out from under him. It was one step shy of a perfect takedown as I dragged him away from the door to apply zip ties. For once I was having a good day. I doffed my disguise and took my goggles back. They went on my forehead. Really, with the new eye, I didn't have to wear them at all, but they'd come to be a part of my image.

  I checked under the door to make sure the hostages were actually inside. A row of smartly dressed professionals were lined up along the windows of the conference room, facing the blinds, literally forming a wall of human shields against the police sharpshooters. Three or four armed figures watched over them. One of the poor sods lined up along the windows was dressed in a windbreaker and had scraggly brown hair. It was Ben. He'd probably brought Nora lunch and got caught up in the raid. Under the circumstances, there wasn't that much either he or Nora could have done without making things worse. Of course, I wished there was some way to warn them about what was coming.

  I nodded to Ixa, and she began her incantation. Once again, I felt the flow of energy into her as she gathered up enough to cast the spell. She couldn't do much quickly, but given the time, she was the most powerful member of the team. Might explain why a solitary girl like her chose to join the team. With us watching her back, she had the time to shine. Icerazor preemptively laid down to avoid falling over. I stayed kneeling by the door as Ixa sat cross-legged in the middle of the hall. One of the guards inside turned to look at the door and began walking towards it when Ixa unleashed the energy she'd collected.

  A wave of dizziness passed over me, and I felt a bit woozy. Ixa crumpled, as did everyone in the conference room, landing in a series of tangled heaps. Fighting to clear my head, I pushed through the door and broke out the zip ties. I restrained the two men and a woman I discovered with masks and weapons. Taking away their armaments and moving their masks to the tops of their heads, I lined them up along the wall. Moving back to the hallway, I tried to wake my teammates, but magical sleep was deeper than normal sleep and they stayed quite comatose.

  "I got it," Dekker's voice called over the radio. There was a pause as he waited for an answer. "Guys?" Another pause. "Shit!" I searched the floor, but could find no trace of Dekker. Wherever he was, it wasn't the fifteenth floor of 722 Walker. As I waited for the others to wake, I moved the guards we'd taken down to the conference room. I also gave back the clothes we'd borrowed from the one. Trying to dress an unconscious person was a new experience, and one I hoped I didn't have to repeat, somewhere around not wanting to crawl up another sewer, but nowhere in the league of not wanting to be vivisected again. Well, Uth-sk didn't get far into the vivisection before I escaped, just far enough to take my eye. Really, why would anyone want my job?

  As the others started to come around, I helped Ixa to her feet. "I take it that it worked?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "I don't care if it worked," Icerazor said, "We're never doing it that way again." He let out a groan as he stood. I stepped into the conference room. Nora suppressed a smirk at the sight of us. She was built like a pencil, her extra fast metabolism burning through a lot of energy before it could be converted to even muscle mass. She made up for it by being able to run fast enough that under optimal conditions she broke the sound barrier. Optimal conditions did not include wearing a suit with a skirt and heels. Her boyfriend, Ben, used to be built the same way, but he'd put on some muscle over the past year, probably as a result of the training we'd put him through. He was not nearly as fast, but generated noticeable doses of electricity. No, that was an understatement. Having take a jolt from both him and a taser, I can say for certain that he generates more. Since they were in civilian clothes, we pretended not to know each other.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," I said. "We have secured the floor and captured the perpetrators on this level."

  "You might want to tell the cops," Icerazor said. Nora pointed to the phone sitting on the conference table. I picked it up and hit redial.

  "I'm glad to see you've decided to talk again," the voice on the other end said.

  "Is this the hostage negotiator?"

  "Yes. Who are you, and what happened to the other guy?"

  "This is Shadowdemon. We've secured the fifteenth floor for you along with the hostages and hostage takers. I'll get the elevators running so you can send your guys up without having to take the stairs. For the record, no one has been shot."

  "I'm on the elevators," Icerazor said, heading out of the room.

  Another voice broke into the phone conversation. "Listen you smug little costumed freak, we had the situation under control. You have no business interfering in a police operation."

  "I'm sorry you're disappointed at the successful resolution of the standoff, Detective Esposito. But I think it's a good day when no one dies." And a SWAT entry would result in dead hostage takers, at the very least. I refrained from adding that part, for diplomacy's sake. I can only antagonize Esposito so much. He never saw us as being on the same side. It was a good thing he tended to abide by the letter of the law. On the downside, I knew I had hours of paperwork coming up to avoid a malicious noncompliance charge. Most detectives were satisfied with the basics, Esposito wanted me to snap and refuse to fill out the forms.

  I hung up the phone and turned to the zip tied criminals. "So, what did you come in here for?" I got profanity in reply. "I don't think that's it. You didn't know I'd be here."

  One of the hostages stepped forward, his lower face stained with blood. "They wanted my password to our financial management system."

  Oh joy. Rubber hose cryptanalysis. Doesn't matter how strong your electronic controls are if they beat the information out of a legitimate user.

  "What do you keep in that program?"

  "Invoices, payment data and contact information for our clients," he said, "Plus their transaction history, bank information, real estate information, investment portfolio-"

  "I get the picture." I turned back to the guns on the table. "I guess that explains how they can afford their expensive firearms." But not who supplied them. Special Forces grade weapons were not the typical go-to guns for street criminals. Too much trouble for too little difference from what was more readily available. If Dekker dumped the contents of the company's financial management system and ran when no one answered, well, their clients were still in financial trouble. "You may want to advise your clients that your system was compromised, and their data is loose."

  "But you caught them."

  "How long did they have access, and how fast is your internet connection?"

  "I see. We don't know what was copied off-site." He sighed. "This could sink the company."

  "If I may," Nora poked into the conversation. "We can still sell this as a positive. Everyone else just gets hacked, they actually had to come and put a gun to our head to get at our data. Our electronic security beats the competition, that sort of thing."

  "Puh-leeze," one of the hostage takers said. "We broke in to send a message to you sniveling, mendacious pieces of-"

  I gave him a light kick to the gut. "Get to
the point."

  "You aren't safe from the Morlock Society. We are legion, and your heroes are few."

  "I thought the Morlock Society disbanded after the Ygnaza were defeated," I said. The Ygnaza were a particularly unpleasant bunch of alien slavers. Evidently, humans were stylish pets in some parts of the galaxy. Last year we'd managed to seize control of their ship and free the prisoners there.

  "While they were the catalyst that brought us together, the injustice we fight still exists," the Morlock said.

  I resisted the urge to cave in his face with the sole of my boot. My run-in with Uth-sk was thanks directly to the Morlocks, and I had a special piece of resentment in my heart for them. Pity too, mostly because they'd been ruled by their fears. Now, I couldn't see their side of it so much.

  "You've got a vendetta against rich folks," I said. "But you're waving around tens of thousands of dollars worth of military hardware. Someone financed this little operation."

  "Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you."

  "Actually, I was just pointing out the irony and hypocrisy of you guys. I think you're being played for fools."

  Just as I finished speaking, Esposito stormed into the conference room, his brown raincoat still fitted for a much fatter man and threatening to fall off his shoulders. Behind him came the inevitable stream of police officers, loaded for bear, with suspiciously familiar submachineguns. My eye went to the collection on the table. Something told me Detective Esposito wouldn't like the thought that passed through my head as he secured the room. He already didn't like me, but to suggest that someone on the force might be supplying the Morlocks would cause more than a little strain.

  As the police started processing the evidence, another man in a suit walked in. He was a head shorter than Esposito, and even I had to look down to look him in the eye. He was half bald, with dark brown hair. Most off-putting was the way his jowl seemed to meld into his lower lip, all but erasing any trace of his chin. I almost thought it would expand and croak like a frog. He smiled a snaggletoothed grin and shook my hand. "I'm Captain Bell, I don't believe we've met. Thank you for your contributions today."

  "Uh, you're welcome," I said.

  He turned quickly. "Esposito, search this building top to bottom. These guys had control for hours, I don't want to miss any of them." Esposito nodded and stormed out.

  "There are a lot of police officers who don't care for our 'interference'," I said.

  "You mean like Esposito?" Bell asked. "He came to Major Crimes by way of Homicide. From what I gather he's had his toes stepped on by heroes too often. I came from Vice. We don't trip over too many of you guys over there."

  "We are on the same side," I said. For the most part. If my hunch was right, there was an upcoming conflict of interest for someone on the force.

  "There are a few forms you have to fill out before I can let you go," Bell said. "Perhaps one of the other conference rooms would work better." He led us out of the room and to a smaller employee lounge a few doors down, then left us alone with a clipboard and a pen.

  "Did anyone else get 'too helpful to be sincere' vibes off Bell?" Icerazor asked.

  "Sort of," I said.

  "You two are paranoid," Ixa said.

  "Yeah," I said.

  "Just 'cause you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you," Icerazor said.

  I filled in the forms Bell had left with us. They were the bare minimum required by law. That alone tweaked my paranoia. You tended to get this sort of treatment when you break up a mugging, or a bar brawl. A high profile hostage taking? Too many bruised egos involved.

  "I get the feeling Bell wants us out of here as soon as possible."

  "And you want to stick around because?" Ixa asked.

  "It's the sort of hunch that led me to Omicron."

  "And that turned out so well," Icerazor said. "Just thinking about it makes me hurt."

  "All right," I said. "Two to one, we play nice and head out the way we came in." I brought the clipboard to Bell, who smiled and thanked me again. Unable to come up with an excuse to stick around, we got into an elevator and pushed the 'B' button. As it sank, I asked. "Was I the only one to notice that the SWAT guys had the same weapons as the Morlocks?"

  "I saw that," Ixa said.

  "I'm afraid I missed it," Icerazor said.

  "We will have to compare notes with Blue and Cupric later on," Ixa said. In other words, Nora and Ben. Their code names were Blue Streak and Cupric. Both were science jokes, but Cupric only worked for the previous holder of the name. Ben took it on after his mentor died. Nora swore she turned blue from the Doppler effect, but she didn't go nearly fast enough for her light purple costume to appear a different color.

  The elevator reached the basement and the doors opened with a ding. As I headed towards the steam tunnel entrance, Ixa stopped us.

  "That door was closed when we came in," she said, pointing to the 'Authorized Personnel Only' door we'd bypassed earlier. It was only ajar, held open by the top of a folding metal chair which lay on its side, mostly inside the room beyond. As I approached, I picked up a small red lens from the floor.

  "Look familiar?" I whispered. "Matches the masks the Morlocks were wearing." I checked the room with a fiber optic probe. I'm not sure at what threshold a server room becomes a datacenter, but this had to be in the middle. Two sets of racks, one along each wall, faced each other with a massive air conditioning unit pumping air down the middle There was easily enough space to walk behind the racks on either side. One of the racks on the left sat open, a toppled folding tea tray sitting in front of it. Hanging from cables out the open door was a laptop, which was still powered on. "I got left, Icerazor take right, and let's make sure no one is hiding in here."

  Pulling open the door, we slipped in and checked behind the rows of racks. There were no people in sight besides the three of us. The rear door on the same rack stood open, allowing access to a rat's nest of cables connecting a series of servers to the network and power. By it, I found one of the submachineguns, poking its nose out of a laptop bag. It wasn't loaded, but spare magazines sat in the pockets of the bag next to computer peripherals. I carried this around to the front, stood up the tea tray and sat the laptop on it where we could see the screen.

  The owner had not logged out. I went into the computer's settings and turned off the need to use a password to log in with the account. Since 'dekker' was an administrator, the change took without complaint. Among the open programs was a user friendly database client. Its recent query history included an export dump to what looked to be an external drive that was missing from the laptop. The data cable that had connected it was still hanging from the port.

  "Dekker left in a hurry," I said, "Possibly a panic." Which fit with his radio chatter.

  "I'm just pissed we didn't catch him on our way in," Icerazor said. "I mean, we walked right past this room."

  "We can still catch him," I said. "Just not here, and probably not today." I disconnected the laptop from the company's systems and tucked it in the laptop bag. "Let's go."

  "So we're keeping the evidence?" Ixa asked.

  "I still have a sneaking suspicion there's someone on the police force working for the wrong team," I said. "We'll hand it over when we find out who."

  And I hoped to God it wasn't more than one.

  Part 3

  Walking off with a fully automatic weapon which was evidence of a crime was not something I commonly do. But then again, during the school year, I'm not even a full-time hero. I don't mean the title people get for doing heroic things, but instead the official bureaucratic definition of someone who carries a Class 3 or better license from the Bureau of Hero Affairs. Technically, there is a class four license, but everyone calls it a sidekick permit, because it's available to applicants under the age of sixteen and requires supervis
ion by someone with a higher license category. I got my sidekick permit when I was nine, but I'd already been training for seven years at that point. Yes, I started when I was two. No, this wasn't child abuse, just the opposite. My parents had been in the hero business, and my dad still is, so we were targets anyway, and training us to take care of ourselves was just prudent.

  In the back of a plain brown van that Icerazor had bought from a police impound sale and fixed up, we donned civilian clothes over our hero suits and unmasked. I also put on an eyepatch, because as Travis Colfax, I couldn't afford an artificial eye as advanced as the one in my head. Ixa put on her gorgeous accent that just melts in your ear and makes you want to listen to whatever she had to say. Going back to being Stephanie Van der Veer, she put on a petite pair of wireframed glasses along. Well, she had to take out her contacts first, but she wasn't the only one. Icerazor went back to being Nick Buckner, a pallid, sickly man in baggy clothes whose only distinguishing feature was his platinum blond hair. He didn't like to admit that he was almost constantly bleeding inside. Not a lot mind you, but enough that the effects showed. He'd suffered a bit of a magical mishap, now his body kept making diamond grit that scratched up the lining of his gut.