by Jake Elwood
When he caught his first glimpse of the opera house's distinct roofline he dropped flat and wriggled across the roof until he reached the low parapet around the perimeter. Grinning at his own antics, he sat on the sand and peered over the top of the little wall.
Lights shone on the opera house roof, not many but enough that he wouldn't need the light-amplifiers. A gap of three meters or so separated the two buildings. Jerry kept himself still for a full fifteen minutes, watching the other roof, looking for movement, for anything that seemed out of place.
Nothing.
The spyder operated on a tiny wire, far thinner than a human hair. He clipped the spool to his belt, pulled out four or five meters of wire, and coiled it by his knees. Then he took the tiny robot between his thumb and forefinger.
Built like a spider, the machine was no bigger than his thumbnail. That was from the tip of one outstretched metal leg to another. The body of the robot was a lump three millimeters across. It was almost weightless, highly sophisticated, and remarkably tough.
Jerry found the cable by touch, measured off a meter or so from the spider, and rose to his knees. He lifted his arm high above his head and swung his hand in a horizontal circle.
Lobbing the spyder was harder than it looked. Wire and machine had practically no mass. Only experience told him how fast to spin his arm and how hard to throw. The spyder was so light that air resistance was a major factor. He could picture it in his mind, trailing far behind his spinning arm as he swung.
At last he let go, flinging the little robot into the darkness in the direction of the opera house roof. He thought he heard a tiny click as the robot landed, but it might have been his imagination. He couldn't see the spyder or the gossamer strand of the wire in the darkness. There was only one way to tell if his throw had been successful.
The eyepiece fit snugly in front of his right eye, held in place by a strap around his head. He settled himself down with his back to the parapet, his head below the top so he was invisible from the opera house, and turned on the video feed.
The spyder was on the opera house roof, and it had already righted itself. Jerry could see the parapet he was hiding behind, a dark bar with a slightly fainter darkness above it. He slid on the control glove and turned the spider around.
The sky showed as a dark band slightly paler than the rooftop. Lights shone here and there, illuminating some stretches of the roof, concealing others in deep shadow. Jerry shrugged to himself and sent the spyder marching straight forward.
The view bobbed and jiggled as the spyder's tiny metal legs carried it along. The tiniest irregularity in the roof became a formidable barrier from the little robot's point of view, but it could climb almost as nimbly as a real spider. Jerry skirted around a dormer window and headed the spyder for a structure like a cupola in the center of the roof.
The spyder was passing a gable when something caught his eye. He backed the spyder up, then turned it and sent it forward to investigate. There was a flat boxy shape just under the eave of the gable, a smooth surface that shone a pale gray in the wan light from a security light on the building next door. "Aha," Jerry mumbled, sure that he'd found some security device not mentioned in Lark's schematics.
Closer and closer the spyder moved. Jerry estimated the little robot was less than a meter away when he stopped it. His back against the parapet next door, his other eye squeezed shut, he stared into the eyepiece and tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
Flat panels no bigger than the palm of a man's hand were attached at four different points around the front of the gable. They were featureless blocks, painted the same color as the dormer, visible only because they were smoother, shinier. Under different lighting conditions they would be all but invisible.
There was no way to tell what they were. He had one idea, but it was preposterous. He racked his brain, trying to think of something else, telling himself that his imagination was running away from him. But his mind kept returning to the same thought.
He was looking at demolition charges. They were positioned to completely obliterate the front of the gable. A commando with an antigrav harness would be able to drop right in.
He tried to remember Lark's schematics. Was this gable visible from inside? Would someone be able to drop directly to the floor of the hall four stories below, or would the breach open into an attic of some sort? No one would use demolition charges to rush into an attic. It would mean he was overreacting.
"There's no 'if' about it," he told himself. "You're overreacting."
Still, that orb was incredibly valuable. He chuckled at the thought that he might have stumbled into the middle of someone else's plan to steal the thing. Whoever it was, they were a bit more serious than he was.
"Well, if it's explosives, there'll be a remote detonator. Let’s see if we can find it." He sent the spyder creeping forward, looking for a telltale bump or bulge that could indicate the presence of tiny electronic components.
The spyder reached the junction of the horizontal roof and the vertical face of the gable and reared up, front feet scrambling for purchase on the wall it faced. The spyder tilted, pointed directly up, and Jerry caught a glimmer of light in the middle of his eyepiece. He froze the spyder and zoomed in.
The glimmer expanded until it became the lens of a tiny camera, peering down at the spyder from the peak of the gable roof.
Jerry jerked his head back reflexively, then swore as his head banged on the parapet behind him. There was a chance he was looking at a security camera put in place by the opera house, but he didn't think so. This camera was positioned to keep watch on those four mysterious rectangles stuck to the front of the gable.
"Time to call it a night," he muttered, and backed the spyder up. He was turning the robot around when motion up above caught his eye.
A little flying robot came skimming over the rooftop. It was exactly the kind of machine Jerry had envisioned for his heist, a robot smaller than a dinner plate, designed for delivering very small packages in an urban environment. This one was mounted with cameras.
Jerry cursed and sent the spyder scurrying across the rooftop. The camera on the spyder was at the wrong angle to show the flying robot, not once it got close. Jerry sent the spyder racing for the edge of the roof, hoping it could disappear in the shadows before the hunting robot spotted it.
The flying bot appeared in his eyepiece, and he grinned. It was flying low over the rooftop, well ahead of the spyder, clearly hunting and failing to find the little machine.
He started to heave a sigh of relief. And then the truth hit him.
The flying machine was following the wire.
He swore, then shoved the eyepiece up onto his forehead and pulled the spool of wire from his belt. He started the auto-winder, hoping he was in time. It would be rough on the spyder, being dragged over the roof by the fast-moving wire, but it might be quick enough to evade the hunting machine.
In a matter of moments the spyder came clattering over the parapet and stopped, pressed against the side of the spool. Jerry shoved spyder and spool into a thigh pocket, stuffed the eyepiece in after, and raised his head a cautious few centimeters over the top of the parapet.
The flying robot was coming straight at him.
He swore, ducked back down, and paused, thinking furiously. Judging by the speed of the moving machine, it ought to be reaching his hiding place right about …
Jerry sprang up and saw the robot in mid-air less than two meters away. It braked sharply, but not sharply enough. He lunged forward, his thighs against the parapet, leaning farther out than was safe, and got his fingers around the front of the machine. A quick swing of his arm smashed the thing against the wall of the building, and he let go, sinking back down and hearing the robot clatter against the wall as it fell.
With any luck, whoever was guiding the machine had gotten no more than a blurry glimpse of his face. The key now was to give them no more opportunities to identify him. He rose into a crouch and started a
cross the roof at a run.
He wasn't trying to dodge. The idea that someone might shoot at him hadn't even crossed his mind. He simply took a step to the left to avoid the bulk of an air vent, then almost fell in shock when sparks and chunks of shrapnel burst from the vent. He threw himself into a flat dive behind the vent, then scrambled sideways, one hand fumbling for a nonexistent gun, while his brain was still catching up with what he'd seen.
Smoke curled from the sleeve of his coat. A laser shot, then. He remembered the shrapnel. Not a laser. Coherent energy blast? Whatever it was, the shot had come close enough to scare him green.
No more shots came his way, to his dismay. Whoever was after him, they were neither foolish nor impulsive. He would get no more chances to trace the origin of the shot, not without risking his life.
He put a hand on the controls of the antigrav harness and turned on the safety feature. If the harness fell more than a couple of meters it would activate itself and bring him drifting safely to ground level. He could forget about the harness now, and concentrate on leaping from the nearest edge of the roof.
Operating more on instinct than strategy, he sprang up, took two running steps, and dove over a bank of chimneys. No shots came his way as he landed hands-first, tucked, rolled, and came up on one knee. He was squirming back when a shot finally came, carefully aimed, passing through the narrow gap between a couple of chimneys. He felt heat on his scalp as the shot passed close over his head.
"Sewer biscuits!" He made himself leap up when all he wanted to do was cower. The hardest time to line up a shot was the instant after you pulled the trigger. Another shot came at him, but it splattered flames on a chimney behind him.
At least he knew the rough direction of the sniper now. The opera house was directly north of him. The shots were coming from somewhere north and east. That would be the Interstellar Mercantile building, most likely. His second choice for a rooftop, it was higher than the roof he was on, but the gap to the opera house was wider. He chuckled grimly to himself as he imagined what might have happened had he picked a different roof.
There was a ridge in the roof, a drop of fifteen centimeters or so, and Jerry flung himself down on his stomach. He was hidden from the sniper, but it was poor cover. He was exposed from every other vantage point and unable to rise from his stomach. However, he'd be able to wriggle forward on his stomach to the west edge of the roof, then hop up and dive over the parapet.
So long as the sniper didn't have backup. One shooter walking calmly across the rooftop with a handgun would be able to finish him off with ease.
Grunting with the effort of keeping himself flat, he worked the spyder and the eyepiece out of his pocket, then got the eyepiece over his eye. He didn't unspool any wire, just poked the spool up over the ridge so the spyder could see.
No one was walking across the roof, which was a relief. Then he spotted the hoverbikes. There were two of them, running lights shining brightly, sweeping in fast over the opera house.
Chapter 3
Jerry sprang to his feet, and a shot passed in front of him, missing him by a comfortable margin. The sniper had been doing what he would have done, aiming well ahead of where he'd disappeared, assuming he'd be crawling forward. He ran, analyzing at a completely unconscious level how long the shooter would take to line up another shot. He decided to duck early – the sniper was very good – and threw himself forward in a tumbling roll. A blast of energy passed above him as he tumbled. A moment later he was on his feet and running again.
A quick glance over his shoulder showed him the bikes splitting up, one bike swinging wide to cover the side of the building ahead of him. If he jumped he'd be an easy target, floating helplessly toward the street, unable to maneuver.
The other bike came straight at him. Whatever he was going to do, he had to do it quickly.
He changed course, veering left. There was a patio, fenced off for privacy, taking up almost a quarter of the rooftop, and he headed for the far corner of the fence. It would give him cover from the sniper. He jinked back and forth as he ran, and was rewarded by another near miss.
A moment later agony erupted in his right arm and he realized it wasn't a miss at all. Adrenaline had masked the pain for a moment, but he'd taken a hit. Well, the arm was still pumping as he ran. It couldn’t be too bad.
The corner of the fence was just ahead. If he was the shooter, he'd aim for that corner and line up a nice, steady shot. It was the one place the target had to pass. Jerry sprinted, then jumped, brought his feet up, and slid past the fence on his backside. A frustrated shot burned a hole in the fence as he slid out of the sniper's sight and into safety.
Not complete safety. Half a dozen holes erupted in the fence above him, and bits of plastic rained down. He scrambled forward and winced as he saw energy blasts scorching the rooftop just behind him. The shooter, firing blindly through two layers of fencing, had missed him by a second.
He rose to his feet and ran to the edge of the roof, wondering if he could survive the five seconds or so it would take to drift to street level. Or he could deactivate the safety feature, jump, and …
A bulky vehicle loomed in the darkness below him, no more than a story below, drifting along at a slow walking pace. Jerry had no idea what it was, but for a brief moment the hoverbikes were not in sight. He jumped. The harness kicked in half way down, and he almost missed the back end of the vehicle. Then his feet thumped against metal, he spent a bad moment teetering for balance, and the harness, detecting that he was no longer falling, deactivated itself.
Jerry threw himself flat, making himself harder to see, harder to hit. The odds that they would fail to spot him were slim, but stranger things happened in combat. Metal creaked and clicked beneath him, and he caught a whiff of rotting organics. He was on a garbage wagon, making its ponderous way through the city streets while smaller collector robots gathered trash and dumped it into the bin.
The wagon floated through an intersection and Jerry sat up, looking around. A bus came in at right angles, moving much faster than the garbage wagon, one story down. The bus came to a stop while a hovercar passed in front of it, then crossed under the garbage wagon, quickly picking up speed.
Jerry flung himself sideways, dropped, and fumbled frantically at the antigrav harness. The harness started to slow his fall, and then his thumb found the release button and he dropped. His chest hit the roof of the bus, his legs dangled, and he scrabbled for a purchase as he slid. The bus was moving quite quickly now, the street was two long, dark stories below, and the antigrav harness was turned off.
His fingers caught the edge of the bus roof and he hung there, wondering what to do next. Something dug into his ribs and he looked down. There was a hatch on the back of the bus with a metal ridge that stuck out several centimeters. He took a deep breath, heaved upward with his hands, and brought a knee up onto the ridge. His body wanted to fall backward, and he clung desperately with his fingers. One hand found a seam in the metal just thick enough for his fingertips to find purchase. He held on with that hand and reached the other hand down to the ridge under his knee. A quick heave and he got a toe onto the ridge.
Then, at the worst possible time, the bus started to turn. The back end swung wide, and centrifugal force pushed Jerry back and out.
There was an awful instant when his hand popped free of the little seam and he balanced impossibly on one knee and the toes of one foot. He slapped both palms down on the horizontal surface of the roof, feeling the metal slide under his palms as inertia drove him backward.
Then the bus finished its turn, the awful backward pressure vanished, and Jerry's fingertips found the seam in the metal. He drew himself forward until he was properly balanced, then heaved himself up and onto the roof the bus.
He lay flat on his back, keeping his profile small, minimizing the noise he was making. The last thing he needed was a passenger inside the bus calling the police. If the bus stopped he might be shot before the cops arrived, and if he got hi
mself arrested there would be paperwork. Aside from the hassle it would give his mysterious opponents a way to track him.
The dark sky raced past above him. He reached over with his left hand and explored the wound to his right arm. The shot had hit him just above the elbow, burning deep into the muscle. The arm still worked, so he knew the bone was intact. The wound was big, as wide as three of his fingers and almost as deep. He hissed with pain as he touched it, then drew his fingers back, wet with blood.
He squirmed sideways and looked at the roof of the bus where he'd been lying. There was blood, but not an excessive amount. The shot had partially cauterized the wound. It ought to be fixable, so long as he could avoid further pursuit.
The bus turned another corner, and Jerry lifted his head, watching the empty air behind the bus. It looked as if he'd lost his pursuers. All he needed now was for the bus to stop to pick up or drop off passengers. He'd be able to slide down from the roof and slip away. He'd have to decide whether to head for a hospital or try to find a private med bay.
Reflected lights flashed on the side of an office tower behind the bus. The lights brightened, then vanished for an instant just before a pair of hover bikes swept around the corner.
Jerry swore. The bus was moving fast enough that a fall would injure him even with the antigrav harness, and he was an easy target on the bus or in the street. Maybe, he thought, they wouldn't shoot. Maybe they'd follow the bus, keep him in sight. That would give him time to plan his next move.
A line of fire blazed out from a stubby turret on the nose of one bike, narrowly missing him. He rolled sideways, keenly aware of how little space he had to maneuver, and looked forward, wondering if the blast had killed someone a block or two away.
He saw an overpass ahead, a covered walkway a story up from the bus. He had more than enough room to clear it, even if he stood up. The bus rushed toward it, and Jerry rose to his knees. He had learned long since to trust his instincts. Some part of his mind, far outpacing conscious thought, had come up with a plan. All Jerry had to do was mind his subconscious and see what happened.