by Nathan Pedde
“Probably,” Elsie said, truing the door as it slid open. “Or not. How?”
“The height gives people a sense of security.”
Elsie rolled her eyes. “Stupid,”
She opened the door far enough for them to squeeze in. Des closed the door behind them.
In the darkened apartment, Des and Elsie crept their way among the sleeping bodies of men and women. He moved through the suite, every footstep of his seemed to be a loud creak, every sound in the silence of the night was like thunder.
After a few tense minutes, Des reached the door to the building beyond. In the middle of the door was a glass peephole. Des peered into it to examine the corridor beyond. It was clear of debris and objects. However, a single gang member wandered around the corner into view. Judging by the clothing worn or the lack of, it was her, and she was looking at the apartment.
Des watched her walk halfway up the corridor to stop at a single door.
“It’s me, Lucianna,” the gang member whispered. “Let me in.”
“Bring me my pizza first, bitch,” a voice from the suite said.
“All the pizza places are closed,” Lucianna replied.
“Then you better start baking,” the voice said.
The guard slumped back down the corridor and out of sight.
Des opened the door and ventured out into the corridor. The bright lights temporarily blinded him as Elsie shut the door quietly.
“Which suite is it, again?” Des asked.
“765,” Elsie said.
Des walked down the corridor and stopped at the suite the woman had knocked on.
“Shit,” Des said, his voice barely above a whisper. “The guy is awake. I need you to pretend to be Lucianna.”
“Fine,” Elsie said.
Des and Elsie pulled out their stun guns. Des ducked behind the wall. Elsie knocked on the door, placing her thumb on the unsophisticated peek hole.
“Did you bring the pizza?” the guy asked.
“Yes,” Elsie lied.
“Why can’t I see you?” the guy replied.
“I don’t know. Did you want pizza?”
“Fine,” the guy said.
The click door being unlocked echoed in the corridor as Des prepared himself. The door opened a crack.
“Hey,” the guy said, “you aren’t Lucianna.”
Elsie raised a boot, slamming it into the door, throwing it back into the guy. She put a pin into the gang member’s shoulder, and he sprawled to the ground.
Des jumped into the apartment as Elsie switched out her stun gun. There were only two guards in the living room, playing a video console. Des put a single shot into the closest one before Elsie caught up with Des and put a pin in the other gang member. They both collapsed to the ground in a heap.
Des and Elsie switched out their stun guns. Des listened to the sounds of the apartment. No noises of anyone coming for them.
“Get the door locked,” Des said. “I’ll start my search.”
Elsie did so, moving the unconscious door guard out of the way of the threshold. Des entered the kitchen. Signs of heavy use were spread out across the place, but no sign of anyone else.
Elsie caught up to Des, searching the three bedrooms. No sign of anyone in the first two. They looked like ordinary rooms with beds and dressers. The last door had a large padlock keeping it locked tight. Des raised a boot and slammed it into the door. The frame crunched as he struck twice more, opening the door.
Sitting in the corner of the room, wearing nothing but her underwear, was Susan. Tears ran down her face, gazing at them with a confused expression.
“Des,” Susan said. “Elsie?”
“No time to explain,” Des said. “Where are your clothes?”
“I don’t have any,” Susan said.
Des turned to Elsie, “Get her cleaned up and ready to go. I’m going to see if I can find anything for her.
Elsie nodded as he left the room. Des walked out of the bedroom and out into the suite. He entered another bedroom, grabbing a pair of sweatpants, a shirt, and pair of shoes.
He entered the other bedroom, handing them to Susan. Elsie had a washcloth and forced Susan to clean her face.
“Get dressed,” Des said. “We need to leave before we are discovered.”
“How are we going to get out of here?” Elsie asked.
“Shit,” Des said. “We may have to fight our way out of here.”
“Didn’t you come up the stairs or the elevator?” Susan asked.
Des looked at Susan, unsure what to say. “We climbed up the balconies. We are on the seventh floor.”
“You what—”
“Get dressed,” Des said. “We’ll have to go down the stairs and out the parking garage. I don’t want to go to the street unless I have to.”
“You’re going to head for the undercroft?” Elsie asked.
“If I can get in.”
Susan put one of her smooth legs into the pants. The sound of someone jiggling the door handle boomed through the apartment.
“Get dressed,” Des said. “Then follow.”
Des and Elsie exited the room with their stun guns raised out in front of them. He stopped at the corner and peeked. The door to the apartment wasn’t open. The door vibrated as the door handle rattled.
“Take cover,” Des said. “I’ll get to the other side.”
“Roger,” Elsie said.
Des walked over to the other side, crouching behind the couch. He aimed his stun gun at the door.
“Hey guys,” Veer yelled from behind the door. “If you don’t open this door in three seconds, I will kick this door in and shit-kick each and every one of you.”
A pause echoed from beyond the door. Des gritted his teeth, and he held onto his weapon tighter.
“Elsie, it’s Veer,” Des said in a whisper. “Go open the door a crack.”
“What?” Elsie said.
“One,” Veer boomed.
“Just do it,” Des said.
Elsie walked up to the door and reached for the door handle. Des aimed his stun gun at the place where the door was about to open.
“Two,” Veer said.
Elsie opened the door, heavy metal stuck by the unconscious form of the gang member.
“What the—”
Des put a pin in Veer’s chest, and he went limp. Standing behind Veer was another man. Des wasn’t sure if it was a gang member or what. The man took off down the hallway.
“We have been raided,” the man screeched at the top of his lungs.
Reloading his stun gun, Des turned to Elsie and Susan, who both stood in the hallway.
“Time to go,” Des said.
Des burst out into the tenant building, expected a horde of bodies to erupt out into the corridor, with guns and batons blazing. Elsie held onto Susan’s wrist with one hand and her stun gun with the other.
Des stepped over the unconscious form of Veer, the red glow from his ear, Des tapped his ear with his hand, and the light turned green. Des raced down the corridor, not caring if he made noise. He was determined to get them out of the building. Des ran up to the stairwell door and kicked the door open. No one was in the stairway.
“Go,” Des said.
The door to the suite Des and Elsie climbed into opened the door. Standing in the threshold was a middle-aged man wearing his boxers and holding a stun gun.
Des aimed his at him and put a pin in his chest. The man collapsed unconsciousness. Des followed Elsie and Susan down the stairs.
“What sector are we in?” Susan asked.
“Green,” Des said.
“Green? How are we getting home?” Susan asked. “And how did you find me or get here? You don’t own a scooter.”
“There is much you don’t know about me,” Des said.
“I have much to ask you.”
“Not telling,” Des chimed.
Below them on the ground level, a door opened. The sound of multiple footsteps coming up the stairs echoed on the concrete walls.<
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“Hold up,” Elsie said, turning to Des. “Turn around. Let me into the backpack.”
Elsie rummaged through the different gear and grabbed out a round metallic sphere.
“Is that a grenade?” Des asked.
“It is a pin shooter grenade,” Elsie said. “I prefer sonic. However, the stairwell will focus the blast and take us out as well.
Des looked down between the middle of the stairs. They were three levels from the ground. The gang members were only a single story below.
A gang member stuck his head out, and Des put a pin in it. It blasted through the man’s lip and into his face. He tumbled down the stairs to the landing.
Elsie tossed the grenade down the stairwell into the gang members midst. Scream echoed from the gang members a moment before it went off with a whoosh, followed by a thousand pings.
Des climbed down the stairwell to the blast area, four gang members were down with multiple pins stuck in their flesh. Below them, a single gang member was still conscious. He had jumped over the railing and down a flight of stairs.
The gang member landed badly and busted his leg. Des walked up to the gang member and put a pin into his good leg.
“That’ll stop the pain at least,” Des said, changing out the stun guns magazine.
They continued down the stairs. The door above them slammed open. Footsteps hitting metal stairs vibrated above them. They reached the ground level, and the stair stopped.
“No parking garage in this stairwell,” Elsie said.
“Shit,” Des said. “Pass me another grenade. A sonic one, perhaps.”
Elsie opened and closed the bag, handing him the grenade. “Plan?”
“Call a cab,” Des said.
“A cab?”
“The cab,” Des said.
Elsie said as she pulled out her phone. “Can I get a pickup— Not to there… A block away— That’s the one. We’ll be out.”
Elsie grabbed another grenade, this one a sonic as well, she played with the buttons.
“I’ve set a timer for,” Elsie said. “Thirty seconds—”
“Hold a moment,” Des said, peeking out of the door into the lobby.
Seven gang members aimed stun guns at the door. Pins bounced off the door frame as he pulled his head back in.
“Bloody bastards,” Des said.
In one swift motion, he pulled the pin to the grenade and tossed it out into the lobby. The grenade exploded with a loud bang. Glass shattered in the building, and car alarms were set off. The noise was loud enough, it caused Des’s head to ring like a bell.
“We were too close,” Des said.
“You think,” Elsie said.
“Set your grenade now,” Des said, exiting the stairwell.
Elsie and Susan exited the stairwell behind him, and the lobby was a scene of chaos. The glass from the windows had been blown out. Six of the seven guards were all lying on the glass-covered floor. One of which was still conscious but sprawled across the floor.
Des put a pin into her, heading for the door. “I counted seven of them before.”
“Then where’s the seventh?”
On the street, was a single figure of a gang member, running away from the building.
“Not a threat,” Elsie determined.
“Agreed,” Des said.
Des walked out of the building and to the sidewalk. Back in the building, the second sonic grenade let off. The twelve-story tenant building shook. Glass flexed out for a half-second before the glass in the entire building shattered into a thousand pieces. The asphalt was littered by twelve stories worth of glass. Des grabbed Elsie and Susan, bolting out into the deserted streets.
“Holy fucking shit,” Des said. “Did you see that?”
“Of course, I saw,” Elsie said. “I did that.”
Elsie turned and grabbed Des by the front of his jacket, she gave him a kiss on the lips.
“Focus, Elsie,” Des said. “We aren’t away yet.”
Elsie turned, aiming her stun gun back into the building, waiting for a gang member to exit the building. Des saw the puzzled expression on Susan’s face, chosing to ignore it. A moment later, a cab turned the corner as high speed. It stopped beside Des.
“Get in,” the cab driver said.
Susan went in first, then Elsie and finally Des. The driver took off without saying a word, the door not even shut as he pulled away.
“I see you were successful at the party,” the cab driver said.
“In a way,” Des said.
“We did bring the house down,” Elsie said. “At least part of it.”
“Where are we going?” the driver asked.
“Home,” Susan said, her voice shaky.
“Your home isn’t safe,” Elsie said.
“It’s not too far from here,” Des said.
Des gave him the address to a Yellow Sector farming cluster. On a terrestrial world, it would be called a village. Here it was a ground of buildings in the middle of the farmland for workers to have their barns, workshops, and places to buy lunch. There were only a few houses around, most of the workers lived in a nearby residential sector.
The driver nodded, speeding off, not commenting on the set of directions. The man puzzled Des, it was like he knew him from somewhere. He didn’t know from where.
Des pushed the thoughts out of his head, paying attention to where he was going.
Chapter Thirteen
Cryslis walked down the street of the Green Sector with Cooley a half a block behind. The idea was for them to seem a part to see who decides to follow them. It would have been easier with earpieces instead of being forced to ditch all their gear earlier.
She wore darker clothing, baggy, with rips and patches. She had dirt on her face, clothes, and sprayed on a specific fragrance. One which smelled horrible to most people.
Cooley appeared almost identical with similar clothing as Cryslis, except he had given himself a prosthetic nose.
She had been trying to call her old friend, which Cooley was still sulky with. However, he hadn’t gotten back to her. It wasn’t surprising as Cooley worked for a different team in Station Security, and covered as a taxi driver.
Up ahead of them, the distinct bang of a sonic grenade went off, followed by the crash of breaking glass.
“That’s not good,” Cooley said, jogging up to her.
“Maybe gang violence,” Cryslis said. “Or those kidnappers.”
“No signs of them,” Cooley said. “Before there were black vans all over the place, now they have disappeared.”
A second, more massive explosion of a sonic grenade followed by a cascade of breaking glass.
“I need to check that out,” Cryslis said. “If it’s the robots, then we need to get word to the captain.”
Cryslis jogged down the street. The sound hadn’t come too far from her. Turning the corner, the scene stretched out before her. The front half of a tenant building had been shed of all the glass from its windows. A dozen people stood out in the broken frames, looking out, holding hurt ears. Sirens echoed in the distance.
Standing in the middle of the street were two figures dressed in black tactical clothes. Cryslis would recognize them anywhere. Elsie leaned in to kiss Des on the lips. Behind them was Susan, dressed in clothes two sizes too big for her.
“What are they doing here?” Cooley said.
“Not sure,” Cryslis replied. “Let’s go ask them.”
Before they could, a taxi rounded the corner at high speeds and up to them. Then they were in the cab and out of sight.
“We could call them,” Cooley said.
“We are supposed to be on radio silence,” Cryslis said.
“We don’t?”
“I don’t think so. Let them make a mess of things, we should get out of here before we get spotted by anyone who shouldn’t see us.”
Cryslis walked away from the building up a side street. In the Green Sector, it was easy to get lost, every building looked the same.
“Up this alley,” Cooley said.
Cryslis followed Cooley up a small alley full of debris and garbage. Cooley turned around a corner, and in front of them lay unconscious bodies, hidden from the view from the street.
“Shit,” Cooley said.
“We need to move from here,” Cryslis said. “Before their friends find them and assume, we did this.”
Cryslis moved on, walking through the streets and alleys. She swayed as if she had been drinking.
Deeper in the alley, they passed a group of three homeless people, who all sat in the corner of the lane. They all looked older with shaking hands and foul smell. Not even one paid any attention as they passed.
“I tell you,” a homeless man said, “those four bangers were taken out by only two people.”
“Those four,” a second replied, “had to have been six burly guys.”
Cryslis walked by, ignoring the rest of the conversation. Nearing a nearby exit, her phone buzzed. She looked down and pulling open the phone, it was her friend. His name was Milo Cosse, and he was her old supervisor before she had been promoted to run her own. Cryslis clicked a button, answering it.
“Took you long enough,” Cryslis said. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“You know why?” Milo replied. “What can I do for you?”
“Did you hear the news?”
“The one about the string of fires? The missing family, or the rampaging robots?”
“I’m pretty sure those are all connected,” Cryslis said.
“Of course, they are.”
“I’m pretty sure this line isn’t secure.”
“My cab is,” Milo said. “Give me an address, and I will pick you up.”
The cab driver dropped them off in the Yellow Sector cluster, charging them a large fare, and drove off. Des, Elsie, and Susan had left the farming cluster as soon as the cab was out of sight.
“I’m turned around. Where’s that hideout?” Elsie said.
“What hideout?” Susan said.
“It’s a hole in the ground where we will be safe,” Des replied. “At least for now.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Susan said.
Des ignored the comment. He had other things to think about. He kept his eyes peeled for any signs of black vans or white vans. He needed to make sure he wasn’t being followed. Des checked the time on his phone and did a double-take.