by In Churl Yo
“I can get the ship,” said Zoah. “But it’s going to take a little time. You’ll have to hold them off until I can pick you up from Ogden’s air pad.”
“Forget the air pad,” Caleb replied. “Meet us down on the plaza by the front doors. Nox and I have a little errand to run.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Nox said. “That’s a terrible, horrible idea. Forget your weapon. I’ll send you a new one—state-of-the-art.”
Caleb chambered a round and leveled the pistol at Nox’s head. “If Zoah’s going to make it back to the ship, we’ll need to provide a convincing distraction,” he said. “And that rifle belonged to my dad. I will not leave it behind. Either you help us, or I shoot you right now. I couldn’t care less which you decide.”
Nox pounded his forehead against the glass wall display. “Fine,” he relented. “But this is my building and my security detail, so we do it my way.”
Caleb nodded his consent and holstered his weapon.
“First, we’ll address offense,” Nox said and typed a command on his cufflink that released a hidden door that was flush against a side wall. He stepped inside the hidden closet and came out carrying a pair of modified long guns. Caleb took one and looked it over.
“Stun rifle? I’ve never actually used one…”
“Yes,” replied Nox. “These men are under my command and most have families. I won’t kill them.”
“Don’t suppose they feel the same way about you?” Caleb asked.
The man with white hair didn’t answer. Instead he went back into the supply room and returned holding three Kevlar vests and a coil of rope. “Defense,” Nox said. “And I’m sure you know it’s defense that wins championships.”
“This isn’t some game, Nox. Prepare to drop the seal,” said Caleb. He pulled Zoah aside, smiled and asked her, “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Are you?” she responded.
“Don’t take any unnecessary risks. Go straight to the stealth drone. If we aren’t downstairs by the time you get back, I want you to take the ship and go home.”
“Home. You’re kidding, right? After everything we’ve been through?”
“You’ve done enough already. If we fail today, Neema will expose what’s happening here, so in a way we’ve already won. I don’t want you hurt—promise me.”
Zoah hugged her friend. “Promises are like pie crusts. But I’ll try,” she said almost believing it herself. They may have uncovered something significant going on, but the real, meaningful answers were close, within their grasp. She wanted to be around when they finally uncovered them.
Nox called them over. A few minutes of planning later, they were all on their way.
CHAPTER 22
Zoah could feel the sun’s heat radiating back at her from the dark tar shingling below. With the seal broken, she had no problem accessing the private stairwell that led her to the roof, and the security door was unlocked. Now all she had to do was reach out and find her friend.
The signal from her cufflink had a limited range, but that wouldn’t be a problem if Heelo did as he was told. The toy drone was supposed to keep an eye out and its antennae at the ready, but Zoah wanted him to stay close by in case something bad happened. Their current predicament for sure qualified.
She scanned the area around the Ceres building. Located in the center of Ravendale’s business district, it would have made an ideal hub for any international corporate conglomerate, but as it was, many of the buildings, while still pristine, were empty and useless now; fossilized casualties in a post-flu, closed-world reality.
Then Zoah saw it—movement—as something fast traveled a path toward her cutting a smooth diagonal trajectory through the sky. Heelo did a flyby around the rooftop before circling back to hover in front of her. She smiled in relief to see him.
“Hi there,” Zoah said.
The drone chirped a happy response.
“All charged up, I see.” Indicators on her cufflink showed Heelo was close to maximum levels. “Good. Because we’re going to need some power. You remember hang gliding?”
Heelo buzzed his disapproval. Zoah understood. It had been several years since they had hang glided together, starting in her bedroom before moving to the living room and back—her giggling the entire way. The toy drone could never sustain a level flight path, and they almost always destroyed a lamp or vase somewhere along their short but memorable ride. But that for Zoah was always what made it so fun.
The drone clicked in a stuttered pattern, causing Zoah to roll her eyes. “I haven’t gained that much weight,” she said. “We’ll be fine. Now plot a course back to the stealth ship.”
She shuffled over to the edge of the roofline, her toes wiggling inside her shoes off the edge some 20 or so stories above the street. Heelo pivoted around and settled just above Zoah’s head. She reached up and grabbed his support struts, one in each hand, and exhaled.
“This really is a terrible idea,” Zoah said. The drone whistled in agreement. Another moment to steel herself, and then she announced, “Here we go!”
They were falling. Zoah felt her stomach go queasy as everything around her became a blur—the wind whipping at her and the ground coming up to meet them. A low hum accelerated to a higher screeching whine as Heelo’s four turbines fought to spin his propellers faster, the engine vibrations buzzing through Zoah’s hands like tiny ant bites matching the drone’s efforts to counter their sudden nosedive.
It took a second for it to register, but she sensed them slowing. Whatever had fallen from her belly somehow found its way back, and Zoah was no longer gripped by vertigo as Heelo gained control of their descent.
“Better,” she grunted. “Much better.”
Still a dozen meters in the air, they advanced forward. The tiny ship’s command of its attitude and pitch was a loose, variable thing, and keeping them level was proving to be problematic at best. Their herky-jerky flying was taking its toll on Zoah’s arms and shoulders. But the flight was not long, and they traveled the several blocks back without incident.
Just as they were about to land, Heelo peeled off to the right. Zoah almost lost her grip as the drone swerved and dove to a nearby rooftop. When they got close, she fell and rolled to a position behind an industrial condenser.
“Alright, what is it?” she whispered. “I’m guessing you saw something. Either that or we’re going to have to look at your landing subroutines again.”
A small window opened in Zoah’s visor, and she enlarged the video playback taken from Heelo’s navigational camera. The stealth drone sat where they had parked it, but its rear hatch was open.
Zoah lifted her head for a quick look at their ship on the landing pad across the way, and her eyes confirmed it. The cargo door was down, and moreover she saw two security guards walking down the drone’s loading ramp. “Well, that’s going to be a problem,” she said to her little friend hovering nearby, but a plan was already coming to Zoah. “I know your fuel cells are pretty low after that stunt we just pulled, but we should still do something. I’ve got another terrible idea…”
# # #
The knot on the rope held—a taut-line hitch creating a loop that helped secure the package between Caleb and Nox. If they were going to succeed, they’d have to carry this load down the 20-odd floors of the Ceres building all the way to the stealth ship. They’d have to make sure it was safe, unharmed and with them at all times if they were going to make it out alive.
With Zoah gone, the clock was ticking now, and they needed to move.
Nox entered his code into the terminal, and the office’s security seal lifted. Caleb motioned for them to kneel behind the massive desk for protection as they waited for the guards to enter the room.
They heard the door latch give, then Nox counted down with his fingers from three. Before he reached one, they both ducked and covered their ears as the flash bang detonated—standard procedure when entering a room with an occupying hostile force—then positioned thei
r breathing masks over their mouths, anticipating the tear gas canisters that soon followed.
“At least they’re consistent,” said Caleb. “You trained them well.”
“It was the right call,” Nox replied. “Nonlethal. Passive.”
“Predictable.”
“I thought you’d be happy. It beats guns blazing. Get ready.”
Two security men entered the office, their rifles up in position scanning the room. The fire team moved closer. In rapid succession, a pair of collimated light beams connected with the guards’ center masses, causing them to crumple to the floor.
“There’s no recoil,” Caleb said admiring his stun rifle. “That’ll take some getting used to.”
“You’ll have plenty of opportunity. Shall we go?”
Nox and Caleb stood, bearing the weight of an unconscious Theo Ogden strung up between them. They shuffled sideways around the desk and made their way to the open doorway, careful to keep their load balanced. The dead weight of the CEO—facing toward them with a limp arm over each man’s outside shoulder bound together by a length of rope around their backs—made moving around a challenge.
“Hold your fire!” someone shouted out in the hallway.
Caleb held his pistol to the side of Ogden’s head as they stepped out into the reception area and were greeted by an armed detail of a dozen men in various cover positions around them.
“Sitrep, lieutenant!” Nox yelled out.
“Sir?” one of the hidden guards replied.
“You heard me!”
“Yes, sir! Um, two hostiles. Highly trained, well-armed. Security’s been compromised and CEOTO’s a hostage. Objectives unclear. Intent unclear.”
Nox nodded. “Protocol?”
“CEOTO’s safety is priority one. Do not endanger CEOTO. Do not engage.”
“Correct,” said Nox. “I want you men to drop your weapons and form a line.”
No one moved. You could feel the uncertainty bounce around the room as the security force considered Nox’s orders. The man with white hair looked at Caleb and shrugged his shoulders.
“Do it! Or I’ll shoot Ogden!” Caleb demanded.
Soon the sound of rifles hitting the floor echoed down the halls, followed by the reluctant footfalls of boots getting into formation.
Nox surveyed the row of guards. “When you replay these events in the coming days, I want you men to know,” he said hesitating for a moment, “that you did the right thing.” When the stun guns finished their work, unconscious bodies littered the area around them.
“Damn, I hated to do that,” said Nox.
Caleb nodded in agreement. “They’ll live. Our future wellbeing, on the other hand, is still very much in doubt.”
Nox pointed his rifle toward the bank of elevators, and they shuffled over to the call button. When the doors opened, they stepped inside the waiting car. “Tell me again why we’re using the traveling lockbox of doom?” said Caleb.
“First, hell if I’m carrying Ogden all the way down 20 flights of stairs,” Nox answered, “second, the public elevator’s the most direct route to the lobby and third, I’ve got a key to the lockbox.” He entered the override code, and the elevator started moving down. They watched as the numbers decreased on the indicator display, knowing each bypassed floor was one less potential firefight they’d have to endure. Then the lights flickered, and their progress halted.
Nox checked his cufflink. “Smart. They killed the power.”
“Open the doors,” Caleb said.
The soft seal released its hold, and the doors separated but had to be pried apart the rest of the way. “That’s the sixth floor,” Nox said looking at the partial opening across the bottom of the elevator’s threshold.
“Well, let’s get to it then.” Caleb sat down with his legs dangling over the edge and helped position Ogden between them, then they slid down and landed in a heap on the sixth-floor lobby carpet. He sat up and scanned the room, and after being satisfied they were alone, motioned down the hallway. “Looks like it’s the stairs after all.”
As soon as the stairwell door opened, they realized the trouble they were in. Concrete walls echoed with the staccato steps and voices of dozens of men coming from both above and below them. Nox shook his head. “We can take a stand here or soldier on. To be honest, not really a fan of either option.”
Caleb took a step down and eyed Nox, who rolled his eyes and followed. They were halfway between floors when the first guard peeked up at them from the flight below. Caleb took him down with a single shot from his stun rifle. Soon several more security officers came into their sights, each being shot into submission by Nox and Caleb’s constant barrage of fine lasers.
“Um, quick question—what’s the shot capacity of these guns?” Caleb asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because my rifle just stopped firing.”
Nox threw him a look of disbelief. “Then I’d say you’ve hit capacity.”
Behind them, a guard screamed as he jumped down at them from the stairwell above. Nox tagged him in midair, and the limp body landed with a thud nearby.
“They’ve cut us off,” Caleb said as he ejected the magazine from his handgun and checked bullet count. “Nowhere to fallback to now. I’ve got 13 in the clip and one chambered.”
“You shoot that pistol and they’ll have no choice but to return fire, Ogden or no Ogden. Holster it. I’m thinking.”
“Yeah? Well, think fast,” Caleb said, “because they’re coming.”
# # #
Zoah stepped out onto the air pad. She had taken the roundabout way to get here, doubling back to the fire escape and going through the office building, and now she was facing two guards on a rooftop trying to look as annoyed and impatient as possible, her hands on her hips and chin up.
“Alright, gentlemen, what’s going on here?” she asked.
The two guards approached her, one grinning from ear to ear. “Are you lost, miss? The last time I checked civilians aren’t allowed up here unescorted. Unless this ship belongs to you?”
“I’m not a civilian. I was ordered here.”
“Right. And who would order a nice, young lady such as yourself up here exactly?”
“Nox—he arrived this morning,” Zoah said matter-of-factly, pausing for a moment to let it sink in. “And he wants to know what’s going on here. I’ve got a live data feed to his office, and he’s waiting for a report right now. Is there a reason you haven’t filed one yet?”
The guard looked at his partner. “Um, well, there’s not much to report. We found a drone ship.”
“I wouldn’t call an unauthorized landing on a restricted air pad not much,” she replied.
“We were about to call it in,” the other guard said.
“Don’t bother,” Zoah said, punching her cufflink. “I just did. Your orders are to finish your rounds then report to the OIC for a debriefing. I’ll take it from here.”
The man seemed unimpressed. “I haven’t seen you around, and you have no rank insignia, so I apologize, but I’m disinclined to follow those orders.”
Zoah tried to look cool as she continued working her virtual keyboard. “I’m a Level 5 security contractor—transferred in last week. And those orders came directly from Nox. If you want to disobey them that’s your call, but I wouldn’t. Then again, I’m just a messenger here.”
One of the officers raised his rifle. “How about some identification?”
“Wait,” the other guard said. “Check your visor.” An incoming message relayed their orders, exactly as Zoah had given them. It was on a secure data stream with the correct authorization protocols attached.
“Let’s move. I’m not getting on the commander’s list again,” the security man said, prodding his partner. He gave a quick nod to Zoah. “Ma’am.”
When they left the air pad and the door closed behind them, she let out a long, gratifying exhale. Heelo flew up from his hiding place and buzzed around her head. “That was
close,” Zoah said. “We should go though, yes? I don’t want to be anywhere near here when they figure out I faked those orders.” The toy drone whistled in agreement.
# # #
They were dancing—sometimes moving backwards, sometimes sideways, but always circling and stepping down, advancing to their objective. It was a precision waltz. First Caleb would pass with Ogden now tied piggyback behind him to protect his rear flank, followed around by Nox with his stun rifle up and at the ready. They did this to keep the guards from advancing too close to their position—if anyone came within a meter or so, the man with white hair would shoot them into a sleepy submission. Keeping the perimeter by turning was slow going but the strategy worked, though they were running out of stairs and real estate as they approached the ground floor.
“These guys aren’t falling back anymore,” Nox whispered. Caleb looked over his shoulder and saw the group of security officers crouched together on the final landing below them.
“I’ve got this,” Caleb said and aimed his handgun toward the guards. Nox reached over to push the pistol aside but was too late. The shot rang against the enclosed stone walls of the stairwell, drowning out Nox’s angry scream. The two men fell over, the former Ceres security head hell-bent on pummeling Caleb for killing one of his men, just as the bullet shattered a fire sprinkler nozzle above them all, dowsing the soldiers in a heavy spray of water.
Nox watched the water pouring down, bewildered and mesmerized by the scene—it took a second for him to register Caleb’s frantic finger pointing and yelling.
“Shoot the water!” he was saying. Nox’s brain self-corrected, and the white-haired man snapped back to awareness, aimed the stun rifle with quick precision and fired into the large puddle that had collected ankle-deep around the guards below. After several rounds, the stun charge conducted across the entire group of officers, rendering them all unconscious.
“Run. Run, now!” Caleb ordered. They stepped over the bodies and through the doorway into the main lobby. While Caleb, burdened by Ogden’s weight, stumbled and fell onto the marble floor, Nox slammed the door behind them and engage the locking mechanism, trapping their remaining pursuers inside the stairwell.