by Brian Savage
Jack pushed himself up from the ground, then dove to his right as a large, rubber-soled foot came crashing down. The baddie grabbed a leg of the desk and hurled the whole thing toward where Brant’s shots were coming from. Brant ducked but was clipped by a corner of the desk, spinning him to the floor like an out-of-balance top. The desk continued flying into the back wall of the office. Jack dove past the robot, toward the broken glass of the office door, and started firing at a large, square metal box dead center on its back. He could see a dark liquid had already been leaking from where other agents had hit the robot’s main energy source. He saw Brant, lying on his back, raise his weapon and fire up beneath the plates of the monster’s armor.
He ran forward, continuing to fire as the baddie raised both its hands above its head. Brant looked up, face covered in dust and sweat, firing as he lay there. He thought to himself, as time seemed to slow down, It isn’t such a bad way to go. The two large, metal, club-like fists began descending, about the time Jack ran shoulder-first into the baddie’s back, throwing it off balance. The baddie attempted to remain standing but tripped over Brant and fell face down on the ground. Jack stood on the robot’s back, firing round after round into each of its shoulder joints, slowing the robot’s attempts to push itself off the ground. The floundering baddie gripped the leg of Jack’s desk and attempted to use it to batter the weight from atop its back. The leg of Jack’s desk came free in the backward arch of the swing and hurled toward Brant. Brant managed to duck this second missile and continued firing from the prone position.
Brant stood, gripping his injured shoulder as he began firing into the robot’s legs. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Aeralyn working furiously on a holographic display. She sat cross-legged where she had before, as if not even noticing the absence of the desk she had hid behind.
The baddie suddenly spun its top half in a full circle, taking Jack’s legs out from under him. Its arms clamped down on the body now laying on his chest. Jack’s arms were trapped against his sides as he fought to extract himself from the ever-tightening arms. His hex jacket, excellent at stopping blows or bullets, did nothing to protect him from the constriction of the baddie’s arms. Brant ran forward and began firing into the shoulders and elbows of the baddie, attempting to do something as his partner struggled for breath.
“Almost there. Almost there. Almost there!” Aeralyn was muttering. She swiped through one command to another and moved from system to system, drilling down on the program that controlled the baddie. Jack's face was turning blue. Brant now stood on the baddie’s chest, gripping each arm in his hands and attempting to dead lift the arms from his partner’s chest, his face a grimace from the extreme exertion.
“Done!” Aeralyn screamed, as the baddie went limp, mechanical workings shutting down.
The sudden limpness of the baddie’s arms launched Brant back in an instant. He fell over backward, landing on his ass. He caught his backward fall with an arm, crawling over to his gasping partner.
“You okay?” Brant asked, breathing heavily.
Jack nodded to him, rubbing his chest. Jack looked at the girl, sitting where his desk had once been, holograph still in her hands. She had a look of concern on her face.
“Thanks,” he gasped between labored breaths. She gave him a sidewise smile.
“No problem.” She was proud of herself.
“Thanks, Brant,” he said, slapping Brant on his injured shoulder, drawing a wince. “Sorry.”
“No problem, boss,” he said, laying down on his uninjured shoulder and rolling onto his back. “Hey, techie, this thing isn’t going to wake back up, is it?”
“No, I cut its wireless access to the system. Like putting it on airplane mode.”
“What about the others?” Jack asked hoarsely, sitting up on the baddie’s chest. “There’s like twenty more of them downstairs.” Jack coughed hard.
“Same thing. They are all accessed through the same system. I imagine someone is going to be pretty pissed when they go back in and attempt to fix the damage I caused.” She tossed the hologram away.
“Did you hack it?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. On your workstation. You might not be able to access anything from there for a while. It wasn’t exactly legal.” She smirked.
“I thought you were a techie for the Corporation. Don’t you have, like, admin access?” Brant said, rolling over and resting his head on the floor.
“Only to a certain extent. Not many people have access to agent systems, and none of the remote workers that I know of.”
They all sat in silence, looking at each other. Aeralyn looked around at the destroyed office space, wide-eyed, as if noticing it for the first time. Brant’s desk was flipped over and crushed in, sitting square in the middle of the room. Multiple holes, and a body impression, dotted one wall. Broken glass was scattered everywhere, along with the random contents of both agent’s desks.
She looked back at both agents. Brant appeared almost asleep, having pulled his hands under his head. Jack just sat, with one hand on his chest, eyes closed, breathing deeply. What did they just go through in order to keep her safe? Her opinion of Brant softened a bit, and her opinion of Jack deepened.
“You guys okay?” a female agent called through the hole in the glass. She took a look around before gingerly stepping through. Her weapon was drawn. Another agent followed her. She holstered her weapon as she approached.
“Yeah!” Brant grunted, not turning over to answer.
“Shit. You guys need a medic?” she asked, kneeling down and placing a hand on Brant’s back.
“I need a chiropractor. We have any of those?” Brant said.
The woman smiled. “What about you, Jack? You look a little blue.” The woman stood.
“Just catching my breath. You know how I don’t like hugs.” Jack looked up. “How is everyone out there?”
“Recovering from shocks and bumps and bruises,” she said, turning to the girl. “Hello. Agent Cassandra Albina.” She knelt down, shaking Aeralyn’s hand. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine,” Aerlyn replied, pursing her lips. She didn’t like this new agent. She told herself it wasn’t just because she was another woman, or because of the way this other woman looked so tenderly at Jack. There was something not quite right.
“Do they know what happened?” Jack asked, the hoarseness slowly leaving his voice.
“Someone hacked the baddie,” Cassandra said, turning and looking around the office.
“Do we know who?” Jack said, pushing himself up to standing shakily.
“Not a clue. Someone severed the connection before we were able to track it.” She looked coolly toward where Aeralyn sat.
“If she hadn’t, I would probably be dead,” Jack said in her defense. He looked at Aeralyn, catching her eye.
“Well, good for her,” Cassandra said, turning sharply. Jack couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or superiority that colored Cassandra’s voice. Either way, he was growing tired of her presence.
“Anything you needed, Cassie?” Jack said, accidentally referring to Agent Albina by her more familiar name. The reference was not lost on Aeralyn.
“Oh, I just wanted to see if you all were still alive.” She motioned for her gorilla-like partner. “Since you are, I’ll let you guys get to cleaning up.” She gingerly stepped around the broken desk. “Don’t be a stranger, Jack,” she called over her shoulder, before slipping through the broken glass, followed by her obedient partner.
Brant still hadn’t moved from his apparently comfortable position. As he spoke, half his mouth was pressed against the back of his hand. “I can’t tell if she wants to murder you still or fuck you again, or maybe murder you while she fucks you.”
“Shut up, Brant,” Jack said, shooting a quick glance toward Aeralyn. “I think we should call it a day.”
“What about me?” Aeralyn asked, still sitting cross-legged on the floor.
“I have a nice, hot shower and a roomy, king
-sized bed,” Brant said, setting his chin on the back of his hands and shooting a smile at Aeralyn.
“Only one king-sized bed? Where would you sleep, then?” she said sarcastically, but not completely unkindly. She shrugged off the half-hearted advance, in light of the circumstances. She was starting to learn a little more about what made Brant tick. He might seem like and act like a pig on the outside, but there was more to him.
“I have a guest room,” Jack said, stepping down off of the baddie.
“Worst wingman ever,” Brant said, pushing himself up to his hands and knees. Jack extended his hand down to his partner. Brant grasped it and allowed Jack to help him up.
“Ice bath, Tylenol, and sleep,” Jack said. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, yeah. I got it, doc.” Brant slowly made his way to the door. “I might not come in if shit like this happens around you on the regular, techie.” He slowly stepped into the walkway. “Have a fun night, you two!” He winked at the pair still in the office, before limping toward the exit.
Jack smiled affectionately. “He’s a good kid.”
“I haven’t fully decided yet,” she said, looking up from where she was still sitting.
“You got your stuff?” Jack asked, looking around for his duffle.
“I like how you just assumed I was going to come stay with you.” She stayed put on the floor, maintaining only a shadow of her former defiance.
“I can go get Brant and tell him you’ll take him up on his offer to share that roomy, king-sized bed,” Jack joked.
“Why do I have to stay with either of you?” she asked, ignoring the joke.
“Well, I’m not leaving you here in a cell, and I’m not letting you out of our sight until I figure out where you fit in all this and why they want to kill you.” Jack pulled his duffle out from under his desk. “So, it’s me or Brant.” He slung his duffle over his shoulder and extended a hand toward her.
She looked at him, meeting his gaze. She gripped his hand and stood from the floor, quickly releasing it once she was standing. Inexplicably, the chair where she had been sitting was still in the same spot, seemingly untouched by the chaos that had just been the room. Her bag sat next to it, where she had dropped it when Jack had ushered her behind his desk. She picked it up and shouldered it, looking at Jack.
“You think you can keep me safe out there?” she asked, looking into his eyes.
“I’m sure as hell going to try,” he said, heading for the walkway.
“I believe you now,” she said quietly, jogging forward to close the distance between them. “I just don’t know if you can.”
Chapter 10
They walked to the security point in the Third Ring, catching an aerial to the next point on the Second. Between the Second and First, Jack insisted on multiple changes in transportation, traveling in a way that, if it were tracked via a colored line on a piece of paper, it would look like a series of jagged loop-di-loops. Aeralyn found herself, having lived within the First Ring all her life, still unsure of where she was, as she climbed into the fourth aerial of the trip. When they moved on foot, Jack kept ushering her into random shops, stopping at random corners to backtrack, walking by multiple security checkpoints that seemed safe enough to her. After the events in the Capitol building, however, she went with the flow, only complaining when Jack wouldn’t let her grab a coffee from one of the random shops he had ushered her into.
Finally, after what seemed like an endless trip through the First Ring, they actually approached the exit on the wall of the ring. They exited into an area devoid of foot traffic, which appeared almost abandoned as far as people were concerned. As they walked down the side of a red brick building, Jack explained that they had exited the First Ring on the industrial side of the city. He told her that, in his experience, there were less crowds, and more places to hide if need be. She took in her new surroundings and agreed with him.
Devoid of the large crowds of the more densely populated side of the city, gassers seemed somewhat the norm of travel. Large gassers, flatbeds loaded with crated goods, or box gassers, locked up and driven by gruff blue-collar workers, putted by, seemingly held together by the determination of the hardworking drivers. The people they did encounter on the street looked so beatdown by the hard day’s work as to not even notice them. Only a few chanced them glances, and of those few, no reaction could be read on their grimy faces. She also noted the distinct lack of implants amongst most of the haggard men and women.
They walked along in the shadow of a red brick building that seemed to rise beside them from a page of one of her university history books. She had seen a picture similar to this next to the name of Rockefeller, or something along those lines. She looked around as often as she dared, not wanting to miss one of Jack’s sporadic turns down a dark alley. They weaved their way in and out of the claustrophobic streets and sidewalks, further disrupting her sense of direction, many times everything lost to view but the cloudy sky above.
She lost track of time, as the day began to turn to night. She didn’t ask Jack how much longer it would be. Having walked in silence for so long, she felt as if it would break some unwritten code. Eventually, the larger buildings began to grow smaller, still industrial and brick, but cleaner, and less grime-covered; newer even, maybe.
They stopped at the corner of a wide intersection. She looked up and down each street before them. To her left, she could make out the lit rings of City Prime, and the spire of the capital building. The tall building looked like a distant spaceship, miles away, rising from the ground, artificial gravity rings spinning around a central, pointed hub.
“Hey,” Jack said quietly, breaking her gaze from the distant building. “We are almost there.”
Jack turned and jogged across the street toward a white brick building. The building stretched five stories high and had a glass dome on top. The wall of the building facing them was made up of large bay doors twenty feet high which, by the look of the rust and weld spots along the edges, didn’t function. They aimed for a small metal door, set in the center of the wall between two of the bay doors. As they approached, Jack stopped and reached into his pocket. She stepped up beside him, concerned when he didn’t just walk through the door.
“It’s locked,” he said, smirking at her.
“I know that. Don’t you have the security credentials?” she asked.
“Better,” he said, producing a small, metal object she could just make out in the light of the streetlamp.
He slid the small object into a slot on the door, and turned it, creating an audible click. “I have the key,” he said, chuckling quietly.
“How old are you?” she said, exaggerating her true surprise to be comical.
“Bet you can’t hack that.” He smiled smugly at her, holding the door in a show of chivalry as antiquated as the keyed lock.
She just shook her head in wonder and assent to his statement. He closed the door behind her and turned the latch. He cut across the wide bays, some empty, some full of boxes covered in plastic sheeting. Further down, in others, she could see mechanical parts, and half put-together gassers. Most of the rest of the space was empty, and their footsteps echoed across the concrete floors.
She kept close to Jack. It was obvious he knew his way around the floor well, even in the dim light coming through a few scattered skylights, but she had trouble seeing him in his dark jacket. They neared a darker section of the building, which she rightly assumed was the shadow caused by the far wall. Jack walked into the darkness. The only way she was able to follow was by the dim blinking of his implant.
Jack stopped before a large, industrial lift and flipped a small switch on the wall, more by habit than by actual sight. His eyes slammed shut at the sudden brightness that surrounded them. “Sorry.”
He stepped through the gate onto the lift, holding it for Aeralyn. She followed, clutching the shoulder strap of her bag, completely out of her element. She was used to a world of digital systems and lines of code. Jack had br
ought her to a world powered by the same electricity but built to very different ends. Jack pressed a round, green button on the wall of the lift, and they began to rise, the mechanics of the lift loud and naked to their eyes. Aeralyn looked around the dusty lift and back across the floor on which they had just walked.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“This is where I live,” Jack replied. “My dad owned this place until he died. I leased out some space down there and built a place to live up here. It sure beats the rent prices.”
He didn’t smile or offer any sort of indication, but Aeralyn could hear in his voice the pride Jack felt for this place. The pride that it had once been his father’s, the pride that it was now his. The lift stopped automatically on the third level of the building. Glass separated her from where the large bay area was, but she could still see the entire concrete floor stretched out below.
Jack opened the gate on the opposite side of the lift from where they had entered, beckoning her into his apartment. She stepped from the lift almost gingerly, not quite at home yet in the new surroundings, though Jack was becoming more comfortable around her simply by default in his space. The floors were a heavy hardwood, stained and waxed, and a leather couch sat before a wall of books. On the left of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf was a small hallway, and to the left of that, a kitchen of antiqued cabinets, and an actual antique fridge.
She took in all the small details. The knit throw over the back of the couch, the dark woven rug beneath it. She saw a book, atop a brown paper wrapping, sitting on the only end table in the room, the binding marked with the dark red letters “IT.” Next to the book, an ashtray with the unlit stub of a cigar perched on the edge. She stepped further into the space, as Jack waited back and watched her reaction.