Storm Warning

by Jaxon Reed

  Wilcox said, “Go ahead. I’ve to got to work on trying to locate our mysterious Ginger Storm.”

  “Who is that?” Jamieson said.

  “She’s a very bad person, possibly with ties to the League, who has been causing a lot of trouble lately. We raided her hideout a few buildings over not long ago, and she’s been on the run ever since.”

  -+-

  Ginger Storm watched her step, narrowly avoiding a puddle of water.

  She treaded carefully in the sewers underneath Eastside, holding an electronic scanner at arm’s length in front of her.

  She turned to the left, down a tunnel she recognized. This one led under the street in front of her old building.

  It was the same building the police shot up and ran a flying car through. Of all the ways to plan for a forced entry, that was not one she had considered.

  In the lead-up to her current assignment, she reviewed all the standard operating procedures of the Octavia Police Department and the Agency of Justice. She would say she knew standard police procedures better than many cops.

  Blowing open a hole in someone’s home, even if the home was disguised as an abandoned building in one of the city’s slums, was definitely not standard police procedure.

  So chalk that one up as a win for them, she thought. It still irritated her. She had been trained by the best, by Edgar Munk himself back in the day. She felt unused to failure.

  She had watched the news with deep regret at the end of the war. The Republicans pursued SSI personnel with a special vengeance. Sure, they would make a show of a supposedly fair trial. But everyone knew the end result would always be the SSI agent’s death.

  But they did not even give Edgar Munk a trial. They hunted him down on Epsilon and shot him like a dog while he ran away. Her heart still ached for him, and she vowed revenge.

  She and a handful of other deep operatives were all the ones left from the old SSI. Their mission would continue. Her mission would continue, Stormy thought. Even though she had lost her entire team. She had almost been captured herself, and would have had not Evan Edge covered her escape.

  Now, if she could just return to the hideout and gather a few things . . .

  She had low hopes anything worth retrieving would be left. But, there were some hiding places, like the weapons cache she accessed before fleeing down the sewers. She wanted to return and check on things, if she could.

  The unit in her hand flashed, its small red light offering a silent warning.

  She sighed in frustration, and squinted her eyes in the gloom of the tunnel.

  The readout on the unit said, “Security camera / motion sensor / 10 m.”

  So, they were keeping an eye on the sewers. It made sense. That was how she escaped. They would want to watch the tunnels and see if she tried to come back.

  She bit back disappointment. Then she paused to think.

  How am I going to pay Dirk for the personal camo unit? Pulling off another caper right now would be tricky, while the whole city is on alert. Black market prices are ridiculous for controlled tech. Dirk in particular is hard to negotiate with. And he’s the only one with those units.

  Stormy gave the matter some more consideration as she turned and headed back the direction she came.

  Maybe there’s another way to get the technology from Dirk, she thought.

  Maybe there’s a way to get it without paying.

  4

  The trio decided to take one car, so everybody piled into Boggs’s. It was an econobox no frills model, with a tight backseat.

  Jamieson magnanimously offered to sit in the back so Collier could have the far more comfortable front passenger seat.

  She snorted at him and said, “You’re bigger than me. Get in front.”

  Boggs let the car mesh with the AI’s traffic control subroutine, and they shot across open sky a few kilometers before joining a stream of vehicles heading toward Plairmont.

  “So, how do we go about handling this? You guys look as green behind the ears as I am,” Jamieson said.

  From the backseat, Collier said, “I think the expression is ‘wet behind the ears.’ And I say, we just go in and start asking questions. Eventually they’ll have to get someone to speak to us. Hopefully that person will know something.”

  They continued the discussion as the car skimmed toward the huge military headquarters sector.

  When they drew near to Plairmont, it veered off from the stream heading to the borough and aimed for the spaceport instead, which straddled a line half in the military zone and half in a civilian area.

  The AI steered the little car wide around the spaceport, and brought it farther north.

  Below, a large cluster of buildings formed their own version of a small city. A parking garage built for both terrestrial and flying cars loomed up in the air as they approached, and the computer guided them inside to an open spot.

  Climbing out they made their way to the nearby elevator bank, still discussing ideas and possibilities.

  Collier said, “It’s just like the fake Severs and fake Cole going around shooting people up. They’ve probably got all the active serial numbers for all the assigned weapons at AOJ. Somebody goes in anonymously and kills somebody, then PLAIR says it was a government gun. We already have an abysmal reputation. People would believe it, if it hits the news.”

  “A conspiracy, huh?” Boggs said. “Maybe we should be going over to the factory that makes those guns instead of Republican Shipworks. Why are we here again?”

  Jamieson said, “Because, my client asked about her missing husband.”

  “That’s right, that’s right. Okay, let’s make a few inquiries then go to the gun factory. I think it’s only a few kilometers away.”

  “First things first,” Jamieson said, as an elevator pod dinged open for them.

  It reopened moments later into a palatial reception area. The trio walked out into a room far more spacious than even AOJ’s first floor lobby.

  The ceiling stretched 50 meters high. Looking up, they saw an impressive representation of the night sky as seen from Diego. Plenty of light illuminated the rest of the open area, though.

  Models of ships past and present representing every class of spacecraft Republican Shipworks had designed and built the last hundred years floated in the air.

  The newest Condor-class battled five Hawks in a frozen tableau suspended in the middle of the room. Chunks of bright sun ported in from the Condor, poised to destroy the enemy ships, served to illuminate the floor below.

  People and droids freely mixed, with business discussions and casual conversations taking place everywhere. Elevator pods waited along the far wall of the room, receiving and depositing people as they zipped off to parts unknown in the vast complex.

  Meeting them, a new model receptionist bot walked up wearing a tasteful miniskirt, a holo blouse, and shiny black high heels.

  “Hello, and welcome to Republican Shipworks. How may I help you?”

  Boggs and Jamieson looked at one another.

  Jamieson shrugged.

  Boggs pressed his implant and activated his badge.

  “Agent Boggs, AOJ. My partner, Agent Collier. And this is Private Investigator Jamieson. We are here to speak with somebody about the disappearance of . . . who?”

  “Holland Bainer,” Jamieson said.

  “I’m sorry,” the attractive droid said. “Mr. Bainer is not available at the moment.”

  “We’d like to speak with him anyway.”

  Jamieson said this with a smile. He winked at Boggs.

  “I’m sorry. Mr. Bainer is not available.”

  The two shared a glance again.

  Collier caught the nuance as well.

  She said, “Automatons usually don’t backtrack or equivocate. Is there something wrong with Mr. Bainer?”

  “I’m afraid I cannot answer that.”

  Now all three looked at one another with skeptical expressions.

  “We would like to speak with
his supervisor, then,” Boggs said.

  “Certainly. I will arrange a meeting for you right now with Dr. Pritchard Hsu.”

  Jamieson said, “No.”

  Everyone looked at him.

  He said, “We are dealing with a missing persons case and have strong reason to believe Mr. Bainer is on the premises. His family has asked us to look into this case personally. We wish to speak directly to Jonas Kraft about the matter.”

  The droid receptionist did not miss a beat at hearing the name of Republican Shipwork’s chief executive officer.

  She smiled politely at Jamieson and said, “I’m afraid Mr. Kraft is all booked up on appointments today, and for the rest of the week as well.”

  Boggs jumped in and said, “Tell him we need to speak with him, or we’ll ask a judge for a warrant.”

  Jamieson gave his old battle buddy a sideways look.

  But the bluff evidently paid off. The droid’s eyes flickered for a moment then she turned to them and smiled.

  “Mr. Kraft has an opening. If you will follow me, I will escort you to his office.”

  As she turned and headed for the elevator bank on the other side of the room, Boggs gave Jamieson a wide grin.

  Jamie could not help but chuckle at the look of supreme satisfaction on his friend’s face as they followed the droid.

  “Show off,” he whispered under his breath.

  5

  Getting to the Projects takes longer now than when she could fly her own car there, Stormy thought.

  One of the first things she set up with the seed money from SSI when she first came to Diego was a reflection shield covering several blocks around Eastside. From there she could slip in and disappear, avoiding satellite surveillance and the eyes of anyone above.

  Later, after obtaining more credit tokens, she outfitted three of her sports cars with camo tech.

  These were larger devices that cloaked the entire vehicle and everything inside. It was worth it, because with invisible vehicles Stormy and the Black Goggles Gang, as the press came to call them, could escape capture.

  After more hits and more ill-gotten loot, Stormy purchased two framers from Dirk. These allowed near perfect replication of anyone’s face, or new ones altogether.

  Stormy and Edge then disguised themselves as Chancellor Cole and Admiral Severs, and promptly went on additional crime sprees.

  Now Stormy had lost everything. Her three men, also SSI agents, were dead. Her building, safely tucked away under the reflection field, was damaged, confiscated and guarded by the authorities. Stormy had lost all her vehicles, her weapons, her credit tokens, clothes and other possessions.

  If ever she needed a personal camo unit, which was next on her list to buy from Dirk, the illegal arms seller living in the Projects, it was now.

  Perversely, Dirk wanted more for one personal camo unit than he charged for all three vehicular units combined.

  That’s probably because he knows how useful personal units are, Stormy thought.

  She sighed as she came to the ladder leading up to a manhole cover. Reflexively, she pulled out a compact from her backpack and checked her face. It seemed unrecognizable, one of the random pre-programmed faces stored in the framer hanging around her neck. It felt odd not to see her own face staring back in the mirror.

  So far, PLAIR had not identified her. She tested this out by walking past a couple of cops on the street earlier, ready to draw her gun out of her lead-lined backpack if they gave chase.

  But the AI did not alert the police. That left her feeling comfortable enough to tackle the problem of transportation to the Projects.

  Stormy climbed to the top of the ladder and gently slid the manhole cover up and over. Stepping out onto the street garnered no attention. Few pedestrians wandered about in this general area.

  She moved the cover back in place, then began walking down the sidewalk.

  A bus stop should not be more than a few blocks in any given direction, she thought.

  -+-

  Hours later Stormy poked her head around a corner, watching the doorway to Dirk’s place carefully.

  The last time she was here, she landed on the roof with Marx and Edge. Dirk had the roof covered very well back then, with several goons tucked away ready to shoot. Even had she wanted to try anything, it would have been pointless.

  Now it was just her. And, she had no money to speak of. She had several thousand in tokens inside the backpack, but it was not nearly enough. Dirk wanted a million credits for her next piece of tech.

  One million credits? That was a ridiculous amount she thought.

  Maybe the black market arms merchant did not really want to sell it. Maybe he was keeping it for himself?

  But no. All her research into Dirk and his gang indicated they were in this for the money. They had recently acquired a considerable amount of secret League war technology developed by Thespar Industries. How they got it, nobody knew. But, Dirk seemed intent on selling it for top dollar.

  And he had already sold quite a bit to Stormy. The car units were needed for bank robbery getaways and such. She had managed to come up with his asking price for those.

  But now that the police had busted her hideout, killed Marx, Edge and Chuckles and taken everything away, Stormy had no way of paying Dirk anywhere near the amount he wanted.

  But she still needed that camo tech. She needed a personal unit so that she could walk around unseen. It would complement the framer, which gave her an unlimited supply of new faces, including Chancellor Cole’s.

  Thinking such thoughts, she watched the entrance to Dirk’s building for an hour. There was no subtle way to do it, no outdoor café to sip coffee while keeping an eye on the place. She just stood there, peeking around the corner.

  The strategy seemed to suffice. Apparently nobody noticed her. She watched unnoticed, for an hour.

  During that time, three people went into the building while one came out. And Stormy learned something. There was a guard.

  A young man guarded the door. He looked perhaps Mediterranean in ancestry, dark and swarthy with a Greek profile if she guessed correctly.

  She found him attractive, but that was not unusual. Stormy found almost any man who worked out and displayed good upper body definition attractive.

  The question was, how to get past him? She also noticed a gun strapped under his left arm. The young guard did not even bother to conceal it with a coat.

  She sighed, and considered how to move forward.

  Stormy made up her mind and set her backpack down for a moment. She unbuttoned her blouse and took it off, folding it and placing it inside the backpack.

  Now wearing only a sports bra above and her usual black leather pants with hiking boots below, she picked the backpack up and strapped it on before walking out in the street.

  She crossed at the intersection, turned and headed straight for the building, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear.

  She walked up to Dirk’s door and knocked on it. It was a plain gray opening to the street, nothing special.

  The young hunk opened it, just as she was hoping. In her mind she named him, “Handsome.”

  She smiled her best smile and said, “Hi. I’m hopelessly lost. I was wondering if you could help me?”

  The damsel in distress routine almost always works, she thought. Teachers back in ISS pounded that into all new female recruits’ skulls. Men are stupid, they said. Show them some flesh and they’ll grow even more stupid.

  “Uh, well . . .”

  He took a step back, letting her in, staring at her chest the whole time.

  Stormy kept her tone light.

  “Thank you so much. I had to order a new implant because my old one broke, and it’s not here yet, so I can’t ask PLAIR for directions or anything. I’ve got an old city map, if you can believe it . . .”

  She took off the backpack and set it on the floor, bending down to unzip it.

  When she stood up, she held a gun. She shoved it into
his neck before he could move, then carefully pulled out the one holstered under his arm. She tucked it into the back of her belt.

  In a completely different tone of voice she said, “Turn around and bring me to the storage room where you keep all the technology.”

  He held up his hands and twisted to face the other direction. She carefully reached down and grabbed her backpack, slinging it over her shoulder with one hand while he started walking.

  He led her through a large and empty room, with doorways on the other walls. He chose the left one, walking slowly but surely.

  Stormy kept her gun poked in his back and looked around. She could see no cameras or sensors, but of course that did not account for hidden ones.

  Handsome walked through the left door, which opened into a long corridor. His steps made eerie echoes down the hall. Hers remained silent.

  Farther down, a door opened and another man stepped out. Stormy recognized him as one of the goons who counted her money the last time she dealt with Dirk.

  Handsome shouted at him, his hands still up.

  “She’s got a gun!”

  The goon down the hall pulled out his own weapon.

  She had trained for this very scenario, and she learned in simulations what happened when she did not take care of the nearest threat first.

  Her initial inclination, back in SSI school on Epsilon, was to shoot at the new target.

  But shooting him would make her vulnerable to Handsome, who was near enough to inflict a serious blow while her gun was aimed elsewhere.

  So in one split second, based on her training, she clipped Handsome in the back of the head with the butt of her gun. Then, she reached an arm around his neck and pulled him close before he could slump to the floor.

  Now she had a shield.

  Thoop! Thoop! Thoopah!

  Handsome’s body jerked as the goon from the roof shot him full of bolts.

  Calmly, Stormy aimed her own weapon over Handsome’s shoulder and returned fire.

  Thoop!

  The goon flew backward, the bolt frying his head and obliterating his face.