Bender held my gaze for less than three seconds before he dropped it, nodding. He upended the jug, finishing it off, down to the last nasty brown drop. Once he was done, he dragged a forearm over his mouth. “We roll in five.”
* * *
Leaving Luce behind was harder than I’d thought it’d be. Lockland had assured me that the guards he’d bribed in Port Station would keep her intact until this was over. But I had my doubts.
Lockland dropped me off in a remote location near the canals. We had several safe places underground, inside the zoom tunnels. The places folks used before the dark days to get from one hypertube to the next, riding efficient people conveyors in brightly lit areas for easy transport. There were millions of riders a day across the city, so the network had been vast. The city had been the mecca for hypertubes, many of them shuttling folks across the country in a matter of hours. The technology had revolutionized travel. The evacuated tubes removed all wind resistance, and the trains operated on magnetic levitation, which meant the tubes basically rode on air.
They’d been super fast, safe, and affordable.
In order to get on a hypertube, you had to enter through an airlock, where you transitioned from normal atmosphere to pressurized. In the aftermath of the meteor, most of the underground stations had filled with water or collapsed, but there were a handful of airlocks that remained free and clear because they had been sealed during the event and had somehow managed to escape the path of destruction.
It’d taken us years to find these sites and then longer to make them operational and secure. We rarely used them, as they were in poor condition for the most part, and it took a hell of a lot of work to get to them. They were meant to be occupied only during times of heightened emergency. Like these.
Darby knew about them, of course, but he’d never been to the three we were heading to now, as far as we knew. He had his underground location set up near The Middle, which had been fabricated to power his tech gear.
“Dammit, Darby,” I muttered as I moved through the streets toward the building that would lead me underground, picking my way over debris and dodging deep ruts filled with rusty red water. “Why did you have to be so trusting? Always wanting to help people.” Caring got you in trouble every time.
A noise came from my right.
I backed myself quickly against the building I was in the process of passing, my eyes scanning the area through my visor, searching for a heat signature. I couldn’t detect one, but that didn’t mean it was clear. The rain was heavy and cold tonight, and it would alter a heat signature if the person was chilled.
After a long minute, a seeker stumbled into view.
The signature was almost solid blue, only a tiny bit of orange at the center. Seekers didn’t care about how they dressed or if they kept warm, they just mindlessly searched for their next fix. I waited for the female to maneuver off in the other direction.
I was close to my destination, and I wasn’t taking any chances.
Once underground, I would wait for a radio signal from Lockland. His main job was security, but he was also the point of contact for our group and the government. He didn’t share his insiders with us for good reason, but I knew he paid them well. The payments oftentimes came from my salvages.
That’s how we worked, symbiotically. It kept us all alive.
I trailed my hand along the building as I picked up the pace, my gloves leaving a trail of wet lines. When I got to the end, I was forced to leap across a large crack full of murky water. This was the very edge of the canals. A place, it seemed, where I felt right at home. I tried not to dwell on the possible loss of my residence, which was less than a kilometer away.
Thinking about it got me sweaty and angry all over again.
At the next street over, I turned left, hustling toward my destination.
Since the rain was heavy and the clouds were thick, the extra darkness provided good cover. I arrived at the side entrance of a nondescript building, less than half of it still standing, and ducked inside. The stairwell to my right had been covered by a large piece of scrap metal, placed at an angle to look like it’d been there since the disaster.
I knew better as I shimmied through the small opening made by the haphazard placement. Once inside, I leaned back, resting my head against the wall, keeping my ears open. Damaged buildings like this one, with no viable space above, were largely ignored. They’d been scavenged, and scavenged again, and then left to decay like the rest of the refuse in this town.
What most didn’t know about buildings like this one was that their basements went extra deep. This one had been the location of a hypertube maintenance center. There was no written record of it anywhere, at least that I’d ever found, as the building had been so badly damaged during the aftermath of the strike that no one but scavengers had noticed it.
Once I was certain all was clear, I grabbed on to the broken handrail and began my descent into the zoom tunnel that would lead me to a small maintenance shaft and the hybertube I needed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I swore under my breath as I continued to shimmy through the maintenance shaft. It was a tight fit. Tighter than I remembered. But I hadn’t been down here in years.
I’d already picked my way through knee-high debris, climbed over fallen beams, belly-crawled through a labyrinth of rebar and the occasional piping still connected at odd angles to the ceiling. I’d mountaineered over piles of bricks and tiles, all as soft blue light glowed from my shoulders to guide my movements.
To access the hypertube, I had to drop onto the top of the car from the maintenance shaft. I sighed as I squeezed my body between another fallen beam and a large hunk of concrete. It was hard to imagine what I would’ve been doing if life the way we’d known it had stayed on track. I’d be kilometers from this underground tunnel. I’d likely be working a regular job, living in a megascraper with all the bells and whistles, going about my business, worried about when to take my next vacation.
Sounded boring to me. But there was a stark difference between boring and fighting for your life every single solitary stinking day.
Something in between would’ve been welcome.
I knocked a piece of carbon sheathing out of the way, finally making it to the spot where I needed to drop down onto the tube. I sat, dangling my legs through the opening. A moment later, I jumped, landing on the train with no issues, my boots making a loud echo as they hit the metal roof.
The hatch to the interior of the hypertube was right below me. I knelt over the place that would’ve been used as an escape for passengers if there’d ever been a problem and used all my strength to unscrew the heavy steel lid. Once it was unthreaded all the way, I pulled back, using my knees as the fulcrum to pry it upward. It was heavy as hell. It finally sprang with a groan, and once it was up, it stayed up. I poked my head into the car to listen.
All was quiet.
I stuck my legs in first, bringing my hands up to grip the sides as I eased through, dropping the rest of the two meters to the floor below. Before I did anything else, I reached over to flip a switch to defuse a small hydro-bomb concealed under a seat to my right.
Forgetting things like that would end in a messy death.
After that, I placed my hands on my hips and took inventory. “Damn, I hate it down here,” I muttered as I moved through the aisle. The inside of the tube had been intact when we discovered it, seats two wide, big enough to accommodate a large male, on either side.
The chairs were appointed comfortably, with ample cushion, and covered in a synthetic fabric—red with blue circle accents. They all faced forward, the headrests set high to brace the passengers’ necks. Increased acceleration took a toll on the body, so the government had tried to make the experience as comfortable as possible.
Midway through the car, the space opened up where we’d torn out the seats to create a crude sleeping area, composed of a small cot, a few raggedy blankets, and a desk with a compact radio-monitoring system. L
ockland was in charge of replacing the batteries yearly.
It was a wonder he could shimmy in and out of this place, considering how hard it’d been for me. I spotted the cooling unit situated underneath the control panel and breathed a sigh of relief when I opened it up and found it still running. The energy it took to keep these things alive was minimal, thanks to the pixie motors that ran them. The protein cakes inside were extremely old and would be avoided at all costs, but there were two jugs of water and one jug of aminos if I got desperate enough.
The plan was for me to be holed up here for no more than a day.
Tandor’s hand had been forced after he caused a scene in Port Station. The city officials would be informed. We just had to locate him and his operation, then launch our counterattack.
I sat at the small desk and flipped a switch on the board to send juice to the radio receivers. Instantly, the channels lit up. A small headset lying next to the system picked up voices immediately. I placed it over my ears. I could change channels by sticking the old-fashioned jack plug into a new hole on the switchboard.
My eyebrows went up.
The voice on the other end was familiar. I stopped moving, cocking my head as my hand reached for the volume dial. “I need three rolls of carbon fabric,” the voice said. “Delivered within the next hour.”
Another voice replied, “No can do. I traded the last roll yesterday.”
It was a basic conversation, except the first voice had been Case’s.
There was a short pause, filled in by static, before Case responded, “Then I need five boxes of cobalt-tipped screws.”
The voice replied, “I have three.”
“Fine.” I picked up on the irritation in his voice. “I’ll be in my standard location for the next hour.” Where in the hell was his standard location?
I reached for the tech phone Lockland had given me. If Case was somewhere within range, there was a good chance we could pick up his movements. It would be beneficial to keep track of him, since we knew he was planning on going after Tandor the first moment he got.
“It’s Grace,” I said as I depressed the button on the phone, affecting a small accent to camouflage my voice.
“Alex, here,” Lockland replied.
“Channel three is active.” I clicked off, allowing Lockland time to dial in. Through my headset, I could hear Case and the mystery man finalizing their rendezvous. After ten seconds, I said, “Recipient is known.”
“Confirmed,” Lockland said. “Will keep you posted.”
Once Case was off three, I inserted the jack into various other channels, but found nothing of any interest. Lots of people talking about mundane things. I had no idea why people spent their time listening in. Within five minutes, it was enough to make me totally crazy.
I pushed back from the desk and walked to the far end of the tube, where the supplies were stored. The thinking was, if we were forced to retreat underground, it would be for a very serious reason, so we should have ample firepower ready to go. Kneeling, I tugged out an old aluminum container that had multiple dents in the sides and flipped up the top. To my delight, Lockland had filled it with enough compressed nano-carbon cubes to keep my Gem firing for a month.
Sliding it aside, I reached for the next box, this one made of thick graphene, and opened the lid.
“Praise you, Lockland,” I said as my fingertips traced the rough contours of the hydro-bombs inside. These were midsize—pure hydrogen gas super-compressed into a rough egg form made from webbed carbon fiber and packaged in separate padded cells. Hydro-bombs were as simple as one, two, three. One, press the arming button. Two, roll, toss, or drop on preferred target. Three, wait two seconds for the igniter to spark the gas cloud. Then, kaboom.
Each of our underground hideaways contained at least this much firepower, so I, Bender, and Lockland would be ready to move once we got confirmation about Tandor’s whereabouts. The plan was to meet up and go in together, if that was possible. If not, one of us would take the lead, whoever was closest.
I went through the remaining supplies, finding some hydro-launchers and extra tasers. Just to pass the time, I busied myself with putting together a pack. If needed, it would be necessary to carry the stuff on my back. I’d have to be extremely careful on the way out, arranging the nano-carbon cubes tightly so they couldn’t bounce around.
Once I was done, I glanced around.
The best course of action would be to try to get some sleep. So when the call came, I’d be ready to go. I eyed the sleeping station.
With reluctance, I arranged myself on the uncomfortably hard cot, covering up with one of the blankets, which had a distinct smell of vaporized fuel and some other nasty shit. It made me think of Daze. “Dammit, kid, why’d you have to go and wreck a good thing?” I pictured his thin face and scrawny shoulders, the smears of dirt covering his cheeks, the wonder in his expression when he’d crawled into the sleeping pod, his happiness when he’d awoken. “You had so many chances. Way more than I ever had. And you blew it.”
I tucked the blanket up under my arms, my weapons at the ready, my tech phone settled on my chest. I doused the blue light at my shoulders, leaving only the soft red glow from the radio control panel filtering through the space. I fell into a fitful sleep to the sound of mundane murmuring coming from the headset.
* * *
“Grace, it’s Alex.” The sound of static filled the tube. My eyes blinked open, my hand already around the phone before the next message came through. “The meeting is set for one hour. Head to eight. We might be late. Message is waiting.”
I depressed the button, confused as I struggled up on my elbows, my eyes blinking around the enclosure. “This is Grace. Who’s going to be late?”
Late meant not coming at all.
Eight was two up from six, one of our safe houses in the canals. Basically, this message meant that I was going by myself, which was fine, but that wasn’t according to any of the plans we’d laid yesterday. If everything had changed, Lockland should be offering some explanation for why.
I fumbled my way off the cot, untangling myself from the blanket before it tripped me, to sit at the table. I was about to pick up the headset when another message came through my phone. “Me and Sean. We have to attend”—static—“a meeting first.”
A meeting?
That could mean only one of two things. They’d been compromised, or they wouldn’t be able to arrive at eight fast enough, and Tandor was on the move, so this was our best chance.
“How late?” I asked.
“Very.” Static. “Hit me when you’re at eight.”
That was it.
Lockland’s abruptness was a message in and of itself. Something was up. He was warning me not to use this channel until I made it to my destination.
I pocketed the phone and shut down the power to the radio panel. Then I guzzled water out of the jug, looped my pack onto my front so I could better protect it, donned my helmet, and was up the hatch, maneuvering my shoulders through the opening, all within the span of two minutes.
The way back up was slower since I was carrying sensitive supplies. I took my time. Once I was up top, I was within three blocks of eight. I hadn’t bothered to check my watch. I had no idea if it was daytime or blackout or how long I’d slept. I felt pretty rested, so I assumed I’d been asleep for at least eight to ten hours, which put the time at morning.
Finally reaching the main stairway, I crept up the last flight, listening carefully for anything out of the ordinary. Everything seemed fine as I squeezed through the skinny sheet metal break, reaching back to grab my pack after I was out. I strapped it onto my back this time and made my way out the front door of the broken building.
It was morning. Judging by the darkness of the clouds, the sun we never saw had risen only a short time ago, meaning it was still fairly dark out. I debated whether to take the streets or enter a building on the other side of the block to take one of our protected routes via the rafters.
Hurrying through the darkened streets, I avoided the wet as best I could. The rain was lighter today, rather than a solid downpour, which made it easier to move around.
It didn’t take me long to cover two blocks. Cautiously turning the corner to the next block, I spotted movement twenty meters in front of me. I ducked into a broken storefront, waiting thirty seconds before I stuck my head out.
Those were no seekers. Their movements were too precise.
They idled in front of the entryway to the building I had planned to enter. The location was compromised. It had to be Tandor’s men.
I thought back to what Lockland had said during our brief interaction. He’d said he had to attend a “meeting,” which meant he wasn’t coming. He’d also said there’d be a “message waiting.”
We didn’t leave messages. We left notes. Carbon-etched notes, to be exact.
Two more people joined the two who were already outside. Why would they be waiting on the street out in the open? Just loitering there, waiting for me to find them? Then it dawned on me that Lockland would’ve told them I would be entering from above, knowing I’d come from below. That meant that they had Lockland, and he’d been trying to warn me.
Fuck. They had Lockland.
I had enough explosives on me to blow up the entire building myself, but if Lockland was in there, I had to get him out first. He’d said both he and Bender were going to a meeting. I couldn’t imagine they’d taken Bender, too, but I wasn’t ruling anything out at this point.
Danger's Halo: (Holly Danger Book 1) Page 16