Code Breakers: Beta (8 page)

Moving past the bodies until she came to the door that led into the wide-open area of the plant, she peered round.

Someone yelled from the door that led to the room where they had stashed the other two bodies. The alarm was raised. A young man came rushing out yelling, “They’re dead! That bitch’s gone missing!”

“Fuck!” Sasha said under her breath as the railing on the second level filled with workers and guards alike. They streamed down the stairs to surround the young man as he pointed to the room. It wouldn’t be long before someone came looking.

While their attention was on the boy, she slowly closed the iron door, sliding across the huge metal latch. She dragged the bodies in front of it, piling them up as a barricade. That would buy her some time. She grabbed a flashlight from one of them and sprinted off.

Three more traps, similar to the one Malik hit, were embedded into the floor, hidden by the shadows of the infrastructure on the walls. The ronin must have put them there to dissuade other escapees, which gave her confidence that this was actually a way out. You wouldn’t bother trapping a route that didn’t lead anywhere.

The rest of the tunnel twisted and turned with the flow of the pipes and ducting. She finally came to another door. A glass panel was inset within its iron mass. Inside was a circular five-metre-wide room.

With a feeling of great relief, she saw beams of sunlight bounce off the steel grill floor. A ladder rose up the far wall, the surface of which was covered with scorch marks. She realised it was a chimney of sorts—a way out.

She tried the door; it opened. The sound of whirring fans and machinery came to her, and her skin prickled at the blast of heat. The chimney stretched at least fifty metres up through the plant. At the top was another grill. A kind of filter, she supposed.

After less than a minute, sweat poured out of every inch of her skin. The grill beneath her feet shook and rumbled. From somewhere in the depths, a great beast of a machine belched forth a huge billowing flame.

Sasha leapt back through the open door as the fire rushed upwards, burning the edges of the chimney, filling it with smoke. She scrambled backwards and slammed the door with her feet before turning over on to her stomach and coughing out the smoke.

That couldn’t be the only way!

But she knew it was. Even if the trap could be removed from Malik’s leg, there’s no way they could get through the plant the way they came. Especially now everyone was on alert and looking for her. She considered the possibility of going back the way the guards were taking her. Back towards ‘the Engineer’. If he were the head honcho, he’d have some form of communication outside of the plant. He had to have means of sending information to the ronin and the assassins.

She formulated the plan in her head: dress like them, find the Engineer, and call for help. But it was risking Malik’s life. All that could take time, even if she did manage to pull it off before she got caught.

Malik’s scream came down the tunnel like an injured wild animal.

Sasha got to her feet and sprinted back to him. It was at least a good sign he had regained consciousness.

He was writhing on his side when she got to him. His fist was still bleeding from earlier, and his face was pale, glossy, covered in sweat and tears. He clawed at the metallic floor, doing anything to distract from the pain. He reminded her of a trapped rabbit she saw on the surface of Wake Island. Caught in their traps, the rabbit had screamed and thrashed until it ran out of energy and life.

“Malik, I’m here,” she said, feeling lame and useless. What was the point of her being there if she couldn’t get him free? Still, she thought that she could at least reassure him. “I think I’ve found a potential way out... but it’s not very safe.” That was a huge understatement.

“Just go,” Malik said between gritted teeth as he turned over and sat up, holding his leg out straight. “Leave me, get out, and get help.”

“I’m not leaving you behind,” Sasha said, holding his head in her hands. “I left you last time; I’m not doing it again. There’s got to be a way out of this.” She bent to the trap, trying again to undo the mechanism. It was futile. Whoever had designed it knew what they were doing; there was no going back.

Malik choked back a yelp of pain. Between gasping breaths he said, “There... is... a way.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to him. “The leg,” he said. “The jaws are... nearly... through the bone.” He shut his eyes tight. “Finish it. Cut through the leg.”

The thought made her shiver. The pain must already be excruciating.

“I can’t,” Sasha said. “I can’t do that... The shock would probably kill you.” She knew it wouldn’t. The injuries he’d suffered on the battlefield were far worse. It was more the fear of her failing him rather than him dying of the injury. She could only find one way out—the chimney. She would have to help him get up the ladder. What if she couldn’t do it? They’d burn to a crisp. It would be her fault.

But then it would be her fault, too, if she left him here to die a slow, agonising death. She heard the first attempts on the door. A clanging metal sound as someone attempted the handle to no avail. Then came the thuds as they pushed against it, followed by raised voices.

“Please!” Malik begged, his face ever paler. “Just... do it.” He squirmed on his back, clutching his thigh with his hands as if he could just pull it free.

“How? I can’t just push it through.”

“The rifle... use the butt... bang the jaws closed...”

“Oh god, I can’t. I can’t!”

He grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her close. “If you feel anything for me... you’ll... do this. Now!”

She collapsed against him and buried her face against his chest. His heart was racing as if in competition with her own. “What if—”

“Forget what if... just do it. Please!”

The crashes against the door were getting louder. Metal on metal, each crash reverberated through the tunnel, making her jump each time, her nerves fraying that little bit more with every hit.

The rifle felt cold in her hands as she grabbed it and stood over him. He looked away, closing his eyes. Waited. Waited for her to inflict one more injury. She looked down at the jaws of the trap: wide steel teeth on two sprung jaws doing their best to meet each other through the meat and bone of Malik’s leg. They were only an inch apart. It surely wouldn’t take much to break the bone and release him from the jaws.

“Ready?” she said, now shouting over the banging against the door.

He nodded, tense, waiting.

Sasha swallowed, breathed out, raised the rifle, and brought it crashing down on the top of the jaw, driving the teeth further into the tibia. The smaller bone, the fibula, cracked under the force. Malik wailed in agony and slammed his fists against the floor. “Again!” he screamed. “One... more!”

The door gave way under the final smash. Yells and voices boomed down the tunnel.

Sasha raised the rifle once again, and brought it down onto the jaws of the trap, sending the teeth all the way through the bone. The crack made her want to vomit.

Malik didn’t even scream this time; the pain must have been too much. His face contorted as he crawled away, now free of the trap.

Chapter 7

Petal activated the sunlight visor on the Jaguar. The midday sun shone through the glass, blinding them. It was a rare cloudless sky. She knew it wouldn’t last; it never did. Soon it would be overcast again—grey and wet. The seasons were messed up. It seemed to change from spring to autumn day to day. Behind her and Gabe’s position in the cockpit, the tranquillised transcendent with the fragment of Gerry’s mind within it leant forward against the straps holding it upright. Next to it was the burnt-out Alpha server.

The thought of seeing Shelley, the Tinker, made Petal feel like she had bricks in her stomach. Although Shelley had saved Petal’s life, it wasn’t out of any great charity or care for Petal’s well-being. It was completely selfish in that Shelley needed Petal, and Gabe, to recover some information for her.

And when they returned, there was that whole trying to kill them thing.

She thought back to that night.

It was dark by the time they had recovered the information that Shelley hired them for. They were doing the job—getting the information, some blueprints for the computer systems of one of the many aircraft within her compound—in return for food, water, and transport. Shelley’s aim was to fix one of the EMP-damaged planes and get it airborne again.

She and Gabe returned to Shelley after a risky bit of business in the local town: a real wreck of a place called Baicheng. It was an old transport hub and had become a home for a handful of survivors. Not the most pleasant of places she’d ever visited. The deal should have been simple. Hand her the information she wanted, take the food and transport—an old ranger truck Shelley had repaired—and get the hell out, but Shelley had other ideas.

Before Petal knew it, they were fighting for their lives and only just managed to get out in one piece—taking the information with them. There was more to that woman than Petal had known. Gabe apparently saw a whole lot more of what Shelley was capable of, but typically of him, he wouldn’t explain more.

That was the thing with Gabe. He’d keep so much to himself, taking the weight of the world on his shoulders, plotting, planning, and never letting anyone in. It was clearly a defence mechanism, but after all the years Petal had spent with him, it still hurt that he kept her at a distance.

Sure, he clearly loved her in his weird way. He’d saved her more times than she could remember, although many of those situations were his fault, as he took them from one place to another, doing job after job, hacking systems, destroying AIs, viruses, procuring information, etc.

She suspected the truth was that he was running from his past. It also explained his recklessness and apparent fearlessness. If you have nothing much to live for, your life becomes something easily risked. She often wondered if it were not for her being his working partner, he’d have probably got himself killed years ago.

“You really think she’ll still be pissed with us?” Petal asked. She knew the answer, but just wanted the conversation.

“Hell yeah. The woman’s nuts.”

She still couldn’t get used to him without his dreads and hat. It was like an entirely different person sitting next to her. His eyes were still the same, though: intense and a manifestation of his pain.

While the autopilot system flew them to their destination, Petal took the opportunity to raise the issue of the video. She took it from her jacket and handed it to Gabe.

“What’s this for?” he asked.

“I know why you left it behind. You wanted to know, didn’t you?”

Gabe pursed his lips. “Actually, I just forgot it.”

“Sure you did.”

He looked down at the slate held in his strong, scarred hands. She could just make out a slight tremble in his grip. He stared at it as if it were the font of all knowledge. As far as what it held and the significance to him, she supposed it was.

“I managed to crack the encryption,” Petal said.

“I’m not surprised. Ya were always good at that, girl.”

“Gerry’s consciousness helped, I think. It’s like a new way of looking at a problem. Anyway, I found out that the video was taken from a camera on one of the Widow’s Jaguars during a routine scout flight across the border into China.”

Gabe swallowed as if preparing himself for devastating news. “And?” he asked.

“I’ve managed to narrow it down to an area of twenty-kilometre radius, located about halfway between Shelley’s place east of Baicheng and the Chinese coast. Once we’re done with her, we could—”

“Don’t say it.” Gabe turned away to watch the view outside of the window. “The timestamp was over a week ago. They’d have gone back for them, killed them. Or at least the men—my father.”

She could understand his hesitancy. It would be heartbreaking to go there and find nothing, but to her, having not had a family until she met up with her treacherous creator and sister, any chance was worth taking.

“But, Gabe, it’d take us a couple of hours.”

“We won’t have enough fuel to get back,” he said with finality to his voice. “We need to get Alpha back, for you and for taking down the ronin network. I didn’t fight for us to be enslaved by another fucking insane megalomaniac.”

“We can find a way,” Petal said. “Shelley had fuel. we—”

“Just leave it!” Gabe said, throwing the slate back at her.

Putting it back inside her jacket, she turned away from him, more to hide the tears in her eyes than the anger she felt. All she wanted to do was help him, but his damned guilt or fear or whatever it was got in the way of rational thought.

They flew in silence for another couple of hours until the grey tips of the Sayan Mountains pierced the sky on the horizon. She knew they were only minutes away from seeing the vast graveyard of dead aircraft that Shelley had made her home.

Unable to let it go, Petal tried once more. “Gabe, listen. About your family...”

He continued to stare out of the window of the Jaguar. With a sigh he said, “What about them?”

“What happened in Hong Kong? What made you leave?”

He shook his head. “Stupidity of youth. I was a damn fool.”

“You once mentioned the gangs there, lack of resources. I’m sure you did what was right.”

“I told myself that for years. But who knows what’s right, eh?”

“You can’t beat yourself up forever. We live in a mad time.”

Gabe shook his head. “Ya don’t know anything, really. Ya’ve been alive for just over five years. Ya’ve not seen the things I’ve seen. Not done the things I’ve done.”

“Well, excuse me for being a fucking clone. Ain’t my fault I’ve not been on this Earth as long as you. Don’t mean I don’t know stuff. I’ve watched you, Gabe. I know you better than you realise.”

“Ya keep telling ya self that if it makes ya feel better. The truth of the matter is I’m a screw-up. A selfish, greedy bastard who only ever did what was good for me.”

“That’s bullshit,” Petal said. “You’ve put yourself out on a limb for me and Gerry.”

“Yeah, because it suited me to do so at the time.”

Petal turned away, refusing to respond. One minute he was coming back for her, saying he had her back, and the next he dismissed her as nothing but an incidental object in his life. But the fact he was in the Jaguar flying to Shelley told her that he clearly didn’t believe what he was saying. He wouldn’t be here if it only suited him. He was doing it because despite what he wanted to admit, he cared.

After a tense few moments, Gabe started talking.

“Back then I was nothin’ but a kid, thinking I could be the man and ensure a future for my family and friends. I fucked up. Lost focus. Hell, I lost all faith in myself. That’s why I did that whole religious shtick. I thought if I acted that way, I’d eventually convince myself what I was doing was for good. But ya can’t lie to yourself forever. One day, ya realise ya nothin’ but a selfish thief and a killer.”

“You ain’t selfish, Gabe. You came back to help me, remember? And what about all the stuff with going undercover into the Widows? You did that to stop ’em, right?”

“Did I?”

He turned to look at her then. She realised she no longer really recognised him. He was correct. He was someone else. “You saying you had other reasons?”

“Something like that.”

“Like what?”

“Christ, don’t ya ever give it up? What does it matter now? What’s done is done. We need to focus on getting that damned server fixed and drag Gerry out of ya mind.” He turned away and made some adjustments to their navigation. She could see the first glints of metal from the aircraft in Shelley’s graveyard. They were just minutes away. The bricks inside her guts seemed to slither. She wondered then if this was such a good idea after all.

But there, in her mind, came a soothing feeling that seeped through her negative thoughts. Her body tingled, then became lighter; her heart rate decreased. She found herself relaxing, thinking clearly, and planning strategies. She knew that was Gerry. She could now see his thoughts and memories as clear as her own. She saw his memory of him in a shuttle approaching Bachia. The place was a war-zone, but then later, he showed her the memory of the Red Widows being defeated, led under guard to the cells within the Dome. It was like he was telling her to have courage, that it would work out.

This strange means of communication made her think: what if Gerry’s consciousness being inside her mind wasn’t harmful? What if he wasn’t mutating in a bad way? What if he, like Mags, his AIA, was fusing with her mind, bringing them together as one?

She started to think she didn’t want Alpha fixed, didn’t want them to try to drag Gerry out of her. She wanted the conjoining and knew instinctively he wanted it, too, perhaps was already making it happen.

“Hold on!” Gabe screamed.

“What?” The craft jolted and began to drop, losing altitude at an alarming rate. She checked the holoscreen: nothing. VTOL engines: nothing. “No power!”

“EMP,” Gabe said. “That goddamned bitch Shelley.”

The ground rushed up to them, the world a blur.

“We gotta bail.” Petal’s stomach lurched.

Gabe just nodded, his face serious. They both reached up to the red switches directly above them. Petal checked her straps were tight. “Ready?”

“Let’s do it, girl.”

“What about the server and the—”

The top of the cabin flew off and twisted away into the air. Their seats exploded out of the cockpit, sending them up and away from the falling craft. Two seconds later the parachutes activated, jolting Petal in her seat. Her eyes streamed with tears in the rushing cold air.

Gabe had angled his parachute to move him away from the falling craft. Petal followed as she watched their only form of transport smash into the ground.

The stub wings holding the VTOL props came away. The fuselage split across the middle, tipping the tail and cabin away from each other. As she glided down to safety, she saw the server and the transcendent hanging from the straps from the storage area at the rear of the craft.

Secure fuel tanks prevented it from exploding. They had upgraded them after seeing how easily they exploded on impact during their battles with the Red Widows. Enna would be furious that they had managed to get one of their few remaining Jaguar’s shot down and destroyed.

As she pulled on the parachute wires to bring her seat to a safe landing, she looked up and saw someone standing outside of the fence that lined the perimeter of the scrapyard.

Shelley was smiling and coming closer, armed with a shotgun.