Brain Storm (US Edition)

by Nicola Lawson

  She collected her burnished copper hair together into a bundle and fixed it into a ponytail with a hair band, except for the few carefully selected strands she used to accentuate the shape of her face. She left her hair hanging down in front of her coming over her right shoulder and resting above her breast. She left her apartment and swiped the card through the reader to lock the door behind her. She never left the door on automatic locking after she locked herself out once in the middle of the night and had had to get the division to let her back in.

  Sara was just putting the card into the inside pocket of her jacket when she heard the elevator doors opening close to her. At the same time the door to the stairs even closer to her came open.

  What a coincidence.

  The pulsing beat of her neighbor’s music became a hollow muted sound. Her ears concentrated on the familiar sounds of the elevator doors opening, the ping that announced the arrival at the destination floor followed by the mechanical effort of the motors opening the doors, and the swishing of the manual door as it brushed over the carpet. Never had those sounds been so clear and that clarity of perception sent a shiver of wariness up her spine. Goose pimples rose in consequence on her skin.

  When she saw the people emerging from the elevator and the stairway, in their matching black outfits and masks, black body armor and small assault rifles held ready, she realized that this was no coincidence. This was a planned operation and she could think of only one person who the target could be.

  Then there was no more time for rational thinking, Sara had to rely on her instincts and her training to get her out of danger. She couldn't stand around and ask them what they were doing, they had to be here for her and that meant if she didn't take action instantly she would lose the opportunity.

  The nearest threat came from the stairway and in the short-term that was the easiest threat to deal with. Sara moved forwards towards the elevator and as the first person got halfway through the door she slammed it back closed pushing him stumbling back into his companions. Even when they recovered from that they couldn't fire through a closed door in case they hit any of their mates pouring out of the crowded elevator. They had packed six people inside the space, and while that number was a problem for Sara it also worked to her advantage. With their bulky armor and weapons packed into a space designed only for six people at a squeeze, none of those inside could make themselves ready for a fight until they got out into the corridor.

  Sara through herself to the side seeking a preliminary cover behind the bushy potted plant. She grabbed hold of the heavy terracotta pot by the rim, getting dirt under her finger nails as she struggled to get a grip, and brought it up with her. Using the momentum of the movement to give her the energy she flung the pot into the leading pair of men knocking the backwards.

  She knew that neither of her actions would by her the time she needed to make it all the way to the far end of the corridor and the window that provided her nearest escape. They would be up and shooting her in the back before she was halfway there. The door to the stairs started to open again but Sara ignored it. Instead she aimed her elbow into the glass front of the case holding the fire extinguisher and shattered it. She grabbed the extinguisher and sprayed the corridor next to the door and in front of the elevator with a cloud of thick white smoke. Then she turned and ran weaving from side to side in the corridor and spaying clouds in her wake without looking back. She kept all of her attention focused on the window even when they started firing. There was no point in her looking back, no-one had reactions that were fast enough to let them evade a bullet, and if she was going to be hit she was going to be hit.

  Luckily they could only open up with a couple of their weapons because the white clouds prevented them from setting up proper firing positions to aim past each other. And when they were shooting they couldn't advance without running the risk of taking casualties from friendly fire.

  The shooting stopped with Sara still a few meters from the window. Whoever was after her obviously wanted to move forwards to a point beyond the clouds of smoke. Sara didn't know why but she spared a split second of thought to wonder whether any of her neighbors had been stupid enough to look out and see what all the commotion was about and maybe taken a stray round. If they were stupid enough to do that they deserved whatever they got, still Sara hoped it hadn't happened. Then she forced her mind back to the more important matter of her own survival. Sara couldn't spare the time to open the window properly. Nor could she simply crash through headfirst, at least not without dislocating her shoulder or incurring a more serious injury, so she threw the fire extinguisher first. It hit in the middle of the glass and while it didn't go through, it just dropped down onto the carpet and rolled up to the base of the potted plant at this end of the corridor, it did leave a spider web pattern of cracking to mark its point of impact.

  Sara threw herself at the centre of the web with her arms up to protect her head. There was a moment of resistance as she hit then she passed through in a shower of falling glass and slammed hard into the rail marking the edge of the fire escape. She bounced off and tumbled down half a flight of steps, suffering cuts from the glass residue and no count incurring a number of bruises from the metal steps, before she could arrest her fall. She came to a stop on her back with her left shoulder out over the open space above the next step down and her legs pinned uncomfortably against the outside wall of her apartment building.

  There was no time to for her to feel the pain of any of her injuries. At the moment her system was being flooded with adrenaline. Her heart was pumping rapidly to force the hormone through her bloodstream to her muscles. She was sucking in air like she was drowning to fuel herself. This was fight or flight, and against these odds Sara definitely planned on sticking to flight. She rolled herself over so that she was back in an upright position and started down the stairs. She changed direction twice as it the staircase passed a pair of floors and was grateful for the fact since those sets of steps would now be shielding her from above. That didn't stop her attackers from trying a few shots at her but none came close.

  Her biggest worry was that the teams upstairs hadn't been the only ones sent for her. To have organized such an assault whoever was after her had to have a good deal of resources and to be very professional. This meant they were bound to have left a team downstairs in case she managed to get past the others. If they were very switched on they would have recognized the fire escape as a possible escape route and would have planned accordingly.

  Sara grabbed the fold-up ladder that was located outside the first floor window, to keep random people from just climbing up and breaking into the building through the windows, and pushed it down at the ground. She couldn't see anybody waiting down below. The dark alley had plenty of shadowed corners and was littered with rubbish from overflowing or overturned bins and cardboard and polystyrene packaging. The fact that this was left to clutter up even a back alley showed that this wasn't the posh end of town but even here there would be no homeless people seeking shelter from the cold. They were all rounded up very efficiently by the police and sent packing to the areas of the sprawling city where they could be ignored and forgotten about. Out of sight out of mind, the larger scale equivalent of sweeping muck under the carpet.

  Sara landed on the floor of the alley at the same instant as light flooded it from the end that opened out onto the road. Sara was caught like a rabbit in the headlights, but unlike that mammal she didn't freeze up. She started running in the opposite direction tipping over bins behind her or pulling boxes out to block the path. She jumped over some of the obstacles that were already in the way or wove past them. They didn't start shooting until she was most of the way down the side of the building and approaching the meeting point of alleys between four other buildings. The shots came at her from the direction of the lights, the direction of the window she had jumped out of, and from up on the roof, for some reason they had put a team up there expecting her to flee upwards.

  That con
firmed it for her. If this was any sort of official operation by police or somebody like that they would have announced themselves and ordered her to halt. There were rules against shooting people without warning. This was why those operations that Sara had been on where the task was to do just that had to be handled by the division of ECSIS that didn’t exist.

  She lost count of the number of times she was almost tagged by a bullet before she managed to get out of a direct line of sight by taking a left at the intersection. It didn't matter how many times they had come close to hitting her so long as they hadn't got her yet.

  The alleys behind apartment buildings formed a maze of narrow pathways. Sara moved at random through them. It was useless to avoid a pursuer simply by hoping to get as much distance between you by running in a straight line. If you did that you were predictable and would be picked up in no time by someone sent to intercept you. But if you moved as Sara did, randomly choosing a direction at each intersection you came to, you didn't know where you were going so you would be impossible to predict. Sara kept on going as fast as she could randomly changing direction until one of her choices took her down the side of a hotel building and onto the main street.

  Sara slowed down immediately and tried to get her breathing under control. She melted into the congregation of people out walking past the shops in the hazy mid-afternoon sunshine. She looked around to get her bearings and started in the direction of the ECSIS building. The questions kept coming but whatever was going on that had to be her first top for answers.

  As the adrenaline wore off she started to feel the effects of her escape. She felt on her back and legs where bruises would soon be appearing and she had a general all over ache and soreness. She had some small cuts on her face but they had closed up all ready and were barely noticeable. She knocked the dirt off her clothes as she walked and collected her hair back together gathering the strands that had broken loose and putting them back in the band. She left the usual few strands out, hanging in front of the left side of her face but so few as to not obscure her vision. She didn't spend over long making herself look perfect, but the job had taught her that a little time making herself look good could help enormously in the long run. Men in general were suckers for a pretty face, and they didn't expect women who looked like Sara to be as dangerous as she was.

  She kept an unobtrusive eye on her surroundings to make sure that she wasn't being followed. She made sure that no one was paying her any undue attention. She made sure that the lingering glances she got were from men just admiring her and not anything more sinister. She didn't see anyone who looked out of place or who stopped at the same time as she did when she made it look as though she was window shopping. Just to make sure she took a trip through a shop that sold nothing but women's underwear. Most people in her line of work were men, and as far as she could tell all of those involved in the attack on her had been male, and men walking into or waiting outside a shop like this would stick out like a sore thumb. Sara checked out a few items on the racks and looked at who was here with her.

  There were six men in the whole shop, not counting the skinny camp guy behind the counter. Two of those men were following their wives or girlfriends around, carrying bags and looking bored. Another was taking more of an interest as he and his blonde partner looked through the more exotic area of the shop. He whispered something in her ear indicating one garment in particular, she blushed fiercely and gave an embarrassed giggle. She looked around with her head down wanting to see if anybody had noticed but not wanting to make eye contact if they had. She didn't notice Sara watching them.

  Of the three other men, one was paying more attention to the women in the shop than the clothes. He spent a few moments checking Sara out but that was no longer than he spent watching most of the women. He quite obviously thought his staring wasn't being noticed but it just as obviously was. Sara exchanged glances with another woman who had seen him watching her as well and they both rolled their eyes. Sara guessed that if anyone was keeping surveillance on her they would want to do it without her knowing she was being watched even if the watcher didn't look like anything of a threat. Still she would keep tabs on him just in case.

  The next man was looking through the racks of underwear looking faintly embarrassed. Every so often he looked down at a piece of yellow paper and then at the labels on whatever particular item he was interested in. Every so often he would look up but it wasn't Sara or anyone else in the shop that he was interested in. He kept looking over at the more 'adult' area of the shop where the blonde girl was still being flustered by her partner’s whispered comments. He must have been out buying underwear as a gift for someone special, with her sizes written on the piece of paper, and wishing he had the courage to go over and buy her one of the less practical garments on display over there.

  Sara turned the items she was holding around as though examining them as a prospective buy even though her attention was focused on the last man in the shop. In turn his attention was completely focused on Sara and he was coming towards her. He turned sideways to get past between the man who was shopping for a woman more than underwear and a self rotating display with a pair of mannequins dressed in lacy black lingerie trimmed in red and gold. He was dressed in a smart-casual outfit with dark trousers and suit jacket over a tight white T-shirt that was tucked into the top of his trousers. His dark hair was an unruly mass of spikes with bleached tips. He raised his eyebrows at the man as he passed and gave Sara a look that told her he had noticed the other man's interests as well.

  He didn't seem to be looking at her like a man who wanted to kill her. She couldn't see a weapon on him but there were any number of places for him to conceal one. He might not even need a weapon, if he was one of the same group who had attacked her outside her apartment all he had to do was locate her and call the rest of the boys in.

  "You can't seriously be considering that."

  Sara blinked as her brain tried to make sense out of his words. "Err . . . Sorry, what?" It was a lame thing to say but she couldn't think of a more appropriate response.

  The man with the blonde tips nodded at her hand and the hanger and clothes she held in it. "They are soooo not you." He dragged the oh in so out so much that it was a sentence in itself. That combined with the hand gesture that basically defined effeminate made this guy look as camp as the one behind the counter. She spotted the name badge pinned on the pocket of his jacket's breast pocket and berated herself for not noticing it straight away. He worked here as well, now that she was paying proper attention she saw that the color of his suit matched that of the jackets and skirts worn by the female shop assistants who were milling about and chatting with other customers.

  Sara looked at the items she happened to have picked up to stop her looking out of place. From the transparent plastic hanger in her hand dangled a matching set of bra and panties that wouldn't have looked out of place on a pensioner. She tried a smile as she struggled to come up with a reason for having them and then decided she didn't have to. She had been in here for a good few minutes now and no-one inside looked like a really likely candidate to be following her, and nobody had stopped outside suspiciously or walked past numerous times. There was only so much checking you could do there came a time when you had to get on with it.

  "You're right, these aren't me." She handed him the hanger and walked out of the shop.

  The lecherous customer watched her all the way dropping all inadequate attempts at subtlety. As Sara walked past the window display outside the shop he pushed one hand into his pocket.

  Chapter Eleven

  Carla was starting to think that she was going to go crazy with worry. If whoever was holding her didn't get around to doing something, anything, with her soon the anticipation was going to send her out of her mind. A brief and fitful sleep had occupied her for a short while. She couldn't remember any details but she was sure she had been dreaming. The dreams hadn't left her with a sense of hope, rather they had left her feeling drained
. She was more tired now than she had been before she tried to sleep.

  Carla was certain that she looked a total mess. Her eyes would have heavy black bags underneath and would be rimmed in red from her crying fits. The rest of her face would be drawn and haggard. She could feel knots in her hair and knew that that would be in a state as well, grease and dirt would have turned it from brilliant copper red to a tarnished, rusty shade.

  The chilling shadow of despair started to creep over her and she shivered. She felt the quiet terror and desperation coming together inside her and taking a stranglehold on her heart. Another wave of tears was just starting when she heard noises coming from outside her cell.

  Using the sleeve of the orange prison suit to dry her eyes she tiptoed over to the door where she could hear the sounds clearest. Careful that she didn't make any sounds that would alert whoever was making the noise outside that they were being overheard, she placed the left side of her face up against the door. Flattening her ear up against the material, forcing the air out of it in the process, she struggled to hear what was being said.

  "Shouldn't they have done this before they dumped her down here?"

  "Maybe, but they want us to do it now. Something to do with the sedatives screwing up the results, I didn't question them."

  Carla recognized the voices of the ginger and dark guards who had given her her one and only meal and who had subjected her to that degrading shower.

  "Remind me again of why we have to leave our firearms behind when we go in," the ginger one said.

  "In case she goes for one and tries to escape," the darker one said like he was talking to a child. "You can't be afraid of her, surely?"

  "Of course not," the ginger one answered very quickly. "But if they're right who knows what she . . ."