I split my consciousness only towards the end...to glimpse nervously out the door to the room filled with towering vats.
I didn’t sense anyone, but it didn’t reassure me.
I could feel the urgency now. I had no idea what was happening upstairs, or in the building down the street where Revik was, but it vibrated at the edges of my light, until I had to bite my lip to keep from yelling at the other seers to hurry up.
Finally, I saw Nikka climbing down the side of the machine, jumping the last part, nimble as a cat. Wreg rounded them up and signaled for us to leave, one by one through the door over which I stood guard.
“You next,” he said, after Garensche passed me.
I followed the motion of his hand. “We have to get out of here, Wreg,” I told him through the transmitter
“I know.” His lips pressed together, his opaque, black eyes unreadable.
I saw him gesture to Qualen, then motion down the line to the others.
I realized we weren’t going back to the room with the sentient wall or the sewers. Wreg had us heading in a different direction; we made our way rather faster down a side corridor alongside the room that housed the mainframe. At the end of the narrow aisle, a set of red-painted elevator doors stood out from the gray and green metal.
Garensche stood at the elevator’s panel by the time I slowed my steps in front of the gated double doors. I strengthened the shield around his form as he used his light to talk to the wall’s organics.
I could feel something going on above us, more and more clearly every passing second. I wondered if it was Revik, then remembered again that he wasn’t even in this block of buildings. I scanned the blueprints he’d shown me, following the line of the subterranean structure below the streets of São Paolo.
It occurred to me...I’d never asked what lay directly above us.
“The elevator will take us to the surface,” Wreg subvocalized. “There are helicopters waiting for us, Bridge...they will be there by the time we arrive.”
“What’s going on above?” I asked.
“Response to the Registry. You’re feeling it upstairs, too.”
For the first time, I realized I was worried about Revik.
So much so that I couldn’t think straight as I remembered how preoccupied he’d felt when we last spoke. I hadn’t even asked how many he’d brought with him into the main Registry building, or how he’d planned on transporting out all of those seers who’d been crammed into cells on the lower floors.
I hadn’t asked him much of anything, in fact.
All I knew about his objectives was that he intended to disable all of the interface machines after we’d taken out the mainframe...that, and break out the prisoners housed below...and coordinate the destruction of the satellites and the secondary storage facilities.
The more I let myself think about what all of those different pieces entailed, the more worried I got. I thought about how much more heavily guarded, surveilled, trafficked and populated the Registry building must be, no matter what time of night he’d entered. He had to get a lot of people out—people who were mostly civilians—which meant more intensive work with the security systems, which would be, of course, more complicated inside the Registry. The prisoners themselves would have security on them, too...collars, implants, shackles in some cases. They would be in shock, drugged, slow-moving, difficult to organize and completely unprepared for the escape. Some of them might be Sweeps, hunkered down in the cells with the prisoners as plants to gather intel.
Also, the Registry’s top executives worked in that building; there would be protocols and private security for them, too.
Registry officials still assumed that the main threat stemmed from housing the prisoners on-site. Revik said that was why individual seers rarely remained in the Registry cells for long. The danger arose mainly from mates, families, lovers...any seer desperate enough to attempt to recover a prisoner with whom they shared a strong connection.
They were seers, after all.
The second biggest concern lived around the pass codes of the highest executives, who controlled the contents of the mainframe from the outside.
No one figured on the mainframe itself being a primary target. It was kept off the network to prevent hacking, but the fact that it was backed up in multiple locations probably made the data seem foolproof to most humans.
Revik still didn’t have 100% confidence that he could shut it all down before they made a copy of the materials somewhere.
Which meant he’d be even more focused on timing everything right...and therefore, even more at risk of having his focus pulled somewhere other than where his actual body was.
He had live, traumatized prisoners to manage. Large groups of people always complicated things. They might panic, and split his focus even more.
Wreg took my arm as the elevator doors opened, leading me inside. It occurred to me, as I felt his light, that he was a lot more worried about getting me out in one piece than he was about Revik. The realization reassured me somewhat.
He seemed to feel my anxiety, as well.
“Boss’ll be all right,” he said through the subvocal translator. “Don’t worry about him...he’s already got half the prisoners moved...”
“How do you know?” I asked.
He tapped his watch, smiling a little.
“Like a clock, your mate. You can set your watch to him. He gave us latitude on this op, with you here...but usually if we’re more than thirty seconds off in either direction, he throws a fucking fit.”
He grinned, bowing his head respectfully.
“...Expresses his displeasure, Esteemed Bridge. It is a conservative approach we appreciate. We have lost not a single infiltrator since he took over planning on major ops...”
I looked at Wreg, feeling myself relax a little more.
“Conservative is good,” I acknowledged.
The Chinese-looking seer smiled, stretching the pale scar on his lips.
“He bet me dinner you could get us in in less than half the time,” he said, smiling. “I may have to pay for dessert now, too...”
I gave a soft snort of laughter, shaking my head.
“Sounds like he owes me dinner,” I said.
“I think you could make that argument, yes.”
More seriously, I said, “I think you might lose that bet, Wreg. I took too long on that machine. He didn’t say it...but I could feel it. He was anxious by the time I finally got him what he needed...”
Wreg’s eyes grew thoughtful. He looked like he wanted to say something, but seemed to change his mind, shaking his head as he clicked softly.
“I’ll let him talk to you about that,” he said cryptically.
I could feel we were above ground.
I thought about asking him what he’d meant, then decided he was right. It could wait.
Right then, I just wanted to be the hell out of there.
“You and me both,” Wreg grunted. He gestured upwards. “We may have to walk a bit, Esteemed Bridge, but this elevator should take us close to the roof. Might have to knock out a few guards...”
“What is the building?”
He smiled. “Black Arrow. Corporate building.”
“The work camp people?” I felt sick again. “They put an office up next to the Registry Building? On top of a basement full of dead seers in vats?”
“You are surprised?”
I realized he was right. It shouldn’t surprise me. Not anymore.
“No,” I subvocalized. “I guess not. It’s just tacky.”
He laughed a little, still using the subvocalization.
“Most humans don’t know...they don’t want to know. They think Black Arrow makes legal organics under contract from the World Court. They think they make fertilizer, pesticides, super-seeds. They don’t ask about what they don’t want to know...”
I nodded, leaning against the elevator wall.
I didn’t ask the more obvious question, which was why
the hell we were going out this way, and not the way we got in.
Wreg checked his watch again. “It’s going to be close...” he murmured. “We took too long, setting the charges...”
“I thought you said we had latitude?” I subvocalized.
“Once he mapped out the placement, we were back on the clock again.” He gave me another wry smile. “He has to time everything right, princess. A lot to coordinate...” He checked his watch again, looking up at the ceiling, as though willing the elevator car to move faster.
Below us, impact concussions began. I heard them right before they shook the elevator floor. Wreg grabbed my arm.
“Hold on,” he said. He looked at the lit numbers over the door.
Right then, I heard an alarm go off in the building around us. As it did, something else occurred to me.
“That’s why we went up?” I looked at him. “In case of a collapse?”
Wreg nodded, still staring up at the elevator numbers. It occurred to me that he was worried the elevator might shut down, locking us inside.
He signed something to Garensche even as I thought it.
The larger seer gestured back, and from his smile and negative gestures, I could tell he was confident. Wreg’s thick shoulders relaxed.
He looked at me.
“Yes,” he said, answering my question a little belatedly. “We went up in case of collapse. The mainframe storage room is directly above the tunnels we walked through to get here, princess. Boss didn’t want to risk it...” He smiled faintly. “This is also faster...he didn’t want us in here long after.”
“You let me drag those people out of there,” I said, fighting to keep the anger out of my voice. “You knew it wouldn’t make any difference...”
He gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, Esteemed Bridge. It was too late to argue strategy...they were unavoidable collateral.”
I felt my jaw harden.
Feeling his eyes on me, I turned, staring up at him.
“Don’t lie to me again, Wreg,” I said. My face started to hurt. “Don’t bullshit me, either. We could have put them on the elevator...I could have done it, while the rest of you set charges.”
He looked at me, his dark eyes showing surprise. “Bridge?”
I felt my hands clench. “You know what the password was, to get into the mainframe, Wreg?” I said. “It was ‘Iceblood pricks.’ Think about how similar you and your pals talk about humans, and tell me I’m wrong.”
There was a pause where he just looked at me, that flicker of surprise still visible in his eyes. That the surprise held a measure of shame didn’t go unnoticed by me, but I honestly couldn’t say what it was for.
“Of course, Esteemed Bridge,” he said. He stripped all trace of familiarity from his words, using the more formal verb tense in Prexci.
“My profoundest apologies,” he subvocalized, bowing.
I saw the others watch, their eyes vaguely nervous as they glanced at me. I remembered they couldn’t hear us without subvocal translators.
“I was thinking only of your safety, Bridge...” he said then.
I felt my jaw harden more. I didn’t believe that, either, although I was willing to grant it might have been a consideration. Holding the elevator car rail, I closed my eyes when another blast from below shook the cart.
“I apologize, Esteemed Bridge. I will do so to the Sword as well...his specific instructions were to do whatever possible to avoid casualties on this operation. I should have considered moving the guards...like you said. I admit, the possibility hadn’t occurred to me...”
I closed my eyes, rubbing them in a kind of frustrated fatigue.
Why were things blurring for me so much? I understood why Wreg hadn’t prioritized the lives of a bunch of hired killers for a publicly-traded murder company...especially given the pressure to dismantle the machine before we put all of our own lives at risk. Hell, even I had to admit that four people, in an op that affected over a million seers, might not be too high of a price to pay. What did that say about me?
When I glanced up at him again, I saw relief in Wreg’s dark eyes.
Just then, the elevator car shook again, harder.
It occurred to me that Revik might be detonating the C-4 chunks one by one.
“No, Esteemed Bridge,” Wreg said, his voice still respectful to the point of being worried, even through the subvocalization. “He’ll do a few of the smaller pieces first, to get the heat up and burning, then go for the larger stacks, the ones we packed more heavily...”
I nodded. Wreg checked his watch again.
We were only a half-dozen floors below the top now.
Right then, a concussive rumble that made the others feel like baby blasts shook the car so hard my hand was jerked off its grip on the rail.
Wreg caught me, sliding an arm around my waist as the others rocked on their feet, grabbing one another and the railing.
The lights in the elevator flickered.
Then they went dead.
The car came to a complete stop.
I stood in the pitch black, fighting not to panic.
But I knew. Somehow I knew in my gut that things were going to go badly from that point.
Really, really badly.
25
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
I HEARD THE others breathing.
Wreg released me, moving at once to the elevator doors.
I saw him and a few of the others fight to wedge their fingers in the crack in the doors, then pull, muscles straining. Garensche was down on one knee before the inside panel. I reconstituted the shield around all of them, a little blown away by the speed at which they went to work.
No one said a word.
Garensche cracked open the panel, then yanked off his gloves to handle the wet organic circuits bare-handed. They glowed faintly in the Barrier, making them visible through his lit fingers as he pored over the vein-like strands.
He tried a few different combinations. Finally, he made a noise for them to try the door again, and I saw Wreg, Nikka, Qualen, Loki, Jax and Ike all straining.
Slowly, they managed to pull the doors apart.
Light illuminated their outlines through the widening crack. Alarms exploded overhead. I thought at first they’d just started, then realized the doors had simply ceased to muffle the sound.
“Check it,” Wreg said. He spoke Prexci to Nikka in a near yell, not bothering with subvocalization in the high-pitched whine.
He boosted her up with his hands, and the female infiltrator disappeared through the crack to the floor above.
Seconds later, I heard her voice.
“Clear!”
“Bridge!” Wreg yelled, turning.
I reached his side and he grabbed me around the waist. Hoisting me up, he fed me through the opening to the story above. I climbed up, bracing my feet against the half-open doors until Nikka grabbed my arm and yanked me the rest of the way free through the narrow opening.
I saw the men below then, pulling on the doors to widen the crack between them. It occurred to me that they’d gotten me out before taking the time to make the opening large enough for the rest of them to pass through.
I glanced at Nikka, then looked down the hall in either direction.
The alarms rose a few notches higher. I spread the shield over the immediate area, and realized I felt people coming, up the stairs.
A lot of people. Armed.
“Hurry!” I said, looking at Wreg’s dirty face past the opening as Qualen climbed through after Jax. “Move it. Now!”
In response, Wreg shoved Ike through, then Niwa. Two more came after them, then Garensche climbed through, faster than I would have credited him, given his bulk. But I could feel them now.
It wasn’t going to be fast enough.
“Wait here,” I told Nikka.
She grabbed my arm when I turned to go. “What? No!”
“Do as I say!” I told her, pointing at the floor. “Don’t fucking leave this spot! Tell
Wreg the shield may have to drop briefly. Look out for the construct...they’re going to come down on you, hard, if I do...”
“Do? Do what?” Nikka said, confused.
“I’m dropping the fucking shield!” I said, half-shouting to get the blank look off her face. “Two minutes, if it happens...maybe less. Tell the others!”
Wrenching my arm from her fingers, I ran down the hall. I rounded the corner in a near sprint, running the length of the next arm of corridor before I came to the heavy organic metal door leading to the stairwell.
As I did, I took in my surroundings in a single scan.
We were in the upper levels of an office building, a nice one. Organic windows made up the outside walls, giving me a high view of the surrounding city. A long, ornate planter of potted trees and tropical vines and ferns made the inside walls resemble a segment of jungle. The art I saw looked like real art, not the framed wallpaper found in your average office building.
Either way, it looked occupied...which meant we might have company up here already. I threw out a quick scan of the overall floor of offices on the other side of the wall by the elevators, even as my feet skidded to a stop.
Military-like markers pinged in my light. Cameras. Organics of all kinds. Dense electrical fields I couldn’t identify.
Security. Tight. These were top executive suites.
I stood by the door to the stairs. Tucked invisibly into a corridor alcove, a combination lock stood in the wall, along with what looked like retinal scans, a handprint access panel. Garensche could probably open it, but that wasn’t our immediate problem.
Extending my light out past the door, I felt the small army running up the steps.
I got private, building-owned security, but they moved like ex-military. Armored vests, organic...might be able to short those out, but not fast enough. A few seers on their payroll, too. Those carried organic weapons, but I recognized more regular guns like M-4 carbines and SG 550s from specs both Revik and Balidor had wanted me to memorize.
I fought through options, trying to clear my head.
I couldn’t melt the door. It wouldn’t hold them, and anyway, it wouldn’t solve our other problem...namely, getting out of the building.
Allie's War Season Two Page 42