Stug reached inside his coat, but Hatch felt the movement and stopped him. Even in the blackness, Hatch imagined the incredulous, “Are you crazy?” look in his sergeant’s eyes. But Stug stayed his hand.
The drone purred as its sensors surveyed the men’s room, taking measurements, searching for heat sigs. They could hear it, right outside the stall they were hiding behind. It seemed to sit and hum and whir forever, as if contemplating whether or not to bother killing them.
Then they heard footsteps.
“Lieutenant! Drone’s cleared the men’s room. Looks like the owner was telling the truth.”
Someone in command said something unintelligible in the main bar.
“Yes, sir,” said the trooper. “Come on, you.”
The drone’s servos spun up and it moved away. Hatch heard the sound of the men’s room door opening wide on its loud spring and then banging shut. Muffled voices sounded beyond the door again, and Hatch could tell from the tenor that Transport was wrapping up and moving on.
“Huh,” said Stug. “Wainwright must’ve lined his walls with glass to reflect infrared scans back to the scanner.”
Hatch clicked on a flashlight. “No shit.”
Stug cocked an eye at him to let him know he got the joke, then asked, “How’d you know?”
Hatch scouted the close corridor with the light. Nothing but weeping stone, angling sharply down.
“The tavern is a TRACE hidey-hole from way back,” the lieutenant said, starting down the passageway. “Makes sense he’d take precautions.”
Stug followed, stooping to keep from bumping his bald head. He slipped once, but righted himself quickly. “We’re going down.”
“Beats dying.”
“We’re going into the sewer, aren’t we?” whined Stug in his little boy’s baritone. “Again.”
“Looks that way.”
“I bet we find plenty of shit there.”
“Keep walking, hero.”
“Could you squat downwind?”
“Quiet,” said Hatch.
From their position across the street, Transport’s Detention Center appeared almost as deserted as the tavern in the calm of after-midnight. A drone passed quietly back and forth along the sidewalk fronting the street. A single electric light shone on two steel-reinforced doors providing entry to the facility. A few pieces of paper, stirred by the wind, flitted around the otherwise empty street.
The quiet didn’t surprise Hatch. Of course the streets were deserted. Transport had long ago imposed martial law as part of their doomed attempt to restore order in the City. Since the Authority had begun evacuating essential personnel to its cities beyond the Great Shelf, no one would be caught dead near the Detention Center at this time of night. Or rather, dead was the only way they would be caught there.
Glancing at Stug, Hatch said, “I have no idea how we’re gonna get in there.”
Braving the static humming in his head from Transport’s dampening field, Stug connected his BICE to the Internet. He accessed the building’s layout using the files they’d secured from Ducky. There were three levels up top, including the roof, and two under the street. Multiple security checkpoints and low-level administrative offices made up the first floor. The second floor contained larger, better-furnished offices for high-level Authority types.
Transport designed its buildings hierarchically. The higher up you went, the more ornate the offices. Going down wasn’t nearly as pleasant. In Ducky’s files, the first level below ground was labeled as “interrogation rooms and reeducation chambers”—both of them soundproofed, for obvious reasons. There were also a few common rooms for holding large groups in one space. Below that level was “The Dungeon,” as TRACE called it, where Transport housed its most dangerous political prisoners.
Not exactly the New Hilton.
“I’m more worried about getting back out,” said Stug, scanning the plans with his mind’s eye. He disconnected his BICE from the Internet, and the static stopped immediately.
Hatch kept silent.
“Why don’t we just find a couple of Transport mooks, clobber ’em and take their uniforms, and file in when the shift changes?”
Hatch shook his head. “They BICE-scan when you walk in the door. You know that. The only people who get in without scanning are prisoners with their BICEs already removed. And it’s not like we’re on a sanctioned mission for Covert Ops, with idents programmed in. We’d have fifty rifles pointed at us before we made it to the front security desk.”
Stug grunted. “Well, how about until we figure out a better plan, we just find a couple of Transport mooks and clobber ’em anyway? You know. For fun.”
“Quiet, Neanderthal. I’m trying to think.”
In the distance to the north, the vibrating hum of anti-gravs caught Hatch’s attention. The wind blew it in over the top of Transport’s Justice Building, which connected to the Detention Center on one end, forming an L. Lady Justice, her traditional blindfold removed by the Transport Authority decades ago, stood atop the Justice Building, her arm holding the scales of justice stretched out toward detention, as if pointing the way.
An airbus appeared over the statue. Hatch and Stug watched it make its way to the center of the street between them and the Detention Center. Dust kicked up as the ship’s airjets cushioned the bus’s descent.
“A little late for a delivery, isn’t it?”
“Transport likes to bring in political prisoners after midnight,” Hatch said. “Less chance for a public spectacle that way.”
The airbus settled, its hydraulic legs locking. A door opened and a ramp extended, and two fully armored Transport soldiers marched out and took up positions at the bottom of the ramp. Running lights popped on in succession along the walkway as the first of the passengers stepped out.
A woman, her hair tangled and her clothing stained and hanging like rags, walked forward unsteadily. She was followed by another, then a man, then three children. All had their hands bound in front of them. Most stumbled with fatigue. Hatch saw that some of the prisoners were walking wounded, their injuries apparently field treated with hastily wrapped bandages. A few had to be helped down the ramp by others. One soul was carried on a litter by two other prisoners, their hands bound despite their burden.
Hatch caught a gleam of starlight moving to the north. Though he couldn’t hear it yet, he could see the running lights announcing the inbound flight of a second airbus. He arced his head northward, and Stug followed his gaze.
“Five minutes?”
“Sounds about right,” said Hatch. He glanced back at the offloading prisoners. The drone by the street was monitoring their transfer with its one red eye. Looking down at the crumpled state of his clothes, Hatch said, “I have an idea.”
“Great. I get to hit someone, right?”
“Eventually, I have no doubt.”
“Then I’m in.”
Hatch took out his knife and extended the blade.
“You’re taking a knife to a gun fight?”
Instead of responding, Hatch handed Stug the knife. “Say goodbye to your BICE.”
Stug stared. “Wait, what?”
“Not a lot of time to discuss. You cut mine out, then I’ll do yours.”
Still the sergeant hesitated. “You really have no intention of going back to B Company, do you?”
Hatch turned his head to offer Stug a better angle. “Likely more a matter of them not wanting me back. And me not wanting to spend the rest of my life in prison.”
“Yeah, I guess that ship has sailed.”
“Four minutes, thirty seconds. And we have two surgeries to perform.”
Nodding, Stug reached over and rubbed his thumb along the skin below Hatch’s right ear. “Kinda dark,” he said. “And I usually only do this to dead guys.”
“Make do.”
There it was. The telltale bump of the BICE implant below the skin. Stug spit on his friend’s neck, then wiped the skin as clean as he could with one thick t
humb. He placed the tip of the knife a quarter inch above the bump.
“This is gonna hurt.”
“Four minutes.”
The big man cut a vertical line across the bump. “You gonna remember the schematics?” he asked as he cut. Blood welled from the wound, and Stug wiped it away. He could feel Hatch trying to keep his neck muscles from jerking beneath the blade.
“I hope so.” Hatch winced. “For her sake.”
Stug cut a second, transverse line across the bump. Though he largely ignored the blood, which was flowing freely now, he had to constantly clean the wound to see what he was doing. Slowly, delicately, he worked Hatch’s flesh back to expose the implant.
“Remind me not to let you carve the turkey at Thanksgiving.”
“Never had any complaints before.”
“Right!” Hatch clipped the word off, squeezing his eyes shut as Stug dug into his neck.
The big man carefully dug the knife through the slit he’d just made. Then, placing its tip below what he thought was the center of the implant, he said, “This is gonna hurt.”
“You said that al—ow!”
Stug’s meaty hand came into view. Resting on the tip of a bloodied index finger was Hatch’s BICE. “Want to say a heartfelt goodbye?”
“Crush it. Two minutes till that second ship lands.”
Stug handed the knife to Hatch and turned around. “Be gentle with me. It’s my first time on the receiving end.”
“Uh-huh,” said Hatch.
The airbus on the ground was spinning up its engines, so Hatch was forced to work faster than Stug had. A minute later—counted in the number of new curses the big man coined for the occasion—both men were BICE-free.
“Feels a little like being naked, doesn’t it?”
“More like unchained,” said Hatch. But Stug was right. Being without the Internet for support and communication made him feel a bit like his left arm had been cut off. “Stow your pistol up that drainpipe. And throw the Raymond Chandler duds in the trash can there.”
“The what duds?”
“The coat and hat,” said Hatch, exasperated. “Leave ’em.” He wrapped a strip of cloth around his neck to stanch the bleeding and shook his head. “No one has any appreciation for classic pop culture anymore.”
“Hell, I don’t appreciate today’s pop culture. Not that there is any.”
Both men stood silently in the shadows of the alleyway, away from the constant surveillance of Transport’s security cameras. The first airbus lifted off, heading for its landing bay on the roof of the Detention Center. In the rumbling wake of its engines, they could hear the second one coming in; the ships were like two runners passing off a baton.
The second bus’s landing ritual mimicked the first’s. While the anti-gravs swirled dust noisily around on the road, Hatch and Stug stole away from their hiding place and slid around to the left side of the landing zone.
Crouched and careful, they made their way from trash can to apartment stoop to a second statue of Lady Justice, this one on the ground. She stood as the centerpiece of a stone fountain in the middle of the square and pointed toward the Justice Building, a sister to the statue on its roof. The fountain’s display was turned off for the night, so no water pumped to afford them cover. But the moon had slipped behind the clouds, and their silhouettes blended with the night well enough as they knelt near the stonework. From this position, the second airbus, its jets settling its legs into position, was no more than twenty feet away.
The door slid open and the ramp extended. Once again, two soldiers descended, taking up positions to either side of the sloping metal walkway. Another crowd of men, women, and children began to file out slowly.
“Hey, some of those people look familiar,” said Stug.
“Yeah, me too—but I don’t know where from. We’ll figure that out later. Focus on the timing.”
Hiding behind the fountain, the two men were outside the guards’ direct line of sight. Hatch estimated it should be easy enough to blend in with the offloading prisoners while avoiding detection by the guards. It was the prowling drone on the sidewalk, its heat sensors ever watchful, that worried him.
“You watch the guards. I’m pacing the drone. When you and I both agree on the timing, we go.”
Stug nodded, though his eyes were elsewhere. How many times had they been in a similar situation together? the big man wondered. When the quips ceased and the focus sharpened. When they thought and moved and fought together like two halves of the same killing machine. Or in this case, the same covert mechanism, gliding quietly along its course.
Twenty prisoners, nearly half the airbus’s complement, had unloaded when Hatch said, “The drone follows every fourth person into the facility with its sensors. That gives us a pretty big window to join the line.”
“As long as it’s not counting how many come off and how many go in,” said Stug. “And doesn’t notice we’ve added ourselves to the herd.”
“Yeah, that.”
They waited a moment longer.
“Drone’s tracking,” said Hatch. He watched it follow the progress of a large woman with a child attached to her hip. The child clung to her tattered skirts, terrified.
“Guards are talking about something. Not looking this way.”
“Now,” said Hatch, rising and leading the way.
They approached from behind and to the right of the guards, who stood talking to one another in their boredom. As he moved, Hatch glanced at the drone to make sure its sensor eye was still aimed at the woman and child.
Two prisoners stepped off the platform together. Holding his wrists together, Hatch slipped in behind them. Stug knelt below the ramp a moment longer, then joined the line when another hole appeared.
The guards kept jabbering. The drone kept humming.
Slowly, Stug moved up nearer to Hatch, but he remained three feet behind him as the line made its way from the airbus to the facility.
“I know where I’ve seen these people before,” he whispered.
“Me too,” said Hatch over his shoulder. “But shut it for now.”
The two men walked freely into Columbia’s Detention Center, now political prisoners destined for The Dungeon.
Obadiah’s Orders
“Do you understand, Sergeant?”
Emma Ellis stood straight as a new recruit in front of Obadiah Neville’s desk. Pusher was dressed in civilian attire, per her orders to report. It’d been less than twenty-four hours since Hatch and Stug had gone absent without leave. Right on time, she’d thought when the summons to the colonel’s office came.
“Yes, sir,” Pusher said, eyes forward. She stared at the portrait on the wall behind Neville’s head. It was a photograph of Neville receiving a commendation from Amos Troyer, much earlier in the war. Not looking Neville directly in the eye helped Pusher concentrate.
“As Sergeant Miller’s replacement, you might get some guff from the rest of the company,” said Neville, standing up. “But you’re tough. Until he gets settled into his new position, Lieutenant—Captain—Mason is going to need some back channel support when the officers aren’t around. That’s your job.”
Still staring forward, Pusher blinked. “Sir, yes sir.”
“I have no doubt of Captain Mason’s loyalty. Some of the others, I’m not so sure of.” Neville glanced out the window—a momentary lapse of discipline for him. “I know some of you loyal to Hatch think I’m an idiot. That being an officer of higher rank, I don’t know how things really work around here.”
“No, sir, not at all sir,” replied Pusher, her voice flat as iron. “I’d never make the mistake of equating rank and intelligence.” Her eyes darted from the photo to the colonel as she heard the words that had just come out of her mouth. “Sir.”
“Yes, well,” said Neville, his attention back as he tried to parse her statement. “Yes, well, intelligence is a demonstrated thing, Sergeant. Like any characteristic you can trust. True ability is shown—that’s my point
. Avoiding assumptions is always best.” Neville’s inflection was staged, as usual, for impact. Like he was dry-running quotations for a future edition of Obadiah Neville’s Guide to Leadership During a Time of War. “Especially when it comes to another man’s—or woman’s—intelligence.”
“Couldn’t agree more, sir.”
“Right.” Neville’s tone seemed to close the book on that discussion. “Now, I briefed Captain Mason earlier. But I wanted you here so we could have this little chat, out of his earshot. Are you clear on the rest?”
“Sir, yes sir. Trick…” She saw Neville flinch. “Sorry, sir. Captain Mason and I are to go with two others into the City to locate and retrieve Lieutenant Hatch and Sergeant, uh, Miller. Two teams of two, civilian attire. We have thirty-six hours. We’re to be out by dusk tomorrow, well before curfew. We’re to make use of various TRACE assets and contacts in the City as necessary.”
Neville nodded curtly. “And if you fail to retrieve the two traitors?”
Now it was Pusher’s cheek that twitched. Her eyes refocused on Amos Troyer’s image on the wall, and that steadied her.
“Then, sir, we’re to consider Lieutenant Hatch and Sergeant Miller lost as prisoners of war.”
Neville put his hands behind his back. He even managed to make parade rest a stiff show of projected pomp. As if listening to a movie director, he paused to let the gravity of those orders stake its claim on the room.
Pusher heard Stug’s voice in her head. “I didn’t know being a bad actor was a qualification for being an officer now.”
Actually, that was a lot of words for Stug.
“Pansy-ass.”
Yeah, that was more like it.
“And if any of you are captured, Sergeant?”
The cold of the grave weighed on his words.
“Okay, not bad,” allowed Stug’s gruff voice in her head. “For a pansy-ass.”
“Then, sir, we too are to be considered lost.”
Neville nodded again.
Columbia Page 2