Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield (50 page)

The way up to the building above was in the central core, service elevators that brought goods down from the rooftop pads, and smaller personnel elevators for people with access to the middle floors. The people Svetlana was following seemed to be headed there, behind some terrific cheese stalls, various writing in European languages, a couple of empty automated trolleys awaiting the next ride up.

Danya noticed Kiril was eating a chocolate. And recalled a chocolate stall a few minutes back, selling just those kind. Svetlana hadn't stopped to pay for anything.

He must have made some involuntary noise of disapproval, because Svetlana said, around a mouthful, “
I was hungry, and it's in the service of the entire Federation, right? If they can give us a medal, they can give us a chocolate.
”

“
This is really yummy
,” said Kiril. “
Let's go back there again later, and pay for something.
” Followed by the muffled sound of Svetlana trying not to laugh. Against all better judgement, Danya found himself fighting a smile.

The man and woman Svetlana was following joined several others Danya recognised from the car out front, moved past the cheese stalls and pressed for a personnel elevator. The elevator opened, and a black man stepped out quickly, and sideways, to avoid being hit by the suits walking in. And stood to one side, watching them quite overtly, as none of them even glanced at him.

Danya wasn't the only one to notice. “
What the hell is that?
” Svetlana asked. “
Danya, why is he doing that?
”

“It's like they can't see him,” Danya said slowly. Then it clicked. Ari had mentioned something about this. “I know. He's hacked their eyes.”

“
That's not possible.
”

“
Danya!
” Kiril said plaintively. “
That's Ragi! It has to be!
”

The elevator departed, and so did Ragi, walking through the market crowds. Svetlana followed, not having to be told. Danya thought furiously, where had Ari spoken about this? He'd said it was the holy grail of uplink hackery, and that it was completely impossible with existing technology. But that he was certain it
was
possible, nonetheless, in the future. What did it mean, that Ragi could do it? And if Ragi's signal on the net was what Kiril had been following, what did that mean about Kiril's uplinks?

Ragi approached the wet road. Several people at a stall seemed to notice him. Danya saw it about to happen before it happened, and abandoned his stool for the door in a flash.

“
Whoa!
” on Svetlana's feed, as two men by the road grabbed Ragi, thrust him into a car that screeched to a halt out from nowhere, then sped off again with doors slamming. “
Wow, they're good!
” The timing, she meant, as Danya rushed the street to get a cab. There was one waiting at the autostop just a little up, and he pressed his credit ring to the door. It opened, and he jumped in.

“Please state your journey's destination,” said the pleasant voice.

“Follow that vehicle!” Danya tried. “That blue groundcar that was just parked on the verge opposite, fifteen seconds ago!”

“I'm sorry, this request is not allowed. Please state your journey's destination.”

“U-turn please, pick up my brother and sister.”

Bleep, and the nav screen indicated the manoeuver to be performed. And waited for passing traffic. Danya looked desperately over his shoulder, but the other car had stopped at lights a hundred meters down the road.

Finally the U-turn, other traffic slowing to allow it, then a relatively rapid dart across the road, alarming if not for the knowledge that central controlled everything on the road and couldn't possibly crash. And pulled up at the curb, Svetlana and Kiril running into the rain, then into the car.

“Can we follow it?” Svetlana gasped, in the other front seat as Kiril leaned between them in the back.

“We're not allowed to,” said Danya. “Maybe just give a destination and change it to keep following them?”

The light ahead was going green, traffic accelerating. And now the taxi was moving in pursuit.

“What?” Svetlana stared at the nav screen. “Why are we moving, did you tell it to move?”

“No.” Danya was similarly baffled. And they both turned to stare at Kiril. “Kiril, is that you?”

“I don't know,” he admitted. “It might be. I'm seeing this weird stuff, and I just thought I'd like to follow the car, and we started moving.”

“Okay!” said Svetlana, hands up. “Kiril, don't think about it, just…just keep doing what you're doing.” No reply, just a fixed, straight-ahead concentration. Svetlana and Danya looked at each other. “Don't even talk about it.”

“Svet, I don't like it…”

“Danya! Don't talk about it, we tried to find Ragi and we found him, right?” Danya made a face. They were at full speed now, which wasn't much in the urban zone, lots of cars, signals and stops. “So what are we going to do? Danya, I saw them put some kind of collar on him, they were that fast. I think it's the kind that blocks uplinks.”

“So we know he's got mad hacking skills. Svet, Ari said it's not possible to hack eyes…”

“But we saw it!”

“Then he's got to be a GI. I mean, Sandy's so much better at uplinks even than Ari, even she can't hack eyes, but if anyone could, it has to be a GI…”

“He's not a GI, they just grabbed him and put him in that car!”

“Not all GIs are combat GIs, Svet. Maybe he's a super-advanced non-combat GI.” Sharing similar uplink tech to what Chancelry had put into Kiril. They both looked at him, between the front seats, staring ahead through his AR glasses. Danya had a chill.

“What are we going to do then?” Svetlana asked. Ahead, the car came to another stop. Clearly the Feds weren't about to bring attention to themselves by hacking traffic central and moving faster, probably they felt they didn't need to. The taxi slowed also, stopping at lights one block behind. “We could ram them.”

“And then do what?” said Danya, a little exasperated. “Svet, there's armed agents in that car, if we knock them off the road they'll just get out and shoot us. Unless you stole someone's gun as well?”

Svetlana shook her head. Opened her jacket to reveal a fishmonger's knife. Danya rolled his eyes. “What?” She was indignant. “I needed a weapon; I feel better with a weapon!”

“Well, we're not going to stab these guys to death. I don't think we can stop them, Svet. I say we follow to see where they're taking him, then plan from there.”

“Danya, they'll be taking him to some Federal agents’ headquarters! Getting in there will be like breaking into FSA headquarters; it's not going to happen!”

“Well, getting killed on the road there won't help either. Svet, we don't know this guy, he might be useful, but we don't owe him anything…”

“It's not about owing
him
.” Svetlana was adamant. “It's about owing Sandy! The people who took over the Grand Council are trying to kill her, and if we can get this message to Ibrahim, Ibrahim can stop them! Ragi might be the only one who can help us, you saw how he hacked those Feds’ eyes!”

It was a strong point, Danya knew. Ari wouldn't have sent the message to Kiril if it weren't just that important. But even if they could do something, the risk! It wasn't just him in the car, nor him and Svet, but all three of them. He'd spent the last five years of his life trying to keep them out of such a situation. And for what? For Sandy, sure, but Sandy was alive, and could take care of herself. For the Federation? What was the Federation to three street kids from Droze? What, except for a nice city and a massive life improvement, but
that wonderful new life was suddenly trying to kill them all over again, just like Sandy had warned him it one day might…

The car ahead, moving out from the red light, was hit at the intersection by a speeding car. In spun wildly, its rear shorn off, shedding wheels and panels.

“Go!” yelled Svetlana, as the taxi came to a concerned halt half the block away. She hit the door emergency, and it let her out, having no choice.

“Svetlana, no!” But she was already gone. “Stay here!” Danya yelled at Kiril, and leaped from his seat onto a road full of suddenly unmoving cars, sprinting after his crazy sister. She was fast for her size, but Danya reached the ruined car just ahead of her, with no choice now but to help, they were committed. Inside the car, everyone seemed unconscious, including Ragi, with one Fed in the backseat, windows all shattered from the impact.

Danya tried the right rear door, but it was twisted and jammed. Svetlana tried the left and found the same. Danya tried to climb on the mangled wreck of the car's rear to drag Ragi out, but there was no safe footing.

“Svet, help!” He wasn't going to get an unconscious man out on his own…in fact, the two of them probably weren't either, especially in the slippery rain, but maybe they could wake him up. “Svet!”

She'd gone around to the front of the car, where the second agent, the driver, was waking up. Deprived him of his pistol, reversed it, and pistol-whipped him in the head. Twice, three times. Even a ten-year-old did damage with adrenaline and a pistol butt.

“Holy fuck, Svet! Come here and help!” She scared the shit out of him; she was so ruthless when frightened. And now he was scared she'd just shoot both agents, execution-style. She scrambled up on the other side of the rear dash and tried to get her hands under Ragi's armpit. “Ragi! Ragi, wake up!”

To Danya's surprise, he did. And blinked up at them groggily.

“You're in an accident!” Danya explained. “But the Feds will be coming soon and you have to get out…”

A shriek of tires said they were probably too late, another groundcar arriving on manual control, Feds opening the doors and…Svetlana, propped on the back of the car, unloaded her clip on them like an action movie. They scattered, bullets shattering windows, puncturing tires, cracking and whining off the road. Danya leaped onto the car roof and over Svetlana's side as return
fire came back, Svetlana dropping to keep the car's rear, wheel-less on the road, between her and the bullets, then leaned around the end of the car and sprayed one-handed.

“They're shooting high,” she explained to her far more frightened older brother, as she changed that clip for a new one, having somehow had the forethought to get several. “They don't want to hit their guys.”

And suddenly Ragi was slithering out of the rear window, and Danya helped him to drop onto the road. “Help me get this off,” he gasped, pulling at the collar. Danya tried, but it wouldn't budge.

“Is there some kind of key?” he asked. Ragi had a cut on his forehead and looked beat-up far worse than any combat GI would from a simple crash. Surely even non-combats were tougher than regular people? Maybe he wasn't a GI at all. He did look very normal.

“I think…in the agent's pocket.”

Danya got up and dove into the rear window, hoping Svetlana was right and the agents wouldn't risk hitting their comrades. He clambered on the rear seat amid shattered safety glass and fumbled at the unconscious agent's jacket until, amid wallets, chewing gum, and sunglasses, he found a very boring metal object the size of his thumb. This agent had a gun too. Oh, crap. He took it and several clips, and slid back out the window onto the wet road.

Ragi caught him, then accepted the metal object…and Danya saw another car arrive, on this exposed side, an agent attempting to lean out the window for a shot. He knelt, took the pistol's safety off, and fired. The recoil snapped his wrists, but he lined up another shot, and another. Fire came back, a shot clanged into the door right alongside, and he realised he was drawing fire near Svetlana. He slithered right, still crouching, toward the front of the car, firing again and again.

The car driver had had enough, and slammed on the power, holes now pockmarking his windscreen. Crouched by the ruined car's bonnet, Danya knew he had to go left, but that would draw fire to Svetlana's exposed back. He stood, grasped the pistol in both hands, and fired at the suddenly onrushing car. The best way to distract driver and gunner was to put holes in or near them. He was so focused on that, he barely noticed how crazy fast it was closing, so much faster than anything on wheels moved in Droze…

He dove and crack! it hit him, bounced him off the other car's bonnet, then
smack face-down on the cold, wet road. Conscious enough to hear Svetlana scream. And then, conscious enough to feel the slow, spreading agony in his leg and his shoulder. He'd been hurt before, but not like this. This pain was horrible.

“Danya!” Svetlana was screaming. “Danya!” And now she was beside him, the pistol clattering on the road, her hands grasping at him helplessly. “Danya, get up! You have to get up, Danya!”

It was over, he thought. The Feds would be on them now. If they were the kind he thought they were, they'd probably not kill kids in public but would take them away to secure keeping, where they'd meet with a quiet accident. After which Sandy would find out and slaughter the lot of them, like she had those League marines at the Droze spaceport, only far worse. That was at least some comfort, as he lay in unmoving agony in the rain.

Footsteps on the road by his head. Were they here already? “Young girl,” said a voice. “Stay very close to me. Do you understand?” Ragi. Was that Ragi? “Stay very close to me, and I will get us all out of here safely.”

“Don't move!” came a more distant yelling. “Everyone down on the ground, arms out wide!” It continued, from several locations, a chorus.

Danya felt arms beneath him, and then he was being lifted. That hurt indescribably. Unfortunately, he did not pass out. “Leg,” he muttered between gritted teeth. “Broken. Maybe shoulder too.”

“I can see,” said Ragi. Ragi was not a big man, and Danya was no lightweight any longer. So non-combat GIs
did
have some strength, though on nothing like the scale of their combat comrades. “Svetlana, stand very close to me. Hold onto my jacket.”

Suddenly the chorus of yells to get on the ground changed. “What the…? Where the hell did he go?”

“Now,” said Ragi, “let's walk, calmly, over here.” Ragi walked, that faint jolting making more agony.