The Prometheus Trap (The New Prometheus Book 3)

by Andrew Dobell

  It was closed, but Frankie guessed it would be unlocked with this man being in here. She stood by the door and listened. She could hear movement, distant sounds, and approaching footsteps. After a few seconds, at least two people walked past the door.

  Frankie waited until she felt it was as clear as it was likely to get and then gripped the handle, twisting it as gently and quietly as possible.

  She released the catch and pulled the door ajar, just enough so that she could peek through the crack and have a look outside.

  She was in a corner room that had windows on the two far walls, while the corridor outside stretched off in two directions, turning at ninety degrees just outside the door.

  Down the right-hand stretch, she could see the two people, operators by the looks of things, walking away, but saw nothing down the other way. Seeing the state of the passages made her smile as there were more piles of plasterboard, wood, metal, and other components used in the building and maintenance trade scattered down the corridor in neat piles, usually on top of pallets. She could also see a forklift truck a short distance away; all of which would give her excellent cover as she moved.

  Frankie pulled out her own sidearm and then reached into one of her belt pouches, pulling out a suppressor of her own that she screwed into place on her pistol.

  Feeling about as ready as she ever would, she took a deep breath to steady her nerves and quietly stepped out of the door, choosing to head left. She kept low and moved up to the first pile of materials, peeking around it before moving again to more cover. She could see doors up ahead, and went forward to each one, listening at them, and when she thought it safe, opening them up to look inside.

  She hoped that each one would contain Dion so she could get him out of there, but so far, nothing.

  She kept on, checking her map occasionally, and as she reached the first new branch of the corridor leading off from this one, she turned down it and moved deeper into the building. As she moved along this new hallway, which was as dusty and filled with debris as the others, her first moment of panic came when she spotted two more operators moving up the corridor towards her. Her last door was a little back up the hallway and on the other side, so she backed up, keeping herself as low and out of sight as she could. Luckily, the pair were focusing on each other and talking animatedly about something that seemed to have caught their attention.

  When the moment was right, and the pair were both looking at each other, Frankie darted across the hallway and opened the door as quietly as she could before slipping inside the room and pushing the door closed without engaging the latch, which would make too much noise.

  She waited, breathing deeply but quietly despite not needing to. If she’d still been human, her heart would have been hammering away in her chest.

  The men walked past her and disappeared down the corridor, apparently never realising she was there, and allowing her to continue on. As she moved forward, ducking down side corridors and hiding behind cover, the impression she got was that there wasn’t a huge amount of people up here. There were enough, that was for sure, and if they were all together, that would be a huge challenge, but they weren’t. They were spread out, making them less of a challenge. There were likely plenty more of them spread throughout the building below her, but they were not an immediate threat to her or her team.

  She remained cautious, though. She did not want to get too confident and suddenly walk into a room of fifty operators.

  She also wondered where this Hellion was as well. Was she up here, on this floor maybe, coordinating the group's efforts to hunt them down? She had no idea, but the longer she spent hunting around up here, the greater the chance she had of running into her.

  Finding Dion, it seemed, was proving to be a little harder than she had hoped.

  Frankie was moving up to another door just in front of her when it slammed open, its latch breaking the plaster and wood that had held the catch in the door frame. An operator stumbled through it after having used his shoulder to ram the door open, but he stopped just as suddenly upon seeing Frankie standing there with her silenced pistol, apparently waiting for him. He had something of a dumb expression on his face and carried a glass of golden liquid in one hand.

  In the periphery of her vision, she could make out more movement; her visual sensors picking up at least two more people in the room behind him. They’d been laughing at him, but their laughter died suddenly upon seeing her.

  Frankie frowned for half a second, knowing that she had no choice but to take these guys out before they raised the alarm that she was in here. Frankie raised her gun and fired it at the drunk man’s head, making his body shudder for a moment before it started to go limp and fall, dropping his glass in the process.

  Frankie used her off hand to grasp the man by the collar and forced him backwards and into the room, using him as a human shield.

  As she walked forward into the room, she held the body up in front of her but saw there were three operators in total in here, along with guns on the table and all kinds of other bits of gear.

  Frankie moved with her gun in her right hand and fired at the first man as he scrambled to get to his gun. He took the bullet to his upper chest and was flung backwards onto the sofa behind him.

  Frankie twisted to bring the next operator into view as he picked up his rifle from the table, fumbling with it in his panic as he tried to get it ready to defend himself. Frankie fired again, her silenced shot hitting the man squarely in the head, which fountained blood as he fell, dropping his weapon.

  Suppressed automatic gunfire suddenly lit up the room and slammed into the body she held before her, making it shudder and shake.

  Frankie braced herself against it while trying to get an idea of where her attacker was and how far from her he was. She caught glimpses of him around the body and, feeling sure he was close, threw the corpse at him.

  The man ducked to Frankie’s right, his gunfire stopped for the moment as he dodged the body of his colleague with a yell.

  Frankie fired at him, hitting him square in the torso, knocking him back where he hit a door at the back of the room.

  Frankie sprinted the remaining few steps between herself and the winded operator and kicked him in his chest. The door behind him collapsed as he fell through it, landing on the floor in a room lit up with curious lights.

  Frankie stepped forward, placing a foot down on either side of the operator and aimed her gun at the man’s head, putting one final shot in him and dropping him to the floor for good.

  She waited a few seconds, just to make sure he wasn’t an armoured cyborg like she was and bluffing before she relaxed and looked around her.

  The room was about as big as the last one, and before her sat a custom terminal that looked awesomely powerful, with wires snaking from it into open access panels on the walls.

  Movement to her left caught her eye, only for her to look over and see Dion sitting on the floor, bloody and beaten, but looking up at Frankie with a smile.

  ‘Dion! Thank God for that. I thought I’d never find you,’ she said, rushing over to him and crouching down before him.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, his voice sounding weak and croaky.

  ‘Don’t speak,’ she said, seeing the pain and effort it took him to say anything. ‘Let me get you out of here,’ she said as she reached behind him to break the cuffs that held him in place.

  ‘F… Frankie… Frankie, move…’ he said suddenly, straining to get the words out quickly. It took her a moment to realise he was warning her of something and quickly twisted to look behind her, suspecting she had been snuck up on.

  She caught sight of a small and quick flash and a thunderous gunshot noise as she turned, followed by something slamming into her side.

  3.14

  The gunshot rammed into her flank, just below her rib cage and spun her around like a top, igniting a couple more red icons in her vision. Frankie went with the motion and used the momentum to her advantage. She turned right a
round and kicked out with her leg, bringing her heel around and booting the shooter in the side of his face as hard as she could. She twisted and swapped legs, kicking out again, this time striking the man’s hand, forcing him to drop his gun and send it skittering across the floor.

  Frankie completed her final twist and looked around, bringing her gun up to finish him off, only to find the man delivering a kick of his own that smashed into her hand with incredible force. Involuntarily, her gun flew from her hand and dropped to the floor with a metallic clatter.

  Her kicks should have done more damage to him than that. Unless was this no ordinary operator.

  She looked up at the attacker, getting her first good look at him and suddenly realised she knew who he was. This was Frak, the man she had first seen holding a gun to Dion’s head when she met Hellion. The realisation that she knew him focused her thoughts, and she suddenly knew he was more of a match for her than your typical operator.

  Frak moved in for another kick, taking advantage of her momentary pause. Frankie saw it coming, though. Frak’s flashy martial arts style broadcasted his attempt to kick her too early, allowing her to block his leg with ease and deliver a punch of her own into his groin.

  Frak dropped back, bent double for a moment and let out a pained grunt.

  Frankie smiled and rushed him, determined to take advantage of his brief incapacitation, but he shot up, caught Frankie by the collar and swung her around, throwing her back into some cabinets. He’d been bluffing her, and she’d fallen for it. He was powerful and obviously a Cyborg to some degree to be able to lift her like that.

  Frankie yelped from the slam into the back wall and grasped Frak right back, holding onto him as she brought her knee up hard and fast. She caught him in the belly before she smashed her forehead into the man’s face as hard as she could.

  Frak’s nose exploded with blood, and this time she knew he wasn’t bluffing as he choked and struggled against her. Still holding on with her left hand, Frankie delivered a punch to his gut before she let go of him entirely. Frak staggered away from her, choking and gasping for air.

  ‘Not looking quite so smug now, are we,’ she said, thinking back to the look on his face when she had first seen him during the confrontation with Hellion. His rough handling of Dion during that encounter had angered her, and she could only guess about the torture he had been inflicting on Dion in the interim. The bruises and dried blood that covered Dion was more than enough evidence of that though.

  It likely wasn’t only Frak who had been hurting Dion, but the red, scuffed knuckles that Frak sported told Frankie more than enough about what he had been doing.

  Frak spat blood onto the floor and looked up at her. ‘You’re never getting out of here alive, you know that, right?’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that,’ she said, and punched him across the face, the force of it knocking his feet out from under him as he dropped to the floor. He went to pick himself up, pushing on the floor with his shaky hands as Frankie picked up her silenced pistol from where it had landed on the floor.

  Dion had stood up and was near to Frak now as Frankie walked over and checked the gun, making sure it was okay and that a round was still chambered.

  She moved to point the gun at the back of Frak’s head.

  ‘Wait,’ Dion said, and extended his hand, asking for the weapon.

  Frankie looked up at him. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  The look in Dion’s eyes was deadly serious. She could see the bottled up rage and anger in there and knew he needed some closure on this. He needed to get some revenge on his tormentors to settle the bill.

  Frankie offered him her gun.

  He didn’t hesitate. He just took the gun from her, pointed it at Frak’s head, and squeezed the trigger once.

  Frak fell to the floor dead. Dion didn’t say anything, he just handed the gun back to Frankie and turned away from the body, looking calm but annoyed.

  ‘How are you? Any serious injuries?’ Frankie asked.

  Dion slumped into one of the chairs in here, looking exhausted. ‘I’m okay, nothing’s broken. I’m just battered and bruised and in need of a few days rest,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I think you’ve earned it,’ Frankie said.

  ‘So have you by the looks of things,’ he said, pointing to her face.

  Frankie reached up and touched the ragged wound on her left cheek. ‘I bet this looks quite horrific,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not pretty,’ Dion agreed with her.

  ‘Well, you’re not exactly Mr. Handsome right now, either, you know,’ she commented back. ‘They must have worked you over a few times.’

  ‘They did. Hellion herself oversaw the main interrogations and did not hold back in hurting me, but between those, I was restrained in here and was little more than Frak’s personal punching bag. Whenever anything went wrong, he’d come over and kick me or something. I didn’t mind, not really, because if something pissed him off, it probably meant you guys had caused it.’

  ‘I can think of a few things that would have done that,’ she said with a smile. ‘Anyway, we need to get out of here before we’re found. Come on.’

  ‘Hold on, I need a few minutes,’ he said before he turned to the terminal and started to tap away on the keys and click on the trackball.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Undoing their damage,’ Dion said. ‘I wasn’t just sitting here wallowing in self-pity. I was watching him and taking some mental notes so that now, I can do what I do best.’

  Frankie watched over his shoulder and thought she had a rough idea about what he was doing, but the details of it escaped her and were beyond her knowledge or the data she had in her cyberbrain.

  She was no hacker.

  Feeling sure he would be better left to concentrate on what he was doing, Frankie moved over to the door and sneaked a look outside. It was all relatively quiet out here, and even with the noise of the fight they had just had, including the gunshots, at least for the time being, no one was coming running. But, she wasn’t all that surprised. While she had been hunting for Dion up here, she had heard a few distant gunshots. She wasn’t sure where they had come from, but figured it could be either outside the building and unrelated to them, from downstairs somewhere, or maybe some operators up here engaging in some target practice. Who knew, but it did mean that Frak’s gunshots potentially had gone unnoticed as anything suspicious. She checked the map that Jude had given her and plotted a route back to the entrance she had used to get in here.

  ‘There, we’re done,’ Dion said.

  ‘What’s done?’ Frankie asked, shutting down the map in her vision now that she had a route.

  ‘You’ve got no net connection, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Frankie agreed.

  ‘Frak here had used some sophisticated malware to infect the local signal towers that attempted to download a virus to anyone who accessed them, which is why your net connection was shut down. Your system spotted the virus and knew that the best choice was to turn off your connection. I’ve just issued a shutdown command to the malware, so you should regain connection shortly,’ he said.

  ‘Great… Oh, but won’t Hellion and all them get it back, too?’

  Yes, but only if they check their connection status. They won’t get an alert saying the net is back up as their Wi-Fi will be shut off and they have no reason to suspect it’s back online yet. So, for a short while at least, you have an advantage,’ he said.

  Frankie smiled. Things were turning around back to their favour. She liked the idea of having an advantage like this over Hellion. Also, it would mean she could finally call in some backup.

  ‘How long until we’re back online?’ she asked.

  ‘It will take a little while to remove the infection, but you should have some connectivity in the next few minutes,’ he said.

  ‘Good to know,’ she said. ‘So, are you ready to move now?’

  Dion stepped over to where Frak’
s gun lay on the floor and picked it up. ‘Now I am,’ he said with a smile of his own.

  ‘Follow me, we have to move quietly,’ she said before ducking out of the room with Dion on her heels. The corridor outside was quiet, and they were able to make good time using the cover to keep from being seen.

  ‘I knew you’d come for me,’ Dion whispered to her was they moved in a crouch down another corridor, slowly but surely approaching the secret exit.

  ‘Of course. I wasn’t about to leave you there to die. That’s not what we as a team do, and it’s not what friends do,’ she said.

  ‘Which is why I was able to keep the faith. How about the others? Are they okay?’

  ‘We got split up in the chaos of the attack, but I was able to find them eventually. They’re on their way up here now,’ she said.

  ‘Up here? Why? You’ve already freed me,’ he said.

  ‘You’re only part of the mission. Hellion won’t stop until we’re all dead, so we’re bringing the fight to her.’

  ‘That’s a little suicidal, isn’t it? They have a whole team of operators backing them up,’ he said.

  ‘We have our allies, too,’ she countered.

  ‘Oh, really? Who?’

  ‘We teamed up with a local Jacker gang that, as it turns out, I have a link to, so they agreed to help. Enemy of my enemy and all that,’ she explained.

  ‘Can you trust them?’

  ‘Maybe. On this issue, I think we can, but I’m not putting too much faith into them. I’m being careful,’ she said.

  ‘Speaking of being careful,’ Dion said and motioned forward. Frankie followed his gaze and saw people turning into the corridor up ahead.

  Frankie backed up, urging Dion to do the same and keep low. She looked again and realised it was Hellion, surrounded by a few operators and two people, a man and a woman, she had not seen before. They were dressed differently to the operators, but still wore utilitarian clothing and were clearly armed. If she had to, she’d guess these pair were agents: cybernetic employees of the corporations who were usually used as enforcers and special operatives. They were on a similar level to Hellion, but unlike that mercenary, they worked directly for one Corporation, almost certainly Psytech in this case.