The Prometheus Trap (The New Prometheus Book 3)

by Andrew Dobell

  ‘We need some reinforcements to take these guys on, and Frankie here thinks she can get some, so we’re heading out, away from the building to try and get her connected to the net again,’ he explained.

  Frankie watched the mix of expressions in the group of Jackers. Some, mainly the injured ones, seemed relieved that they might actually be able to get out of here, while some of the others were less than impressed. Everyone started to voice their opinion at the same time in what sounded like a wall of noise as each of them tried to make themselves heard.

  Spider tried to quiet them down, but Frankie’s enhanced hearing picked up on something, a noise just beyond the voices, like a deep rumbling.

  ‘Hey, quiet; shut up,’ Frankie called out, trying to listen to it and figure out if it was anything to worry about.

  Everyone went quiet for a second.

  ‘Who the hell are you to tell me to shut up?’ one of the Jackers said. ‘Come here and say that.’

  Frankie wasn’t really listening though and focused on the noise. It sounded like something was in the tunnel with them, but it was tough to make it out with people talking.

  ‘Shhh,’ she hissed again.

  ‘Right, then, bitch,’ the Jacker said and started to move up the tunnel towards her, only for Spider to stand in his way.

  ‘Shut up, you moron. Can’t you hear that?’ he said.

  With everyone quite, the rumbling was suddenly easy to pick out, and it was clearly coming from the direction they wanted to head in. Everyone looked down the tunnel and waited, readying their weapons.

  Suddenly, a four-legged robot, with wheels on the ends of the spider-like legs, rolled around the corner, its little head, with a single red glowing eye on it, angled towards them.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ one of the Jackers said.

  The thing grunted and made some guttural beeps as it rotated its guns in their direction.

  3.10

  Frankie had seen these before and did not like the look of the two belt-fed machine guns mounted on either side of its head. She wasted no time in taking aim and shooting at it. She aimed for the eye and squeezed the trigger, letting off a three round burst of shots from the gun she had stolen from the operator. The eye exploded, and part of the head was ripped loose when the shot hit home just as it started to fire its own guns. The very brief burst of gunfire from the mech slammed into the walls of the tunnel, sending sparks everywhere before the robot went still and powered down.

  ‘Shit, that was a close one,’ one of the Jackers commented.

  Frankie stayed still and listened, and sure enough, she could hear more coming closer, probably more than one of them. They might be able to take them out, but they would more than likely lose some of their number in the process.

  ‘There’s more of them on the way. I suggest we move,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Crap, yeah, I can hear them,’ Jude commented.

  Frankie turned to Spider. ‘Back up plan, let's get back into the building. Got any ideas?’

  Spider smiled. ‘Follow me,’ he said and jogged up the tunnel, taking a few seemingly random turns.

  ‘Where are we headed?’ Frankie asked as she splashed along through the sewage water just behind Spider.

  ‘I have more than one base in this building, Frankie, so shut up and move that fine ass of yours,’ he replied.

  Frankie rolled her eyes. She wasn’t a fan of this macho bullshit, but he and his gang were useful, so she let it go.

  They moved as quickly as they could, with the unhurt helping those who were suffering from any injuries. They waded through several inches of sewage as they moved through the pipes. It stank down here, but it didn’t bother Frankie too much. She registered the smell, but it didn’t affect her as much as it might once have done. She didn’t feel nauseous, unlike some of the others, who occasionally paused to be sick.

  They’d left behind the sounds of the robots rolling through the tunnels, but it always paid to be vigilant, and Frankie tried to keep everyone quiet so they could hear if any more were coming. Keeping track of where they were was not easy, even with her cyberbrain doing its best to keep track of her movements. Down here, in the sewer pipes, with little in the way of visual markers to triangulate from, her cyberbrain was forced to resort to approximations. It would still be fairly accurate and would update once they were topside again, and from what she could make out, they were still beneath the building, moving towards another edge of it.

  After a few minutes, Spider stopped at a ladder on the wall and waited for everyone to reach him. ‘We’ll head up here,’ he said.

  ‘Do you know where you are?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Of course, do you doubt me?’

  ‘I'm just being thorough,’ she said. There might be a truce between them at the moment, but Frankie didn’t trust Spider at all. He seemed honourable, but this would be an honour among thieves, and not something she felt she could really put too much stock in. She could be wrong, of course, and she really hoped she was, but time would tell.

  ‘Care to go first?’ he asked.

  Frankie eyed him, but then stepped back. ‘Thanks, I would, but I want to make sure everyone gets up out of here safely. Cole, would you care to take my place and check out what’s up that ladder?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said and started to climb. Frankie moved to get a better viewpoint along each direction along the tunnel when she heard Cole call out from above.

  ‘All clear up here,’ Cole said. ‘Come on up.’

  Spider smiled smugly over at her. Frankie shook her head and smiled. This kind of one-upmanship reminded her of some of the playground antics of kids, but at least it was somewhat amusing.

  As she watched the gang members climb up the ladder one by one, she started to pick up on more of that rumbling rolling sound, and it seemed to be coming from both directions this time.

  She looked up at Spider. ‘We’re about to have company,’ she warned him and watched the remaining few people ascend the ladder as quickly as they could. It felt like they were moving in slow motion and was almost painful to watch.

  Jude was one of the last to go up, clinging onto the ladder and placing his tracks against the wall, he was able to propel himself up and into the tunnel, where he could then swivel the tracks to either side of him and ride them up to the hatch at the top. Ingenious, she thought.

  Frankie listened carefully as Spider urged the last guy up, feeling sure that the first robot would appear to her right, and kept more of an eye along that route. Suddenly, Frankie saw it move into view as it rolled around the curve of the tunnel, its tracking lasers flaring red in the shadows.

  Frankie waited for a second longer until the main body of the robot came into view before she fired off three shots, but this time the robot was ready for her and slid sideways, rolling up the curve of the tunnel, causing her shots to go wide. The robot fired back, its belt fed guns blasting at her, but Frankie moved just as quickly and dove to her left, dodging the strafing gunfire before shooting at the mechanoid again. This time, her aim was true, and the head of the bot exploded with bits of metal and wires.

  But more were coming behind that first one, and with a glance behind her, she could see the faint red glow from another robot’s eye coming round the corner that way, too. They were flanking her, and there would be only so long she would be able to hold them off in such confined conditions. Frankie leapt for the ladder and ascended it, catching up to the man above her and urging him up and through the hatch above.

  Looking down, she knew the bots were close, and all they would need to do would be to look up, and she’d be a sitting duck. Grabbing her gun, she aimed it down as she followed the last man up the final few rungs of the ladder. As he climbed out, the first robot rolled into view beneath her.

  Frankie fired, the deafening bangs from the gun echoing around the pipe while sparks flew off the robot below as it rolled back and out of sight.

  Frankie flew up the last few steps and rolled ou
t of the pipe as rapid machinegun fire flew up the ladder where she had just been. Spider slammed the hatch shut and rammed the deadbolt into place, locking it.

  ‘Hah, that was close,’ Frankie said, feeling elated to have escaped.

  ‘Nicely done,’ Spider commented.

  ‘Good work,’ Cole said to her.

  ‘Thanks, how we doing up here?’ she asked him.

  ‘Looks clear. We’re in another part of the sub-basement, but this place is so huge that we’re a good distance away from the garage you found me in,’ he said.

  ‘Cool,’ she commented and turned to Spider. ‘So, you have a place near here?’

  ‘I do. I think you’ll be pleased; it’s more of a storage lock up and armoury than anything else,’ he said.

  ‘An armoury? And you didn’t think to mention this before?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s not something I tend to share with people outside the Death Spiders,’ he said.

  ‘The Death Spiders?’

  ‘That’s the name of their gang,’ Cole cut in.

  ‘Oh,’ Frankie said to Cole, before looking back to Spider. ‘Makes sense, I suppose. So, what are we waiting for?’

  Spider raised his eyebrows for a second before turning and leading the way down the tunnel. Frankie fell into step beside Cole as they walked through the dank sub-basement corridors with their leaking pipes and industrial cabling that snaked across the ceiling, walls, and even occasionally over the floors.

  Vents belched steam, lit up by the few dim lights that hung from the ceiling as they passed by side corridors and doors to unknown rooms.

  It was quiet down here with a musty smell that lingered in the air.

  ‘I didn’t get to speak with you back in the garage. How are you? It looks like they beat you up a bit,’ Frankie said to Cole, keeping her voice low.

  ‘I’m fine. Yeah, they did. But it was nothing serious. It was stupid, really. I figured I’d head down and try to get out on street level, but I was moving too quickly after having just avoided a squad of Corporation operatives and just ran into some of these guys. They grabbed me, thinking I was one of the Corporation guys and tried to interrogate me. They didn’t get far before you arrived and I was brought out. I was in there for less than an hour, I think,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, not too bad, then,’ she said.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t fun, but yeah, I survived. How about you?’ he asked. ‘You said you saw Dion?’

  ‘Yeah, I ran into someone, a woman calling herself Hellion. She was in the fight in the garage. Did you see her?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said.

  ‘She confronted me, told me she set all this up: this ambush. It sounded like she was some kind of private contractor who Psytech had brought in to hunt us down, and this was all set up to lure us in,’ she said.

  ‘Psytech again? Jeez, they won’t stop, will they?’

  ‘No, I don’t think they will,’ she agreed. ‘Anyway, we had a bit of a scuffle, and she brought out Dion. One of her men was holding him at gunpoint. I ended up having to get out of there. I was outnumbered and it would not have ended well for me,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ he agreed. ‘You did the right thing.’

  ‘Did I? I had a chance to free Dion. I might have been able to get him out of there,’ she said.

  ‘Look, I don’t know the situation, but what’s done is done. It sounds like you made the smart call to me. This way we can regroup and, maybe, with a few reinforcements, we can get Dion out of there and end this siege,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, I know. I still doubt myself, though, wondering if I’m making the right choices. The curse of being team leader, I suppose.’

  ‘That only means you’re still human. Even with your artificial body, it means there’s still a person in there.’

  Frankie smiled. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘No problem. So, anyway, you now know who we’re up against. You said she called herself Hellion?’

  ‘That’s right. She’s tall, blonde, and obviously a capable fighter with what I can only assume is a cyborg body,’ she said.

  ‘A full body prosthetic, like you?’ he asked.

  ‘I would guess so, from the speed she moved. No human can move like that,’ she mused.

  ‘Okay, so they have Dion, but they didn’t say they had Gibson or Veronica?’

  ‘No, in fact, from what she said, I can only guess they did not have them in custody,’ she said.

  ‘So, they’re still out there,’ Cole commented.

  ‘I hope so. In fact, you’ve just reminded me,’ she said and pulled the radio off of her belt and looked at it.

  ‘A walkie-talkie. You got that from one of the operatives?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Jude said from nearby. ‘It makes perfect sense. They’ve knocked out the local net, which not only affects our comms but theirs too, so they need a way to communicate. An old fashioned radio makes perfect sense,’ he said.

  Frankie looked it over in her hand and turned it on, making sure the volume was very low before she held it up to her ear. She immediately heard voices coming from it as the operatives used the radio to coordinate their movements.

  ‘Does it work?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Sure does. Hold on, I’ll see what they’re talking about,’ she said.

  She continued walking, following Spider’s men along the corridor, listening to the chatter on the radio. Most of it was relatively mundane, with just the occasional interesting bit of information, but nothing major, until a desperate sounding voice shouted over the airwaves.

  ‘Help, we need help. We have two of them up here on the tenth, they’ve already killed the rest of my squad,’ the man said.

  ‘Frak here. We hear you. Where are you on the tenth?’ Frankie recognised the voice. She’d heard it only a short time earlier, it was the same man who had been holding Dion at gunpoint.

  ‘Near the conference room… somewhere, in the corridors there. I’m not sure exactly.’

  ‘Okay, stay there. I’m sending Venal and Wildkat to you,’ Frak said.

  ‘Venal’s missing, dead we think. He went after Frankie and never came back,’ said another voice.

  Venal? That must have been the man with six arms, then, she guessed. Good to know. She wondered who this Wildkat was.

  ‘Shit. You sure?’ Frak asked.

  ‘Pretty sure.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll send Wildkat down and see what we can do. Stay where you are, soldier,’ Frak finished before his voice disappeared.

  Two people giving the Corporation operatives trouble? That could mean only one thing: Gibson and Veronica were up there, she thought as she followed Cole and the gang members through a door into a good sized room. The space was filled with rows of crates, shelves and cabinets, covered with boxes and trays overflowing with ammunition, while innumerable guns lay beside them.

  Frankie looked around her, picking out a few choice weapons from what she could see. This was impressive.

  ‘Welcome to my armoury,’ Spider said to her, walking over as Frankie surveyed the room.

  ‘Nice. I think we can use this,’ Frankie said.

  Spider smiled at her. ‘So, do you have a plan to fuck up these Corporation dicks yet?’

  ‘Not yet, but I know what my next move is. Two of my team are up on the tenth, so I need to go and get them. I’ll take Cole, it shouldn’t take us long,’ she said.

  Spider’s expression darkened. ‘I can’t let you do that,’ he said.

  ‘What? Well, I’d love to know how you’re going to stop me,’ she said stepping forward, a deep anger boiling up inside her.

  ‘What I mean is, one of you can go, but not both. I’m sorry, but I’ve only just met you and…you know,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Sorry.’

  Frankie got it. He didn’t fully trust her or Cole yet, just as she didn’t trust him fully yet, either, and to let both Cole and herself go with a bunch of their weapons was a stretch too far for him. He needed som
e leverage over them still.

  Her anger subsided, and she took a breath, nodding. ‘Aaah, I see. I understand,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, it’s nothing personal,’ Spider said.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, I understand. Cole will stay here, I’ll go alone,’ she said.

  ‘Now, hold on a moment,’ Cole said. ‘I don’t like this. I was being held hostage by these guys a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ Spider said, shrugging again.

  ‘You think that excuses what you did?’ Cole asked.

  ‘No,’ Spider answered.

  ‘Well… you’re right, it doesn’t,’ Cole answered, the anger fading from his voice after Spiders unexpectedly truthful answer.

  ‘Give him some guns. He’ll feel better once he’s fully kitted out,’ Frankie said to Spider in a mock conspiratorial voice.

  ‘Piss off, Frankie,’ Cole said with a smile. ‘But yes, she’s right,’ he then said to Spider, holding his hands out waiting for someone to put a gun in them.

  ‘Hah!’ Spider laughed.

  ‘Let me grab a few things and I’ll be on my way,’ Frankie said.

  ‘Sure, go ahead,’ Spider said, letting her pass.

  Frankie hunted around the room, picking up a rifle and a side arm, along with some ammunition for both. She checked both guns over, making sure they were okay before she loaded them up and made her way back over to the entrance.

  ‘Frankie, there’s very few security cameras on this floor that work, which is deliberate on our part, maybe start taking out any others you see around. It might just confuse them a bit,’ Spider said to her.

  ‘Sure, I was starting to think that I should be doing that anyway, myself,’ she said. ‘So, any advice on getting up there safely? You know this building better than I do,’ she asked.

  ‘Use the second service elevator, the camera doesn’t work in it. Either that or use the stairs, maybe?’

  Frankie thought of her meeting with the six armed Venal and shook her head. ‘No, I’ll take the lift I think,’ she said.

  Spider went on to give her a set of directions that would lead her to the lift and then to the conference room on the tenth floor.