Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (85 page)

She stopped at each door along the hall, looking through the small square windows. The first two rooms were empty. The third, however, held Malik.
 

A pair of women, dressed like her, approached. They giggled and chatted with each other as if they were just regular citizens on their way to work. Sasha gave them a confident nod and strode into the room. She closed the door behind her and fell back against it, taking a deep breath. She could no longer hear the women’s footsteps.
 

Malik looked up. His eyes drooped; his shoulders sagged.
 

“What now?” he said. “Aren’t you finished inflicting pain on me? Come to threaten me again? Want to take my other leg off?”

Sasha approached, crouched down in front of him, and pulled her mask down. “It’s me.” She whispered it, although there was no real need to. Katsuo and the nurse would never hear anything again, and those outside didn’t seem to be on any kind of alert—yet.

“Are you in much pain?” Sasha asked. They had done a decent job of fixing his leg. No doubt with the motivation of using him as a pawn, a bargaining chip. He was more valuable to them alive than dead.
 

“Sasha, that you?” He squinted. His words were slurred and thick.
 

“It’s me. I’ve come to get you out of here.”

“What happened to your hand?”

She shrugged. “They tried to chip me. Something happened with a nurse. I shot her arm back in the warehouse, and I think that malfunctioned the chip. She killed the one called Katsuo before releasing me.”

“That’s good, Sash. I’m pleased you got away.” Malik pointed to his leg. “But I’m not going anywhere fast. I’m still out of it with the drugs. I can barely move.”

Sasha could carry him, but there’s no way that wouldn’t look incredibly suspicious. She cut him free, releasing his wrists from the arms of the chair.
 

“There’s a console,” Malik said. “Back that way.” He pointed further down the hall. “I saw it when they dragged me in here. They have a factory, too. I think you could get into the network from that console—perhaps figure out how to stop the connection between Elliot and his ronin.”

“Factory?”

“Yeah, the room where they’re making the chips. We’re on the second level of the compound, not far from the chimney—and those fucking traps.”

Sasha winced at the memory of his leg, the jaws of the trap.

“What about the console? Where’s that?” She thought if she could get into the network directly, she might be able to find a way out, get a message to Jimmy. Though she wasn’t as good a hacker as Petal, she had still learned a great deal about getting through network security, but her internal systems weren’t up to it. Not enough bandwidth. That was Petal’s speciality. It was then she realised how much she missed her. It’d only been a few days since they parted for their respective missions, but not hearing from her sister for all that time left a hole inside.
 

“An office room,” Malik said. “Down the hall and to the left. You won’t miss it; it’s just outside the factory floor.”

“How many are in there?”

Malik shrugged. “I only saw one operator working on a slate in front of a holoscreen setup. I don’t know how many others there are, or how many were in the factory. I only caught a quick glimpse through the window as they brought me here.”

Sasha stood, considering her options. If they were on the second floor and near the chimney, they’d have to go back through the main centre of the compound where she was held captive. It’d be too busy with people to get away with that. Someone would ask her what she’s doing with Malik, and there’d be too many to fight while carrying him.
 

“You can’t take me,” he said, seemingly reading her thoughts.
 

“I can’t leave you either, not after I thought I lost you. You’re too valuable to Libertas to leave behind.”

“Just Libertas?” Malik said, reaching out for her good hand. “I... I want us to both make it out.”

“I do, too,” Sasha said, squeezing his hand back, enjoying the feeling of his hand against hers. “I got an idea.”

“Is it crazy?”

“Depends on how you define crazy.”

Malik smiled. “Okay, what are you thinking?”

“I’ll get to the console, hack my way out of their network and get a message to Jimmy and the others. Perhaps they can send a bunch of people here. And in the meantime, who knows, I might be able to do a little damage from within.”

“How do we know James isn’t in on this, too? Fuentes has betrayed us, and I’m sure she’d have portions of Cemprom and the security service in thrall to her. That’s why my message to them earlier got intercepted and we ended up here. We can’t trust anyone right now.”

“You’re right, but it’s Jimmy! He wouldn’t betray me.”

“He lied to you and Petal about who and what you really were. Is it such a leap to think he could be involved with this? You saw how cosy he and Fuentes are. How long has he been alone? All those years living underground at Criborg... What’s to say he hasn’t grown accustomed to Fuentes’ company? Who knows how easily his loyalties could be manipulated?”

She didn’t want to think of it. It’d take more than just a fumble in bed for him to turn against her. She was sure of it. But that wasn’t to say that any and all communications weren’t monitored. Already she was surprised at the breadth of the ronin and their number. They were growing all the time, each person a node for Elliot to manipulate.

That extended his reach to almost anywhere in the city.

“I think it’s better I leave you here for now. No one knows what’s happened to Katsuo and his nurse yet. I want to use that time to get to the console. As soon as I’ve figured something out, I’ll come back for you.”

Malik looked down at his leg. “Okay. I’d only slow you down.”

“I will get us out. I promise.”

She loosened the straps so that it still looked like he was restrained, but if he needed to, he could move. She handed him the scalpel. “Hide that on you, just in case a situation arises.”

Malik hid it in the folds of the blue medical gown the ronin nurses had given him. “Thanks.”

Before she could turn away, Malik reached out and pulled her closer by her arm. “I’m sorry to have been such a burden to you.”

“You’re anything but.” She moved closer still, hesitating, her lips so close to his.
 

Malik leaned forward and kissed her.
 

Sasha melted into him; anxiety and tension drifted away to be replaced by a flush of heat. She moved her hands to his head and ran them through his hair. Eventually, she pulled away, fearing that if she didn’t, she’d never be able to leave him and do what she needed to do. They both smiled at each other. She felt giddy for a moment, the dam of pent-up emotion broken, the waves filling her with hope and purpose. “I should go,” Sasha said after a while. “Get us help; then get us out of here.”

“Please,” Malik said, running a hand down her cheek, “be careful.”

“I’ll try.”

Although it hurt her to leave him, she was now filled with even more desire to get out alive. Now she had just more than survival at stake. She had a future with someone.
 

Sasha looked out of the window. The corridor was empty.
 

“I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

She opened the door and took one last look behind her, imprinting the image of Malik’s face smiling at her in her mind. Now was the time to act, to put into practice all the skills she was taught, all the strategies and abilities that were drilled into her. Clenching her jaw and pulling up her mask, she slipped out into the corridor and headed for the console room.
 

***

The corridor was much like those on the lower level. Pipes and ducting ran overhead. Metal grating lined the floor, beneath which were yet more piping and tubes and wires all leading to the heart of the engineering plant: the factory floor.
 

Despite her disguise and the lack of other ronin workers, she remained on high alert, observing everything around her with each step. Any time now she expected the bodies of the nurse and Katsuo to be found and an alarm to scream out.
 

She followed Malik’s directions. When she arrived at the branch in the corridor, she stopped in the shadows and listened. A low rumble came from beneath her, the engines and machinery slumbering noisily. Above the white noise and coming from the left side of the branch, the sound of voices, pistons, and electrical motors.
 

The dull lights spilled shadows down the edges of the hall. The gloom in the far distance only penetrated by the blue glow of a holoscreen. The console room, she thought.

She took one last look behind her, and to the right, before heading towards the factory noises.

As she got closer to the console room, the sounds of industry grew louder. A man with grey coveralls carrying a steel case approached her. She nodded, and he returned the nod before slowing just slightly.
 

His forehead wrinkled as he took her in with a slow scrutiny.
 

Could he tell she wasn’t one of the nurses? Was it odd for a nurse, as she was dressed, to be here in the factory zone?
 

He stopped and focussed on her bandaged hand.
 

She shrugged. “A new patient got a little bitey.” She smiled behind the mask, hoping it would translate through her eyes.
 

This man didn’t wear a mask. Neither did the two engineerlike people she saw earlier. She had to wonder what the significance of the mask was. The ones who had imprisoned her also wore them. Perhaps those who left the facility wore them to hide their identity. She had certainly seen them around the city, originally thinking they were just some new fashion fad: kids experimenting with identity now that the city was free from the Family’s control.

“They all struggle initially,” the man said. “They soon change their mind when they’re on the network, eh?”

“That they do. Well, I best be getting on,” Sasha said, waiting for him to move on. The door to the console room was ten metres behind him. A wide window on the right wall of the corridor showed a single operator working the holoscreen with various gestures.
 

At first the man didn’t move. Sasha tensed, readying herself to strike if she needed to. The fact he was carrying the case, presumably full of ronin-chips, meant it would both be trivial to incapacitate him, but also awkward. When he didn’t move on, she asked, “Is there something I can do for you?” in a pleasant, enquiring tone.
 

The man shook his head. “No. It’s okay. I’ll let you get on.” He walked away, looking back just once. She could tell he was thinking something odd was going on, but knew this was her opportunity.

When she was sure the man with the case had moved off further into the compound, she made her move.
 

Under the noise of the machinery within the chip factory, she approached the door to the console room. A short, bald man sat on a stool in front of the holoscreen, which stretched three metres wide and two metres high. It covered most of the far wall. To the left of the screen, a window looked out onto the factory floor.
 

She counted a couple dozen workers standing at a variety of conveyor belts and machine stations. Workers wearing overalls packed the chips into cases, while others wearing laboratory coats hunched over magnified screens attached to circuit printers.
 

Luckily for her, their attentions were on the work. She waited half a minute, observing their habits; none looked back at the window, focussing instead on their various tasks.
 

She tentatively tried the handle of the door; it opened quietly. Like a whisper, she slipped inside undetected and approached the man with his back to her. He was too wrapped up in his work to notice her reflection growing behind him in the window. The noise of the machines hid what little noise she made. She was now within arm’s reach.
 

With her left hand she gripped his thick mane of dark hair and pulled his head to the side. With her right hand she struck a swift blow to the exposed part of his neck, knocking him unconscious. He dropped a slate to the floor as his body went limp.
 

Sasha supported him and dragged him carefully off the stool and to the back of the room. She ripped the sleeves off his white lab coat and used them to tie his hands behind his back and gag his mouth. She used his shoelaces to tie his feet together.
 

Once secured, she bundled him beneath a desk. It wasn’t perfect, but anyone casually looking into the room wouldn’t see him.

The slate connected to the main server. The holoscreen showed a flowing set of metrics reporting on the efficiency and status of the machinery within the factory. They were producing a thousand chips a day. She shook her head; that many chips getting into the public would be devastating. If Elliot had access to that many people, he’d be omniscient.
 

The network was self-contained, but as she scanned through it, she found various external nodes: one belonged to Cemprom, another appeared to be situated in the Presidential Suite.