Rat Runners

by Oisin McGann

  “What, you can’t take a few seconds to say hello? Come on, tell me what the hell’s been goin’ on? I know about the brundleseed, Scope. Easy told me, but nobody’s fillin’ me in on what’s happenin’. This is huge … massive! It’s so bloody unfair I’m being left out of it! Come on, girl—let me in on it!”

  “Look … later, OK?” She waved him away. “I promise, I’ll tell you all about it later.”

  “I heard Easy’s got Brundle’s daughter in the cells—is that true? Tell me that much at least.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Scope told him, nodding. “He’s got his daughter.”

  “Maybe I should talk to her then,” Tanker sniffed.

  “Maybe you should keep out of it, Tank,” she replied. “Easy’s letting the dogs loose on this job. I’d keep my head down if I was you.”

  Stepping into her lab, she closed the door behind her and took out her mobile. There was no phone signal, of course—communications with the outside world were tightly controlled by Tanker and Move-Easy’s other tech people. But the wireless connection that could link her phone to her computer was switched on. She left it that way, and waited, her heart pounding.

  CHAPTER 33

  TECH-HEAD

  FX APPROACHED MOVE-Easy’s Void just as Scope had done, and was met in the utility tunnels by one of the trolls. He told the man with the cruel eyes, the bad teeth and the tattooed hands that he needed to see Easy—that he had something the boss wanted.

  The contacts blocked his vision very effectively, but like Scope, FX had grown new senses. Inside his skull, one brundleseed had grown into a processor that could read anything with wireless connectivity. With a thought, he could access any RFID around him, which supplied him with masses of information on the objects and equipment in his environment, including the villain’s clothes, half the contents of his pockets, and the signs at each junction of the corridor. Right now, he was in corridor AI, block 13.

  His guide also had the wireless function on his phone switched on, unencrypted, so FX was able to examine the files on the phone’s memory. There were a number of Wi-Fi signals down here, and if he’d wanted, FX could have surfed the web. He couldn’t quite make phone calls with his head, but he was going to work on that.

  They might have covered his eyes, but he had a wireless camera tucked into the side of his mouth. It wasn’t an implant, it was just small. He would only need it temporarily. A second brundleseed had given him a hyper-sensitive microphone, based on the ones the Safe-Guards used. It could pick up sounds beyond the range of any human ear. With his eyes covered, he had to be able to pick up any cue that these villains might be about to reese him.

  When they stopped, and he was told to wait, he made sure his new processor wasn’t transmitting, then poked the tiny camera out between his teeth. He watched on the video feed that had been grown into his optic nerve, as the man tapped in the four-digit access code: 9491.

  The door opened, and FX was led inside. He quickly chewed up the rubber-cased camera and swallowed it. They’d never spot the crunched up remains on their scanners. The solid steel thud of the door closing behind him had a very permanent quality to it, here in this underground bunker. Like FX’s Hide, no unauthorized signals could get in or out of Move-Easy’s Void. From this point on, if FX ran into trouble, there would be no one he could call outside for help, and no way of calling them anyway.

  FX closed his blind eyes, trying to keep his cool as they ran their checks on him. If they spotted the implants, things were going to get a whole lot more painful. He felt the movement of air over his face and hands, somebody waving a metal-detecting wand over his body, then he was searched roughly by strong hands, including his groin, his ass-crack and his hair.

  They went through his backpack too, taking his console out. Ensuring it was switched off, they put it aside. He knew it would be placed in a metal basket beside the scanners, to be handed back to him when he left. If he left.

  His chest and throat were tight with tension, and there was no hiding the sweat that soaked his skin, leaving damp patches under his arms and down his back, and caused his curly gelled hair to sag. But most people were nervous when it came to meeting Move-Easy, and FX had every right to be now. They kept hold of his backpack and led him on down the corridor.

  As soon as he was clear of the checkpoint, he used the implant in his skull to connect to the wireless chip in a phone inside Easy’s hideout—Scope’s phone. He used the connection to send her the access code for unlocking the doors to the Void: 9491—just in case she hadn’t got it. This would also serve as a message to her, letting her know he’d arrived.

  The smell of smoke hit his nostrils, lingering from the dead cigar he saw in the ashtray on the coffee table, when he was told to take his contacts out. His backpack was sitting on the table beside it. He was standing, facing the orange mobster in Easy’s audience chamber. Coda was leaning against the bar, dressed in a black suit and white shirt, his earphones in, his head nodding ever so slightly. FX turned up his hearing implant and identified the tune on the enforcer’s player: “Every Breath You Take,” by that old band, The Police. Though there were only the three of them in the room, his heightened hearing also detected the breathing of three more men just beyond the doors. It picked up his own pumping heart too.

  “Let’s keep this short,” Easy said to him, lounging back in the sofa. “You say you have something I want—and from you, that can only be one of two things. So let’s ’ave it.”

  FX was visibly trembling now. He clenched his teeth together so that they wouldn’t chatter.

  “It’s in the bag,” he said in a forced tone.

  Move-Easy didn’t budge. Instead, it was Coda who came forward, obviously listening past his music, and came down the steps to sit and open the bag. As he was doing this, Easy stared up at FX, who felt not unlike a bird sitting on the low branch of a tree, waiting to be brought down with a shotgun.

  “Where’s your sister?” Easy asked. “She’s the action chick. It’s normally her that does the legwork, isn’t it?”

  Coda emptied the contents of the bag onto the table. There was some of FX’s normal gear, and the black leather case. Coda opened it, and held it up for Easy to see.

  “There’s two cards missing,” the boss said immediately.

  “Traveling money,” FX replied, in a voice that was squeakier than he’d intended. “We want out. I mean … me an’ Manikin, we want …” He took a breath. “Nimmo reesed us. He had the box. We caught him, we got it back off him, but …”

  “But what? Spit it out, yeh little rat!”

  “He’s got Manikin. He told me he’d kill her if I didn’t give the box back. I can’t take him on my own. I need help. I have something to trade. The brundleseed. I have one. You can have it if you help me get her back. And if you let us leave London.”

  Easy barked a laugh.

  “You bargainin’ with me?” he snorted. “’Ow about you give me the brundleseed or I get Coda here to pull yor heart out through your ribs?”

  “Because you need me alive,” FX replied. He tapped his head. “The seed’s inside my skull. Right now, it’s growing into a radio receiver. In a few days, I’ll be able to receive radio signals with my head. But it’ll only work while I’m alive. Kill me, and you destroy the seed.”

  “You put it in your own skull?”

  “How else was I going to get out of here alive?” FX said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I didn’t have to come here, you know. I could have gone to Vapor. We know all about him, how he’s working from inside WatchWorld. How he paid Brundle to create the seed. You know Vapor has this whole place under surveillance, right? He’ll have seen me come in, he’ll know why I’m here. He’s as powerful as you are. Maybe even more powerful. I could have gone to him, but I didn’t.

  “I brought the case to you, to show you Manikin and me want to make amends. None of this is our fault—we did the job you set us, but Nimmo reesed us. And now he’s going to kill Manikin if h
e doesn’t get what he wants. Vapor knows what I’ve got and he knows I’m here. Me an’ Manikin just want out of this mess. Help me save her, and you can have the brundleseed.”

  Move-Easy gave FX a look like that of a scientist dissecting an animal. A long time seemed to pass, though it might well have been a matter of seconds.

  “Vapor,” he rumbled. “I’ve just about had it with that scum. No more bein’ delicate, I think. Time that treacherous snake saw the inside of a cement mixer.” He fell silent, staring at FX. “Aw-right,” he said at last. “Coda, you’re going wiv ’im. Take him down to Scope, have her check that seed’s there like ’e says it is. Don’t let him out of yor sight, got it?”

  Coda nodded. And if lizards could be said to have expressions, Coda’s was a perfect match. FX gave him a grim smirk and turned to follow the enforcer out of the room. As he did so, FX sent a signal from his new implant to his console, which still sat in the basket at the security checkpoint. The signal activated the small but extremely powerful battery FX had built into the console. The trolls should have known better than to put visitors’ gear in a metal basket right next to the scanners. The electricity surged through contacts on the console’s case, through the metal basket and through the metal case of the scanner next to it. It fried the scanner’s circuits, along with the circuits of all the computer terminals it linked to … which included those controlling the bunker’s alarm system. He sent another message to Scope to let her know. Time to get moving.

  CHAPTER 34

  SHAPE-SHIFTER

  MANIKIN TRIED TO find a position to sit or stand in that relieved her aching body, but failed. The Turk’s patience had run out, and he had started hurting her. So far, he was just using his hands. He hadn’t even resorted to those electrical things in his knuckles. But he seemed to have fingers like a Terminator, and knew just the right nerve points to dig into. She was already wondering how much more she’d be able to stand before she blurted out anything she thought he’d want to hear.

  He’d left her to ‘think things over,’ and she was crouching down on her hunkers, stretching out her bruised thighs, when she heard voices on the far side of the door.

  “I just want to ask her a few questions,” someone said. It sounded like Tanker. “I’m not going to do anything to her. Maybe she’ll tell me something she wouldn’t tell the Turk.”

  Manikin’s eyes flicked towards the door, and she immediately reached down to the waistband of her jeans. Unwinding a piece of stiff wire from around the metal button, she bent it into shape with weak, sore fingers and went to work on the locks of her handcuffs.

  “I dunno, Tanker. The Turk’s awful particular about who questions the guests. You know what ’e’s like about someone tryin’ to do his job for ’im. And he’s not the type to go complain to his union rep about it, know what I mean?”

  “Five minutes, that’s all I’m askin’. What could it hurt?”

  “Awright, five minutes and that’s it.”

  Manikin had the first cuff open as she heard a key rattle in the door. By the time the door swung open, she had switched to the other one. A few seconds later, it released her wrist with a click, and she winced, hoping her new visitor hadn’t heard.

  “Hi, Veronica?” the silhouetted figure in the doorway said. “My name’s Tanker. I work on the computers here. I’m not … I’m not going to hurt you. That’s not what I do. I’m just a tech-head … a bit like your old man, I suppose. Can I talk to you for a bit? Do you mind?”

  “What do you want?” Manikin rasped in a weak, hoarse whisper.

  Tanker came closer.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “What do you want to know?” Manikin said again, in an even fainter voice.

  Tanker leaned right in beside her—and she clamped a hand over his mouth, swung her leg to sweep his feet out from under him, and smacked his head off the wall. He collapsed to the floor and lay still.

  She knew Tanker. He was about her height and build, their faces were about the same shape, and she could imitate his voice. This was the kind of chance she’d been waiting for.

  Moving quickly but deliberately, Manikin slid out of her trousers and T-shirt. She pulled off his camouflage cargo pants and his dark blue hoodie. Slipping into his clothes, she handcuffed his hands behind him. Tearing a wide strip out of her T-shirt, she used it to gag him. Having done that, she ripped the fake birthmark off her face, hissing as the adhesive peeled away from her skin, and massaging it until all the glue had been rubbed away. Then she put on Tanker’s shoes.

  “God, I’m glad you brought a hat,” she said, as she used her implant to turn her skin dark brown.

  She could change the color of her skin and hair to match his, but she couldn’t match the distinctive cornrows that had been braided into his hair. She just had to hope that the hat would be enough to hide the difference. Poor Tanker. He’d be severely punished for letting this happen.

  “For what it’s worth,” she said in a low voice, “I always feel a bit guilty beating up nerds. It’s like picking on somebody who’s obnoxious but kind of, you know … disabled. It just makes you feel all wrong.”

  Pulling the cap on, she tugged the peak down low over her face. Then she went to where the door stood ajar, and stepped through.

  The corridor she was standing in was lined with eight cell doors like the one she had just come through. Move-Easy’s infamous ‘guest rooms.’ At the top of the corridor, a guy sat in a chair, reading a newspaper.

  “Have it your way, you little cow!” Manikin snarled back into the cell, in her best impression of Tanker. “You’ll be wishing you talked to me after the Turk’s gone back to work on you!”

  With that, she slammed the door and locked it. She strode up the corridor towards the guard, tossing back the key and wiping her nose with the back of her hand as she passed him, effectively hiding most of her face.

  “Oh, you’re a right villain and no mistake,” the guard snorted without looking up from his paper.

  But Manikin was already gone.

  Scope walked down the corridor that would take her to the security checkpoint. Men and women ran past her. There was a slight sense of panic in the air. A woman, one of the tech-heads, asked if Scope had seen Tanker. Scope replied that she’d last seen him at the lab. From the snippets of sentences she caught as people passed her, she was able to make out that the checkpoint’s computers had gone down, and the Void’s alarm system with it. The bunker’s cameras were down too.

  Once she’d been working in the Void long enough to learn her way around this maze-like bunker, Scope had found there were a few different routes that could bypass the checkpoint. It was just that opening any of the doors on those corridors would normally have set off the alarms. And there was a guard on every door into the Void.

  Scope took the bound bundle of money from her pocket. It was the bundle that Punkin and Bunny had brought into the bunker—the one Scope had removed from the throat of the cuddly caterpillar. The one she’d attached a magnet to. She opened a dusty, corroded steel door, breathing out with relief when she heard no alarm siren. Striding around a corner, she came to one of the main doors into the Void. A thug named Muntz sat at a small table near the door, playing Patience with a deck of playing cards with obscene pictures on them.

  “Hey, Muntz,” Scope said to him. “Could you do me a favor and hold onto this for me?”

  Holding out the bundle of money, she held onto the magnet as he took it from her. His frown brightened into a smile as he realized what it was. Removing the magnet had armed the dye pack hidden in the bundle. Scope walked back around the corner, and a few seconds later there was a loud bang, a hiss of burning gas and paper, and a scream from Muntz. He came staggering around the corner, covered with pink dye and blowing on his burned hands. Scope stuck out her foot, and he tripped over it, falling flat on his face. Careful not to get dye on her clothes, she knelt on his back and used a hypodermic gun to inject a strong sedative into the side of his neck. A
couple of seconds later, he was unconscious.

  Scope went over to the door, and typed in the four-digit access code. The door slid back into the wall, and again, there was no alarm. Standing on the other side was Nimmo.

  “We’re cutting it close,” he said, stepping inside. “Vapor’s lot will be here any minute.”

  “We better hope we’ve timed this right,” she replied. “The techs will have the alarm system back online in less than five.”

  CHAPTER 35

  INTRUDERS

  KRIEGER AND HECTOR showed up three minutes after Nimmo entered Move-Easy’s Void. They found the door standing open, and on further inspection discovered the unconscious, dye-stained and slightly scorched body of Muntz. Both of them stood looking down at the sedated thug with guns drawn. The weapons were a risk—even for men with their connections. Guns could buy you a lot of trouble in a WatchWorld city. But Nimmo had asked them to fire off some shots once they’d got inside the Void, to create a diversion for the rat-runners. And even with the security system down, if you were going to trespass on Move-Easy’s domain, being well-armed was a sensible precaution.

  “The vermin weren’t kiddin’,” Krieger grunted with grudging respect. “They got inside. Want to see what we can find?”

  “I still don’t like this,” Hector said. “There’s nothing Vapor can do to protect us if we get cornered down here. We’re in a right snake pit. If it wasn’t for those pesky kids, we’d have had that bloody implant by now. I think we’re bein’ set up for something here. We should—”

  “Did you really just say ‘pesky,’ Hector?” Krieger sneered. “You are such a bloody nerd, y’know that?”

  “Bite my hairy ass, you gimp. Come on, let’s see what there is to see.”

  “All right, but don’t go too far into this pit until we know what’s going on,” Krieger said in a low voice as he looked around. “One of us needs to stay by the door—”