“There’s a first time for everything, as you told yourself throughout your teenage years.”
Ophelia coughed quietly. “Good luck, you two. And come back soon. I don’t want Franklin to go up there after you.”
We said our goodbyes. Rested, fed, and all patched up, it was time to go out into the dark again.
5
Getting out of the apartment stack turned out to be easier than I had anticipated. The Loyalists were watching the front of the building from their own side of the lines, but they couldn’t do anything to watch the back of the building without crossing over into Defector territory and provoking a full-scale showdown. Neither side seemed to want a fight, or at least not yet.
If the Loyalists were a death cult, I could see their logic. They didn’t need a showdown; time was on their side. All they had to do was wait out the clock, and everyone in Tower 7 would run out of oxygen and die. To make sure this happened, they just had to keep anyone from attacking the upper levels in sufficient strength to get Marcenn’s dataspike. With control of the central hub and an army of androids on the upper levels, they would only be dislodged by a massive attack. Enter the Ninja, or in this case the Arbiter drop-team. By going dark and slipping past their lines, we had a much better chance of getting our hands on that dataspike than a full-scale infantry assault ever would.
All I had to do was sneak through heavily patrolled enemy territory in total darkness, successfully apply a strategy I had only ever done as a training exercise, and prevail in hand-to-hand combat with anyone who got in my way. What could be simpler?
“You seem to be brooding,” said Gabe as we watched the street, waiting for a good chance to slip over into Loyalist territory undetected. In the stillness and shadows, I felt like there ought to be a breeze blowing. Something to make the urban scene look appropriately film noir, like a street sign rattling in the wind. Instead everything was motionless, like a child’s diorama of a city. “So what if I am? I’m entitled to brood occasionally.”
He shook his head. “You really aren’t. Brooding is reserved for anonymous wanderers, lone warriors, and private detectives. You are none of those things. A member of the Arbiter Force always has a buddy, and when you have a buddy there’s no reason to brood.”
“Can I just stare off into the distance for a few minutes?”
“That’s the same thing as brooding.”
“Fuck it, then. I’m going in.”
I went into a crouch and slipped across the street, while Gabriel covered me with the coilgun from the other side. If he spotted someone up ahead of me, he could take them out without anyone knowing. If he didn’t spot them before I did, I’d use the knife. As soon as I crossed successfully, he’d do the same. Then we’d repeat the process, leapfrogging till we reached the elevators.
I got to the other side without any problems and slipped into a coffee house called Old Harrar. The looters and opportunists had been here too, though the owner had been smart enough not to stay behind and defend the place like Big Bob had. Tables and chairs were overturned, and someone had spilled coffee all over the floor and the counters. A shattered coffeepot lay on the floor, a testament to someone’s stupid malice.
Gabe reached the door, took a quick look around the place, and shook his head. I knew what he was thinking. What a waste. Oh well, it probably wouldn’t have been genuine Harrar coffee despite the name. No doubt the stuff was synthetic, like everything else here.
We went through the back, which led to a corridor that went into the building. This bit was dicey, because there was nowhere to hide or seek cover. With our scramblers active, our opponents would know that someone hostile was in the area—but they wouldn’t be able to use their sensors to pinpoint our location. If they happened to guess we were in this building, we could find ourselves surprised in the corridor with nowhere to run or hide.
There was nothing to do except move quickly, so I ran as quietly as possible while Gabriel covered me from the other end. When I reached a doorway, I listened for a moment then slipped it open. Gabe followed after me, and we found ourselves in another storefront. This one was an accounting office, with huge bay windows that faced the street. I crouched down behind a desk as soon as I came in, and Gabe crouched next to me. On the street outside, we saw a Nightwatch officer go running by.
They knew we were near, but we could be in any of a dozen buildings. They’d flood the area first, then start a grid search. To escape the trap, we needed to be outside of the area their grid would cover. That called for speed, but speed and discretion are not compatible.
Gabe pointed out the window, indicating a building across the street. I couldn’t see what it was, but his message was clear—get over there now. He had decided to prioritize speed, then. I nodded silently, then moved up to the front door for a better look. Scanning the street with my eyes, I saw no sign of any Nightwatch officers. The one we’d seen had been running, heading back in the direction we’d come from.
Then I heard the shooting. There was a firefight in progress along the boundary line, and the Loyalists were sending their officers there. It was an effective distraction, and it just might buy us the time we needed. Was Franklin behind this?
I could ask him later, assuming I survived long enough to ask him anything. I opened the door, and Gabriel moved up to give me cover. Then I crouched and ran, and Gabriel followed as soon as I was across.
We were under an overhang, and the big glass doors had signs all over them. Movie posters with garish artwork, and titles like Ice Moon Prospector and My Heart is on Pluto. One of the posters was for Arbitrate This!, a hostile comedy about two hapless Arbiters trying to investigate corruption on Jupiter. I pointed at the picture, which showed two steel-jawed muscle heads staring grimly at nothing as they strode forward, without realizing they were about to step on a banana peel.
Gabe shook his head, and again I knew exactly what he was thinking. Fucking colonials. I tried the door, but someone had locked up before they left. We didn’t have much time, but blowing the door was not an option. Gabe produced a lock-pick, and I watched the street for any approaching hostiles. I could still hear shooting, which meant that the firefight was still ongoing. Despite that fact, there was every possibility they’d send a squad or two this way to check out the source of the disruption signal. If they could get us pinned down, they could flood the area when the firefight ended.
Sure enough, there was movement down at the end of the street. I couldn’t see details, but someone was definitely coming. I slipped my weapon off my shoulder, getting ready to shoot it out. Gabe popped the lock, and I ducked into the movie theater behind him as discreetly as possible. Whether we’d been seen or not, I had no idea. Either way, the smart move was to get through the theater and keep going.
Gabriel took up a spot in the lobby while I crossed over into one of the empty screening rooms, then he moved up and covered me from the door while I headed for the emergency exit out back.
I was familiar with colonials and their eccentricities, but I still found the whole movie theater thing strange and anachronistic. Much like Big Bob’s Bold Breakfast, it was all about nostalgia. Anything from before the era of space colonization was a big hit in the colonies, because it made people feel like they were still connected to something, like they were part of a continuity. On Earth itself, nobody went out to breakfast buffets and there were no more movie theaters. If I hadn’t been out to the colonies, I would never even have seen one.
That’s the way it goes sometimes. It’s just one of the weird things about being an Arbiter. But it almost got me killed, because I was so busy thinking about how bizarre the movie theater was that I didn’t react quickly enough when the emergency door opened and a Nightwatch officer stuck his head in.
I was still several feet away, and neither of us had expected to see each other there. They must have been checking all the nearby buildings, but without expecting to find us quite so quickly. The man pulled up short, stared at me for just a
second, then raised his weapon. He had the drop on me, and his gun was aimed at the vulnerable spot between helmet and chest armor.
Before I could even register the fact that I was about to get shot, the man shuddered and then crumbled to the ground. He’d been shot through the neck and was probably dead before he even finished falling. I glanced back at Gabriel, who threw his hands up in a what the fuck gesture. I’d been caught napping, and this guy could have shot me dead while I stood there staring at him.
I ducked my head apologetically and pulled the body through the door, then checked the street outside. There was no one else in sight, meaning that most of the people who would otherwise have been hunting for us were still busy driving the Defectors back. Gabriel came up and cuffed me in the helmet with an open palm like a mother bear swatting its cub—an extra reminder to pay attention to what I was doing.
I picked my spot: a dance club called the Witching Hour on the other side of the street. I didn’t know their search perimeters, but the faster we moved the sooner we’d be past them. This time I didn’t bother with any wandering thoughts about dance club culture or the differences between Earth and Venus. I just got across the street, found the door locked, and kicked it hard once as Gabriel crossed. The door sprung open, and we went through it into the abandoned club.
What we found was shocking, though neither of us said anything about it either then or later. I don’t know if it was a gang thing, like a Mob execution maybe, or if it was just the work of some psycho. Whatever the reason for it, someone had forced three employees of the nightclub to kneel on the floor side by side with their hands bound before shooting them all in the back of the head. They lay slumped together, their faces pressed against the cold, hard floor.
Like the other deaths we’d seen, this must have been someone taking advantage of the crisis to do something they’d been thinking of doing for some time. The reason for it was far from clear, but whoever had done it had locked up behind themselves when they were done. We glanced at the corpses and kept on moving—it was just one more tragedy that had nothing to do with us.
According to my schematics, the Witching Hour’s back door opened onto an alley, which opened onto a large plaza. Crossing plazas is not an effective way to avoid being seen by people who want to kill you, so we couldn’t go out into the alley. That left the staircase, which led up to a skyway and into the building next door. By moving through the skyways, we could skirt around the edges of the plaza. But the last time we’d tried to travel that way they almost trapped us.
Gabe thought for a moment, then pointed up. So be it, then. Sometimes there isn’t a good choice, just two bad choices. I found the stairs and went up to into dance club’s offices. There were no more dead people, but the brightly colored pills scattered all over the floor provided something of a clue as to what had happened downstairs and why.
When we found the skyway, we took extra precautions. Gabriel wouldn’t give me the signal to move forward until we had both sat there listening with the sound amplified for two or three minutes. As luck would have it, there was a commotion down on the street below at the exact moment that I finally went through the skyway. Wanting to know if I’d been spotted or not, I glanced outside.
Nightwatch officers were converging on the movie theater. They must have found the dead man, which meant they would soon be fanning out in search of us. No one glanced up in my direction, but I signaled for Gabe to stay low as soon as I got to the other side. He crossed the skyway like a snake, crawling on his belly till he reached my location.
They were getting close, so Gabe gave me the signal for extra speed. We stopped worrying so much about little things like noise and crossed rapidly from one skyway to another to clear the search area.
In the blur that followed, I saw more of the dim offices and offensively hopeful posters I had grown to love before. Our plan was straightforward: move parallel to the plaza along the skyways, then make a left turn and descend to the street once we could move without crossing any large open areas.
Plans are a good thing, but as they say, no plan survives contact with the enemy. As I ran down a staircase toward the street, I turned a corner and nearly ran into a Nightwatch officer on the way up. This time, the enemy didn’t catch me sleepwalking. I slammed the butt of my weapon into the man’s chin, and he flew backward like he’d been thrown from a moving vehicle. He hit the landing hard, and I was on top of him with my knife out before he could even clear his head. I cut his throat, then wiped the blood off on his own uniform before returning the knife to my sheathe.
Gabriel caught up with me and nodded once in appreciation—not for the killing, which was an unfortunate necessity, but for the fact that I’d been paying attention this time. I’d acted so quickly that I don’t know if the man even caught a single glimpse of me before he was out. We reached the door, and I saw two Nightwatch officers standing just outside. I ducked out of sight, marveling at the fact that they were as silent as we were. They were conducting a search, but they were doing it without ever saying a single word to each other.
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t heard any of them say anything at all since I’d first arrived on Venus. This was a strange point, and perhaps an important one—but I didn’t have any time to think about it. As we crouched in the doorway, I kept my hand on the hilt of my knife the entire time. If they came through that door, our only chance of remaining undetected was to kill them both quickly and silently.
The handle turned, and Gabriel gestured for me to get to the side. I stepped out of his way, and he crouched down on the staircase and aimed at the door. They seemed to hesitate, as if uncertain whether to push the door open all the way or not. Gabe pulled the trigger twice and the door fell open with a body slumped down behind it. The other one was on the street outside, trying to crawl away despite the hole in his chest.
I stepped over the body of the first man and went to finish him, but he stopped crawling before I could draw my knife. We didn’t take the time to pull the bodies through into the building this time. The trap was closing, and our only hope was to keep on moving.
By slipping from building to building and from street to street, we had finally made it to within two blocks of the elevators. That was the most positive aspect of our current situation. The less positive aspect was what we saw as we approached: dozens of shadowy figures moving through the streets ahead of us.
When we’d come up through the shaft, the elevator doors had not been guarded. The most likely reason for this was a simple oversight. Marcenn hadn’t been worried about an attack from that direction, only an attempt to storm the hub. With his forces oriented toward the Defector forces, he had left a gap for us to slip through—or just to stumble through.
Moving back to the hub from the other direction would be a lot more difficult, especially now that he knew we were here. As far as I could see, the approach to the elevators was heavily guarded.
From where we were standing, I could see some of the same buildings we’d fought our way through just a few hours earlier. It was kind of strange, fighting so hard to go in one direction just to fight equally hard to go back in the other direction. That kind of futility is what soldiers sign up for, but unlike a soldier, an Arbiter is supposed to be the master of his own destiny.
Gabriel pointed at a darkened storefront, and I pushed the door open so we could have a little conference. He spoke as quietly as possible, knowing that if anyone was listening with audio amplified, they might be able to hear what we were saying.
“We’re almost there, but the last push is going to be the hard part. It looks like they’ve taken up position inside the buildings, so even if we use the skyways for cover, we’ll have to get past them to get to the elevator doors. We’ll maneuver in close but be ready to fight at any moment. It could get ugly.”
As Gabe was giving me this little pep talk, a whole squad of Nightwatch officers came running up the street to the spot where we’d left the last two bodies. Without s
aying a word, they all fanned out and started searching the street.
“Shit!” said Gabe, pulling me down behind a near-empty shelving unit. I looked around and spotted an emergency exit on the other side of the store. I jerked my thumb at it, and Gabe nodded.
We slipped out the back and found ourselves on the same street as Big Bob’s. I didn’t take a lot of time to think about it, I just ran back to our favorite breakfast buffet and let myself in. My surprise when I saw the three Nightwatch officers was probably no greater than theirs when they saw me. I threw the door open, and there they were, staring down at Big Bob’s body like it was an exhibit in a museum. One of them turned and bared his teeth, an animal gesture of aggression and dominance.
I ran right into him and sent him sprawling with my left shoulder. He hit the buffet stand and knocked it over, which turned out to be a problem for the guy beside him. They both went over, and I turned to the third man and drew my blade. He went for his gun, but you know what they say. It may not be a good idea to bring a knife to a gun fight, but it’s also a bad idea to bring a gun to a knife fight. As close as we were to each other, a knife fight is what it was. I stabbed him three times in the body before he could access his weapon, and he stumbled and fell as blood gushed out all over me.
I turned to the other two, who were getting up. A quick slice across the Adam’s Apple put an end to the first one as he was struggling to stand, but the second one was right on top of me. He grabbed at my wrist with his right hand, punching over and over with his left while he did so. I stumbled backward, staggering under the force of his strikes.
As we fought for the knife, I tripped over Big Bob’s body and went over on my ass. That broke the man’s grip on my wrist, and as an extra bonus he tripped. I stabbed out frantically, and the tip of my knife went into his belly as he came in after me. Both of his hands went to the wound, so I braced him with my left hand and just started stabbing.
Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5 Page 6