Chasing Rain

by Brandt Legg

  “Rong Lo!” Wen screamed as she pulled out her gun and dove for cover.

  Chase scooped up the Antimatter Machine and his laptop and made it behind the base of a BMU after tripping over part of its track. At the same time, Boone dropped into a slot in the grated-floor.

  “Is this an inconvenient time for you to die?” Rong Lo yelled. The words slipped from his mouth as if made of oil and arsenic. He fired a shot at the crane Chase had just ducked around. “I’m sorry about that, because this works quite well with my schedule. I can kill you and still make my flight.”

  The two MSS agents who’d come with him fanned out and sprayed the area with machine-gun fire. Wen, pinned down, couldn’t get a shot off.

  Chase knew he was about to go over time with the connection to Ray, but maybe Tess would find him and get help. It was a fleeting thought—he’d be dead by the time anyone got to them.

  It doesn’t matter. If I can stop the RAIN, that’s a great trade for my life.

  Seventy-Six

  Boone spotted one of the MSS agents crouching at the end of the boom on the opposite side from where Chase had gone. Boone slid on his belly over to the control panel and sequenced up both of the gigantic BMU cranes, figuring as the rigs moved across the roof they could provide cover for Wen, Chase, and him to escape. There was also a chance that the initial thrust might push one agent off the roof, since he was standing near one of the sections with a low railing.

  Boone used the commotion of the advancing BMUs to get a bit closer to the exit. The other agent was staying near the stair area, but Boone knew another way down through the catwalks. The MSS men continued to fire their weapons sporadically. The restricted space gave them good odds of hitting someone, and made it impossible to move very far.

  The agents finally paused their shooting for more than a minute. Wen rolled and somersaulted out of her hiding place, firing both guns. She had two objectives: kill Rong Lo, and get to Chase so she could better protect him. Her shots ricocheted and missed their target. Rong Lo had somehow vanished. Bullets came in from all directions as she did a diving slide behind a moving BMU. Chase, suddenly blinded by a burst of yellow and orange light from the LEDs, wasn’t sure who had crashed into his hiding place. He scurried around one of the metallic bulkheads that anchored the BMU to the structure.

  “Chase, it’s me,” Wen said, trying to speak above the wind, but not yell. “I’m here!”

  “I need more time,” Chase said, cradling his laptop and balancing the Antimatter Machine. “Ray is still talking.”

  “We’re out of time.”

  “It doesn’t matter who finds us!” Chase yelled. “This is my last chance to stop RAIN.”

  “I don’t know where Rong is.”

  “What about Boone?”

  “Not sure, but I assume he’s the one who started these.” Wen pointed to the giant rig inching away from them. She grabbed the Antimatter Machine and slid it onto a foot-platform of the mighty machine. “Get on, you’ll be able to keep typing while it shields you from the shooting.”

  Chase stepped onto the moving BMU. “What about you?”

  “You just stop the RAIN. I’ll take care of our Rong problem.”

  Chase gave her a fast ‘I love you’ glance before quickly turning back to his dialogue with Ray.

  Wen managed to catch a glimpse of one of the agents as the boom started extending out over the edge of the building. She didn’t have a clear shot—It’ll be like threading a needle—she didn’t want to give away her position, but experience told her that with conditions like these—fighting a thousand feet above the ground, a psychedelic barrage of lights cutting through the darkness, and hails of automatic gunfire coming from the shadows—there weren’t going to be many chances.

  Wen pulled the trigger. Her adrenaline surged as the bullet found flesh, but even as the man dropped, she knew the shot wasn’t fatal.

  She dove into a narrow opening beneath the floor as shots from the other agent and Rong Lo showered them relentlessly. The opening turned out to be a channel that extended about twelve feet. She moved through it like a striking snake and came out shooting, springing into another roll, trying to make it to the exterior façade.

  A swath of light sliced across the rooftop and Wen caught sight of a surprised Boone sprinting for cover. She wasn’t the only one who noticed his movement. A burst of bullets cut him down as if he’d run into an invisible wall. She was sure he was dead, and even if he wasn’t, there was no way to get to him. Instead, she fired a full magazine in the direction of where the shots had come. A man screamed and return fire ceased. She knew Rong Lo well enough that the scream had not been his. He was still out there.

  Seventy-Seven

  Wen put in a new magazine, confident that the two agents were injured and one possibly dead. She leapt across the tracks in search of the final target—Rong Lo. She crept around the edge, waiting for her former boss to strike. Wen wedged herself between the outer shell and an inner steel gate. The position protected her from any threat except a helicopter. The vantage point afforded her a view out beyond the building, not far from one of the sections that opened from the crown like a waterfall of silvery steel reaching down a hundred feet. Her former supervisor had been smart enough to anticipate Wen would have moved, so he had not given away his position by returning fire. Wen had to wait as long as possible so that Rong Lo would not be able to calculate her position.

  It had been too long. She strained to hear any clue above the sounds of the wind and the BMUs running along their tracks. She finally heard something else—a muffled noise that sounded like . . . like a fight.

  Wen freed herself from the hiding place and ran across the middle of the roof. Lights drenched her in color, but still she advanced until she saw the most horrifying sight she’d ever witnessed.

  The man she loved and the man she hated, silhouetted on top of a moving crane, locked in struggle, as the boom extended them both beyond the safety of the roof into the open air more than a thousand feet above the unforgiving pavement.

  A bullet flew so close past Wen’s face that she felt its heat. Instincts slammed her to the ground as if she’d been hit, and in one muscle-memory motion she sank, rolled, pivoted, angled back up, and scoped the source of the threat—the first agent she’d shot. This time she had a good, clear view. Her bullet found its mark. The agent died before she got back on her feet and headed toward the epic dual.

  Chase, although younger, fit, and smart, was completely outmatched against a highly trained and vicious MSS agent. Any second, one of them could plunge to his death. She didn’t know whether to climb out after them, or try to shoot Rong Lo from where she stood. The angle already made it an extremely difficult shot, but because they were wrestling on a three-foot wide platform dangling in midair, it would be nearly impossible to hit Rong Lo without risking Chase.

  All the machine-gun fire had damaged the boom—the sides of its long, telescoping arm had been ripped open, exposing a menagerie of cables, ropes, and wires that partially obscured her view. If only I knew how to operate the thing, she thought. She was about to go look for the control panel, or see if, by a miracle, Boone was still alive, when she heard Chase scream. He had slipped into the wires, his feet dangling in midair. She didn’t know if he could hold on long enough for her to get there. The only thing between him and death was the nothing-tensile-strength of whatever the cables were made of. Rong Lo moved above him and tried to reach Chase’s hands. He’d lost his weapon in the struggle, but it would only take a minute to force all Chase’s weight onto the tangle, beneath which they would surely snap.

  Wen aimed carefully—it needed to be a kill-shot—and pulled the trigger.

  Rong Lo fell.

  Wen ran toward the BMU, climbed up, and was crawling along the boom when she realized the tragic result of her shot.

  Seventy-Eight

  Rong Lo’s body had tumbled into the twisting spaghetti of wires, cables, and scaffold ropes. He’d landed bel
ow Chase, hanging far less secure in the wild, accidental harness. They both dangled there like fish tangled in nets, hooks, and fishing line.

  Wen reached the spot on the boom above them and the full extent of the terror became clear. Rong Lo’s weight was pulling them both down, and at the same time, a wire was wrapped around Chase’s neck. Without even trying, Rong Lo’s body was strangling Chase. The gusty winds pushed at them, further straining the wires.

  The lights went deep blue, then into the mixed pink and violet of flowers in a field. Children projected along the building’s crown, belying the frantic nightmare Chase and Wen were enduring.

  Wen couldn’t reach them, but made eye contact with Chase as he clawed at the wire cutting off his oxygen. If she climbed down the cables, her added weight would surely snap the strands and cause all three of them to plunge into a forever fall.

  Wen tried to pull some of the slack, hoping to take pressure off Chase’s neck. It wasn’t enough, and as the winds increased, she quickly found that she needed both hands to cling to the narrow boom.

  Rong Lo’s arm moved.

  “He’s still alive!” she screamed to Chase.

  Chase couldn’t speak, but began kicking at the MSS agent, who seemed to be trying to use Chase’s body to climb back up. The ten-story light display switched to an ocean sunset scene.

  Wen aimed her gun, but hesitated—shooting Rong could upset the delicate balance holding them all. Rong Lo, weakened and bleeding, wasn’t making much progress, but it worsened Chase’s crisis. He couldn’t have even a minute of air remaining. Rong’s every struggling move increasingly tightened the wires around Chase’s neck.

  Wen realized Rong wasn’t trying to get back up, he just wanted to kill Chase.

  She fired at his arm. The bullet ripped into Rong’s bicep and he released his grip on Chase’s leg. Wen screamed as the bundle, adjusting to the new shift, swung in the wind and dropped another few feet.

  The move gave Chase a tiny gap—less than an eighth of an inch. He gulped air, afraid to move and tighten the pressure again. The short-lived break suddenly ended. Incredibly, Rong Lo began pulling again. Wen watched helplessly, not daring to take another shot. She could hardly see Rong Lo, now hanging fully below Chase.

  The LEDs shifted to a street scene—a freak show of normalcy against their struggle.

  “I’ll be back!” Wen yelled to Chase as she crawled back toward the building. If she could somehow get the boom pulled back in before the lines snapped, she could still save him.

  Chase felt the cord around his neck tightening again, and in a moment of clarity—one that occurs when one realizes they are facing certain death—he knew he’d never make it unless he could get rid of Rong, and in that instant came an answer. A desperate hope ignited that he might be able to make it happen.

  Chase got a hand loose, strained to reach into his pocket, and managed to get his multi-tool. With all that remained of his will and sapped energy, he got the pliers open and began cutting wires. The one around his neck was too tight to get the tool on, but if he could only release the weight below him . . .

  Snip.

  Rong Lo looked up and realized what Chase was trying to do. He started to shift his weight, making their bundle sway.

  Snip.

  Rong Lo picked up the momentum. The wires stretched lower, causing them to constrict around Chase’s neck.

  Chase, dizzily, clawed for another wire to cut. Nothing but air.

  Rong yelled something in Mandarin Chase couldn’t understand.

  Chase tried cutting a cable that was too big and almost dropped his tool. Somehow in his woozy state he held on and found another wire he couldn’t even see.

  Snip.

  Rong’s shoe came off in his fight to stay hooked in the bundle. It plunged into the darkness.

  Chase didn’t see it. About to black out, he had one. Last. Second. Chase stabbed the multi-tool into the tangle and squeezed.

  Snip.

  All of a sudden, Chase bounced upward several feet. He only heard Rong Lo’s screams for a few seconds before the wind and darkness swallowed his would-be assassin.

  Now Chase could get the cutters on the loosened wire around his neck. As soon as it was cut, he gasped and struggled to hold on to enough wires. He yelled for Wen. No answer. He started to slip. Even without the weight of Rong Lo, he had little strength remaining, and the wires were not going to last much longer as the winds pushed and tugged.

  The lights went dark. A blanket of stars shined from the crown.

  A fitting image to die with, he thought.

  The crane suddenly moved, jerking back toward the building. The boom retracted a few feet before sparks flew from the arm and it shorted out, but the crane kept going. Chase sweating and shaking, clutched the wires in his numb hands until two feet over the building the crane lurched to a stop. For a few seconds, he was afraid to let go, and then Wen’s arms found him. She helped him down.

  “You’re okay. You’re alive. Your feet are on the ground.”

  “How?”

  “Boone got the BMU working. He was shot, but he’s okay. Well, not okay, but he’ll live.”

  “We did it?”

  “Rong is dead.”

  “And I stopped the RAIN,” he said, still shaking. “Just before Rong Lo found me, Ray shut down RAIN.”

  She hugged him. “Then, once again, at least for this moment, the world is in balance.”

  Epilogue

  Tess watched the final minutes of the scene on the Salesforce Tower via satellite. They’d discovered the location once Chase went overtime on Heaven.

  Two CISS operatives picked Franco up after tracking him from TruNeural. Tess couldn’t risk him being on the loose any longer. The Chairman surely had other operatives, but Franco was special, and she’d make sure he had a special place to stay for a few years.

  “What do you want to do?” Travis asked as he and an IT-Squad arrived at the building.

  “Clean it up.”

  “And?”

  “Tell Chase to disappear. I don’t want to hear his name for a long, long time. Then let him go.”

  “And the woman?”

  “I imagine he won’t go without her.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah,” she said, glancing over at a pair of dusty cowboy boots. “Let them go.”

  “Ready?” Wen asked as she and Chase pulled up to the runway at SFO.

  “To disappear?” Chase asked.

  She shook her head, thinking of the four flash drives she’d sent from Port Hardy. It was time for Chase to meet the members of The Cause, but first they’d go say thanks to the Astronaut.

  ‘’I’m ready for anything, as long as we get to do it together,” Chase said.

  “I’m going to hold you to that.”

  Chase smiled. “I’m going to say goodbye to Dez.”

  “I’ll see you on the plane.”

  Dez, sitting in a high-tech, computer-equipped powered wheelchair, stared at Chase’s Gulfstream G650ER jet as Chase walked toward him.

  “Hardly seems fair, you get to keep the plane and all I got was a wheelchair,” Dez said, with only the hint of a smile.

  “We’ll get you a new set of legs —RAI programmed. You’ll be better than bionic.”

  “New field of study for me. I’ve already founded a start-up to end the need for this thing.” He patted the chair. “I just found out that Reno, an old friend of mine, is a quadriplegic. I want us to go hiking up in the mountains together.”

  “You will.”

  Dez nodded. “I still don’t understand how you did it.”

  Chase held up both palms as if to say even he couldn’t explain it all. “I showed Ray the simulation.”

  “What?” Dez asked disbelievingly. “SEER? The original forecasts?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she stopped because . . . ?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But she did stop, right? It’s over?”


  Chase nodded. “Maybe she knew her survival was linked to ours and that she couldn’t complete her mission if no people were left.”

  “Her mission?”

  “To expand without causing injury—”

  “To humans,” Dez finished. “In the original code, ‘cause no injury.’ So the simulation showed her.”

  “Showed her lots of injuries,” Chase said. “The ultimate injury.”

  “What are you going to do next time?”

  “Next time?”

  “Yeah, when someone’s using some advanced technology for nefarious purposes and things get out of balance?”

  “I’ll stop them.”

  “But you won’t have a back door.”

  “I’ll figure out a way to build one.”

  “Then you’d better get busy.”

  The two friends hugged, not knowing when they would see each other again.

  Ready for more Chase and Wen?

  Chasing Fire is available now!

  A Note From the Author

  Thanks for sharing the adventure!

  Please help spread the word

  click here to post a review (even a few words).

  Reviews are the greatest way to help an author.

  And, please tell your friends.

  I’d love to hear from you

  Questions, comments, whatever.

  Email me here. I’ll definitely respond

  (usually within a few days).

  Join my Inner Circle

  If you want to be the first to hear about my new releases, advance reads, occasional news and more, click here.

  About the Author

  USA TODAY Bestselling Author Brandt Legg uses his unusual real life experiences to create page-turning novels. He’s traveled with CIA agents, dined with senators and congressmen, mingled with astronauts, chatted with governors and presidential candidates, had a private conversation with a Secretary of Defense he still doesn’t like to talk about, hung out with Oscar and Grammy winners, had drinks at the State Department, been pursued by tabloid reporters, and spent a birthday at the White House by invitation from the President of the United States.