The weaving truck made lining up anything on the pistol almost impossible. Qwiz pointed the gun and tentatively pulled the trigger. The blast reverberated through his hands up into his shoulder. The sound was deafening. He missed.
“Try again!”
Qwiz fired more. After a few shots he saw the headlight wink out of one of the SUVs. He didn’t hit the tire.
He pulled the trigger back again. Nothing happened. “I’m out!”
The nearest SUV revved its massive engine and rammed the back corner of the truck, sending it careening sideways. Qwiz was thrown forward into his seatbelt as the increased G-forces tested its tensile strength. They slammed to a stop against the brick side of an old building.
Pedestrians screamed, running away from the accident.
Six men jumped out of the SUVs, all holding weapons. They surrounded the truck, their faces inscrutable in the dark.
“Quency, it’s been an honor to fight by your side,” Bill said.
Qwiz smiled weakly. He shut his eyes as the men leveled their weapons at the windows. He couldn’t believe all of this had happened so fast. He expected to feel the sharp pain of bullets lance through his flesh any second.
They didn’t come.
He didn’t hear any gun shots at all.
He chanced a look. Men held hands to their ear-pieces, cursing. One by one, the men lowered their weapons and got back in their cars. Then, inexplicably, they drove away.
“What? Why are they leaving?” Qwiz asked.
Bill frowned as he watched them leave. “I don’t know. I don’t like it when my enemy doesn’t do what I expect them to.”
“But we’re alive!” Qwiz said.
“For now.” Bill squinted into the distance. “Let’s get out of here before they change their minds.”
They drove a circuitous path back to Bill’s apartment. Bill killed the lights on the truck and circled around the block once in the dark to see if anyone was following them. He then whipped into the secure parking structure underneath. Bill normally parked on the street to let the solar array on his truck charge the batteries, but Qwiz doubted they would risk driving it any time soon.
Neither of them saw a black-clad man on a moped that had followed them.
Chapter 6:
CERN labs, Geneva, European Union
“Tell me you weren’t calling the police,” said an ice-cold voice from the door.
Luthor whipped around and in an instant had Eli’s gun zeroed on the person in the doorway. It was Vika. Luthor took a deep breath and lowered the sidearm; he hadn’t heard her enter. Her hair was up and a long black trench coat concealed her body. It was the middle of the night and she still looked as if she belonged on the home page of Cosmo. Luthor suspected the only thing keeping throngs of photographers from capturing her every movement was her expression, which would have frozen their lenses off.
“No, I called a friend to warn him.” Luthor said.
“Did you use his name?”
Luthor thought for a moment and then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Did you call a traceable number that could be linked to him?”
“No, I left my phone there, and called it, so he wouldn’t have to pay international phone rates.”
“Good. You might have just saved his life.”
Luthor was getting tired of the inquisition. “Vika, why are you here? What made you just walk over here at the crack of dawn?’
“I saw gunfire. Tell me what happened.” The sheer force of her tone and expectation of being obeyed disconcerted Luthor. It was just too incongruous for Eli’s beautiful—if terse—secretary to have a voice like that.
Michael obeyed before he could. “Come see.” Michael had not yet mastered his voice, it still quavered as he spoke.
Vika followed Michael to the office, scanning the room like a hawk as she did so. Her eyes lingered longer on the broken sink than the dead bodies, which strangely, didn’t seem to faze her. Who is she? Whatever she is, she’s no secretary.
Eli’s corpse was a different story. She sagged against the doorframe as she viewed it. Eli had been dear to her, that much was certain.
“This is what happened.” Michael’s voice cracked. “They put him on his knees and shot him. They shot him because…. All because I hesitated in answering their questions.”
Tanya put her hand on Michael’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear. His red-rimmed eyes looked grateful for the comment.
Vika remained frozen in the doorway as she absorbed the scene. Abruptly, she turned to address them, as if turning away blotted the grisly event from her memory. “We have one hour, then we must leave.”
Luthor ground his teeth. “I understand the danger. But I still think we should call the carbon police and get protection. They just broke about fifteen laws and then murdered Eli on top of it. Why should we run?”
“For the same reasons I’ve been suggesting all along,” Tanya said. “More people will probably come to kill us. If they know these have failed.
“You are right.” Vika produced something from her coat pocket, it resembled a watch battery with a tiny wire protruding from the center of the cylinder. “I found this in Eli’s office.”
Michael leaned in to get a better look. “What is—”
“A bug. It is like the transmitter in your CPI chip, but more powerful. It could have transmitted several kilometers. I disabled it.”
“Wait. Really? What does that mean?” Luthor asked, simultaneously wondering why Vika would even think to look for a listening device.
“It means that they—whoever they are— know everything. They will have heard our dinner conversation.”
“All the more reason to call the carps.”
“If they have the resources to bug Eli, then there is a good chance they have infiltrated the carbon police, or worse.”
Luthor felt his face getting flushed and his anger rising. Not good. He took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. “What, precisely, is worse than my friend getting murdered, and my life’s work almost stolen?”
“They could be the carbon police. They could have agents in any part of the EU. Better to not take chances. We have to assume that the EU itself is behind this.”
Luthor began to pace in frustration. “This is crazy! If we run we will look like the guilty ones.”
“You stay here, you die. Your choice.”
Luthor felt his anger unhinge. The broken, dangerous Luthor who had been born in the frozen death of Antarctica broke out of his cage and took control of his body. “How do we know that you aren’t behind this?” he yelled. “You were asking all those questions at dinner. You somehow found the bug. You were conveniently not here when Eli died. And now you want us to run so you can kill us and steal my research for yourself!” Luthor stabbed a finger at Vika. “I’m not listening to one more piece of bullshit that comes out of your mouth. Michael, call the carps.”
Luthor stepped closer to Vika. He had no control of his body. He never did when the war-torn part of his mind took control. Antarctica-Luthor— Anti-Luthor— simply wanted to hurt that murdering bitch, make her pay for Eli’s death. Luthor yelled unintelligibly and hurled a coiled fist directly at her face.
In one instant Luthor registered a slight shift in her posture, the next instant his nervous system began transmitting pain signals up his spinal cord. Luthor found himself face-down on the vinyl, his arm cranked behind him at an awkward angle. The pain shocked Luthor back into control, and he wrangled his broken self back into its cage at the center of his mind. He added an extra lock. Trying to hit a woman was a new low, even for him.
Control back firmly in hand, Luthor then began to try to make sense of what had just happened. His neurons struggled to make the connection that Vika had just flung him on the ground like a rag doll and now had him in a hammer lock. Luthor scribbled in his memory, Mental note: don’t get beat up by secretaries.
She gave his arm another jerk, leaned in a
nd whispered so only he could hear, “If I had wanted to kill you, I would have done it already.”
She glared at him for a moment longer, then, seeming satisfied, she released his arm. It slithered back into place slower than it ought to, like an overstretched spring.
“I cared about him too,” she said. “He stood up for me when I had nothing, and gave me a job to keep me off the streets. Insult my honor again and it will be the last thing you ever do.”
Luthor regretted the whole event. But then again, he always regretted every action he took when he lost control. Tanya glared at him, her arms crossed. In the whole of their relationship, he had never lost control around her so completely. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”
Vika cut him off. “You just killed two people and you have PTSD. We have more pressing issues.”
Luthor blinked at the declaration.
Tanya glared at Luthor, but addressed Vika. “I still don’t understand why you’re so sure some aspect of the government is behind this.”
“Because that bug,” Vika held it up for all to see, “is Saber tech.”
Her words echoed in the stunned silence. The Sabers were the EU’s most Elite special-forces unit. Their very name struck fear or awe into anyone who heard it. Luthor had interacted briefly with them during the war, they had stopped by the Shackleton base in the foothills of the Trans-Antarctic mountains for supplies for a mission to destroy a Chinese recharging depot. The depot had been destroyed and they made it look like an ice cave-in. Over the course of the entire war they gained a reputation as the most deadly warriors from the entire continent. And whoever was chasing them was using their technology.
“Well that narrows it down,” Michael said. “There can’t be many people with access to something like that.”
“Very few.”
“And how do you know what a Saber bug looks like? That’s a pretty specific—”
Vika cut him off. “Unimportant. What matters is who is behind this attack.”
“Why would anyone go to those lengths to eavesdrop on a physics professor?” Tanya asked.
“It’s clear they already knew of Luthor’s device and only then planted the bug.”
“But the only people who knew of my discovery are standing in this room,” Luthor said.
“And anyone working for European Intelligence or the Censorship Bureau,” Vika said. “Since the beginning of the war, Europe has been recording every phone call, censoring every email. Luthor, you talked with Eli about this over the phone, didn’t you?”
Luthor cursed. Everything was spinning so wildly out of control. It felt like jumping out of an airplane.
Vika continued. “They must have intercepted your call, then bugged Eli.”
Vika moved to the dead man by the sink. She gestured for Michael to assist her in moving it. The two of them lifted the corpse onto the table.
“Look for identifying markers,” Vika instructed.
Luthor was glad for the excuse to focus on something other than his lack of control. He found nothing on the body apart from a stray 6mm casing.
Tanya pointedly moved to the opposite side of the body from where Luthor searched.
“What about this?” she indicated to a large insignia tattooed onto the back of the man’s calf.
Vika nodded approvingly.
The faded green ink bore the unmistakable symbol of the Sabers. These men didn’t just have Saber-tech, they had actually been Sabers.
“Damn!” Michael said. “You’re saying we just killed two of them? Badass.”
It certainly explained where they got the Gelvar vests and sub-machine guns.
“Definitely bad…ass,” Vika said, as if unfamiliar with the way the phrase felt on her tongue. “But if these were two Black Sabers, you would all be dead, and I would not have seen gunshots through the windows.”
The Black Sabers were composed of only the top Sabers, and supposedly the most elite force in the world—though Luthor suspected Delta Force might have something to say about that.
“Damn.” Michael whistled. “Still, we are alive and they aren’t. It means we’re pretty good, right?”
“Yes. And it also means I was right. The Sabers implies a connection to the European Government.”
Silence sliced the air as the truth sunk in. It was as clear as the amputated toes on Luthor’s feet. Someone with enough influence or money to send Sabers after them wanted his research. Someone ruthless enough to kill innocent professors to get what he wanted. A knot coiled up in his throat making it impossible to swallow. Luthor had no idea what to do.
“We must move quickly. We need to get out of Europe. Today.”
“What do you mean we?” Michael asked.
“I am coming with you.” Vika said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Why?”
“The closest thing I have ever had to a father was just murdered. You want to end energy scarcity. How many reasons do you want?” She raised an eyebrow at Michael. “You can die, or I can help you and you can live.”
Luthor looked hesitantly at Tanya, but she was still too angry with him to offer worthwhile advice. Michael was in no condition to help either. Luthor had to act, so he listened to his gut; it was the only member of their party who seemed to want to offer any assistance. He didn’t trust Vika, but a voice deep inside told him that they needed her help. She might be lying, might betray them, but she also seemed to offer the only shred of hope at the moment. Going to the police felt safer on the surface, but would risk exposing themselves to whoever had just tried to kill them.
If Europe alone gained control of 126 it was as good as starting another war. Perhaps it would be one of conquest, once Europe had all the power. Perhaps it would be one initiated by China or the USW over the scarcity of resources. It would be World War III all over again, people fighting and dying for energy. I can’t let that happen again.
A razor blade stretched before him in his mind. On both sides were death, failure and war. They were all but inevitable if power-grubbing men ended up with his technology. The edge between them held a foggy chance to change the world. It was clear that his forthcoming decision could determine where on the razor they would end up. The only problem was that he had no idea which choice gave him a chance, and which would doom them all. For all he knew both choices were hopeless. Perhaps Vika would stab them in the back, perhaps the carbon police or Sabers would steal his research; maybe it was just a matter of time before he lost this game of Russian roulette crafted by circumstances.
After a moment, he made up his mind. He turned to Vika. “What do we do?” With Sabers after them, they would never make it without help and Vika was the only source of any at the moment.
“Go find me some plastic bags and any small batteries you can find.”
#
Unknown location
A man with a southern accent waited impatiently for his phone to establish a secure line to Europe. The Asian and the old man had gotten away, right when they were in his grasp. Not because of any cleverness they possessed, but because he had been fucking called to stand down immediately; they weren’t even allowed to follow them! Goddamn orders! There had better be a good reason for that Omega Abort. And now, their trail was completely cold. Chicago didn’t spend the smogging credits to run the video cameras on the streets, so there was no way for him to even know the direction they went.
The phone finally routed through the complicated matrix of wires, towers, and satellites required to communicate securely between continents. A cold voice answered. His boss.
He had never been one for subtlety, and didn’t bother with small talk. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“You need to be more specific.” His boss’s normally icy voice was accompanied by annoyance today. Too bad; he had some answering to do.
“I had two men, the research, and all the goddamn 126 within arm’s length when you sent me the Omega Abort code!”
“What?” his
boss seemed to be speechless, rare for him.
“That’s what I want to know. I’m telling you, I had everything. Then I get the code that informs me that my whole goddamn team is supposed to leave immediately and not pursue.”
“I never sent any abort code, Omega or otherwise.”
Now it was his turn to be speechless. “What?…But it came with your clearance code! How is that possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were the only one who authorized the mission. As far as I know you are the only one outside of my team who even knew it was taking place.”
“I had to report to the USW that I was conducting an operation in the Chicago metro area because the President was in town.”
“Did they send the code?”
“Impossible. They had no specifics. They don’t even know you exist.”
“Then it doesn’t make any smogging sense! Even if they did know about the operation, you are the only one who knows the codes.”
“Then there is only one possibility.”
“What?”
“There is a mole on the inside, helping Tenrel.”
“A mole?”
“It gets worse. My agents never reported back this morning. The most probable outcome is that Tenrel got away in Geneva.”
The Texan cursed violently. “I told you to send more than two men! Shit, now we don’t have anything!”
“As I told you before, my hands were tied. I can’t authorize more than two Sabers and keep the mission a secret. Europe is much less lenient with us than America, they would have wanted details. I never would have been approved for a hit on a professor.”
“So we’re back to square one. No research, no 126. And now we don’t have the element of surprise either; they know we’re after them!”
“I wouldn’t say that. They still have no idea who we are. And we have taken away the televised stage of the IEC for Tenrel. He won’t have any way to publish his research away before we can stop him. All we need is a new strategy.”
“Okay,” the Texan said, “we have to assume that Tenrel isn’t going to be stupid enough to try to go to the European media with this.”
Scarcity Page 10