When the van came to a stop, she could tell by the change in sound that they were parked indoors. Voices outside argued in American English in muffled conversations. When the rear doors opened and someone pulled her out, Cora breathed a sigh of relief that they were finally getting on with it. She was forced into a metal folding chair on what felt and sounded like a concrete floor.
“Take the bag off her head,” an older voice commanded. “I want to look this pig in the eye.”
The bag came off, and Cora took a moment to adjust to the light. It was early morning and bright skies shone through shattered windows and missing skylights. The rusted metal frame of a factory or warehouse, whatever this place once was, looked ready to crumble to dust around her. Two men in plain Native shirts and blue jeans stood before her. Surrounding them were a group of six Vulkan Group soldiers. Three of them had weapons trained on her. Another stood over her shoulder. She checked out the expansive factory floor. Two cars were parked behind the Native men. The van was behind her. Random piles of abandoned debris and rusting metal frames filled the floor space.
“You,” one of the Native American men spoke to her. His thinning white hair hung wildly on his shoulders. He leaned down to talk to her, placing his hands on the knees of his jeans. “You were one of the NSA agents at the restaurant, yes?”
Cora scoffed. They didn’t open with any names, threats, shows of force, nothing. They hired a cheap PMC that agreed to slaughter civilians and NSA black ops agents in a restaurant at dinner time. They were Native Americans in Germany, probably Children of Earth members. Everything about them screamed amateur.
“Where is the data?” he persisted.
Cora stared at him. He motioned to the younger man beside him, and the man went to work waving a wand over her.
“I’m tech-less,” she sighed. “Wasting your time.”
“Why are you tech-less?” the older man asked.
“Polyalloy allergies,” Cora replied sarcastically. “Who cares?”
“Respect!” the older man shouted. “Our people show respect in the presence of their elders. It is our way. It has always been our way. You’d know that if you weren’t some damned traitor to your own kind!”
“Traitor?” Cora blasted back. “You’re old enough to remember you weren’t always a proud Native American. The Awakening comes along, and all of a sudden you’re some elder with some wisdom you didn’t have before? Give me a break.”
The old man struck her cheek with the back of his hand. Cora rolled with the hit and snapped her gaze right back to him.
“You touch me again, I’ll kill everyone in this room,” she said, spitting out the copper taste of blood from her mouth. “I still might, regardless.”
The old man stared her down, as if trying to read her sincerity. He smiled, curling wrinkles all over the leathery skin of his face.
“I like your fire,” he said. “Shame you picked the wrong side.”
A Vulkan soldier stepped forward. An insignia etched into his body armor marked him as the unit commander. His grizzled face looked as tired as Cora felt.“Look, old man, let’s just verify she has the package and cap her already. We’re on the clock.”
“I’m paying your bills, aren’t I?” the old man raised his voice.
The younger man wandered to one of the soldiers and came back with Cora’s wrist computer. He tried to whisper to the old man, but Cora still heard him talking about disabling the GPS tracker on it so he could check it out. Cora got a look behind his ear, and saw the small input port for a datajack.
“You’re wasting your time,” Cora said, thinking fast. “The file is 218 terabytes. You ever see an Arcadia hold a file that large?”
Cora had no idea how large the file was, or if she could fit it on her wrist computer. It sounded good, though. The old man looked at his hacker and only got a shrug in response.
“You don’t understand the importance of that file,” the old man said. His voice pleaded, even as his tone remained aggressive. “Do you know what the dragon has planned?”
“I would love to know,” Cora replied. “Because your little hit squad killed my team before I ever found out.”
“A new kind of arms race,” he said. “The likes this world hasn’t seen since before the Dark Ages. You’re one of us. You belong in the Native Lands, fighting him with us.”
Cora felt her restraints with a flex of her wrist. They weren’t magical in any way. These men may not have known she was a magic user at all, which would explain why no precautions for that were taken. She needed to buy time to formulate a plan.
“I’m not one of you,” she said, staring at the old man with righteous indignation. “I don’t indiscriminately murder innocent people to achieve my ends.”
The old man laughed. “You don’t? You dare say you don’t? To me? To us? To your own people? Check a history book, little girl. It’s filled with stories of how these European fucks came to our lands and wiped us out in the name of progress! And now you’re wearing one of their uniforms and calling them sir. How dare you!”
He was riled and emotional. It was perfect.
“Are you responsible for the massacre at the restaurant?” Cora yelled.
The old man leaned in close, so close she could feel his breath on her face. “You’re damn right I am.”
Cora gritted her teeth. She already knew, but his admission was so brazen.
“You want the data?” Cora asked. “I want answers.”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” the old man replied.
The Vulkan commander groaned audibly. “Look, if she doesn’t have it, she knows where it is. Let’s just grab some cables outta the van and string her up by her tits to the power cell. We’ll get her talking in no time.”
“I have a better solution,” Cora replied to the soldier. “You pieces of garbage want to clock out and go home?”
“Yeah, lady,” the commander nodded his head. “Just give the old man what he wants, and we’ll end you quick. I promise.”
“How about I just buy you off?” Cora said. “You’re for hire, aren’t you? I can promise I pay better than them.”
The old man laughed in disgust. “Pathetic. Begging for your life like a cornered rat.”
Cora kept her eyes on the commander. She didn’t blink. The old man’s words came and went, leaving silence behind.
“How much are we talking about?” the commander asked.
The old man yelled, “What difference does that make?”
“Half a million,” Cora replied over him. “Untraceable. Elven Bank of Kyoto.”
The commander snickered, looking at his companions. He shrugged. “There’s no way she has that.”
The old man stepped forward, in between Cora and the commander. “Why are you even entertaining the idea? We have an arrangement!”
Cora moved her eyes to the young hacker. He looked lost and confused. He was probably a first-generation born Native, unlike his leader who would have shifted in The Awakening. Children of Earth, like all terrorist groups, preyed on young men with skills like his, using words like duty and destiny. Even if he was in over his head, men like these became fanatical and couldn’t be reasoned with. Pain was the only thing they understood.
The other soldiers in the room wore a mix of smiles and apathy. Some enjoyed the sudden turn of events, while others were tired and bored without something to kill. These trigger-happy lunatics were even worse than the zealots paying their bills. They had no beliefs beyond the credits in their account. Turning those two ideologies against each other was almost child’s play.
“No, no, you’re right, grandpa,” the commander said. “Keep your pants on. We got a reputation to uphold. Don’t we, boys? We can’t just turn our backs on a contract.”
“Sure can’t, boss,” another soldier giggled over Cora’s shoulder.
The commander took a pompous stride toward Cora. “I mean, we’d definitely need some kind of proof you even had that kind of money before we could
even entertain such a silly idea.”
“You’re dogs!” the old man shouted.
“We’re capitalists, actually,” the commander corrected with a smile.
“You’re also in over your head,” Cora announced, drawing both their attention. “The old man had you do a job you weren’t cut out for. NSA knows I’m alive, and they know it was you at the restaurant. They think I hired you. So let’s make it real.”
Another round of arguing ensued between the commander and the old man. Cora looked the commander over. Besides being overdue for a shave and a bath, he was armed with an Apex Predator at his hip, and like all of his men, he wore armored plating over a bullet-resistant Norex bodysuit.
“You can let me show you,” Cora spoke over the argument. Both men went quiet. Cora shrugged. “I mean, if I’m lying, it’s power cell to the tits, right?”
The commander and his men got a good laugh out of that. Once it died down, the commander said, “I don’t know, boys. This chick is starting to grow on me.”
The melting point for the plastic used in zip ties was so low, Cora could magically generate the necessary heat in her fingertip with a thought. It was so easy, in fact, that the Vulkan soldier standing over her with a clear view of her back didn’t see when she did it. By the time their leader sauntered over to Cora and leaned down to show his wrist computer screen, she was already free. She kept her hands behind her and continued the show.
“I think you’re gonna need to show me,” the commander said.
“You think this is a joke?” the old man demanded. He pointed a pistol at the commander.
Guns clicked and moved into place. The young hacker pulled one of his own. The soldiers stopped laughing and joking and settled rifles and pistols trained on the old man. The commander was the only one without a weapon aimed at someone.
“Well, that was the wrong play, grandpa,” the soldier said. “I still would have killed her anyway. What was wrong with getting a little extra credit on the side? But you go and do this. Now, maybe I’m wondering if I like her better than you.”
Cora closed her eyes. All the magic use and lack of rest was giving her a massive headache. She took a breath and put it from her mind. She returned to the Montana mountains, where the eagles dove out of the sky like missiles and plucked fish from the water with their talons. The magic swelled within like a shot of adrenaline, tingling as it moved to her eyes. She opened them, her brown irises glowing yellow. Time slowed down all around her, stretching out moments in graphic detail.
She stepped to the side, out of the chair, her chest against the commander’s back. In one motion, she moved her hands under his arms, sliding his Apex Predator from the holster. Her hands wrapped under his armpits and around to the back of his neck, trapping his arms in the air. Her weapon hand faced backwards. The magical sight already helped her take the position of the soldier behind her into account as she pulled the trigger, sending a bullet between his eyes. She yanked the commander, spinning her vulnerable back away from his soldiers and facing his men as their weapons moved aim onto Cora.
The commander was larger than Cora and would no doubt power out of her hold any moment. She pushed down with everything she had against his neck while taking aim on the old man. Two shots, chest and head. The hacker, arms trembling with the weight of a pistol in his hand, took a round to the stomach. She let one arm free from the commander, only to move the barrel of the Predator flush against his unarmored kidney, and fired twice.
Bodies had yet to finish hitting the floor, but the remaining soldiers were too numerous, even with Eagle’s Sight. With one hand still at the back of the commander’s neck, she cupped her palm and pulled magic from the depths of her soul, harder and faster than she ever had before. It coalesced and sparked into a Stunbomb. The soldiers moved to spread out and flank her. A shot rang out that wasn’t hers. It slammed the plate of her shoulder armor like a punch. Cora was out of time. Like a dance partner, she spun and twirled the fatally wounded commander in her arms to free up her hand without dropping him. His arms struggled to grip her at the shoulders and steady himself. Cora tossed the Stunbomb underhanded to the ground. When it shattered, the resulting wave of energy threw the five remaining soldiers off their feet.
Six seconds.
Cora shoved the commander to the side and let him fall to the ground. She pointed on the closest soldier on the floor, took aim, and fired twice. The next, two more rounds. The effect of the Apex Predator’s magnetically propelled bullets on the human body didn’t even need Cora’s level of precision to be fatal. The bullet count was nine. She threw the Predator to the ground as she grabbed up a downed soldier’s Apex 9mm and shot him in the face while she was down there. The fourth and fifth were struggling to get back to their feet. Cora walked to one and put a stop to that with two rounds. The final man rolled to all fours, but Cora already stood over him. She locked eyes with the only survivor, the young hacker. He lay on the ground near one of the cars, clutching his bleeding guts. Cora pressed the barrel of her pistol against the back of the soldier’s skull and pulled the trigger. His head exploded into the floor before the rest of his body joined it on the ground.
Her cold stare with glowing yellow eyes terrified the young Native man. He moaned and whined, trying to crawl backward along the concrete ground with one arm. He dragged a trail of blood with him. Whether he was trying to reach a weapon or made a desperate bid to get away on his back, Cora stepped on his ankle to put an end to it. Her head looked about the warehouse floor. No one moved.
Her eyes fluttered, and Cora released the magical sight. Her headache was now in five-alarm hangover territory. She winced at the dull ache.
“Answer my questions,” Cora spoke through gritted teeth. “And don’t try a damn thing.”
The hacker nodded and quivered. The crotch of his pants were soaking wet.
“I only counted seven in here. Are there any others outside?”
He shook his head. “No, the APC crew was sent back to their headquarters a couple of hours ago.”
“How did you know about the restaurant?” Cora raised her voice and aimed the pistol at his head. “Who told you we would be there?”
“It was Rory Toller!” the hacker yelled, squinting his eyes.
Cora’s mouth fell open. “Our informant?”
“He was sympathetic to our cause,” he replied. “With the weapons that Lucius was after, we could push east and take all of North America.”
“What do you mean? What weapons?”
“Magical items, left behind throughout history,” the hacker said. “I never saw it myself. Our chief, though, he saw one with his own eyes! It’s why we came here.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Cora yelled. “He was our informant. We were watching him like a hawk! How does he reach out to you?”
The hacker used his good arm to point at the blood-soaked silver bracelet on his wrist. “He reached out to us through UnderNet years ago. He had been supporting us through a shell company called Eichmann Industrial. I can show you.”
Cora shook her head. The information was hard to fit with what she already knew. She stared him in the eye. He was too scared to lie.
“You killed him,” Cora said. “He was sympathetic to your cause, aided you, and you killed him.”
“Vulkan convinced us it was the only way. They said in order to kill UNS agents in public like that, we’d have to wipe out the whole place and make it look like a robbery. I told the chief they were trying to cover their own asses,” he began to cry. “They didn’t want the NSA tracking them down.”
“What about the hotel?” Cora asked.
The young man’s brow furrowed. “What hotel?”
Cora’s jaw clenched. It wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear, but it was what she expected. Everything she had seen of Vulkan’s work was too sloppy to pull off two operations at once. The security in place at the hotel would have taken skillsets far above kill-crazy guns for hire.
She had to make a decision. All of the previous kills she’d had up until now were done out of necessity. It was done in the heat of the moment, in battle. The hacker was no longer a combatant. He posed no threat to her, unless he was able to get away from this warehouse. He could get back with Vulkan Group, or his tribe. He could explain what happened here on UnderNet in exchange for safe passage out of Berlin. All of those scenarios ended with Lucius getting wind of what Cora had been up to and what she knew.
Cora could justify it to herself any way she wanted. His wound was probably fatal. Be it revenge for Richard, national security, or justice, there could always be a way to rationalize killing him. The risks of him staying alive outweighed all other factors. She would just have to live with the consequences.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No, wait, please,” the hacker said.
Cora stood erect and looked away, pulling the trigger twice in rapid succession before she talked herself out of it. His last words rattled around in her head long after the deafening echo of the last shot was fired. She started to dig through his pockets, trying to shut it from her mind. Instead, it came back with a vengeance, turning her stomach. Sickness rose in the back of her throat. She dropped to her knees and threw up on the floor. Whiskey and bile mixed and burned her mouth and throat. She coughed and spit, crawling around the ground on all fours.
Once she could breathe again, she searched the hacker’s body and recovered her wrist computer and earpiece. She swiped out the screen on the young man’s wrist, checking his device to see if GPS tracking was disabled. Once she confirmed it was, she unclasped it and hid it inside her boot. Getting back to her feet, she searched around for another pistol, and grabbed up an Apex Predator. She ejected the magazine and checked the count. It was a full clip, so she slapped it back in and holstered it. She put in her earpiece and powered her wrist computer back up.
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