“Maybe I should go in alone.”
“No,” Stone said decisively, and stopped her from replying with a raised hand. “I said no. I’m not letting you and your brother out of my sight. Besides, I’m the better e-man.”
He was, but she was no slouch in the cyber warfare department. All vipers were trained for it, and she had been good before that, but Stone was Stone. He’d been their instructor.
“E-geek you mean,” she muttered.
“Sticks ‘n’ stones... scan their simcodes and let’s get this show on the road.”
Kate rolled the hostages onto their bellies and used the simcode reader to scan the implants in their spines. She stored the woman’s data in her database for future use. She was turning into a bit of a collector of simcodes; she had a nice selection already from her ISS days. Now she had a new one. She sent Stone an upload request via TacNet.
>_ Connection request acknowledged.
>_ Connection achieved... Stone, Kenneth, Captain 501st Infantry Regiment, serial number DGN-896-410-339.
>_ Uploading data packet...
>_ Upload complete.
Satisfied, she broke the connection and rolled the two unconscious lemmings onto their backs again. Stone came forward with a couple of med-patches in hand. He applied one to each of their guests, choosing the back of one hand. The patches adhered to the skin and began the timed release of a drug that would keep them comfortably asleep for twenty-four hours.
Kate checked her appearance in the mirror one last time. The hotel uniforms they’d purchased didn’t do much for her from a stylistic viewpoint, she decided. The dark tightly fitted trousers, white shirt, and dark waistcoat were a traditional style that many hotels used. The prancing unicorn motif on her left breast stood out starkly in white. Stone’s uniform was a match for hers. He joined her before the mirror for a moment, his eyes flicking over their reflection critically, and nodded. They looked the part, and their simcode implants would now transmit the correct data when interrogated by hotel security, but they didn’t look like those they were pretending to be; Stone especially. From a distance, she would pass, but he wouldn’t. He wasn’t concerned, or so he said. She didn’t know why.
She checked the time. It was dark outside and her shift at the hotel would start soon. She glanced back at the lemmings, but they were sleeping like babies. She looked the question at Stone and he nodded before heading for the door. It was show time. She followed him outside and together they turned to follow the sidewalk toward the station. The apartment they had just left wasn’t far from the hotel by public transpo. It would take mere minutes by maglev, and they arrived at the station just as a train arrived. They chose the first carriage they came to and took seats. The maglev train accelerated out of the station barely a minute later.
Two stops went by, and they stood silently together in preparation to debark. The train’s carriage had remained empty. They were the only two passengers, though other carriages seemed to have commuters in them. The train slammed into the braking zone at break-neck speed and decelerated into the station. It always surprised her how quick maglev propulsion could slow a train weighing thousands of tons. They left the train and made their way out of the station.
The staff entrance at the back of the hotel had simcode protocols and required they pass through one at a time. Stone went first, and Kate followed him a few seconds later. Their arrival and entry went off without a hitch. Stone’s earlier recon of the hotel meant both of them had detailed specs of its interior, and with a blueprint of the layout open on their HUDs, they made their way through staff areas unerringly. Sensors indicated the place was a hive of activity. Thousands of people staffed hotels of this size, but at night many less were needed; hopefully that meant they could navigate the place without anyone being suspicious. No one knew all the faces working here.
Stone lead the way into the industrial-sized kitchens. Without slowing, he snatched up a tray of food readied for someone’s late night meal. At his action, Kate abruptly wheeled to the left and grabbed a trolley to push. Neither needed to consult the other; they knew each other’s moves. It was a simple wheeled trolley with a dull metal finish, and had a few covered plates on it.
Stone lead the way toward an elevator. It was one of three used by housekeeping and room service. Security on the elevator recognised their simcodes and opened the doors for them. Stone stepped inside, and held the door for her. As soon as she had the trolley inside, he let the doors close and discarded his tray on top of the trolley. Food spilt off the edges of pristine white plates, but he took no notice as he pulled out one of his toys from a pocket. He applied the device to the elevator controls and used it to by-pass the code needed to operate it. His override made the elevator take them directly up to the penthouse without stops on the way, and ignoring anyone calling for it.
Kate pulled her pocket pulser free and checked it. She didn’t plan to kill anyone today, but it was possible she would need to threaten violence. She set it to minimum and engaged the safety. She glanced at Stone, but he was watching the indicator lights above the door. Neither of them spoke. She turned her attention to the doors and her sensors swept outward as they neared the penthouse level; they found plenty of returns. Security cams and other security measures quickly painted themselves onto her display, but she wasn’t concerned. Their simcodes had already been accepted; there was no reason to expect they wouldn’t be on the penthouse level as well. The security cams would only be a problem if a human operator took the unlikely step of checking to see if their codes matched the images in the employee database. It wasn’t something she felt was likely.
The doors slid aside and she pushed her trolley out of the elevator and into a short corridor. There were two doors at this level leading to the two huge penthouse suits. Stone indicated the one on the right furthest from the elevators, and she stopped before it. Sensors indicated there were guards on the inside. She hadn’t expected that, but she took it in stride. She pressed the call button and waited. She pressed it again and waited. No answer. The guards were right there by the door, but the lazy bastards weren’t answering! She glared at Stone; he shrugged. She leaned on the cursed button.
“What the hell!” a voice said from the intercom.
“Room service,” she said brightly.
Stone snickered.
“We didn’t order anything. Get gone.”
Stone frowned, and raised an eyebrow at her. He conjured up a sonic grenade and offered it to her. Where the hell had he been hiding that? She took it from him, armed it, but kept the trigger depressed in her fist. She pressed the call button again.
She thought for a moment and smirked. “I have to deliver this, sir. Even if you no longer want it, you have to sign for it.”
“Like hell! If you don’t flit, I’m going to come out there and show you why you should have! Now fuck off!”
How rude! She leaned on the button and got ready to move.
The door began to open, but before it opened all the way, she dropped the grenade through the opening and yanked the door shut. The grenade went off barely a second later. Her processor reacted by filtering out the sonic disruption, dulling her hearing in the correct ranges. She twisted the door handle, broke the latch, and pushed inside the penthouse. Two bodies greeted her; Stone stepped over them and pulled them out of the way. She wheeled the trolley inside and closed the door.
She checked her sensors but the two guards were the only people in residence. Her heart sank. “Paul isn’t here.”
Stone hurried away, heading for the sitting room. “Never mind that. We need the jump coordinates. Maybe I can strip the comp they’re using.”
She felt torn. She was here for her brother, not some stupid bit of data. He was her priority. She glared at the guards. Maybe they knew where he was, or when he was coming back? She sighed. They would be unconscious for a while, and she hadn’t brought anything to wake them. She secured their hands and feet with tape and searched them for anything us
eful. Both were armed. She took the weapons, unloaded them, and tossed them into the far corner. She stripped their wristcomps and brought them to Stone where he already stood hunched over a computer. He had attached some of his own electronics to it, and was typing like mad when she joined him. He glanced at the wristcomps without pausing, grunted something unintelligible, and turned his attention back to his work.
“Anything?” she asked.
“I only just got started. If it’s here, I’ll find it.”
“Can I help?”
Stone sighed. “Go check the rest of this place out. Bring me any comps you find.”
She nodded and moved out. He was just getting her out of the way, but she had nothing better to do than monitoring the security net and her sensors. She might as well check the place out. She knew no one else was in the suite, so she didn’t clear each room as she would have upon entering hostile territory. She searched each room thoroughly, but there was nothing that Stone would find interesting. The only electronics she found belonged to the rooms, built into the furnishings. The penthouse came fully loaded; even the bedrooms had mini-autochefs. She considered programming a coffee into one of them. Why the hell not? She programmed a latte and waited for it.
Her sensors reported the entry into the suite before the coffee was ready. She cursed. She had been looking forward to trying it. She headed back to the main living area and heard raised voices. She recognised them immediately, and her heart leapt. It was Paul. The other was Dickhead Whitby.
“Stop there!” Whitby ordered. “Move a millimetre and I’ll shoot to kill.”
“Richmond,” Stone growled over viper comm. “A little help here.”
“Coming,” she said brightly.
Her sensors reported two targets, both armed, confronting Stone. Stone was where she’d left him at the comp station. She couldn’t tell which target was Paul, and didn’t want to risk him, but she came into the room ready for action with her pulser in hand. She was in combat mode, pretty much her default condition, but that was fast enough for any target less than another viper or multiple Merkiaari. Snapshot—part of a viper’s TRS—took in the room at a single glance, and targeted both hostiles. A coded thought made Whitby the priority. He had a powerful pulser in his hand pointed at Stone’s face, while Paul backed him up with a more concealable and reasonable looking pulser from a distance.
She shot Whitby between the shoulder blades without slowing.
He cried out and fell toward Stone, but he wasn’t dead. It was a risk not simply killing him, and truthfully, she would have preferred to do that, but she’d left her weapon on minimum for Stone. She had things to prove to him. One of those things was that she could still be professional and keep the needs of the mission in the forefront of her thoughts. He might need to question Whitby, so she hadn’t killed him. Simple. Unfortunately, that left Paul. She wouldn’t shoot him, but he didn’t know that. Most would have spun toward her and returned fire immediately, but he surprised her. He took the opportunity to kill Stone. It was something she might have done in his place. He had already been facing the right way with a weapon raised and Stone in his sights. Paul fired, and started turning toward her, already sure that he had dealt with the threat.
Stone went down, and Kate roared in anger. It wasn’t a scream or a shriek. It was a roar. Nothing like that had ever left her throat before, but it did now. Her targeting reticule swept instantly to Paul and she fired in a single heartbeat. Without a thought, she gunned her brother down. She cried out a second time, but this time in shock. He fell bonelessly in a heap, his weapon skating across the tile away from him. She stared down at him, unable to believe what she’d done. Thank God, she had set her weapon on minimum. She could easily have killed him. She could have killed her own brother!
She took a deep breath, and went to check on Stone. His steady blue icon on her sensors told the tale of a wounded, pissed off, but essentially intact viper. As she approached he stood unaided and went back to work on the computer. His waistcoat had a new hole in it over his left side. Blood was flowing sluggishly, but it wasn’t gushing. His ribs must have taken the impact and his sneaksuit had absorbed enough of the blast to prevent a serious plasma burn.
“Ouch,” she said, inspecting the burnt material of his waistcoat. “Does it hurt?”
The shot hadn’t been stopped by his sneaksuit after all; she had thought the small amount of blood meant it had, but it hadn’t. It wasn’t bleeding heavily because the blast had cauterised the wound.
“Does it hurt she says,” Stone muttered. “Damn fool question. Of course it bloody hurts! Secure them both, or are you planning to let them have another try?”
“Don’t get pissy,” she grumbled, trying not to let him see her relief. “If your bots are handling the problem, just say that.”
“My bots are handling the problem,” he deadpanned. “Now secure the prisoners if you please. Whitby is stirring.”
She spun and her pulser was rock steady in her fist aimed at Dickehead’s face. Her targeting reticule was locked on and spinning. It pulsed redly almost demanding she open fire. She hated him, and she hated what he stood for, but she didn’t shoot. She put up her gun and retrieved the tape from her pocket a second time. She bound his hands and feet, ignoring his groans. The minimum power hit he’d taken was wearing off. Such a low powered shot was more like a stunner blast than a killing blow from a pulser.
She left Whitby groaning where he lay, and went to check on Paul. He was still out. She hated to do it, but he was safer secured. She taped his hands and feet, but picked him up and put him in one of the armchairs to make him more comfortable. His head slumped forward. She took his face in her hands and studied it, letting herself absorb his reality. He was here before her and alive. Finally, they were together again. Her only family... she glanced at Stone. Say rather, Paul was her only blood family. He was really here. The changes in him were even more obvious than she’d seen on the video at Helios. The baby fat she remembered from before he disappeared was gone, replaced by hollow cheeks, sharply defined cheekbones, and strong square jaw. He had always been a looker, but now his dark stubble made him look dangerous. He was dangerous. His captain, and Stone for that matter, proved that. She wished he would open his eyes; she wanted to see them. She wanted to see recognition in them when he saw her, but he would be out for a few more minutes if Whitby were anything to go by.
She rejoined Stone.
“Anything?”
Stone nodded. “Encrypted, but its here.”
“Can’t we just take the unit?”
“No. If I could’ve done that, we’d be on a shuttle already.” He gave her a disgusted look. He handed her the med-patches. “For the guards. Leave Whitby. I might have questions.”
She nodded.
The two guards were still unconscious. Sonic grenades were effective ordnance, a lot more effective than a pulser set on minimum. She slapped one of the patches on each of the guards, making sure to get them on bare skin and smoothed out to ensure they received the maximum dosage of the sedative.
“So the data is off-site?” she asked upon her return.
Stone nodded. “And it’s only accessible on registered comps like this one. Taking it with us won’t do shit.”
That was true and annoying. Registered comps were a pain, because they allowed access to data on secure networks, but didn’t store any of that data internally. They had minimal caching and protocols that ensured the data was erased milliseconds after viewing. Registered comps were the bane of an e-geek’s existence because it meant they couldn’t steal data remotely; they had to infiltrate the comp’s location and access it directly. They didn’t like that. Unlike Stone, most e-geeks were armchair warriors, and worked their magic from tricked out command centres in bombproof basements.
“You’ll never crack our encryption,” Whitby said, glaring at Stone.
Kate wondered if he would remember her, but there was no recognition in his eyes as he transferred his
glare to her when she snorted.
“Nothing is crack-proof,” she said, and believed it. Given enough time, anything could be cracked. The trick here was doing it before morning and shift change at the hotel.
“Who sent you? Intellicorp, Wellington and Biggs, someone else?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Kate,” Stone said by way of warning.
She didn’t need the warning. She knew not to involve the regiment. “This is a purely private enterprise, Mister Whitby, but keep speculating if you think it will help.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“That it will help? I think you’re probably right about that.”
Whitby glared, and she grinned. He turned his attention back to Stone. “I’ll cut you in if you stop this now.”
Stone nodded. He did something with the comp and said, “Go on, I’m listening.”
“I’ll cut you in for a cool two percent after expenses.”
“Hmmm. I don’t consider that very tempting. Try again by all means.”
Kate shook her head. “Expenses could eat up all our profit.”
Whitby glared. “Fine! I’ll cover the costs.”
“Two percent of net then?”
Whitby nodded.
She tried to look insulted. “Do we look stupid? We’re worth more than that. How much is your boy there getting?” she waved vaguely at Paul.
Whitby grimaced. “Five.”
“Five! He gets five and you want us to accept just two?”
Whitby licked his lips. “If... if he weren’t around you could share the five between you.”
She nearly shot him on the spot. Stone’s growled warning made her stop her instinctive move for the pulser in her pocket, but her rage-filled glare was enough to scare Whitby into silence. She forced herself to disengage her target lock, and her reticule faded from where it spun between his eyes. She turned away and went to check on Paul, but he was still unconscious. With nothing to do, she prowled the suit and took the opportunity to try that latte. It was as good as she’d hoped it would be.
Merkiaari Wars: 04 - Operation Breakout Page 29