The Cardinal Rule

by Cate Dermody

  “He knows about the Sicarii,” the second man said with a shrug. “We do as laowai Parker says.”

  Alisha made a slow fist and punched without speed at the metal rack she hid beneath. It made no sound as her knuckles contacted the heavy steel, and didn’t do her any injury, but the touch seemed to rebound inside her, lending her the strength that the gleaming material had.

  Frank Reichart was alive somewhere inside the factory. Personal feelings aside, the CIA wanted him alive, and he was certainly going to be last on the list of people the workers would save if the building went up in flames.

  Alisha rolled out from beneath the assembly line treads and went to rescue her ex.

  Chapter 17

  He doesn’t deserve you, Leesh.

  Alisha hung upside down from the pipes again, a full level deeper into the earth than she’d been. The vents in the factory were much wider and easier to traverse than the bunker’s had been, for which Alisha was both grateful and mildly annoyed. The irritation came largely from the vague idea that rescuing ex-fiancés ought somehow to be more difficult than stealing top-secret plans; the plans, after all, couldn’t possibly appreciate the trouble she’d gone to.

  Not that Reichart was likely to either, she reminded herself.

  The second underground level of the factory was much smaller, the vents she’d followed angling in so sharply that it’d been a near thing keeping herself from just sliding down and bursting out through a grate. Alisha was almost certain the guards would shoot first and ask questions later. She would have.

  There were secure offices beneath the factory, computer labs as extensive as the ones at the bunker, and at least one room with neither ventilation nor any other sort of access besides a lone door.

  Odds were good that Reichart was behind that door.

  He didn’t deserve her, Alisha thought again as she studied both ends of the hall she dangled over. Then again, he didn’t have her, either, so maybe it all worked out. She frowned, trying not to let it turn into a smile as she decided not to think too hard about her line of logic.

  She’d finished her rounds on the first level, planting C4 in enough spots to bring the military production facility to its knees. And, as she’d worked, she’d realized something else: the plant wasn’t functional yet. Not for mass production, at least, although she suspected the droids she’d seen in Kazakhstan had been largely constructed there. Still, there was no oil, no last vestiges of heat, no dings or scratches in any of the equipment to suggest it had ever been run. She wasn’t stopping an already-producing system, but rather destroying it before it began.

  It lit a kernel of hope inside her, the slightest flicker of chance that a setback this severe, this early in the drone army’s developmental stage, might bankrupt the whole process. It was a slender thread to hang idealism on, but it was more than she’d had.

  Alisha unwound from the pipes with slow, deliberate actions, as graceful as a gymnast as she dropped to the concrete floor. The faint thunk of her weight hitting the ground, knees bent to absorb the impact, was swallowed by the hallway, though she held herself still an extra instant or two, listening hard. Then she darted forward, tempted to take one of the last C4 charges and simply blow the door apart.

  Now that would be an entrance. She grinned at the knob, testing it quickly, unsurprised to find it locked. There was no keypad on this door; presumably Brandon—or whomever had commissioned the underground facilities—assumed it was safe enough, two floors beneath ground and widely unknown. But rather than risk the sound of an explosion, she delved into her backpack again, coming out with solid steel lock picks.

  There was a certain earthy joy to picking locks the old-fashioned way. Alisha had never broken herself of the habit of closing her eyes, head tilted to the side as she listened and felt through the cool steel. She rarely remembered to breathe until the tumblers gave their satisfying rumble of clicks, and a smile of delight split her face as she tested the door a second time and the knob turned easily.

  She opened the door a fraction of an inch, listening; there were no voices within. Satisfied, she pushed it open farther.

  White light flooded her eyes. Reichart bellowed, “Look out!” even as a shadow flickered through the light. Alisha flung her arms up, crossed at the forearm, and caught the broken leg of a chair in the X. Another flash in the brightness: the shadowed expression of surprise on a man’s face as she grabbed the end of the leg and pulled it straight between her hands, turning it into a blockade against the next hit. She stepped forward, bringing her knee up sharply into his groin, and caught the man by the hair as he doubled. One step to the side, and she used her own momentum to crash him into the door she’d just come through. He slithered to the floor and Alisha turned back, the chair leg held as a weapon.

  There was no one else in the white-lit room. No hostiles, at least: Reichart, shirtless, was clamped to a chair, a smile of appreciation crooked across his bruised face. “Guard has the keys,” he said, which struck Alisha as both ungrateful and entirely appropriate. She turned back to the man she’d disabled, tugging keys off his belt and pushing him into the corner. The overhead light—a bare bulb, probably a hundred and fifty watts—glared hard enough to make her squint as she hurried to unshackle Reichart’s wrists, then handed him the keys so he could free his own ankles. Alisha ducked beneath the light to crack the door open a few centimeters, checking the hall.

  “Really went all out, didn’t they? Did they say, ‘Ve hoff vays of making you tok?’” She heard Reichart’s chuckle as he stood, and barely cast him a glance as he grabbed the guard’s ankle and dragged him into the chair he’d just vacated. Within seconds the guard was sagging in the chair, locked in place. “I took the vents in. You up to climbing out that way?”

  “Do we have another choice?”

  “Sure. It just might get us killed.”

  Reichart chuckled again, the sound more like a groan this time. Alisha cast a more careful look over her shoulder at him, taking in his injuries. His face was swollen, bruised, the sharp angle of his cheekbone more than blurred with mottled purple flesh. There was water in his hair, curls half dry and for once completely untamed, making him look younger. His torso was bruised and burned in places, telltale marks that made it unnecessary for Alisha to look around for the electric nodes that had left the burns. Nothing looked broken, not even the delicate bones in his fingers, though the back of his left hand had a deep red burn on it. “You okay?” she asked, more gentleness in her voice than she’d meant to let slip.

  She could see pride coming down over him like a cloak, straightening him out of a weary slouch. “I’ll make it.”

  “That’s not what I asked.” Alisha bent to pull the tacky rubber-soled shoes off her feet, tossing them to Reichart. “It’s all I’ve got that’ll provide you with any kind of friction for climbing the vents.”

  Reichart slid one over his right hand, flexing his fingers inside it. “Not much to it.”

  “That’s the idea. Come on.” Alisha slipped out the door, stopping across the hall to make a stirrup of her hands. “Vent’s above the pipes.”

  “You sure they’re going to hold me?”

  “No,” Alisha said, “but this is my rescue. Come on, go.”

  “You should go first.”

  “Reichart.” Alisha set her jaw. “I can’t lift you from up there, but you can lift me if need be. Just shut up and go.”

  He hesitated one moment longer, looking down at her with an inscrutable expression. Then his lip curled and he stepped into the stirrup she’d made. Alisha grunted, pushing through her thighs to give him a boost of several inches. He grabbed the pipes and swung up, alarming creaking resonating down the hall. “The vent’s to your left,” Alisha hissed. “Go!”

  “Alisha—”

  “Go!”

  The echoes of his quick scramble and the soft clang of the vent cover closing sounded like the walls of Jericho falling, to Alisha’s ears. She crouched, ready to make her own le
ap for the pipes, even as she listened with all her being for warning footsteps down the hall.

  And they came: booted feet, running on concrete. Raised voices called out warnings in Chinese. At least two, possibly more; Alisha crumpled her face for an instant, trying to count individual footfalls and pick out voices. Three. She swore voicelessly and bolted down the hall.

  Toward the guards.

  She met them at the nearest corner, her body coiled in preparation to move. The first of them skidded around the corner and she lashed out, a closed fist smashing into his larynx. He dropped with the horrifying silence of someone whose breath has been taken, clutching at his throat.

  His compatriots nearly trampled him. Alisha dove between their feet, snatching for the downed guard’s club, his gun—anything that might be a weapon, cursing herself for leaving the broken chair leg behind in the interrogation room.

  The awful clarity of combat training fell over her, slowing down everyone’s actions until each play of muscle became visible. Her hearing ratcheted up, until the swiff of a gun leaving its holster sounded as loud as a freight train barreling down on her. There was no time to disarm: she was too low, too off balance, pointing in the wrong direction.

  Alisha planted her hands on either side of the downed guard’s head, stopping her own forward motion, and lashed out with a powerful kick, aiming low. She could feel the floor’s solidness adding to her own strength, as if the building’s weight passed through her and into the kick, pure kinetic energy flowing as easily as a stream. She felt bone give as the kick connected, heard the man’s scream as if it came through water: audible but distant. A gunshot fired, bullet going wild. Alisha thought if she turned her head she might see the bullet’s flight. Instead she heard it, a slow whine that ripped the air apart without its path being visible before it clanged noisily against a wall, the pang of metal against metal.

  A boot connected with her ribs, lifting her into the air and slamming her back against the wall. The final guard’s hands crashed into the wall above her head: she hadn’t gone as high as he’d expected.

  His loss, Alisha thought, surprised at how clear the idea was in her mind. There was no breath left in her body, the boot having claimed it all, but she pulled strength from somewhere—from the wall behind her, she thought headily—and thrust her arm out, heel of her hand leading. It connected solidly, just above the man’s solar plexus. She felt bone snap, even thought she heard it, and looked up to see an expression of breathless horror bloom over the guard’s face.

  She had two guns in her waistband and the third in her left hand before he hit the floor. She crouched beside him, yanking his radio from his belt, and stopped long enough to knock the other two radios away from the others before she was running again, every motion so fueled by adrenaline and awareness she felt like a machine, honed to combat perfection.

  Dry amusement rasped through her at the idea, too distant from her immediate needs to break through into laughter. The drones she was trying so hard to destroy were only a literal mechanization of what she felt now. God forbid the artificial intelligences that supported the drones’ abilities should be able to learn to feel emotion. Alisha was only human, and acting at her full capability filled her with a passion that pushed everything else away. Should the drones be able to feel—the idea sent distaste, even fear, shuddering through her. The emotion was remote, recognizable through observation more than experiencing it on a meaningful level as she slid around a corner, bare feet skidding on the concrete. Combat machines were bad enough. A drone that could take pleasure in a job well done would destroy the world.

  She had almost no idea where she was, trusting instinct to guide her through the unknown halls beneath the production facility. Her feet burned with the cold roughness of concrete beneath them, dull warnings of pain warming her heels: she would pay for the shoeless run later.

  Later. That was all that was important. She spun around another corner, startling a young man with such sleepy eyes that Alisha felt a spark of guilt as she clobbered him with the butt of the gun she carried. He dropped without a sound or change of expression, and Alisha yanked open the door he’d guarded.

  Stairs led up. Alisha mouthed a soundless thanks to the internal guidance system that had brought her there and bounded up them, three at a time. These steps were metal grate, cutting into her feet with the weight and pressure of her run. Again, payment would come later. For now she breathed through it, absorbing the pain with deliberate mental acceptance, as if welcoming it would spread it through her whole body and make it bearable.

  She banged the door at the top open, whipping her pistol out to the right and smashing another startled guard in the nose. He howled, doubling over, and she brought her elbow down on the soft spot at the base of the skull. He went down, a surge of remorseless glee firing fresh adrenaline through Alisha’s system. There was nothing vicious in it, simply the survival response of one animal dominating another.

  There was no time for subtlety or staying to the shadows. Alisha sprinted across the factory floor, not daring to look behind her, certain of bloody footprints following her. Voices lifted, a security alarm going off—finally! Time had shifted until it was meaningless; it felt like hours since she’d begun her escape, and the jangling alarm seemed to be terribly slow on the uptake. Just enough of her was aware of the dichotomy in time passed versus time experienced to find it amusing, though she didn’t waste breath on a laugh. Alisha vaulted an assembly line tread, a warning sense bringing her low. Bullets spattered over her head and as she rolled she fired, bright sparks of fire smashing off the new equipment as none of the volleys, neither hers nor theirs, hit.

  Convergence was deadly. She couldn’t allow a group of them to encircle her; it would be her undoing. Alisha popped to her feet, firing again, this time taking the necessary instant to aim. Curses filled the air along with the sound of bullets firing, and for a moment everything was clear. She put on a burst of speed, launching herself over another piece of equipment. She could see the door she’d entered through now, the one that led back to the teddy bear factory. A matter of yards, her life as a series of countdowns again.

  Heat blazed against her arm, making her fingers spasm so she lost the gun she held. Nothing deadly, or at least not instantly so: the endorphins ravaging her system kept pain away, allowing her no more than the awareness that she’d been shot. Alisha drew a second pistol, right-handed, and shot wildly over her shoulder, providing herself with what cover she could as she lengthened her stride and ran. No one was dead yet. One minute longer and it would be over.

  She hit the metal grate stairs running so fast she missed a step and stumbled, clawing her way back to upright. She could feel the sharp points of grating puncturing through the calluses on her feet, the muscles cramping around the injuries. Every horror she could imagine threatened to be at the head of those steps, and to her dismay, her imagination provided Greg Parker’s face as the monster behind those horrors. Alisha set her teeth together and surged forward, bursting into a dark silence so complete that for a moment she was bewildered at the calm that surrounded her. A brittle laugh of confusion escaped her, pain suddenly bright and hot in her feet. She broke into a hobbling run again, trying to breathe away the stabbing agony as her own weight bore down on damaged skin. She would need medical care soon, the remote part of her mind observed. Running across factory streets in Beijing—in any city—would certainly infect the puncture wounds she’d gained in her flight from the building.

  Alisha slowed, weariness sweeping over her, and limped to a fire alarm, yanking it with what felt like everything she had left. Shrieking bells went off, so loud that it kicked her danger alert into wakefulness again, her training forbidding her to give up when she was so close to freedom. She breathed deeply again, digging inside herself for the last vestiges of strength that she needed to carry herself away from the factory. She left the tractor bay door behind, jogging yards, then whole blocks before she turned back, exhaustion racking he
r as she fumbled in her backpack for the C4 detonator.

  The bud in her ear chirruped, melodic and at odds with her harsh breathing. “Cardinal,” Greg’s voice said, “do not proceed. Repeat, do not proceed. Return home. The mission is aborted.”

  Alisha swayed, barking rough quiet laughter, and slung her backpack on again. “Roger that,” she said, voice torn with tiredness. “Mission aborted. Cardinal returning to the nest.” Thank God, she thought. Greg knew what was going on, and soon she would.

  An eruption loud as Judgment Day exploded behind her, knocking her off her feet and into the dirty street. Alisha rolled on her back, staring in shock as plumes of fire leaped into the air, smoke billowing in thick stinking waves from the remains of the building she’d just been ordered not to destroy.

  Chapter 18

  One of the fundamental purposes of yoga was to achieve quietness of the mind, a silence where no thought drifted to distract the pure union of spirit and body. To meditate was to be one: with oneself, with the world around, with the outlying universe. Rarely, Alisha had achieved that state, and found it not without irony that she was most likely to feel it in the midst of battle. In combat, thought became a burden and action flowed from somewhere deep within, a calmness driving her forward.

  That thoughtless sense of being barely attached to her own body, more at home spread across the atoms of the world rather than centered in flesh, descended over her like a promise as a second series of explosions rattled the earth. There seemed to be no sound associated with the booms she could feel in her breastbone, so deep that the beat of her heart was altered for a span or two.

  There was beauty in destruction, the warehouse district lit to golden tones that spoke of sunset, not death. Heat rolled through the streets, breaking comfortably around her, wrapping her in warmth and safety. It made her feel as if she were floating, disassociated from gravity’s call. Perfect solidarity with the universe, nothing wanting, nothing given.