All that innocence and warmth evaporates from her face in a second, and her other face is back. The mask.
“One hour,” she says in a husky whisper, and then steps in close enough for me to smell her sweat through the floral perfume that she bathed herself in before getting on that stage.
A hand goes trailing up to my collar, finds my ear, and then lightly glides down the back of my neck.
I take a step back. “My room is close. I’d like to talk.”
“Talk?” one eyebrow curves up.
“Yes.”
Violet steps back and crosses her arms over her chest. Frowning, she says, “Look, if you’re planning to come up with some twisted fant—”
I hold up a hand to stop her there. “Just talk. Nothing else.”
Confusion flickers in her eyes. Then a wary look settles on her face. “Okay...”
I turn and lead the way down to my place. Room four seventeen. We leave Bramos where he fell. In Margrave, that’s pretty standard. Cleaners will get him in an hour or two. I’ll get the fee added to my bill.
Life goes on. Or doesn’t. Depending how you look at it.
We get to my room. I wave to open the door. We breeze through, the door rattles shut, and I gesture for Violet to sit in a chair in front of a small plasteel desk. She does, and crosses her arms over her chest, still looking guarded. I go to stand at the foot of the bed.
“What are you doing in Margrave?”
“You’re a big boy, I’m sure I don’t need to explain my business to you.”
“Not what I meant. Are you here because you want to be?”
“Of course!” she splutters, looking rattled.
“Really? Because you don’t look like the type.”
“And what does the type look like?”
“Jaded. Cold. Detached. Greedy.”
“I need the credits,” she says. Her knee starts bouncing. It’s a lie. She’s getting even more nervous now. She glances at the door.
“No, you don’t. Turn your hands over.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
She does.
“No callouses.”
“So?”
“It means you’re not from around here. And your accent—you’re hiding it, but you’re from Earth, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.”
“You are. And no one from Earth ever needs credits this bad. So either you’re here because you’re running from the law, or because you were abducted by raiders and brought here. And if that’s the case, they’ll have you on a tight leash. So tight, that they’ll be sending someone here now.”
“That’s not true.” Another glance at the door. Her head doesn’t move, but her eyes do—slowly. It’s a warning, and not a subtle one, just in case I haven’t gotten the hint by now. She doesn’t want me to get hurt.
“Here’s the thing. I don’t like crime, especially when it’s committed against innocent people.”
“You just killed a man.”
“That wasn’t a crime. Now listen up. I can get you out of here, alive, but only if you want to leave. Say the word, and it’s done. I’ll take you wherever you need to go.”
Violet doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but her eyes are shining with unshed tears, and her gaze is pleading. She’s young, I realize. Chronologically young, and she hasn’t been working here for long. Otherwise, those tears would have turned to rocks by now, and they’d get stuck on the way out.
“I don’t want to leave,” she says.
Another lie.
The amplifiers in my holoband pick up the sound of footsteps. Three sets, racing toward the door. Five seconds.
“Get in the bathroom,” I say.
Not sticking around to argue, she jumps out of the chair and flees. I pull the pack off my shoulders and toss it after her. She drags Bry in with her before shutting and locking the door.
I draw my sidearm. The footsteps have stopped racing. They’re right behind the door.
I open fire. Three times fast, burning parallel, chest-height holes through the door.
No thuds.
Not because I didn’t hit the targets, but because unlike Bramos, these ones are shielded.
I turn and dive over the bed just as the door explodes in a glittering hail of molten fragments that go hissing off my personal shield.
Chapter 30
Bright red lasers flash, crisscrossing over my head in a continuous, blinding tirade. A few of them slice through the mattress at shallow angles and splash harmlessly against my personal shield.
The sensors in my holoband track those shots back to three discrete targets, giving me a fix on their positions and painting them on my holoband as glowing red outlines that I can see even through the bed. They’re all hard edges, with heads and limbs that are too skinny to be human. Tentatively identified as TRX-67’s. Security bots without any of the niceties that make them look like us.
They’re locking onto my body heat, which in their sensors is visibly warming the air around me. But those lasers they fired are a lot hotter than I am, so they’ve effectively erased my thermal signature. That only leaves the energy signature from my shield. Reaching down, I carefully un-clip the belt and leave it on the floor. Heavy, plodding footsteps approach, still firing. One of the bots is trying to flank my position. I quietly slide under the bed on my stomach. I can only see gleaming metal feet, but with the painted outlines that’s good enough. Bringing my DX-12 up at an angle to track the flanking bot, I take aim at its left shoulder. This model has laser weapons in the left arm, a kinetic rifle in the other, anti-personnel rockets in the left shoulder, and stun darts in the right.
I’m aiming for the left shoulder.
I squeeze the trigger as rapidly as I can to overload its shields. Lasers hiss and roar against the barrier until it gives way with a loud pop. The bot stops, turns on the spot, and now the AP rockets are fully exposed.
I fire again. The rockets explode with a thunderous boom, and a searing wave of heat washes over me. Flaming debris pelt the walls and floor, thumping lightly on the mattress.
But I couldn’t ask for a better shield than this bed. It’s on fire; the room’s sprinklers burst open and the alarm goes off. The other two bots are lying on the floor outside the room, struggling to get up.
I shoot them twice each in the right thighs where their brains are.
Their shields are already overloaded, and the heat of the lasers fuses what limited intelligence they have into useless lumps.
They stop thrashing and lie still.
I scuttle out from under the bed amidst a torrential downpour from the sprinklers, recover my belt, clip it on, and hurry to the bathroom.
“Let’s go!” I call through the door just as the sprinklers are turning off.
Violet tears the door open and Bry comes flying out, a puffed-up ball of white fur, chittering furiously.
He makes it to the middle of the room before skidding to a stop. His eyes dart around, taking in the charred wreckage from the bots, then me. His big blue eyes blink once, slowly, and his tongue darts out to taste the air.
I race over to the closet and tear it open. The tortured metal door comes off the hinges, and I let it fall with a bang. Grabbing my go-bag, I zip it open, find my spare shield belt and a bulky black ankle-length jacket. I toss that jacket to Violet, followed by the shield belt.
“Put those on and follow me. There’ll be more where these three came from.”
* * *
We go flying down the corridor on level four, passing the security officer that I bribed. He looks at me like he’s seen a ghost. He just saw the three bots they sent after me. I shouldn’t be walking out of that room, let alone running.
Skidding to a stop at the lift tubes, I mentally hit the call button and then use my neuralink to give Aurora a call. Hopefully by now she’s waiting for me in the bar.
Bry squirms around in my pack. I glance at Violet. She’s wearing my go-bag and the shield belt as
well as the jacket. She looks a lot more respectable now. Could even pass for my daughter.
Not that I have any kids.
Family is a liability in my line of work.
“Erin?” Aurora answers, using the name of my current alias.
“You at the bar yet?”
“Yes... where are you?”
“Change of plans. I need an extraction.”
“Merda. What did you do?”
“I’ll explain later. Where did you land?”
“You’ll explain now if you want my help.”
“Detoured for an improvised rescue mission. Abductee from Earth. Possibly held here by raiders.”
“Fuck! You’re kidding me, right?”
“No.”
A hiss of static.
“Twenty-five thousand.”
“What?”
“Credits! That’s what it’s going to cost you.”
“Fine.”
“Meet me at Bay Twelve.”
“Got it. See you soon.”
“Yeah... we’ll see.”
Before the lift tube arrives, I step quickly to one side and push Violet back against the wall with me. The door slides open and two bots come rushing out, their feet clanking and joints whirring.
I yank Violet into the lift behind them, moving as fast as I can, and mentally set a destination for the lift. The bots spin around just as I press Violet into cover beside the lift doors. Bright red lasers lash through the open doors, mere inches from my nose as the doors slide shut. The lift races down to level one where the hangar bays are.
Violet glances at me, her blue eyes wide and unblinking.
“Did my family hire you?”
“No.”
She shakes her head, confused. “Then...”
“I told you. I don’t like crime.”
I’m scanning through the floor of the lift before it arrives. A flicker of three red outlines appear at the bottom. These are human. I guess they ran out of bots.
“Stay under cover,” I say. My trigger finger flicks the selector switch of my DX-12 to set it to stun.
Violet nods quickly and shrinks against the wall, looking like she would melt through it if she could.
The doors slide open. Three officers in blue uniforms are standing there with their guns drawn. Hangar security. I step out, and my shield takes the first hit, a lethal red laser.
I fire a stun dart at the guy on my left. His shield is set to stop lasers, because that’s what I was firing at the bots, so it doesn’t stop the stun dart. The man starts shuddering as arcs of electricity flicker over him. His eyes go rolling up as the sedatives take hold. I step in behind him and hold him up in front of me to augment my shield. Before the other two can adjust their aim to fire around their colleague, I fire the second stun dart at one of the other officers. He goes down in a convulsing heap. The third one is backing away steadily, firing lethal lasers with no consideration for the living shield between him and me.
Two of them hit the guy, but mostly splash off his shields. I drop the man with a grunt and shoot the third officer with three lethal shots, straight to the heart. His shield overloads and he drops with the third laser.
Spinning around, I’m checking my sensors and peripheral cameras for more targets. I didn’t see any when I stepped out, but that doesn’t preclude more showing up now.
I’m in a long, hexagonal corridor that terminates in a cargo airlock. Doors to storage lockers and cargo bays are on the right, and numbered doors to landing bays are on the left. The corridor is scuffed and stained with bare metal floors and brushed alloy walls with copper-colored trim and flashing. Exposed conduits in the ceiling track endlessly down its length. The lifts behind me look to be the only way down here other than the two access chutes that flank them. Both my sensors and visual scans confirm the same thing: the corridor is empty except for the three officers who greeted me when I arrived, one of whom is just now winking off the minimap as my sensors catch up with the fact that he’s dead.
“Violet, let’s go!”
Chirr-up! Bry adds. Somehow, my brain hears that as hurry-up!
Violet darts out of the lift and we go running past the numbered doors to the landing bays. The glowing blue numbers that appear to float in front of them go all the way up to fourteen.
Figures.
Aurora is parked right down at the end—about two hundred meters from the lifts.
Way to make my job harder.
I hear one of the lifts open up to let out reinforcements when we’re only halfway there. Lasers flash out after us. “Take cover!” I yell.
But Violet is already darting into the shelter of the nearest gate.
I crouch down beside her, breathing hard. Bry is shivering in my bag. Not so brave anymore. I wonder if it’s all false bravado. He only seems to turn into a flying furball when the danger has already passed.
Checking my sensors, I look straight through the bulkhead to track the glowing red outlines of four more officers headed our way. Two of them are bots, leading the charge.
I reach around the side of the wall and use my holoband to bring up a PIP window from the weapon’s sights. Taking aim, I snap off a couple shots. Both flash harmlessly off the bot’s shield. The grip of my weapon vibrates once, warning me that the charge is half-depleted.
Glancing at the gate beside us, I see the number ten. Just two gates over, but with four sets of guns pinning us here, running out of cover would be a deadly mistake.
My mind races for options. The go-bag has a few.
“Turn around,” I bark at Violet to be heard over the buzzing and hissing reports of lasers firing.
She nods and turns so that I can zip open the bag.
Just as I’m doing so and my hand is closing around the cold steel cylinder of an EMP grenade that’s been disguised to look like a power cell. I see another blip appear on my sensors, emerging from one of the access chutes beside the lift tubes. This one is yellow for neutral-slash-civilian.
Then it starts shooting, and it starts to flash on my map. The two red human blips near the lifts become gray, indicating that they’ve been stunned.
And then a call from Aurora flashes up on my display. I answer it just as I pull out the EMP grenade, arm it, and toss it around the corner to take out the bots.
“EMP!” I whisper sharply over the comms to warn Aurora. And then I mentally kill my holoband and hope the glowing orange eyes I saw when I met Aurora don’t mean that she’s a bot.
The grenade goes off with a crackling bang, and I hear two heavy metallic thuds.
Followed by a third, meatier one.
I guess she is a bot. Probably resurrected.
“Shit.”
“What is it?” Violet asks.
“Get to Gate Twelve. I’ll meet you there.”
Chapter 31
I pop my arm out of cover and use my holo display to take aim at the nearest bot without an actual line of sight to it. Violet runs further down the corridor to Gate 12. I wait for five precious seconds, watch on my rear cameras as Violet ducks into cover again, and then shoot the nearest bot in the shoulder, right where the AP rockets sit.
My first shot misses the tiny antimatter container inside the warhead, but the second one hits, and a massive fireball erupts, sending a superheated shock wave and a zipping hail of molten debris past my face.
The second bot is engulfed in the explosion, and doesn’t try to get up even after automatic EMP protocols finish resetting sensitive electronics.
Down at the other end, Aurora climbs stiffly off the deck and begins running toward me once more. The lift tubes are all shut and on the move again.
Aurora reaches me, and we run together to Gate 12. Violet is waiting there, looking pale and frightened.
Aurora waves to open the gate. It doesn’t work.
Of course, security locked down the hangar.
Aurora stares at the doors for a moment, probably using her ARCs to trace faint EM signatures to their source
s. Evidently finding the door circuitry, she pulls out a small, flat rectangle and sticks it to the wall beside the doors. It’s a door jacker. I hear miniature drills activate inside the jacker, and then the gate trundles open, revealing an extra-wide cargo airlock. Aurora retrieves the jacker and we follow her inside. The door slams shut behind us. When security gets here, it won’t open for them. Only Aurora can control it now.
She places the jacker beside the controls for the second set of doors and they begin rolling open. They’ve only opened a crack before the lights die.
“Merda,” Aurora says, and slaps the doors with an open palm. I’m about to go hunting around for an emergency crank that will no doubt have been locked before they turned off the power. But Aurora doesn’t waste time with that. She feeds her fingers into the crack between the doors and starts to pry them open. She screams with the exertion in a convincingly human fashion, but there is nothing human about this display of strength. The doors begin grinding steadily apart. Violet looks to me then back to Aurora. Bry chitters and squirms in my pack.
And then the gap is wide enough to squeeze through sideways.
“Let’s go!” Aurora says just as she slides through herself.
I wave for Violet to go next. She takes off the pack and slides through, still holding it on the other side. I help her flatten my go-bag and squeeze it through. Taking off my own bag, I grab Bry, push him through the gap, and then start squeezing through myself. My chest gets stuck.
“Damn it,” I mutter. Bry watches me curiously.
Chirr-up?
“I’m trying!” I snap at him as I heave against the doors with my back and both arms pushing in front of me. Muscles bunch through my clothes, and thick veins pop out around my wrists, but the doors don’t budge. Aurora comes running over and yanks them open another inch.
“Stop wasting time,” she says, as if everyone is a bot like her.
Then the four of us are running down a short access tunnel to her ship. Her vessel’s airlock slides open before we even reach it. We sail straight through into a cargo bay stacked with a handful of crates. It’s bigger than the Hammer. Maybe Aurora does some legitimate trading between jobs for the Syndicate. Everyone’s got to eat somehow. The airlock doors slam shut behind us. Aurora runs for an exit to our right. Violet and I follow with Bry. The lights are brighter, the walls and floors less scuffed. Shiny. New.
The Bounty Hunter (Cade Korbin Chronicles Book 1) Page 13