by T. C. Edge
Ragan smiled at the interaction, his gaze still filled with worry as he looked upon Chloe’s weary form.
“How do you feel?” he asked her, confident that her nanites hadn’t been stolen, and yet not entirely sure.
He looked to her hands, and she followed his gaze. A short moment later, her fingers were fizzing and sparking once more, lighting with blue energy. A gorgeous, purposeful smile lifted onto her face.
“I feel just fine,” she said.
Then her eyes took in the others - Tanner and Nadia, a little way away, and the creature standing ahead of them, wrists bound tight behind his back.
Chloe’s hands sparked brighter, and she flew to her feet. Remus came to life, just as she did, zipping wildly around her body as she stormed straight for the nano-vamp.
She lifted her hands and shouted, “Get back,” to the others.
Tanner and Nadia looked over, but weren’t required to move. Ragan, with a calm authority, reached out and stifled Chloe’s hatred and rage.
“Chloe, not yet,” he said. “We can’t kill him until we have the data.”
Chloe’s hands continued to burn blue. Mikel’s eyes fell upon the sight with a keen desire.
“Wipe that grin off your face,” growled Chloe, stepping towards him.
He didn’t. Her hand raised, slapping him hard and bringing a burst of electricity with it that singed the surface of his skin. His head turned off to one side with the impact, but returned with the same smile.
“Such a playful girl,” he mused. “Go ahead, do it again.”
Chloe was all but set to rise to the challenge, before Ragan swept her off to one side.
“Look, I know you hate him and want him dead, but there are more important things to do first.” His tone was rebuking, like a disappointed parent chastising an unruly child.
Chloe felt stupid. After all, Ragan had far more reason to hate Mikel than her, even after he’d so nearly drained her dry.
“Fine,” she said. “Have you searched him yet?”
Ragan shook his head.
“I was more concerned about making sure you were OK.”
They shared a coy look, but drew no further attention to the moment. Ragan turned to Tanner.
“Check him for the data,” he ordered.
Tanner let his rifle fall to his side, and turned on Mikel with a rising smile.
“Gladly,” he said, stepping forward.
The rest gathered, still keeping watch as Tanner set about searching Mikel’s person for the disc. A tension grew as the moments passed, Tanner checking one pocket then the next, making sure of its contents before moving on. He uncovered a variety of blades, hidden in secret places, varying in their shape and size, as well as a small comms unit within the vamp’s inner jacket pocket.
But no data. No disc.
“Nothing,” said Tanner, completing his conclusive search. “Only this.”
He stepped to Ragan and handed him the comms unit. Ragan inspected it briefly, before slipping it into his own pocket.
All eyes rounded on Mikel, whose grin was still hovering.
“Cavity search,” said Ragan. “Check inside his mouth.”
Tanner stepped forward once more, a little more reluctant this time. With the aid of Nadia, who joined in to ensure Tanner returned with a full compliment of fingers, they quickly checked inside his mouth. Again, they found nothing.
Tanner turned on Ragan.
“If you want any other cavities checked, you’re gonna have to do it yourself. I draw the line at looking in his mouth.”
All crinkled their noses at the idea. Even Mikel looked rather put off by the concept of having the other internal places of his body vandalised.
“That won’t be necessary,” said Ragan.
He reached up and activated his lenses, turning them to X-ray mode. Immediately, the skeleton and internal organs of Mikel came into view, his weird enhancements clear for the eye to see. He wasn’t structured like a normal man. It was bizarre looking upon his altered biology.
“Nothing. He looks clean,” said Ragan, completing the check.
“Right, so I just stuck my hands in his mouth for nothing?” queried Tanner.
Ragan lifted a corner of his mouth.
“You know what these X-ray lenses are like, Cliff. They can be unreliable.”
“Damn you, Hunt.”
It was Nadia’s rolling tone that cut through the short exchange.
“OK boys, enough of that. So, no data then? That’s the take away from all this.”
All eyes swarmed upon Mikel once more, whose grin had reappeared.
“So, what now?” asked Chloe.
Ragan drew a breath, and stepped menacingly towards Mikel.
“Now, we interrogate. And something tells me we’re going to need to use force.”
The words were fiercely delivered.
But Mikel’s smirk never left his face.
43
Before doing anything else, it was quickly decided that the group needed to get clear of the scene. The battle down in Devil’s Pike was sure to have been noted by the gangs in the area, who’d likely descend soon, as all good scavengers tended to do.
It would be a good haul for whoever arrived first. The arms dealers had brought weapons, and the Marauders had brought money to pay. Whoever stumbled upon it would find quite the bounty, and it would be best if the group of four weren’t there when the vultures descended.
The particular subject of the meeting and exchange, of course, was on everyone’s minds. It appeared that the deal between the two gangs had nothing to do with the data at all, just a simple trade of arms between two local factions. Mikel’s presence and participation didn’t appear to have been expected. Answers were needed, and there was much cause for concern. The nano-vamp needed interrogating, and quick.
As Ragan and Tanner briskly led the prisoner back to the falcon, Nadia and Chloe were tasked with heading the other way. It was suggested by the former that Mikel may have stored the data in his jet-car, parked a little way outside of the town. A long shot, perhaps, but one worth checking as the men returned to gather up the jet, parked several miles to the southwest.
With Remus maintaining his usual vigil, therefore, the two young women rushed down the hill and through the town of Devil’s Pike. Chloe looked upon the carnage with a dispassionate eye. It wasn’t an unusual sight in these parts, nor in this time. She’d seen war zones before during her travels, some freshly peppered with the dead, others filled with soldiers who’d already started to rot and decay. She’d even come across open graveyards before, white skeletons picked clean by the birds and beasts, torn fabrics of old military attire hanging loose on their bones to tell of their allegiance.
She’d seen it all, really, over the last few years, and her stomach had grown strong to such sights. This wasn’t anything to bring up her lunch, despite the rather macabre manner in which some of the men had been dispatched.
As they headed through, however, Chloe stopped, a thought coming to mind. Her sudden change in motion halted Nadia’s step, and drew her eye.
“What’s up?” the southern girl asked. She imagined, perhaps, that Chloe was struggling with the view. She was dead wrong on that count.
“Do you think we should check them for evidence?” Chloe asked. The question was unemotionally delivered, businesslike. It made clear Chloe’s firm mind. “We might find something that could help?”
“I doubt it,” said Nadia, passing her eyes over the corpses, freshly sown as seeds in a field. “You saw what happened. No one here knew Mikel was around. At least, that’s what it seemed like. We’ll find out soon enough. I don’t think these people have anything much to do with the data disc. But hey, if you want to check ‘em, knock yourself out. I’ll take a gander at the car. We can meet at the northern edge.”
Chloe nodded in agreement, and the two girls split, Chloe staying in the central square and Nadia hurrying off northward up the main street.
&nb
sp; It didn’t take long for Chloe to realise that Nadia’s instincts had been right. Her focus was set specifically on the two leaders of the gangs - the so-called Pirate and Madam Joy, who’s face in death remained just as joyless as it had in life.
Chloe conducted a perfunctory check of the leader of the arms dealers first but found nothing of interest. She did the same with the Pirate, and again came across nothing of note. He lay on the ground, one eye covered in an eyepatch, and the other now destroyed as well. Mikel’s first bullet had cut right through his good eye, continuing on through the back of his skull, blowing a hole big enough to see clean through. Chloe wondered briefly whether Mikel had chosen to snipe away his good remaining eye just for fun. It seemed the sort of thing the creature would do.
With a fragrance of frustration starting to build around her, she decided to give up on the many subordinate corpses littering the street, and turned her attention instead to the vehicles parked at either end of the town. Her logic was simple - if neither of the gang leaders were carrying any intel or evidence of note, then their underlings certainly wouldn’t.
She headed south first, taking aim with her gaze upon the Marauders’ vehicles. Inside the front vehicle, she discovered several bags packed full of money, clearly intended for payment of the arms. She opened the bags and performed a quick count. It looked like millions, more money than she’d ever seen in her life.
She took in the sight, eyes bulging with the sort of temptation that would topple many a good soul when encountering such a windfall. Her mind even swept forward with all the things such money could buy, only tempered by the circumstances of her life. She wasn’t some city girl who could purchase the latest in fashion and show off to her friends. Her world was quite unlike that of others her age, and those hailing from such high-born stock as she did. No, if she was to use such money, it would be for freedom and escape. It would be for hiding.
But the thought passed quick and didn’t linger. She was, for the first time in a long time, among friends. Not so long ago, finding a stash of money would have helped her disappear. Now, she had no true intention of going anywhere.
With a final gaze, she closed up the bags and headed north, to the vehicles brought here by the arms dealers under the charge of Madam Joy. To no surprise, she discovered crates filled with arms in their trunks. They were advanced and cutting edge, as far as she could make out. In the fight for control in these parts, such weaponry would have been a great advantage.
She searched through the crates, once more doing a quick count of what stocks lay before her.
By the time she’d completed her search, Nadia was rushing back over, expression on her face to suggest her own task had yielded the expected result.
“Anything?” asked Chloe, turning her blue gaze upon the handsome girl.
“Nothing,” replied Nadia, joining her side and looking at the weapons. “You?”
“Nothing about the data. Just a whole load of cash and weapons.” She referenced the crates, and then gestured to the distant vehicles at the southern edge of town. “Could be useful for Project Dawn?” she suggested. “You think we should take it with us?”
Nadia considered it, though it didn’t really require much considering. Free weapons and money weren’t something to turn your nose up to. Sure, Project Dawn was well stocked and funded, but every little helped.
“Sure, why the hell not,” said Nadia, perusing the crates of weapons. “We can load it all onto the falcon when the boys get back. Looks like a good haul. Let’s fetch the money first.”
They spent the next few minutes gathering the bags of money from the Marauders vehicles, and transferring them towards the northern end of town. By the time the night sky began to buzz with the sound of the incoming jet, they’d gathered all cash and arms to be loaded up.
The falcon landed at the edge of town, kicking up dust as it settled in the early evening gloom, its bright lights sending a harsh glow upon the girls waiting by Madam Joy’s vehicles. Beside them, the crates of weapons and large bags of cash sat waiting.
Ragan was quickly descending from the jet, eyes taking in the scene.
“What’s all this?”
“Haul from the trade,” said Nadia. “Chloe suggested we take it with us. Help us out will you?”
“Erm, sure. You scanned them for traps and trackers yet?”
“Not yet,” admitted Nadia. “I was gonna leave that to you,” she added with a wry smile.
Ragan was, among the members of the Crimson Corps, notoriously professional and thorough in his work. He wasn’t about to let a load of weapons crates and money bags upon the falcon without first checking them for trouble.
Stepping towards them, he set about analysing each one individually using his scanning lens. His particular concern was in finding - or, more aptly, not finding - any tracking devices hidden within. A quick check confirmed that none were present.
“Right, let’s load them up,” he said. “Tanner, get your ass down here and help.”
Tanner appeared from the cockpit a moment later, and all four began hauling the crates and bags into the rear of the jet. Upon entering, Chloe found Mikel tied and gagged at the back, his limbs locked tight to the internal fixtures, rendering him immobile. His eyes were closed, suggesting he’d been knocked out. Whether by some drug or a more brutal, physical method, Chloe couldn’t be sure.
She rather hoped for the latter.
Within a few minutes, the jet was burdened with a fresh load of weapons and money, and set to depart. Not a moment too soon had they completed the job, as Nadia, eagle eyed as she was, spotted the faint lights of a convoy heading their way from the south.
“Must be the rest of the Marauders,” said Ragan, taking a look at the black horizon, now glowing with lights. “I suspected they’d be waiting on standby not too far off. Better get going before they see us.”
With an extra burst of haste, the group took their seats, and Tanner set about lifting the falcon back off the desert floor and into the dreary night sky, blotted by in incoming coating of cloud. It hovered up smoothly, engines beginning to whir, before pitching off into the night with a sudden burst of speed that, on this occasion, didn’t take Chloe by such surprise.
It wasn’t merely the fact that she’d experienced it before. It was because her mind was elsewhere, centred on the creature shackled to the rear. She sat in her seat, bound by her restraints, anxiously waiting for the jet to get clear of the area so the interrogation could begin.
It took little time for the jet to flee the scene, warping at miraculous speed high and far from the little town of Devil’s Pike, once thriving, then abandoned, and now turned graveyard. Soon enough, several dozen miles had been put between them, and Chloe felt the supersonic aircraft begin to slow.
Her eyes turned to one of the small windows embedded in the thick, metal hull, and she noted the shape of the moon appearing above the clouds. It suggested their height, transcending the canopy. The nearest clouds then seemed to stop in place, telling Chloe that the jet hadn’t only slowed, but stopped entirely.
The men came out from the cockpit, the final words of a personal conversation trailing off their tongues as they entered into the main space.
“Falcon’s in hover mode,” said Ragan, directing his words at Chloe. He seemed quite aware that she, above anyone else, needed explanation. Certainly, the light and shape of her eyes, ever questioning and curious, demanded it. “Cloaking mode too. No one will see us up here.”
“Yeah, only risk is another jet hurtling into us,” joked Tanner. “Sometimes being invisible can have its disadvantages.”
“That won’t happen, will it?” asked Chloe, curiosity merging with concern.
Tanner’s non-verbal reply couldn’t be trusted. He was too playful, sometimes, to consider a good source. Even now, the situation being what it was, he drew up a muted smirk, hidden behind a feigned show of worry, and shrugged as if to say a mid-air collision was a very real possibility.
&n
bsp; Ragan, if he was so inclined, would have rolled his eyes. He probably did internally.
Outwardly, he just said, “No, Chloe, it won’t happen. We have sensors that will pick up approaching aircraft, and the jet’s autopilot will move us out of their flightpath if required. It’s impossible for us to get hit.”
His complete assurance doused Chloe’s concerns. Though her habit of not really trusting anything still kept a thread or two of worry tangled inside her.
Still, the knowledge that they were hovering several miles up in the sky was an odd one. As soon as she escaped her restraints, unclipping the harness in her seat, she headed right for the window and gazed out into the night, pressing her face to the thick glass like a child looking out to find the skies snowy on Christmas morning.
Her wide-eyed innocence was, as ever, juxtaposed with her status as public enemy number one, with her experience of death, seeing it, delivering it. She was a sorceress to the public, thought to be a vicious brute who’d kill anyone who so much as spotted her. In truth, she was no more than a girl, running and hiding. And now, perhaps, belonging.
Ragan joined her, so taken by the mix she portrayed. Hardened by experience, haunted by memory, and yet innocent to so many things too. He looked at her with a mingled fascination and desire, and a tight whisper escaped him.
“It’s so peaceful up here, isn’t it?”
She turned her head from the window, as if stirring from a dream. She hadn’t noticed his arrival at her flank.
“Peaceful,” she nodded. “And beautiful.”
Her eyes were back on the night. On the moon, and the stars. The sparkling lights of the heavens, pure and clean, untainted by the filthy world below. It all held such promise, such possibility. And inside, she felt cleaner herself now, purged of the data hidden in her nanites, of the very thing that had seen her chased from coast to coast, hunted for so long.
Her mind turned at the thought. She looked to the rear of the falcon’s interior, at the bundle of black, shackled to the railings. Ragan’s eyes went with hers, and both stared on as Nadia and Tanner approached the creature who held the answers.