by Wesley Chu
Simmons typed several more commands before hitting the last button with a solid whack. He let loose a long breath and stood up. “It’s done, Colonel. The main line is severed and will require a manual fiber hookup to reestablish uplink to the Prophus network.”
“Ma’am,” said the operator next to Simmons. “Waterhen just radioed in asking about the hard connection break. They’re asking for a status.”
“Tell them it’s just a precaution,” said Josie. “We’ll send a full report once–”
A hollow clicking sound pinged through the room. Simmons froze, face full of surprise as he stared down at the red stain blossoming on his chest. He looked up at the man standing at the other end of the room holding a pistol, and then collapsed to the floor.
He moved smooth and quickly like a snake. He jammed the silenced pistol into the shoulder of the woman sitting next to him and pulled the trigger twice. He finished the remaining operations controller, who barely had time to look away from their screen. Once all three were down, the assassin focused his attention on Josie.
It had been many years since Josie had been in a live combat situation, but instincts never die. She wasn’t armed, and she was locked in this room behind a reinforced steel door. That left her only one choice. She leapt out of the chair and attacked.
Unfortunately, while her instincts and decision-making were still as sharp and decisive as ever, her body was far less so. The first punch she threw in years could have been timed on a stopwatch. Her follow-up wasn’t much better. The assassin dodged both blows with nary a shift of his head. He caught her third punch with his palm, and then cranked her arm behind her back.
Pain shot up Josie’s shoulders, and she saw the near wall flying toward her face. Josie managed to turn as her head smashed into it, momentarily causing the room to blacken and her knees to go limp. A hand grabbed a fistful of hair on the back of her head. She spun, throwing an elbow out, and was pleasantly surprised when it connected with his face. Unfortunately, she was only rewarded with a muffled grunt as he pressed his elbow forward, pinning his forearm against her exposed neck. The pistol appeared and ground into her temple.
The killing shot never came. The man spoke. “I need your access to the server room.” He spoke strangely perfect American English with a flat delivery that often came from news anchors.
“Go to hell,” she spat. “Just kill me now.”
The man grabbed her by the neck again and swiveled her over to the operative slumped over the console, whimpering and shaking. “She still breathes, as does that one, although not for long. Cooperate and all three of you may live. No one has to die tonight. We both know there is nothing in your server room worth dying over.”
Josie was about to tell him to go to hell again when she stopped. He was right. There was data in the Prophus network absolutely worth taking a bullet for, some even worth every life on this base. That was a call she knew she had no trouble making. However, this wasn’t one of them. The main line to the Prophus network was severed. The server room held only information relevant to the school’s operation: student profiles, curriculum, health records. Some of it confidential, but barely classified.
It made sense. He was exploiting their protocol. This whole thing was a setup, a carefully orchestrated ruse, and she had fallen for it. Josie closed her eyes; she hated getting played. She was tempted to refuse him just to deny him this victory, but she had more than her ego to consider.
“How do I know you’ll let us live once you have what you want?”
He pulled out several plastic ties. “You don’t, but I will kill one of you on the spot if you refuse.”
If there were any chance to save her people, she had to try. She swallowed her defiance and nodded. “Let’s go.”
The man released her and backed up, the muzzle never drifting far. He took the plastic ties and trussed up the three still breathing. Once they were secured, he waved the gun at the door. “Lead the way.”
Josie kept her hands up as she unlocked the reinforced door and stepped out. She had half-hoped to encounter some of her security out here, since the armory and server room were both in the restricted area. If they weren't already deployed to the perimeter.
Damn. The Genjix had really played them like a fiddle. What could he possibly be after? She led him next door to the entrance to the server room and was about to begin punching in her access when the cold muzzle pressed against the back of her skull. “Don’t even think about putting in a distress code. I memorized your finger strokes.”
“Damn you’re good,” she muttered.
Josie completed implementing her biometrics and the door swung open. The assassin nudged her inside, closing it behind her. He pushed Josie against the corner as he hardwired himself into the nearest console. The seconds ticked away. Josie couldn’t quite make out what was on the screen, but it seemed the Genjix got what he wanted. After he finished stealing the data, he disconnected from the system and spoke softly into his comm, no doubt already working on his extraction.
He turned to her and raised his pistol. “Thank you for your assistance, Colonel.”
Josie was expecting a messy death now that he was done with her. There was no point leaving any loose ends, and she was a colonel. It would be almost insulting if he didn’t kill her. Josie was fine with this. She had saved three people’s lives in exchange for her own. It was a good trade. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought about Parker, her folks, and that dream vacation to the Maldives she never got to take.
A muzzle flash erupted in the darkness, followed closely by the deafening clash of a gun discharge in a tight space. The Genjix operative whirled and somehow dodged a gunshot as a bullet punched into the wall behind where he had been standing moments earlier. Two more shots: one just missed when he dropped to a knee and the other he miraculously blocked with his gun.
The ricochet from the bullet twisted the pistol from his hand. The Genjix reached down to pick it up. Josie leaped forward and kicked the gun, skidding it across the floor. She followed up with another to his face. The assassin trapped her leg in his arm and kicked her feet out from under her. The newcomer fired again, but the Genjix took cover behind a server shelf.
“Crap, it’s a freaking pretty boy,” a voice cursed. A figure stepped out from around the corner with a pistol in hand.
Josie’s mouth fell open. “Makita? What–”
A shadow leapt out from Makita’s blind side. To Josie’s astonishment, the Japanese man sidestepped the lunge and countered the punch with a surprisingly fluid block. His foot shot out and tripped the Genjix, knocking him momentarily off balance. Then, Makita raised his pistol and fired at point-blank range. Somehow he missed again. At this point, Josie wasn’t sure if the Genjix operative was superb or Makita badly needed glasses.
The assassin executed a spectacular looping spin-kick that connected with Makita’s face, throwing him all the way across the room. The old man bounced off the wall and slumped to the floor. Somehow he remained conscious. He'd even held onto his gun and fired two more shots, missing both times but nearly hitting Josie.
The Genjix disappeared again behind the server racks.
Grunting, Makita grabbed a shelf for support and wall-walked to his feet. He tried to spit, then decided instead to pull his dentures – cracked – out of his mouth. He swept his gun across the room, and waved for Josie to approach. Once she got close, he pulled her behind him and they made their way toward the door.
“We need to get out of here. We can’t fight this guy. Best we can do is lock his ass inside,” he muttered under his breath. “When we get out, run for help. I’ll hold the door.”
Makita pawed for the handle.
No sooner had the door opened a sliver than the Genjix appeared, streaking toward them. This time, Makita was ready for him. Two more pulls of the trigger. Two more misses.
“You are an awful shot,” remarked Josie.
“Not helpful,” he snapped, his arms jerking left and right.
By the grace of God and probably blind luck, Makita’s next shot finally hit the Genjix, striking him in the bicep. At such close range, Josie expected any man to crumple, but he kept coming. His body jerked from the impact, but he barely slowed as he covered the distance between them in two steps. A kick to Makita’s mid-section sent him flying out of the server room.
Josie cracked the assassin once in the ribs with an uppercut and then tried to smother and drag him down. The Genjix shucked her off as if she were nothing and then slammed her to the floor. The breath escaped her body.
He towered over her, his fist drawn back, ready for the killing blow. For the third time in ten minutes, she thought she was going to die, but Parker must have been looking down on her. The Genjix looked away distracted, and then took off. Makita tried to grab his legs, but was rewarded with a kick to the head that knocked him back down. The hallway was soon silent save for Makita’s groans and Josie’s faint gasps as she tried to catch her breath. A few seconds later, the Japanese instructor got to his feet and offered a hand.
“Are you all right?” he asked gruffly.
She nodded. “I haven’t had this much fun in years. You?”
He helped her to her feet. “Cracked my dentures, maybe a rib too, but I’ve had worse. Any time you fight an Adonis vessel and live to tell about it is a good day.”
Josie looked in the direction the Genjix had fled. “So that’s what he was. I have never seen one up close.”
“We’re lucky to be alive.”
She frowned and studied Makita’s bloody face. “What happened to your accent?”
Chapter Two
Break In
So you wish to learn about Ella Patel. Why is this relevant? Her past is inconsequential to her circumstance. It will not change your perception of her, nor will it affect her actions moving forward. But since my opinions on the matter are not relevant either, I will comply.
I have searched her mind and experienced her earliest tangible memories.
Let us start at the beginning.
When Ella was young, she used to love metal briefcases. That was before she was inhabited by a Quasing alien named Io, before she became hunted by the Genjix, and before the two of them were forced to flee Ella’s home in the Crate Town slum of Surat, India. A lifetime had passed since she innocently believed that shiny metallic briefcases carried a life of comfort, riches and beautiful hunky men. She was now more seasoned, wiser and hardened, practical. Any lingering fondness for those bulky, unwieldy containers with their sharp corners was long gone. It had been a long two years.
These days, she loved vaults: big, shiny walk-in bank vaults with cool locks and cylinders and large circular knobby protruding metal bolty thingies.
It is called a hand wheel.
Vaults with lots and lots of storage. Vaults holding cash and gems and other things that people valued enough to hide behind thick metal doors. Valuables to fence on the black market.
It just happened to be Ella’s lucky day. She was standing in front of one such vault this very moment.
The large metal circular door, complete with cylinders and dials and that hand wheel thingy, looked out of place in the gray damp stone. It came alive as she punched in the emergency code and gave the hand wheel a turn, its metal heartbeat speeding up with the spin of the dial. It finally came to a stop with a loud hollow thunk that reverberated through the underground sewer tunnels. The vault door swung inward with a loud creak, revealing a dingy room that faded into darkness.
Ella’s flashlight crawled into the pitch black interior, but couldn’t pierce a sea of disturbed dust particles. She looked down; a thick even layer of dust caked the floor.
The last recorded use was three months ago when the facility was restocked. It appears it has not been occupied since.
“Perfect.”
Somewhere in the void, a ventilation system hummed to life. Rows of ugly fluorescent ceiling lights kicked on one by one, illuminating a long room that stretched far to the right. A gust of rot and stale air blew past. Someone must have left food out the last time they were here. Ella wrinkled her nose. Cleaning up after yourself was a lost art these days. She took two steps inside.
Left upper corner.
Ella spied the security camera nestled near the ceiling. She bit down on her lip and drew her pistol.
Like we practiced. Steady breath. Soft pull.
She stared down the sight and softly squeezed the trigger, once, twice. Dust kicked up from the cement wall next to the camera as it continued to pan toward her position.
Relax your shoulders. Stop tilting your head. Remember, center line.
“Why don’t you center your line,” she growled.
Ella exhaled forcefully, loosened her shoulders and readjusted her aim. Her mind drifted to the many times that Nabin had patiently trained with her. His body wrapped around hers as he guided her arms. His soft voice preaching relaxation as his southern drawl paced her breathing.
She was even more off on the third attempt. A guttural cry crawled up her throat. Ella twisted her body and sent a throwing knife streaking from her thigh to her hand to the air in one fluid motion. The blade point punched through the center of the camera lens, killing the feed.
I do not know how it is possible you can make that throw with a knife but cannot hit the same target with a gun.
“That’s because guns suck.”
Guns do not suck. You are just an awful shot.
Ella twirled the pistol and tried to holster it fancy, like in those American cowboy movies. It slipped straight off her finger and nearly crushed her toes. Luckily there were no witnesses. She put a finger to her ear. “I’m in. How do things look outside?”
“The alley is clear, Ella,” grumbled a high-pitched voice. “In fact, no one’s even walked past the entrance in over an hour.”
“What was that, Pek?”
“Sorry, I mean Big Bosu.”
“The crew’s ready, Bosu,” piped up Hinata.
Sweep the room first.
“Give me a second.” Ella did a quick pass of the main room, disabling a camera in the opposite corner and another pointing at a samurai sword mounted on a wall. She poked her head into the kitchen at the far end, the dining and living quarters in the center of the open area, and the three side rooms stacked with bunk-beds.
The interior was surprisingly nicely furnished for a lair hidden in an old sewer tunnel far beneath Tokyo. Ella sort of wished she could just move in and take over the place. Sure, walking through sewer tunnels was pretty disgusting, but it wasn’t worse than the garbage-strewn streets in Crate Town, and she wouldn’t have to pay rent.
This particular lair was carved out of a long-forgotten storage facility now only accessible through a maze beneath the city’s railway network. It was well-hidden and nearly impossible to navigate unless someone knew exactly which paths to go down, which turns to make, and what conce niche to examine.
After both she and Io were sure they had swept the room clear of surveillance devices, Ella gave the signal. “Pay attention, Burglar Alarms, I want us in and out. We should be eating noodle soup in thirty minutes.”
A chorus of “OK, Big Bosu” echoed in her ear.
A few seconds later, Ella’s handpicked outfit of highly skilled and hardened operatives spilled into the lair. She had christened them the Burglar Alarms. She used to run a one-person operation in Crate Town, but now Ella had far greater ambitions. She wanted to build and expand a fully-fledged criminal empire. That meant she needed help.
Stop calling it a criminal empire.
The Burglar Alarms would have been called a street rat gang in Crate Town. The outfit was a crew of six, counting Ella. They were around her age, give or take a few years, and though they were of different ethnicities and from different places, there was one thing that tied them all together: they were dirt-poor.
More than that, though, they were young people struggling to find their place in the world after the
adults had wrecked it with a massive war. All of them had broken families and no more than one parent, save for Hinata – but that didn’t count, because his father was in prison. The rest of them had lost at least one mother or father during the war. Lee had lost both and been raised by a great-aunt.
Ella liked to think she was elevating others out of their hopeless situations, bringing them up alongside her. Not that she was running a charity. Each of the Burglar Alarms was quick-thinking, street-smart, ambitious and hardworking. The best people she could find on the streets. Most importantly, they were loyal to Ella, and they were going to help her get rich.
How loyal could they be? You only met them five months ago.
“As long as they get paid, they’ll be loyal.”
That much was true whether she was in Crate Town or Tokyo or on the Moon.
“Can I come too, Ella?” pleaded Pek. “I mean, Big Bosu? I’m so bored.”
OK, maybe they weren’t all the best and brightest. More like the leftover kids she had managed to convince to give her a shot. In any case, she was going to make the Burglar Alarms the envy of all the streets.
“Stay with the truck, Pek,” she ordered the newest and youngest member.
Pek whined. “I always stay behind. I think I should get to–”
“That’s the problem. You think too much,” said Ella. “Now shut up, unless you see something suspicious.”
Go easy on the boy. He is fourteen.
“I ran my own criminal empire by the time I was fourteen.”
Is that what you call your racket back in Crate Town? Pek has been sitting in that truck staring at the alley entrance the entire evening. When we first met, you could not stay still for more than an hour.
Ella grunted. “I still can’t.”
She moved briskly across the facility and began to direct her troops like a general on the battlefield. “Lee, to the supply closet. Kaoru, find the armory. Daiki, medicine closet, get only the scarce stuff. Hinata, dig up anything else that’s useful.”
“What do you consider useful?”