"You're no good to me dead, Grave Maker," she said firmly.
"Not until Greyson's dead too," Oscar replied.
He braced himself on the wall and leaned into the shaft, peering around. His goggles compensated for the darkness after a moment and he saw a ladder on the left wall. He shuffled over, hooked one arm around the edge of the elevator doors, and reached for the rungs.
"Got it," he said.
"Good, now hold still," Lynn replied. "I'll use you as a bridge."
He looked back at her fearfully.
She laughed. "Only joking. What are you waiting for? Climb your ass up there, Old Man."
Oscar smirked and started climbing, with Lynn following close behind.
Oscar moved slowly. He was exhausted already. His adrenal gland seemed to have run dry. No juice left to keep him going. He decided to take his time, climbing as slowly as possible, hoping his battered body would mount some sort of comeback. But the journey was over too quickly; he reached the doors at level 6 before he knew it.
"Here, use this," said Lynn, passing a thin-bladed but sturdy combat knife up to him.
He jammed the blade between the doors, shoved it all the way to the hilt, and levered the handle with all his might. The blade flexed and the doors popped open. Grunting and sweating, Oscar shoved them wide enough to fit through. With a deep breath, he leaped over from the ladder and caught the edge of the door with his hand, hauling himself onto level 6.
Lynn was close behind. He grabbed her arm and helped her through, though she didn't need it. It made him feel a little better about how disappointingly human his performance had been thus far.
"Hallway's deserted," he remarked. "Where's the Unit now?"
Lynn checked. "The same place. She hasn't moved much. They're in some big room at the edge of the building... this way."
She gestured down the hall and they went, lifting their guns and preparing for a firefight.
But none came. The hallway was eerily silent. The lights were burning bright, but there was no one around. Oscar could hear the individual fibers compressing beneath his feet as he strode down the long, narrow rug that ran along the center of the floor.
"Maybe you were right," he said. "About Greyson not having many guards. Maybe we took most of them out already."
"Maybe all of them," Lynn suggested.
"Do you really believe that?"
"No. Not at all. But a girl can dream."
"Even a synth girl? I thought you all just float in the data sphere."
Lynn shrugged. "It's a bunch of random information that your mind tries to make sense of. In that way, I think it's pretty much the same thing as your dreams."
"Fair enough," said Oscar. He felt almost comfortable now, strolling in a rather languid posture. There was a growing sense that they might have already won, that the building was theirs. All they had to do now was face the Unit, and Lynn had her EMP grenade if it came to that. Oscar didn't want it to come to that, but the point was they could beat the Unit one way or the other.
Still, in the back of his mind, he knew that the feeling was wrong. Greyson had more tricks up his sleeve. He must. This was too easy.
"We're getting close," said Lynn. "And still... nothing. No more guards. I don't like it."
Oscar grunted his agreement. "But we don't have a choice. Greyson's in there."
She nodded vigorously, and seemed to turn a corner in her mind. Her doubts evaporated and she walked forward confidently. Oscar had to increase his pace to keep up.
They rounded a bend in the hall and saw the room ahead of them. It was flanked by two armed figures. Oscar jumped in fear, taking aim with his gun. But then he realized they were just statues of Roman soldiers, poised and ready for battle. He had heard Greyson was a bit of an art snob at times. This room must be his private quarters, the place he slept when he had to spend the night at this facility.
The doors were shut, but no one opened them as Oscar and Lynn approached. The doors were simple. Just a knob and a peephole. Old school. No keycard reader, no sophisticated button pad.
"The Unit is just inside to the left," Lynn said quietly. "We’ll have to focus fire on her immediately. Otherwise she’ll likely tear us in half. Once she's out of the way, we can grab Greyson."
Oscar nodded, changing his submachine gun out for a combat shotgun. He figured it would do more damage against the android.
"Ready?" Lynn asked.
Oscar considered lying, but decided against it. All they had now was each other. The trust they had built as they fought their way to the top of this building to whatever hell awaited them on the far side of this door.
"No," he said. "Not really. That thing would have killed me if it wasn’t for you. I don’t think I’ll ever be truly ready to face something like that again. But I’ve got your back Lynn. We’ve made it this far. Too late to turn back now."
"Well, then, let's get in there and take care of business,” Lynn said firmly.
The business of dying, maybe, Oscar had time to have the thought but not to voice it. Lynn was already charging through the door and he had no choice but to run in with her. She went low and Oscar stayed standing; they twisted left, toward where they knew the Unit must be standing.
And there she was, seemingly powered down behind a plate glass wall. She stood frozen, her head slightly bowed, her eyes closed and no longer emitting their sinister red glow. Lynn let out a few shots, but the bullets shattered uselessly against the bulletproof glass.
"Well, that won't work," she said.
Oscar started looking around, wary for the presence of more guards. The room was fairly small, a lot more reserved than he would have expected. He saw no one at all. Which was at first a relief, then a source of horror.
The only other area was the small glass enclosure where the Unit stood, apparently charging her power cells.
"Greyson isn't here," Oscar said.
Lynn looked around too. "No, he isn't. Shit. Well, he has to be somewhere in the building..."
Something dawned on her. Her eyebrows went up.
"The basement!" she said.
"We were already down there," Oscar replied.
"We were at Sublevel A," she said. "There are more floors beneath that. Greyson must be down there. Some kind of bunker, maybe."
Turning toward the inert Unit, Lynn let out a sigh.
"Stupid," she said. "I wasn't thinking. Obviously the bitch needed repairs and charging after what I did to her with that stun grenade..."
She reached for the EMP and held it in her hand, staring wistfully down at it, as though trying to figure out whether to open up the Unit's enclosure and roll it in. Oscar didn't say anything, but he didn't think it was the best play. An EMP here might cut the power to the whole building. And if Greyson was in an underground bunker, the power cut might seal him in. Make him inaccessible. He would have manual controls on the inside to let himself out, but the latches on the outside would be useless.
Lynn seemed to be on the verge of making a decision about what to do next. The Unit's head suddenly jerked upward, her eyes red like laser pointers as she came to life and started looking around. Behind her, a bank of screens streamed with data and diagnostic information. A series of checks were being run, confirming that the android was good to go. Then she marched forward, approaching the wall.
The glass wall might have stopped bullets, but it was no match for the Unit. She smashed through it as though it were made of thin plastic, not even bothering to take the time to open the door. She was ten feet from Oscar and Lynn. Closing fast.
Oscar’s heart pounded with dread as he lifted his shotgun. He would wait until she was close enough to hit her with the full spread. Though he still wasn’t sure if even that would stop her.
"You go for Greyson!" Lynn barked. "I'll deal with her,” she continued as she slid the EMP grenade back into its pouch and charged forward.
"You sure?!" Oscar asked, feeling a bit guilty that he was somewhat relieved that L
ynn had volunteered to take on the Unit alone.
“Get the fuck out of here, Grave Maker!” Lynn roared as she and the Unit clashed and grappled with each other like a pair of vicious jaguars.
Lynn used the Unit’s momentum to hip toss her to the floor, but the android berserker was back to her feet within seconds.
“Go!” Lynn shrieked at Oscar as she used her sword and a series of graceful tornado kicks to keep the Unit at bay.
She was right. There was no time for a conversation.
Oscar bolted, out through the door and down the hall. He unlocked the stairwell door and fled down as fast as his old, aching knees would let him, hopping into the space and hammering down onto the landings. He felt ashamed at leaving Lynn. But he knew she made the right call. She was the one who had a snowball's chance at taking the Unit down. And if push came to shove, she had the EMP.
Meanwhile, there was a bastard billionaire to kill.
Oscar forgot about pain. He forgot about tiredness, about fear, even about anger. The one thing left in his mind as he ran down the stairs was loyalty. To Catalea, to Lynn, to anyone left in the world who wasn't a greedy, bigoted scumbag. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it, or die trying.
When three more guards burst into the stairwell, Oscar didn't flinch. They were young guys, fast and strong. They were gung-ho, full of energy and the confidence that only youthful naivety can bring. They thought they were doing the right thing. Oscar hated to put them down, but he didn't hesitate.
It was fast. One second they were there, running toward him. In the next, they were on the floor bleeding. Oscar barely even realized what he had done, as the demons of his dark past had taken over his mind, turning him back into the stone-cold assassin that he had once been. He was a blur, a bat out of hell, flying down the stairs. He would pay for it later, in pain and anguish... if he was even still alive. Right now, it didn't matter.
At level 1, the ground floor, he kept going and descended into the murky depths of the sub-levels. To his surprise the stairs kept going, past sub-level A, where the machines that kept the building running toiled away in shadow. Sub-level B, C, D, E... Oscar kept going. None of those doors felt right to him. He had no idea what they contained, probably secretive labs where Greyson and his colleagues did their sick research. They just didn't feel like the sort of places Greyson would hide.
The man was a lot of things. A billionaire, a genius who excelled in every endeavor he tried, seemingly without effort. A businessman, a crook. But above all, deep down, he was a rat. And where did a rat go when it was in danger? Deep. Deeper. As deep as it could go, hiding where the sun never shined.
Wherever this stairwell went, wherever it ended up, Oscar knew it would lead him to where he needed to be.
CHAPTER 16
◆◆◆
For a while Lynn held her own against the Unit, but eventually the powerful machine bodyguard finally got a good grip on her and effortlessly hurled her through a pane of bulletproof glass.
It took a tremendous amount of force to break that material. More than any organic human could withstand. Their organs would rupture, their bones would crack, they'd suffer spinal injuries from whiplash. Lynn crashed through, feeling a thousand different pains as she landed hard on the floor of the enclosure. She sat up, breathing deep, expanding her ribcage to push out any big pieces of glass that had lodged in her torso. Reaching behind her, she felt the shredded meat of her back and the exposed synthetic skeleton beneath. The pain was bad but the anger was worse.
Lynn stood up and bled, her purplish synthetic fluids leaking from her deep wounds like grape juice. The Unit watched her, waiting. The android had no reason to move, to strike. It had Lynn cornered. The fight was already won.
Reaching to her bandolier, Lynn depressed a comms button.
◆◆◆
"Grave Maker, come in."
The signal was choppy this far underground. Oscar immediately stopped and ascended a level.
"Copy," he said.
"I can't beat her… she’s too strong… I'm going to have to use the EMP."
"No," Oscar said quickly. "Just keep fighting. The EMP will kill you anyway! You might as well try."
"This is the only way,” Lynn protested. “If I keep fighting, she'll just break me in half. Then she'll come for you."
"I'll just have to take care of Greyson before she gets here. I'm pretty far down already."
"Forget it, Oscar. It's my life. I've been going after the son-of-a-bitch a lot longer than you have. I'm going to have my little victory up here. Suck it up."
Oscar tried to say something more, but his words fell on deaf ears. Lynn had switched her comms off.
"Damn it!" Oscar growled. He started climbing again, entertaining the idea of going to help Lynn, but then he realized how stupid that was.
A moment later, the lights flickered and shut off. She had done it.
The backup generators quickly flipped on and Oscar was back in business. Feeling empty and cold, he continued down the stairwell. With each level, he felt as though he were sinking deeper and deeper into a darkness he would never escape from. A pall of sorrow suddenly fell over him. Doubts. Fears. Pain. Everything returned. In silence, alone, Oscar moved down the stairwell in more of a controlled fall than an actual jog.
Finally, he was at the end. No more stairs. Looking to his left, he saw a door marked Sub-level T. That was as far as the place went, for now.
He twisted the door handle, expecting it to be locked. It wasn't. Oscar strode through and found himself in a sort of locker room. Scrub suits were hung everywhere. Most of them had names. There was a dispenser for paper masks, a series of hooks where face shields and goggles had been hung. Oscar figured he was covered enough, and kept going.
He soon entered a lab. It was a big space, dark and shadowy, but there was a distant light glowing somewhere. Oscar followed it like a lost sailor, using the compensations of his goggles to avoid crashing into the screens that had been set up around individual workspaces.
Coming around the edge of a screen, he saw a fully suited man standing by a table, his back turned. It was DeAndre Greyson. The hairnet over the neat beard gave it away. On the table, broken into a hundred pieces, were a series of synthetic body parts. Most synths started life like this, a bunch of pieces put together. But this was not that. This was some sort of sick experiment.
Oscar took another step to get a better look. With a shock, he saw the head and face of the synth. It was Catalea. Her eyes were closed. Her face completely still… like a doll. She was dead, or as close to it as a synth could get.
"You bastard," Oscar snarled.
The man at the table didn't flinch or turn toward him. He just stayed there, fidgeting away with some sort of tool.
"I figured I’d be seeing you again," he said, voice muffled by the net and mask but otherwise calm. “I didn’t expect you so soon though. And I certainly wouldn’t have guessed you’d make it this far. Color me impressed."
"I had help," Oscar said, his hand shaking as he raised his weapon.
“Where is your help now, amigo?” Greyson said just as the lights suddenly shut off.
Oscar flinched and narrowed his eyes. The smart goggles automatically compensated, and he saw the figure at the table, still standing just as before.
"Who says I need help?"
The figure at the table turned, pulling away its mask and net. The face of DeAndre Greyson stared straight at Oscar through the dark, his eyes seeming to glow in the half night vision.
Without a word, Oscar charged forward to attack. Forget the guns; he wanted blood on his hands. Pulling out his own combat knife, he plunged the blade toward Greyson's throat.
Surprisingly, the thirty-two-year-old billionaire parried the strike with incredible speed and strength, sending a surge of pain up Oscar’s arm. The knife flew away and crashed to the floor. Oscar reached toward his belt for a pistol. He had it nearly out of its holster before a kick from Greyson sen
t it away. How was the son of a bitch so good? And how could he see a thing in this darkness?
Oscar had seemingly lost the upper hand, but it didn’t take long for the veteran hitter to realize that Greyson was far too aggressive in his anticipation of incoming strikes. So, Oscar feinted a swing with his right fist, pulling Greyson's attention toward it. Then he feinted again with his left, making Greyson look back. Then the real strike came, a knee driven up into the bastard's crotch. Greyson hopped backward, trying to recover his stance, but Oscar gave him no time; he flew forward with a vicious right-handed haymaker cocked behind his head, pounding a fist straight into Greyson's face. He felt the nose give way, maybe a few teeth, and Greyson hit the floor hard.
"It's over, you sick son-of-a-bitch," Oscar said, now firmly gripping his massive revolver with his right hand. "I've got you, and all the money in the world couldn’t stop me from killing you now."
Greyson flipped over onto his hands and knees and started crawling across the floor. Oscar followed, holding off for now. He was curious to see where the man would go.
Greyson pushed through a door and entered a small office with a bar. Using a stool for support, he stood up and smiled at Oscar through his ruined smile.
"Just one last drink," he said. "How about it? Send me out of this world with a belt of cognac, at least."
Oscar thought for a second, then nodded. As Greyson turned to grab a bottle, Oscar lifted his revolver and shot him through the head.
The feeling of victory lasted until Oscar saw sparks shooting out of the gaping bullet wound. It was a goddamned android. An early model service droid, if his eyes didn't fail him. Now that the goggles were fully compensated, he could see that the thing's skin looked lumpy and waxy, like modeling clay. It was passable work in the dark, but it must have been done quickly.
Which meant Greyson was desperate.
And also that he was still alive down here, probably up to no good.
Darkside Dreams - The Complete First Series Page 31