Preying for Keeps

by Mel Odom

  “Duran.” Skater called.

  “Still here, kid, but barely.”

  Looking toward the front of the car, Skater realized that the only good thing about the sudden shift was that it broke the field of fire for the Mafia gunners in the car ahead of them. “We’re passing Ariadne along, then her husband.”

  “Which way?”

  Skater looked at the window that was now pointed skyward. “Port side.”

  “Okay.”

  Skater turned his attention to Silverstaff. “We can get you out of here.”

  Silverstaff appeared hesitant. Then the monorail hit another section of track and the car slewed sideways even more. The gunfire at the front of the car died away. “It appears that’s the wisest course of action.” He held Ariadne, taking most of her weight, and muscled her up to the other side of the car against gravity and the incline.

  “Fraggit, Jack,” Wheeler called out, “this drekking car is going to pull the others off the track.”

  Skater peered through the shattered window behind and below him. The streets around him twisted dizzyingly. “Can you blow the coupling through the dog-brain?”

  “I doubt it, chummer. That coupling is probably so jammed nothing short of an explosion is going to knock it loose.”

  “You’ve got plastic explosives in your kit?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t think those nitbrains up there are going to hold off on their shooting gallery practice while I rig something up.”

  “Then we’re going to have to buy you some time.” Skater used the Predator’s butt to knock out the remaining glass shards in the window. Then he stripped a Kevlar jacket from one of the Mafia soldiers Trey had mojoed and laid it over the edge of the window. Ariadne would go through easily enough, but it would be a tight fit for the men.

  “Gonna need something to tie on with.” Duran advised. Skater glanced around, then took out his claspknife and grabbed one of the hanging loops from overhead. “Cut them down.” he told Trey. “We can tie them together.”

  Trey drew a knife from his boot and set to work. Silverstaff found another on one of the dead men and joined them. In seconds they had a number of them.

  Skater worked quickly, tying three of the loop lengths together to use as a safety harness. Then he looped it around Ariadne’s shoulders, telling Silverstaff to boost her up through the window.

  Silverstaff embraced her quickly, then pushed his wife along as she climbed through the window. Duran caught one of her hands in his and pulled her quickly up.

  “Okay.” the ork called back. “Next.”

  Silverstaff fashioned his own harness and climbed through, the borrowed machine pistol slung around his neck.

  “McKenzie or his people are trying to stop the monorail at the Fairview stop.” Wheeler said over the commlink. “I’m not letting them. If we lose the momentum we’ve built up, gravity’s going to take over and pull this car down. The rest of them will probably come right along with it.”

  “Keep him out of it.” Skater said.

  “I am.” the dwarf replied. “For now. It’s not going to take them long to find the power switches, though. They do that, we’re toast.”

  The car hit another rough patch of track and jerked unexpectedly. Skater went down, sliding down the incline and thudding against the seats on the other side. Blood filled his mouth from a cut inside his lip. He spat it out and struggled to his feet. The flames in the center of the car were staying about the same, but he knew the phosphorus had burned away by now. The fire had found something else to feed on. He turned back to Trey.

  “I can manage this.” the mage said, levitating himself to hang less than a meter above the uneven footing.

  Trey looked strange to Skater, hanging in the air with his balance correct instead of struggling against the incline. “Go on.” Skater said. “Archangel and I will follow as soon as we can.”

  A pained look came over Trey’s features.

  “Dammit, Trey.” Skater said. “You can be of more use up there. Our people can’t stay up there. If the car goes, they go with it.”

  “You could do more good up there too, chummer.”

  Skater shook his head. “Duran and Elvis are better at the close-in work than I am. I can’t work magic. And I can’t leave Archangel here.”

  “I know. Take care of her.” Trey rose like a wraith, gliding easily through the window, his cloak pulled close to the compact lines of his body.

  Skater turned his attention back to Archangel. She’d been thrown around by the sliding monorail car and was lying under one of the seats. He made his way to her and pulled her out, careful of the datajack. She twitched in his arms, her muscles fighting against whatever she was up against inside the Matrix. A thin line of blood trickled from her right nostril. He wiped it away and cradled her in his arms, holding her tight so the whipping motions of the car wouldn’t harm her and shielding her from the heat of the twisting flames behind him.

  Abruptly, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Jack.”

  “I’m here.”

  Then an explosion ripped the front emergency exit open and sent a shiver coursing down the length of the monorail car. It shifted, moving into a forty-five-degree angle now, and the rear of the car bounced even more vigorously.

  A pair of gunners came through the door, landing awkwardly, but their weapons were steady in their hands.

  37

  Skater brought the Predator up in one smooth motion and fired, putting two bullets through the lead man’s face. The corpse stumbled back over his partner.

  Pushing the dead man out of the way, the second gunner raced for the side of the car where the Mafia decker had gone down.

  “Stop him.” Archangel said in a weak voice. “If they get that deck, McKenzie could change the passcodes before I can get back in for the rest of the files we need. I couldn’t retrieve everything. And they’ve got that piece of you, Jack. A mage could have a lot fun with that.”

  Skater shoved himself to his feet and raced alongside the crack as well as he could. The flames reached for him, attracted by the displaced air of his passage.

  The Mafia gunman came up firing. A pair of bullets slammed into Skater’s armor over his heart, stopped dead by the Kevlar weave.

  Pain wracked Skater’s chest even though the bullets didn’t penetrate. With the heat trapped in the car and the smoke boiling up, it was hard to breathe, and getting harder to see. Only ten meters away now, the gunman was a silhouette, dimly outlined by the illumination given off by the flames.

  The man turned back toward the door, going with gravity this time. He held the dead man’s deck in one hand, the datajack dangling loosely.

  Skater tried to take aim, but ten or fifteen rounds from gunners still in the forward car ripped through the windows and door and drove him to cover. He caught a brief glimpse of the Mafia soldier making his way through the door.

  The monorail hit another rough patch and the incline turned even more.

  Returning to Archangel’s side, Skater said. “We’re going to lose the car. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  She was putting her equipment away. Soot streaked her pale features, and another thin ribbon of blood had snaked past her lip and leaked all the way down her chin. “Did you get the deck?” A coughing spasm racked her, almost doubling her over.

  “No.” Skater replied.

  “Dammit, Jack.” she snarled. “I almost got it all. McKenzie’s files, access to where he’s got the stocks, his accounts, the tech from NuGene. McKenzie got paid to dump that subvirus into DocWagon’s vats. He’s responsible for the laughing death disease, Jack. It was developed at NuGene, too.” Archangel faced Skater. “Are you listening to me? It was supposed to be a new way to treat the mentally ill, but it totally backfired. One of the developers cut the deal with McKenzie—and he didn’t even care—he probably thought it would help turn more profits once the new tissue came on the market. The antidote is there, but I didn’t have time to snatch it.”
She started to walk toward the emergency exit, but Skater stopped her.

  “Let’s go.” Skater put an arm around her waist and guided her away from the door and to the window. “Duran.” he said over the link. “Archangel’s coming up.”

  “I’m waiting.” The ork sounded tense.

  “Did you hear me?” Archangel demanded as she flailed at the window almost above her now. “McKenzie’s a fragging monster. He tainted the DocWagon vats. He’s responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent people.”

  “I heard.” Skater lifted her. Archangel’s reflexes were coming back, but the coughing was throwing her off. “But if we don’t get out of here alive, us getting the antidote won’t help anybody a fragging slot.”

  Duran pulled her through the window easily.

  Another tremor ran through the car.

  Skater holstered the Predator and grabbed the lip of the window. He hauled himself up with effort. The cool night air felt better at once, and triggered a coughing fit from him, too. He hung onto the quivering surface of the monorail car, blinking through tearing eyes as the inner hub of the sprawl went spinning by him in a swirl of neon lights and shadows.

  “You can lollygag later.” Duran told him in a hard voice. The ork fisted Skater’s uniform and pulled him roughly to his feet. “We’re still earning a credstick here.”

  Skater nodded and sucked in another deep breath. He stood with both hands on the ladder railing intended for use by the maintenance crews. Across the uneven top of the car canted at a steep angle, his team hung on, using the loops they’d cut from the passenger section. Silverstaff held his wife protectively.

  A gust of wind slapped into the car, rocking it viciously. There was no doubt in Skater’s mind that it was completely unhooked underneath, held only by the coupling to the car in front of it.

  “We can’t stay here.” he yelled over the wind.

  “Didn’t plan on it.” Duran said, unlimbering the Scorpion. “We were just waiting on you.”

  “Some good has come out of our present situation.” Trey remarked. He was near the front of the car, prone and peering down. “Everyone seems to have abandoned this section.”

  Cautiously, sliding his hand along the railing, Skater made his way forward. By now reports should be pouring into Lone Star about the runaway monorail and the violence aboard it. The ops time had about run its course, like the car beneath them.

  At the front of the car, Skater studied the forward car. Nothing moved inside it. “Wheeler.”

  “Yepper.”

  “You’re on.”

  “I’m there.” The dwarf slithered over the edge of the car and dropped onto the platform near the coupling. He dug around in his backpack and set to work at once.

  “Trey, Elvis, Wheeler’s going to need someone to watch his back.” Skater eyed the distance between him and the next car. The leverage provided by the wrecked car had lifted the rear section of the forward car from the track, but it was still lower than his present position. The only problem was the three meters of distance and the fact that they’d be jumping into the wind.

  “Take one of them with you.” Archangel said. “I can hold a gun. We’ve got to get that deck.”

  Skater looked at her. Archangel’s color looked better, and there was no denying that fierceness in her eyes. He nodded. “Elvis, you’re with Duran and me.”

  “I’m ready.” the troll said.

  With the start of a prayer on his lips that quickly changed to an obscenity, Skater threw himself forward. He landed harder than he expected, the impact against the top of the car unforgiving. Numbness spread up his legs and he fell, unable to keep his balance. For a moment he thought he might go over the edge, then he gripped the maintenance ladder and brought himself to his feet again.

  Duran and Elvis made the leap more easily. Behind them, Archangel was climbing down to the coupling link while Trey handed Ariadne down to Silverstaff.

  Skater moved forward, going as fast as he dared. The wind cut and slashed at him, making him narrow his eyes to slits and almost robbing him of his breath. There were three cars remaining between them and the engine. The footing was treacherous, vibrating and slippery in spite of the friction pads running on either side of the maintenance ladder.

  “Grab something.” Wheeler advised. “The coupling’s going in three, two, one—contact!”

  Skater, Elvis, and Duran flattened against the top of the next car after making the jump. Even with a car separating them from the concussion, the impact and subsequent release of the car being dragged was terrific.

  The wrecked car was turned loose at once, twisting and turning in the air as it fell, flames surging over it like tidal waves. Wheeler had evidently chosen his time, because the car landed on one of the above ground parking garages in the Seattle Center and exploded into a pile of flaming debris. There’d be property damage, but hopefully no lives lost.

  The monorail kept going around the tight turn through the Seattle Center station. Somebody must have issued warnings over the PA system, because the turnstiles were empty, and only Lone Star uniforms were in place. None of them had the opportunity to board.

  Up and moving again, Skater made for the engine. He still didn’t know where McKenzie was. He called Wheeler over the commlink. “You still tied into those security cameras in the cars?”

  “Yepper.”

  “Find McKenzie for me.”

  “It’s done, chummer. He’s in the engine.”

  Skater leaped to the second car back from the engine. His balance was coming more surely to him now. The drag created by the wrecked car had thrown everything off. He was aware of the passengers in the car below him. Screams sounded over the whipping wind and twice he was shot at by someone other than McKenzie’s soldiers.

  “Jack,” Archangel said, “he’s just entering the last car before the engine.”

  “And a lot of his soldiers trailing along with him.” Trey put in.

  “You’ve got to retrieve that deck.” Archangel said. “Once McKenzie gets it, he can use the credstick to change all my passcodes and make all those accounts and files inaccessible to me. I'm trying to download what I have at this end now, but I’m going to have to borrow some hard-drive space somewhere. I’ll need a few minutes to arrange that.”

  Skater made himself run harder. All of their futures hung in the balance. The deals they’d made with the dragon. ReGEN and NuGene. Ariadne and Tavis Silverstaff. With care, and a little time, most of it could be salvaged. He was certain of that. He made the leap onto the last passenger car, kicking in the boosted reflexes and feeling the adrenaline surge through him. He got his second wind, felt his senses become more acute and his body resume its coordination despite the fatigue eating at him.

  Larisa had given her life for the information Archangel had tapped, and had staked her daughter’s future on it. He’d gambled and lost everything himself. If Emma was going to have a chance, he couldn’t fail.

  He got to the edge of the car just as the Mafia soldier with the deck crashed through the door into the engine. Placing his free hand on the edge of the car, Skater vaulted onto the platform in front of the engine. His hip slammed painfully up against the railing and he grabbed it. When he tried the door, it was locked.

  Stepping back, he rammed a foot into the door. The lock shattered and came open, the light inside spilling outward. He went forward with the Predator in his hand, his free hand cupping the butt of it as he tucked it in close to his face.

  38

  The interior of the monorail engine was built in a T-shape, with a short corridor between the electromagnets that led into the control cross-section. Voices came to Skater over the throb of the transformers. He recognized McKenzie’s at once.

  Gunfire broke out behind him, made alternately louder and muffled by the swinging door. Whoever was in the engine with McKenzie must have thought the sound of the breaking lock was part of the general racket echoing through the monorail.

  “Kid,” Du
ran called over the commlink, “we’re pinned down. You’re solo.”

  “I read you.” Skater replied. He kept moving forward as gunfire crashed behind him.

  “Look out.” Wheeler called. “There’s a maintenance rig coming at us up ahead.”

  Skater peered around the corner and saw McKenzie in the control booth with three other men. He was holding the deck in both hands, looking rumpled but not hurt. On the other side of the windshield, the lean lines of the skeletal maintenance rig designed for working on a monotrain that had stalled between stations swelled into view.

  “It’s matching our speed.” Wheeler said. “Closing the gap between us. We’re coming. Just hang on.”

  Skater knew McKenzie wasn’t going to wait, though.

  Even now, he’d managed to get another team aboard the monotrain. That maint-rig had to be his doing.

  The control room was generally unoccupied except during safety inspections. Skater knew. There were no innocents in the area. He used the commlink. “Wheeler.”

  “Go.”

  “You’ve still got access to the engine’s dog-brain?”

  “Yepper.”

  “On my mark, put on the brakes. Does everyone copy?”

  The rest of the team quickly checked in with an affirmative.

  The maint-rig closed on them, only meters away now and moving fluidly enough to change speeds with them.

  Sensing the presence at his back, Skater wheeled.

  Duran stood there, breathing hard, blood covering his upper body. “I got your back, kid.”

  “Where’s Elvis?”

  “He got shot up pretty bad, but those slotting trogs are hard to kill. He’s holding the rest of McKenzie’s people off us till the others arrive.”

  In the control booth, Skater saw McKenzie toss the deck aside and take the steps down to the side door. The maint-rig was getting closer, filling the windshield now as it came at them.

  “Wheeler,” Skater called, “do it!” He hung onto the side, clutching at a pipe as tightly as he could.

  A heartbeat later, the engine’s brakes shrilled as they seized up. The engine and the cars had an antilocking system on the brakes to prevent derailment and compensate for load shifts, but anyone not belted down still got a hefty reminder about the physical laws of momentum and inertia. Screams and curses from the passengers cowering for their lives ripped through the noise.