Brain Storm (US Edition)

by Nicola Lawson

  Despite that Sara didn't know if she could kill this guy in cold blood without it being part of a job. Fair enough this was no model citizen and the world could well be a better place without him in it, but it wasn't up to her to take him out of it. As long as he wasn't a direct threat to them she had to let him live.

  Sara spoke over her shoulder to Carla. "You have some electrical tape or wires or something to tie this guy up?" She kept all expression out of her face so that he still thought she could kill him at any moment.

  Carla nodded and answered hesitantly. "Yes."

  "Fetch it here."

  They could leave him tied up in Carla's apartment. He would free himself sooner or later, or else one of the other members of the Legion would come looking for him. By the time that happened the two women would be long gone and they wouldn't be coming back. Sara had until he was restrained to decide where it was that they would be long gone to.

  Eventually the gang leaders head was covered in roles of thick electrical tape. Over his mouth, eyes and ears with only a small area around his nose to provide space for breathing. His hands were wrapped in tape from the wrists up to his elbows and his legs were done up from ankles to knees. Sara dragged him off into the bathroom and heaved him into the bath. She didn't want him hearing where they were going now that she had finally come up with something.

  She returned to the living room and Carla. "Do you know where this Grosset guy lived?"

  Carla shook her head and a sad look returned to her eyes.

  "Okay, we should be able to get that information off the network from your terminal."

  ***************

  Sara had accessed details of Karl Grosset's address on the network, details like that were a matter of public record for all but a select group for whom publication of their address could pose a threat to their security. Sara had physically destroyed the portable computer terminal immediately after acquiring the information and had deposited it in a number of refuse chutes on their way out of the building. She kept the main memory board with her until they were a few hundred meters away from the hotel before casting it onto a fire burning in a barrel and providing heat to a small selection of homeless types. Sara received several grunts and mumbled words in her direction but for the most part they kept their heads down and concentrated on the flames.

  Sara ached to get inside a vehicle so they could hurry up and get to Grosset's residence. The problem was, in this rundown neighborhood, the only vehicles were burned out shells or overturned wrecks. Sara reckoned that the car they had arrived in would have been stripped within minutes of their having left it. They took a different route away from the hotel than the one they had used to get there purposely so they wouldn't pass anywhere near the car so Sara didn't have the opportunity to discover if her prediction was true. They couldn't risk going back to the car in case it had been linked to their escape and had been traced.

  The pair steered clear of the roaming gangs as much as they could. Even if word hadn't gotten out to the rest of the Legion of Doom about what they had done, word could already have been out that the protection order on Carla had been lifted. It wasn't always easy to keep away from them. Shaven and tattooed heads bobbed around many of the streets or other displays of gang membership were on show. On those occasions that they simply could not avoid moving past the gangs they kept a steady brisk pace with their heads looking down to the ground. Sara kept her hands in the pockets of her jacket with her right hand closed around the grip of her weapon. Although she had her head directed towards the ground her eyes were alert, drinking in the details and ready for her body to react to any threat.

  They were able to make their way without being molested to one of the points where the poor sector of the city bordered with the more well-off areas. This wasn't one of the tightly controlled official checkpoints, nor was it an unofficial one run by the gangs for a price. It wasn't even one of the old abandoned points that had been forced open and was now free to use like the one they had used to get in. They wouldn't be guaranteed safe passage through any of those if the conspirators had even a general idea of where they could be. So they had wound up here where they had to create their own border crossing.

  "I can't climb that," Carla said looking up at the five meter tall, graffiti covered, concrete wall that separated the two areas. Wicked looking spikes, many with old cans stuck to them where they had been thrown up from below, stuck out from the top of the wall at a variety of angles. On the other side they were disguised behind a border of flowers and plants. The denizens of the poor sector didn't qualify for such benefits.

  Sara cast around and wheeled a large refuse container, the kind that would be hidden away in the back alleys for the rubbish from an apartment in the better off area but was just left wherever down here, up against the wall. She wedged some of the rubbish that spilled out of the container up under the wheels to keep it from moving around then climbed up onto the thick curved lid and beckoned for Carla to follow. In the end Sara had to bend down and give Carla a hand to get the other woman up. Sara knelt on one knee and made a cradle with her hands on top of her other knee.

  She looked at Carla who was still standing with her arms out as though to maintain her balance. "Come on, I'll give you a boost."

  "No way," Carla said her eyes flicking from Sara's hands to the top of the wall.

  Sara could see that there was nothing she could say to convince Carla to go for that so she got Carla to bend down and provide her with the boost. She jumped the remaining short distance between Carla's hands and the top of the wall. Her hands closed around the bases of a pair of the thick spikes and she pulled her body up. She carefully arranged her body around the spikes knocking some of the planters to the floor on the other side of the wall. Then she had to hook her legs around the spikes so that she could hang upside down to help Carla.

  The slightly younger woman looked up at Sara and shook her head. "I can't."

  Sara blew out to move loose strands of hair off her face. "You can. Just grab hold and I'll do the rest."

  Uncertainly Carla moved along so she was directly underneath her and reached up. Their hands met and Sara took a tight grip to make up for any weakness in Carla's own grip. That done Sara took a couple of deep breathes and tensed for the effort. With a burst of strength she forced her arms and body back up bringing Carla along for the ride. She grunted with the effort and forced a last surge of strength through her muscles to bring Carla the final few centimeters to the top of the wall with her. She flopped back down for a couple of breathes before she could muster the energy to get herself properly positioned on top of the wall again.

  "Okay," she said her breath pretty much recovered. "Getting down this side should be easier than that."

  "Getting down will be easy, not injuring ourselves in the process will be the hard part."

  Sara gave Carla a sidelong look. The other woman was clinging to the spikes she was nestled in-between as though her life depended on it.

  "Watch how I do it." Sara cleared herself a path through the remaining plant life. Then she got a grip on the edge of the wall, none of the spikes were close enough on this side nobody in their right mind would be trying to sneak into the poor district. She lowered herself off the wall and extended her arms and legs so that her feet were as close to the floor as she was going to get. She dropped. The remaining wall flashed past in a blur and then she hit the ground. She bent her knees to cushion the impact then went straight into a roll to get rid of the rest of the kinetic energy built up from the fall.

  She dusted herself off taking a quick look around to see if she had been noticed. "See? Simple. Now it's your turn."

  Sara couldn't make Carla's eyes out clearly in the darkness but she definitely wasn't convinced. "I'm not going to wait around for you all night. If you don't come down from there soon I'm just going to leave you."

  "Please, I . . ."

  "Just lower yourself off the edge then drop. I'll catch you. Don't worry." />
  Carla maneuvered awkwardly on top of the wall, turning herself around. Sara moved so she was underneath her as she let her legs go over the edge. Her stomach and chest followed.

  "That's good. See how easy it is?" The words had barely passed Sara's lips when Carla scrambled on top of the wall.

  The younger woman lost her grip and tumbled. Sara watched her drop, winced in anticipation but kept her position. She didn't so much catch Carla as provide her with a crash mat. Both women hit the ground in a tangle. Carla was first to her feet, brushing herself off as Sara tried to recover from the impact.

  "You were right, that was pretty easy." Carla extended a hand to help her to her feet which Sara accepted.

  "Easy for you perhaps," Sara retorted in the same good-natured tone Carla had used.

  Chapter Twenty

  "We have yet to reacquire contact on either of the targets. We have no intelligence on where the first target disappeared to after Grosset made contact with her. It is possible that the targets are now both in hiding there. There has certainly been no sign of them at either of their official residences."

  "Has target two tried to make any further contact with Ash?"

  "No, sir. Given that we apprehended her as she attempted to enter ECSIS and the conversations she had with Ash prior to that event it is probable that she knows ECSIS has been compromised. While she won't know how deep the infiltration runs she will be sure to take certain precautions."

  The figure on the other end of the communication, who appeared as nothing more than a silhouette being illuminated by a screen from behind, brought his hand up to his face. "Have either of them attempted to make contact with the police or any other security force?"

  "Again no. If target two knows we have infiltrated ECSIS she is bound to be wary of making an approach to any other security force."

  The silhouette considered that. "What about private network access then? Have our people been able to trace any searches pertaining to any of our work or facilities or anything else that could indicate the next step the targets are likely to take?"

  "Not as yet, sir. As usual there have been a number of hits on sites that pertain to you and certain of your interests. While we have no evidence that the targets are aware of your connection to this situation we have logged all of those hits and our people are tracing them to their sources. We also compiled a program to keep a check on the other keywords the targets could try a search on. So far we are still checking through them."

  "Alert me as soon as you have something to report."

  ***************

  Karl Grosset had obviously been quite well-off. He had lived in a small bungalow, only one bedroom but as he lived alone that was all he needed. The property was surrounded by a well maintained garden that isolated it from neighboring properties. A shoulder-high hedge surrounded the garden making the bungalow seem even more cut off from the surrounding houses. There was a small hole in the base of the hedge just off to the side of the main gate. Given the high density population throughout all the States of the Confederation even this small amount of seclusion must cost him a number of credits.

  Sara had made sure that she and Carla got past the private security officers, rent-a-cops who were either too old, unfit, or stupid to make it into one of the official security forces, who patrolled the neighborhood. There were signs posted above all of the street names and on every third lamppost that declared this neighborhood to be under the protection of the Hawk-eye security firm who were authorized to 'handle situations that demand it with lethal force'. So far the Hawk-eye officers had proved to be less attentive than their name would suggest. Even the pair of security mechs Sara had spotted seemed to be less than competent. Either they had been programmed by an inadequate or else they were just cheap things with a minimum of intelligence meant to act as deterrents or to reassure the residents that the money they were paying for this protection was worth it.

  More of a problem was the security system Grosset had around and inside his home. Sara would have been able to bypass any security system on the civilian market in seconds with equipment from ECSIS. The trouble was she had none of that with her now. And even if she had had the equipment she would have had to get close to the house to use it. Every building in the neighborhood seemed to be fitted with security lights that lit up when their sensors detected motion. The sensors and lights were arrayed around the full perimeter of the bungalow. The Hawk-eye boys had to have been informed of Grosset's death by now so they would investigate it if the lights suddenly came to life around his home.

  Carla caught her breath as the electrically-powered Hawk-eye security car, electric so that it was silent for when the residents were asleep they wouldn't want errant noises disturbing their peace, swept past them on another patrol. The dark branches and leaves were suddenly illuminated in a mottling of bright green and black shadows. The two women were laying under the edge of the hedge, Sara staring at the house as she tried to come up with a way for them to get inside and Carla looking out at the road making her feel useful again. The car carried on without slowing.

  The two women weren't the only things laying there that had been disturbed by the lights of the vehicle. A black and white cat, more fur than animal, woke up out of its slumber and crawled from underneath a car on the edge of the road. It mewled and arched its back. It kept that shape, legs outstretched pushing the middle of its back as far as it could get from the ground with its tail up in the air, and shook itself awake. When that was done it walked over towards the two women, gave them a sniff and rubbed its body along their sides. Sara blew stray fur out of her face but was careful not to disturb the feline. Then it crawled through the gap in the hedge alongside the gate, walked directly across Grosset's sculpted lawn and cut through another gap into the property beyond.

  Sara smiled to herself. The security lights outside Grosset's bungalow hadn't come on when the cat cut across the garden. She didn't know if that meant the sensors were only focused on things approaching that were above a certain height or if the whole system was switched off. She would have to treat it as though the system was still active.

  "Follow me, and stay low."

  Sara crawled out from under the hedge. Short branches clung to her but she pulled herself free keeping noise to a minimum. There was no indication that anyone was close enough to hear their noise but it was better to spend a little extra time and care now rather than be compromised because of complacency. Carla followed Sara's trail exactly and soon enough the pair were at the step leading onto the porch.

  The lock, a simple key card reader mounted on the door frame at waist height, was of a make Sara was familiar with, and one that she knew she couldn't defeat without extra equipment. She crawled around the side of the house, always keeping to the side the cat had walked on because they were the only sensors she could be sure were blind to their movement. She stopped them again when she was directly below a small window. She rolled over onto her back, still keeping as close to the ground and the wall as she could, to check the window. It looked like she should be able to force it. The problem with that was that if Grosset's security system was still active, and she could think of no reason why it wouldn't be, it would be set off by such an entry.

  In the end she decided to risk it. If the alarms went off she would let them be taken by the Hawk-eye security officers and take her chances with the place. They couldn't stay on the run forever and Grosset was the only lead they had. She stayed pressed up against the wall as she pushed herself into a crouch. The window was locked with a simple internal catch. There were no wires on the outside to indicate that the window was alarmed but they would only be visible if they were fitted by an incompetent.

  Sara got Carla to stand up next to her so that they could both be inside quickly once the window was opened. "Hand me the knife I told you to bring."

  She took a deep breath and used the knife taken from Carla's kitchen to get the latch undone. The window was open in the next instant an
d Sara slipped over the ledge and inside. She narrowly missed knocking a glass vase with faded flowers off a small table under the window onto the floor. She had to catch the vase when Carla caught it on her way in.

  The window was closed again after being open for no more than a few seconds. The insistent beep coming from the direction of the inside hallway, just behind the front door, indicated that those few seconds had been enough.

  "Shit! The alarm's been activated."

  Sara and Carla rushed into the hallway. Again the keypad, waiting for the entry of a correct code before activating the alarms and security system proper, was one that would be simplicity itself to defeat with even the most basic of her usual equipment. As it was Sara was powerless to stop the alarm from sounding.

  "Do something."

  The expectation in Carla's voice that Sara would get them out of this mess as well showed how much she had come to rely on Sara. It wasn't an entirely comfortable feeling for her.

  "There isn't anything I can do, other than punch random numbers into the keypad."

  Carla looked into Sara's eyes and Sara watched hope switch to dismay and then almost immediately to defiance. The younger woman pushed herself up to the keypad and started hitting numbers. The beeping stopped without a cacophony of sirens replacing it.