Deus Ex - Icarus Effect

by James Swallow

  free of the soldier's grip. Saxon had the strength but not the agility to match him; and if the sniper disengaged, he wouldn't be able to close to

  combat range again.

  Finish it now, he told himself, before it's too late.

  With a roar of effort, Saxon dropped his cyberarm and snagged Hardesty's wrist. Twisting his grip violently, he bent the other man back and

  yanked the hand with the palm-blade against the direction of the joint. The ball socket squealed and snapped back, forcing the dagger-tip up

  and away.

  Hardesty's dead eyes widened as he suddenly understood what Saxon was going to do. For a moment, they pressed against each other,

  strength against strength; but it was a fight that the American was never going to win. Saxon had the weight, the power, the stamina.

  Ignoring the pain singing from his knife wound, Saxon locked his gaze with the other man and slowly, relentlessly, forced the blade into the base

  of Hardesty's jaw, jamming it up though the roof of his mouth in a spatter of blood. The spider-hand juddered and snapped open, and a flood of

  air filled Saxon's starved lungs.

  Hardesty tried to speak, but all he could do was emit a froth of pink fluid from his lips. With a last grunt of exertion, Saxon shoved him away

  and the sniper spun backward, clipping the edge of the balcony. His body tumbled over the rail and fell to the marble below, landing in a heap.

  At the far end of the library, the main doors slammed open and smoke grenades entered the space, trailing mist behind them. Figures in

  combat armor moved behind the smokescreen, the thin red threads of targeting lasers sweeping ahead of them. Saxon heard voices calling out

  commands in French.

  He grimaced at the pain from the cut and ran for the window; beyond were the grounds and a mission as yet incomplete.

  Location Unknown

  When the cell door opened again, Anna vowed she would be ready; but to her horror it wasn't Jaron Namir who slid open the metal hatch. She

  found herself staring at the bigger man she'd seen in the corridor before, the one with the buzz cut and the thuggish swagger. He surveyed the

  small chamber with a predatory eye; Anna saw that the scarring down one side of his face was the puckered tracery of burn damage. His

  jawline seemed off somehow—until she realized that his jaw was actually a prosthetic of plastic pseudoflesh. She wondered what could have

  damaged a man so brutally; but he carried his ugliness like a badge of honor. The mercenary wanted people to see the mutilation, as if it were

  an act of defiance.

  His nostrils flared around the brass bull-ring through his nose, and he grinned, ducking slightly as he entered the room. "Lawrence Barrett, at

  your service," he said in a mocking tone, spinning out his drawl in parody of a Southern gentleman. "Pardon me if I'm the bearer of some bad

  news."

  It was all Anna could do not to back away as he approached. She still felt woozy and unsteady on her feet. Her hands gathered behind her back

  and she watched him come closer, waiting for the right moment, fighting down her panic.

  Barrett cocked his head. "Your value has taken a dive. Seems your pal Saxon didn't hold up his end of the deal." He grunted in amusement. "He

  gave you up. How about that?"

  Despite herself, Anna felt a sudden, sharp jolt of emotion. She tried to ignore it. She was on her own here; she'd been on her own all along, from

  the very start...

  "I know you," Barrett said, studying her. "Yeah. Washington. The Dansky kill. You were there, right?"

  Anna's blood ran cold, her thoughts snapping back through the reports she'd read and reread about the incident in Georgetown, the data on the

  faceless figures who had ambushed the limo. He was one of the killers, part of the same team as Hermann.

  Barrett kept talking. "Couldn't let it go, could you? Why'd you women always do that, huh? Never leave well enough alone?" He was looming

  over her now, close enough that she could smell his breath.

  "What... do you want?" she managed.

  He showed her a cruel smile. "Namir reckons you know some things. You wouldn't talk to him." Anna swallowed, her throat tight with the pain

  where the other Tyrant had held her as he questioned her about Janus. "I'll bet you're gonna talk to me, though," Barrett went on. "Once we

  get better acquainted, 'course."

  She knew what would come next. Barrett bent down slightly, reaching up with the heavy, thick digits of his cyberarm, closing the distance

  between their faces; and that was when she hit him.

  Anna put every ounce of force she could muster into the swing from her balled fist, bringing it around in a fast haymaker. Even as she threw the

  punch, she was stepping into him, snatching at the bull-head belt buckle at his waist. She had only once chance to strike; with Barrett's heavily

  muscled, augmented frame, if he landed any kind of return blow on her she would be done.

  Her fist hit him on the cheekbone and slid up to strike Barrett in the eye. The brass sobriety coin, held between her index and forefinger, ripped

  across his skin and dug into him, the blunt edge ripping at the scarred flesh. Pain ignited in a dull, burning shock through her knuckles, and the

  force of the landed punch was so much that she felt her thumb dislocate behind the coin. Anna followed through by slamming her kneecap into

  Barrett's crotch; she was rewarded by a concussive grunt from the big man.

  He flailed, clawing at his face and the blood streaming from his eye. "Damn, bitch!" Barrett struck out blindly and she was almost felled by a

  black metal hand that snatched at empty air near her head. Anna threw herself past the mercenary toward the still-open door to the cell, but Barrett was faster than she had anticipated, and he was

  turning, reaching for her.

  He grabbed the trailing hood of her top and snagged it, pulling hard. For a second, Anna was yanked off balance, but then she wriggled free and

  slipped out of the hoodie, half running, half stumbling out of the cell.

  Barrett made a wordless noise of anger and came after her, his face lit with fury. She caught a glimpse of his expression and knew that the man

  would beat her to broken if he got hold of her.

  Anna slammed the heel of her fist into the door control, and it slid shut—but not fast enough to prevent Barrett from getting his forearm

  through after her. The cyberlimb thrashed right and left, bending in angles that would have been unnatural for a human arm. "I'm gonna make

  you pay for that, you cop whore!" he shouted. The hatch jammed in place, and she could hear Barrett snarling as he tried to force it open. "You

  got nowhere to go!"

  She ignored him and broke into a run down the narrow, windowless corridor, frantically searching for anything that could tell her where she

  was, and more important, how to get away. The corridor split, and one branch ended in a steep metal staircase. Anna took it, two steps at a

  time, and felt a faint vibration through the frame, like humming engines.

  Then she was emerging on the next level, a wider corridor lit by bright daylight through wide rectangular windows. Anna lurched toward the

  windows, shaking her head to force herself to concentrate, fighting off the last dregs of the sedative in her system.

  The floor shifted slightly beneath Anna's feet, and the abrupt understanding of exactly where she was hit her like a shock of cold water. Out the

  windows, she could see the blue-green of Lake Geneva ranging away, on the far shore the Rue de Lausanne highway and the suburbs north of

  the city. She was on a boat, racing away from Geneva at a steady rate of knots.

  Anna glanced around, desperately trying to map this new information onto her current pr
edicament. The vessel was a large one, an opulent

  three-hundred-foot megayacht, one of the many that circled the lake in the employ of the wealthy who made the resorts between here and

  Montreux their homes. The smoky-colored sandalwood paneling and elegant brass details all around conflicted sharply with the stark steel and

  gray of the lower decks where the Tyrants had been holding her.

  If she stayed here, they would kill her. Perhaps not at first, not until they had been able to wring every last morsel of information from her, no

  matter how trivial; but her death was certain if she did not escape. With the boat, they could take her anywhere, north to some isolated location

  in the Swiss mountains, south into France, or perhaps nowhere, adrift on the lake and isolated from any prying eyes until they decided to pitch

  her overboard ...

  Clutching her injured hand, Anna hurried toward the stern of the yacht, alert for any sign of danger. She still had the brass coin, gripped in her

  clawed, bloody hand.

  A sound from belowdeck reached her as she moved away; a howling snarl of effort and the shriek of a mechanism forced open against its

  tolerances.

  She broke into a run.

  Ariana Park—Geneva—Switzerland

  A four-wheel ATV veered off the pathway as Saxon reached the Space Memorial, the Swiss civil police officer in the saddle leaning into the turn

  to bring the quad bike back toward his target. Riding in the jump seat behind him, a second lawman brought up a pump-action MAO shotgun

  and fired twice at the fleeing mercenary.

  Saxon heard the low hum of the thick tangler gel-rounds as they passed near him. The semifluid was a biodegradable hyperglue compound, a

  nonlethal man-stopper that adhered to anything, and a single hit would be enough to arrest any plans of escape he might have.

  He dove into a deliberate tumble, letting the curve of the shallow hill roll him down and away from the metal spar of the memorial sculpture.

  The ATV came after him, the rider following Saxon over the blind rise.

  The Swiss officer met a strike from nowhere as Saxon suddenly reversed his motion and came running back to meet them as they crested the

  hill. His powerful cyberleg hit the rider in the chest and took him from the saddle. Uncontrolled, the quad bike spun out and pitched the cop

  with the shotgun into the grass.

  Saxon grabbed the rider and dragged him into a sleeper hold. Using his knee to pressure the man against his grip, in seconds his target had

  blacked out and Saxon was running again.

  The other policeman was on his feet, working the slide to pump a new round into the shotgun; Saxon heard him calling out over the police band,

  requesting backup. He was on him before he could fire, the two men colliding in a crunch of impact that drew a howl of pain from the other man.

  For a moment, they wrestled over command of the shotgun, but then Saxon got the angle and shoved hard, slamming the butt of the weapon

  into the officer's faceplate. It shattered and he cried out again.

  Saxon snatched the shotgun and used the gel-round to put him down; the fat plug of bright pink resin frothed and foamed, expanding into a

  gooey, stringy mass that only a tailored solvent could dissolve. The lawman swore in a torrent of violent, gutter French to Saxon's back as he

  made for the stuttering ATV, where it lay upended on the lawns.

  The quad bike was still operational, and Saxon flipped it, gunning the motor. As he set off down the slope, the vu-phone in his tac vest buzzed.

  He slapped at the device, opening the channel. "What have you got, Janus?"

  The reply was relayed to the mastoid comm. "A possibility. You must understand the situation is fluid and there's a lot of virtual traffic in

  this quadrant—"

  "Save it," he snapped, leaning into the handlebars, fighting to control the pain from the wound in his gut. "The Swiss cops are throwing a net

  over this city and I don't have long before they take me down. I need answers now!" "I understand'," said the hacker. "Cross-referencing the code name 'Icarus' with known Illuminati holdings and surrogates yielded a large

  number of returnsbut only one of consequence. Statistically, it's your best shot at locating Anna Kelso, if she's still alive."

  Saxon took the ATV across a service road and out across the railroad running parallel with the parkland. "Go on." In the distance, he could

  heard the rattle of approaching police helicopters.

  "A vessel, registered to the DeBeers Foundation, a private yacht owned by a corporate interest Juggernaut has long suspected to be an

  Illuminati front."

  "Icarus is a boat? Namir must be using it as a secondary command post..."

  "Exactly. And it's currently five miles from your present location, heading northeast at four knots. I'm sending you an image now."

  Saxon toggled the brake and the quad bike skidded to a halt. "How the hell am I going to get out there?"

  When Janus spoke again, there was a hard edge under the hacker's words. "Listen to me. I can't help you with this anymore. I've already gone

  well beyond my own ... limits in order to assist you. There's a marina on the far side of the botanical gardens, close to your location. I

  suggest you appropriate some waterborne transport there and attempt to intercept the Icarus."

  "What limits?" Saxon demanded, with a wince. "You know who these people are, Janus. You know what they are capable of. You can't back off

  now. You're in too deep. We all are."

  The line was silent for a long moment, and Saxon began to wonder if the hacker had cut the connection and gone dark for the last time; but then

  the response came again. "I have done questionable things." The strange non-voice wavered, static lacing the tones, pushing them back and

  forth between male and female, high and low. "It's disturbing."

  "I know what you mean," said Saxon with feeling.

  "I'm trying to make amends. I don't know if I can do any more ..."

  "You can. Help me," he insisted. "Help Kelso. Help me save at least one life today."

  The reply was firm. "This will be the last time. I'm tapping into the civil police network. I'm going to flag the Icarus with an Interpol stop

  and-search warrant, alert the Swiss. But I can't do any more to disrupt whatever plans the Tyrants have. That's up to you."

  "Thanks." He hesitated. "Look, Janus ..."

  "No," said the hacker, anticipating the question forming in his mind. "You're never going to know me. I'm not ready to reveal myself yet.

  Good luck, Ben."

  Saxon frowned. "Yeah. You too," he replied; but the line had already been severed.

  M V Icarus—Lake Geneva—Switzerland

  The yacht's name was emblazoned on a brass plaque near the sundeck, between a spray of crystal ornaments and antique loungers. She

  frowned and kept moving aft, shouldering open a slatted door that led into the boat's tender garage.

  The small bay extended across the width of the Icarus's hull; scuba gear, water skis, and a compact motor-launch hung from a complex set of

  lifting gears and equipment racks over her head, while a curved staircase led to the passenger decks above. One wall was a retractable gate for