Pivotal (Visceral Book 3)
Page 14
Five men stood on the other side of the roof, most of them wearing denim or sweatpants and t-shirts. All but one of them had a pistol tucked into their waistbands and the exceptional fifth man stood to the side with an AK-47. Among the men was Desre. She stared at her brother as he approached.
“Desi,” Roland greeted with a smile that lasted only a second. “I was worried about you.”
His sister did not respond. Instead, one of the Russians standing next to her spoke up.
“Our sincerest apologies, Mr. Somer,” he said. “We found her and took good care of her, but I must admit, it was too tempting not to ask her for some help in return.”
Roland locked his gaze on Desre. “Always the same shite, eh, Des?”
“These men were nice to me,” she said. “Treated me with respect. More than I can say of my last employers.”
Roland’s eyebrows shot up in mock sympathy. “Boo hoo,” he cried, looking her over. “You poor little girl. Clearly, you weren’t going hungry.”
“You asshole!” she hissed.
Nervousness spread among the Russians, but they dared not interject. Roland grabbed Desre by the neck. She grabbed his arm to try to pry it off, but the cybernetics that lined his muscle fibers made him too strong for her to move.
“You’ve wasted enough of my time, sis,” he said through gritted teeth. “Say goodbye to your friends.” He let go and yanked her by the arm in the direction of the copter, then put his own collar around her neck as she glowered. A third man opened the cockpit of the saucer-shaped aircraft and stepped out.
When she realized Roland wasn’t entering the craft with her, Desre’s eyes widened. “Wait. There’s no point in hurting them,” she pleaded.
The third man took her by the arm and guided her into one of the passenger seats. Roland ignored his sister’s pleas and returned to the group of Russians.
“We have more men inside the building,” warned their leader.
“Should’ve evacuated when you picked us up on radar,” said Roland, fidgeting with a button on his jacket. His face twitched occasionally, causing the right side of his mouth and cheek to raise and lower sporadically.
“Come on, there’s no need for this,” said the Russian.
Roland watched with amusement as Russian hands tried to subtly move toward their firearms. He held up his hand, and his lieutenants stepped back toward the copter. The aircraft’s cockpit door closed. A thin vapor wafted from the psion’s head. Roland’s men seemed to relax, and his unarmed thug even cracked a smile.
The lead Russian grabbed the grip of his pistol and found his wrist in Roland’s grasp. Roland threw his head forward, smashing his silver crown into the man’s nose. Blood sprayed down his face and his weapon fell from his hand. At the same time, Somer drew his handgun, a black Desert Eagle with a target uplink and mag-velocity assist. He bent his arm, aiming across his stomach toward the man with the assault rifle to his left.
BANG! He fired a single bullet and released his hold on the leader’s wrist. His movement was fast and precise. The AK man was the most prepared of all of them, but the bullet tore through his neck before he could raise his rifle.
With a continuous motion, Roland fired two more rounds, and the targeting system in his gun guided his aim. One bullet went through the chest of a second Russian, and the next traveled through the head of a third. As he shot he shuffled to his right toward the last gangster.
Roland released the pistol in his right hand, used that hand to grab the wrist of the man while catching the gun with his left hand, and then turned his body clockwise with his left elbow tucked against his hip, and shot the Russian up through the cheekbone and out the back of his skull.
As the last man fell backward dead, the psion twisted his body to look back at his lieutenants. He grinned, shrugged, then turned back to the leader of the group. The man rested on his knees, holding his nose as blood streamed down his hand and sleeve.
“What is your name, comrade?” asked Roland, leaning over him.
“Mikhail.”
“Micky boy,” teased Somer. “Make sure your friends, your boss, and anyone else who might think of stealing from Chantech knows what happens to our enemies. Da?”
Mikhail nodded. “Y-yeah. Yeah.”
Roland straightened up and pivoted on his heels. “Okay boys, let’s tuck Desi in and get to Baoding.” The two lieutenants opened a side passenger hatch and sat down facing outward. The hatches closed, and they stared through small windows. Roland entered the cockpit and sat next to the pilot. He kicked his feet up and folded his arms as the aircraft sealed shut.
The five-man ground team arrived shortly after Roland’s monocopter reached the roof, having been dropped off by an older-model helicopter. They unloaded from the chopper and created an arrowhead formation with their armored bodies, moving in sync toward the front entrance to the apartment. The point man had a short combat shotgun, and the other four wielded basic assault rifles with a blocky minimalist design typical of East Asian security forces.
The team stopped marching and stared curiously at a car parked halfway onto the sidewalk next to the building and half onto the road, blocking their path, or at least requiring a few extra steps to walk around.
Next to the rear hatch of the car was what appeared to be a ninja wearing a white hood, metal eye patch, and mouth mask, with a thin white cloak draped over her body. It fluttered in the breeze, exposing a form-fitting combat suit of an obviously advanced design. A bulky weapon with a wide barrel hung at her side and the hilt of a sword protruded from behind her back.
That woman was Tsenka Cho, and a few moments earlier she had advocated leaving the Russians inside to their doom so as to more easily track the monocopter’s exit.
“I cannot believe you,” Kate had told her. “I did not waste my career and risk my life for someone who is so selfish.”
“They are criminals, all of them,” Cho retorted. “Any of them could have—”
“But they didn’t,” said Kate. “You don’t know any of them. How can you be so cold?”
Cho had been shamed. She remembered Matthias’s speech. Tsenka realized they were both right. Feeling the weight of her responsibilities, she stepped out of the shadows while Kate illegally parked and Drew took a flanking position for possible support fire.
“Make sure you get a tracker on his copter, and I will take care of them,” Tsenka had ordered, appointing herself boss of combat operations.
The new vampire faced down the death squad under a blazing sun. At least, it felt blazing to her. It took a moment before the point man understood what he was looking at, and realized the woman was there for them.
“Engage,” the leader commanded, raising the barrel of his shotgun. Years of training had taught them to act in unison, and as exposed as they were, the two men next to the leader activated riot shields from their wrist-mounted generators. The men on the ends raised their rifles.
Before they could fire, Tsenka lifted the grenade launcher, essentially a giant revolver that propelled bullet-shaped grenades from the barrel, albeit at a much lower velocity than a handgun. The launcher made a pop as she pulled the trigger.
Staring death in the face, the formation broke. The men on the ends dove outward and the leader went prone as the grenade impacted the center of one of the riot shields. The resulting boom traveled throughout the city, starting the clock on how long the combatants would have before Ulaanbaatar security arrived.
The explosion sent the Chantech goons flying in different directions. Shrapnel stabbed into their body armor without piercing all the way through. Along with knocking them senseless, the sound rendered them all deaf.
Tsenka dropped the launcher and sprinted toward the leader as he pushed himself onto his hands and knees. She punted his head, sending his helmet up into the air. His body went limp. From her position, two of the men were then to her left, one was thrown to her right, and the one directly hit by the grenade had gone straight backward.
The first man stumbled until his back hit the brick facade of the apartments. Tsenka darted to him and he instinctively swung to fend her off. Cho moved her head to the side and delivered two quick punches to his exposed chin, putting him to sleep.
The goon that had been blown to the right grabbed the rifle still hanging by a strap from his neck and aimed at Tsenka. She kicked the helmet lying at her feet. It traveled toward him but missed. The man opened fire, and Tsenka rolled to the side while drawing her handgun.
The heavy smartgun was paired to her optics, showing a targeting reticle in her field of vision. Her hand squeezed three times as she came to a stop, putting three armor-piercing rounds in the man’s neck where only a thin layer of steel-fiber fabric protected him.
The last of the squad lay on his back, still unable to move from both the initial concussion that hit his shield and the force of his body hitting the ground and tumbling. Tsenka walked over to him after zip-tying the others. His helmet had been thrown loose and his face was covered in blood. For a moment, she felt pity for him. His spine might have been broken. Then she remembered that he had intended to march into a building and kill on command.
Tsenka pointed her pistol at the man’s face. He doesn’t deserve to live, she thought. He doesn’t deserve to live... but it’s not my right to decide. She holstered her gun, and felt equal parts proud and disappointed that she had only killed one person that day, so far.
Drew and Kate waited for her behind the car. “We need to g-get out of here before security shows up,” said Kate.
“Did you tag it?” asked Cho.
“I got it,” assured Kate.
“Someone in there might know something,” said Tsenka.
“No,” said Kate. “If we get caught here, we will not be treated kindly. The NR has no power here, and we aren’t on a sanctioned mission.”
“I’ve called in a false bomb threat on the other side of town, but security would have discovered it was a hoax by now,” said Drew.
“Dammit,” said Cho. “I’m climbing the roof, pick me up there.”
Kate looked at Drew. “Fine. Let’s go, Drew.”
“I think I should have a nickname for this mission,” said Drew.
“Come on,” she urged, getting into the car. Drew jogged to the passenger side, his legs switching from something closely resembling walking to a bizarre kind of hopping from one leg to the other. Kate stopped the car next to the dropped grenade launcher, opened the door, and picked it up.
Tsenka’s fingertips gripped the brick facade, lifting herself up the side of the building. She jumped to a nearby fire escape and vaulted the rest of the way to the roof. Peeking her head over the ledge, she saw several bodies and one man still alive, sitting down with blood covering his nose and mouth. She climbed over and approached him. He looked up at her and then back down.
“Who did this?” asked Cho. The man did not respond. “Was it Roland?”
“Please leave,” said Mikhail.
“It was him, wasn’t it,” she decided, kneeling beside the man. “I am going to stop him. Talk to me.”
Mikhail scoffed. “You will not stop him. He is not human but a demon.”
“I know,” replied Tsenka. “But I exist to destroy him.”
Mikhail looked at her again. “Then why are you here? Just go.”
“He was here for Desre, right? Did he get her?”
“Yes. Good riddance.”
“Was he taking her back to Beijing?” asked Cho. Her ears picked up the sound of Kate’s copter moving toward the roof.
Mikhail looked around at his dead comrades and fought back tears. “Please, leave me.”
“Ey, your men downstairs are alive because of me,” replied Tsenka sternly. “Now help me.”
“Don’t know.” Mikhail shook his head, thinking back to the calm before the carnage. “Mentioned a city. Baoding, I think.”
“What else?”
“That's all he said.”
Tsenka stood and nodded. She turned to face the edge of the roof.
“Desre is a nice girl,” said Mikhail, wiping at his nose. “She tried to stop this,” he said, nodding at one of the bodies. “Please don't hurt her just to get to him.”
Kate’s dull gray monocopter was a much rounder craft than Roland’s. It lowered itself next to the roof of the building and a passenger door unfolded, creating a walkway.
Cho ignored the gangster and stepped into the aircraft. The door closed and the craft ascended into the sky as security forces from the Mining Company arrived to investigate the scene.
As Roland’s monocopter rose from the rooftop, he heard and felt the explosion down below. It made him flinch in his seat. He looked at the pilot and turned around to look at Desre to see if their reactions matched his or if he merely imagined it.
“That’s new,” he remarked. Russians must be putting up a fight.
“Fuck you, Roland,” yelled Desre from the back. “You didn’t need to kill them.”
“You didn’t need to run away,” he yelled back.
“They were torturing me!” she screamed, her voice breaking.
“So melodramatic,” he dismissed, pulling a nicotine stick out of his inner jacket pocket and clamping it between his molars.
The rest of the trip was without words. Psions were listeners, and the universe spoke to them, sometimes about nearby events, sometimes about the thoughts of others. Quieting their minds was the skill that required the most honing in order to reap the benefits of their craft.
They flew southeast to the outskirts of Beijing, at the edge of the disc city, as it had become known, with its six circular tiers allowing a population of almost fifty million to reside there. All of it made possible by Chantech and its many diverse holdings.
There, an underground facility was housed, guarded by corpsec in bunkers and anti-aircraft guns. And it was there that Desre was deposited. She and her brother said nothing to each other as nothing needed to be said.
“Can this thing fly any faster?” nagged Tsenka, standing in the cockpit of Kate’s personal monocopter. The two pilot's seats were occupied by Drew and Kate, and Tsenka refused to sit outside of shouting distance as they tailed Roland’s aircraft.
Rotors and flaps on modern copters were still controlled mechanically with analog levers and control columns assisted by hydraulics. Attempts to use digital interfaces were fought by commercial pilots who insisted that adding a software layer was just another point of failure and that the tactile feedback of a stick was crucial to navigating turbulence and making precise maneuvers.
While Drew kept his hands on the controls for show, he was directly connected to the copter’s computer and could steer more precisely than any human. He could essentially feel every vibration and shudder that affected the craft via sensors and instrumentation feeding directly into his processor bus. He did not speed up at Tsenka’s request.
“We don’t want to get made,” said Kate. “We have a tracker on them.”
“Does this thing have missiles?” asked Cho. “We could shoot him down.”
“Missiles?” scoffed Kate. “Don’t you w-want to know anything?”
“He was there,” said Tsenka. “Right there. I can’t pass up any opportunity to take him out.”
Kate sighed. “Even if we attack him, his c-copter is much more advanced. Plus, at full speed, we wouldn’t be in range until he’s in Chantech territory. It’s going to be difficult just ge-getting around China. The closer we get to Beijing, the
tighter their detection nets will be.”
Tsenka looked out of the window, spotting a section of the Great Wall as the copter passed over.
“I will begin probing their network,” spoke Drew. “I am confident I can find us a path.”
“And,” added Kate, “the further we trail behind, the easier that will be. So sit down and relax.”
Kate brought up the feed from the tracker that she had stuck to the outside of Roland’s copter. It included a camera that could deliver images and sound back to her. She watched the scenery change from light to dark as the sun went down. Drew also had a stream of the feed running. He noted an important change in their quarry’s behavior and looked to Kate.
“I see it,” she said without looking back at him, then spun her chair around to face Cho. “Okay, Tsenka, he stopped at Beijing briefly, and now he’s moving again.”
“He’s going to Baoding,” said Tsenka.
“What?”
“That appears likely based on the trajectory,” noted Drew.
“A man on the roof said he heard that name,” revealed Cho.
Kate chewed on the tip of her thumb, considering her options. “The tracker is still active,” she began. “Roland dropped his sister off b-before changing course, and I want her.”
Tsenka stood. “Kate, she’s nobody.”
“That’s not true,” argued Kate. “She has to have s-secrets and what’s more, she is primed to defect.”
“If he dropped her off,” Tsenka reasoned, “then she is back in custody.”
“You’re right,” admitted Kate. “We didn’t even know they had a facility there. If we can get in, it would be a trove of intel.”
Tsenka grabbed a ceiling-mounted handhold as the craft shook. “Kate, please. Right now, that piece of shit is headed to a low-sec city. This was a lucky break. We have to catch him there.”
Kate looked to Drew. “What’s our ETA?”
“Seven minutes,” reported Drew.
“You need patience,” said Kate. “We know little about this man and the corp he works for. You’d be going in blind.”