Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (98 page)

James gulped down the fresh air as they finally left the damp basements behind. The sound of gunfire split the air louder outside, affording them a degree of aural cover. Speaking freely, Enna pointed out the short tunnel that would take them up to street level.
 

When they reached the end of the tunnel, made from an arch of old cobblestones carpeted with a thick layer of moss and lichens, Ghanus held his hand up and went to his knee. Elaine followed, and they both brought their weapons to their shoulders. James leaned over them and looked out of the tunnel. They were beyond a cordon a hundred metres to their left.

A group of five combat ’droids patrolled the area, occasionally sweeping their glowing green eyes down the street. Above them, three UAV drones flew in a circuit.

“If we’re lucky,” Elaine said, her voice hidden by the firefight, “we’ll have a fifteen-second window to get across to the old metro station. The drones are on what looks like an automated cycle. We’ll just have to hope the ’droids’ attentions will be on the nearest apartment building and that we’re too far away to be spotted easily.”

As it was the poorer, abandoned end of the city, their path was clear of streetlights: OLED strips embedded into the Polymar sidewalks. Likewise the huge media screens projecting Fuentes’ likeness. The darkness would give them an advantage.

James thought back to seeing Samir dissolve into the alley between the two apartment buildings. That alley was visible from their current location. Was she still there, lurking like a spider, ready to strike?

“On my mark,” Elaine said.
 

James readied himself. He was no physical marvel, but he knew now was the time to run like hell. An undecorated and unadorned station stood about two hundred metres down the street opposite. An electronically secured door leading down into the metro system awaited them.
 

He checked his pockets to make sure he had his slate. He did. He also had the pistol.
 

Despite himself, he took it out, kept it in his right hand—just in case.
 

“When I say go, we’ll run in single file, keeping to the shadows. Understand?”

James nodded, assuming she was talking to him seeing as the others were more used to this kind of activity. Just looking at their faces, he could tell they were in control of their emotions, whereas his roiled around inside like a feuding nest of snakes.

Liza-Marie and Ghanus took the server between them.

Elaine watched as the drones completed their current circuit and disappeared over the roofs of other buildings. James glanced to his left, saw the ’droids firing from behind their cover. He couldn’t see if any were looking his way.

“Go,” Elaine said as she and Ghanus sprinted away.
 

Within seconds James was losing sight of them as he hurried out and ran as fast as his slow, heavy legs would carry him. Liza-Marie and Ghanus seemed to become shadow. Elaine kept up with them, occasionally looking back to urge James and Enna on.
 

Even she ran like a top athlete compared to him, and he knew that she was holding back in order not to leave him completely behind. He got across the street in one piece.
 

For now it seemed they were in the clear. He followed Enna, running with his right shoulder close to the buildings, benefiting from the shrouding shadows that they cast.
 

He watched above him, concerned one of the UAVs would change its flight pattern and catch them out in the open, but they were halfway there and so far unseen.

His chest burned with the effort, and a stitch stabbed at his side. His legs felt heavier with each stride, but he continued on, letting the fear push him beyond his natural capabilities.
 

“Here,” Elaine said, grabbing him by the arm. He nearly ran past their position.
 

The door to the station stood beneath a canopy with an old sign on its front, giving them cover from the sky. They all huddled close together, giving James a protective barrier. “Get to work, Doc,” Ghanus said. “Get us in ASAP.”

Spots appeared in his vision as he struggled to get his breathing under control. Sweat had broken out, soaking his shirt, making his hands slippery. He dropped the gun as he tried to put it back into his holster.
 

“Fuck, man, get a grip,” Liza-Marie said. “Literally.”

“I’m... trying... my... best... here.”

He picked the gun up and successfully holstered it and then took the slate from inside his jacket pocket. The electronic lock on the metro station’s door had already been vandalised, its facia prised open at some prior time. The circuitry hung out of a metal box. One by one, he tracked the myriad wires, constructing a circuit in his head and imagining how the system worked.
 

A minute passed with him just standing there thinking. Elaine fidgeted with each burst of gunfire coming from the other side of the buildings. The sound of the UAVs’ engines—a low, persistent whine—grew louder.
 

“Come on, man. They’re getting closer. We need to get in. Now,” Ghanus said, urgently looking above him to see if the UAVs were closing in on them.

“If you keep hurrying me, it’ll take longer.” He shook his head and gathered his thoughts.
 

Fishing around inside his jacket for a connector cable, he bit off the plastic end while plugging the intact part to the slate. He reached inside the mass of wires from the lock and pulled two free, twisting them around the bare wires of his connecting cable. The slate chirped, and he disconnected the wires. “I’m getting there,” he said, knowing if he just got... that one.

Twisting a different wire to the connector, he got another chirp from his slate, this time a confirmation notification. “I’m in,” he said with a sense of victory. He used a program on his slate to reroute the power through the circuit.
 

The system used an old, out-dated encryption method, and he bypassed the instruction set that dictated when the lock was activated. He drag-and-dropped a series of code fragments and ran the program. He hoped to cause a flow of electricity to a chip within the system that controlled the servo-assisted locking mechanism. “Won’t be long now, I just need to...” He gestured across his slate to activate his hack and held his breath.

A buzzing noise came from the door. It seemed extremely loud, and he worried it’d alert the ’droids to their position, but as soon as it came, it finished. Nothing happened. “Shit, it should—”

A UAV seemed to hover overhead, and they all huddled as close to the door as possible to use the canopy to shield them. They’d be okay if the drone didn’t fly too far over and see into the shadows. But it did move—just as an old, stuck servo groaned from within the door.
 

James pushed against the door, trying to help the mechanism. With a clunk, the lock opened.
 

The door burst open, sending them crashing through into a dry, dust-filled empty station. James fell hard onto the tiled floor, pulling the slate from the wires of the lock.
 

Liza-Marie shifted the server inside before closing the door. She stood with her back to it and held her breath.
 

“I think I’m going to die of a heart attack before we get to Cemprom,” James said, clutching his burning chest and trying to breathe without choking on the dust of a building that hadn’t been disturbed for nearly a hundred years.
 

His voice echoed around the place. It felt like some kind of mausoleum.
 

Ghanus switched on his lamp. The room was utterly gutted. The tiled floor was covered with a centimetre of dust and cobwebs. The booths where people would have bought their passes stood empty. Between the two booths, a single staircase led down to the metro tunnel.
 

“We should move,” Ghanus said, already moving to the stairs and hefting Omega onto his back. Enna and Liza-Marie were next, leaving James to bring up the rear. They crossed the open space, leaving tracks in the thick dust like intrepid explorers. The others had approached and started to descend the stairs when James heard what he thought was a whisper.

He stopped, looking around. The hairs on his arms tingled as though he had just walked through a ghost. He was at the booths and couldn’t but help look inside. He laughed to himself for being spooked by a draft. He turned to catch up with the others when a hand wrapped around his mouth and a blade pushed against his throat. He froze.

A pair of lips brushed against his ear. Hot breath tickled the small hairs. And then a voice, barely audible, whispered close. “I dreamed of you. Did you know that, James? I dreamed, in an endless loop, of the day you put me to sleep.”

Chapter 34

Petal wrestled with the Jaguar’s controls as she saw the glowing light of the Dome just up ahead. One of the engines had blown, skewing the craft’s momentum. Xian clawed the edges of his seat with a death grip. His jaw clenched, making the muscles in his face jut out. She felt how he looked.
 

“This might get bumpy,” Petal said as she navigated to the port of the Dome. Thankfully, it hadn’t been fixed since Gerry had smashed out of it in one of Libertas’ own shuttles.
 

The engines groaned as she descended. The fuselage creaked and whined. The tail fin juddered, making their flight choppy and uncomfortable. But she relaxed as they closed in on their destination, knowing it was nearly over.
 

Xian’s eyes grew wide as they drew closer. First time he’d seen the Dome. Petal remembered her first time. Coming out of a world of ruin to see that crystal marble brought with it a degree of awe. Spending a number of years living inside, hiding in the shadows, took some of that shine off.

“Going in,” Petal said. She checked the fit of the harness around her shoulders and chest. She didn’t expect to get in so easily. Her legs and arms tensed. She slowed the craft and piloted through the breach in the Dome, all the time waiting for a shuttle to intercept them or a squad of drones to blast them from the sky.
 

The lights of the control tower were off, however. The great mushroom rising up from the various landing pads appeared deserted. She activated the landing protocol, but with just one working VTOL engine, the craft started to spin in circles as it dropped to the ground.
 

“Hold on,” Petal shouted over the din of the whining engine and the screech of metal stretching and deforming against the G-force.
 

The Jaguar struck the landing pad with a devastating jolt. The VTOL engine sheared off, and the tail fin snapped against the toughened Polymar surface, breaking apart, sending them scraping forward on the runway towards the park.

They skidded for a few hundred metres until they hit the spongy surface of the grass. The sharp edges of the hull where the tail had broken off dug into the soil, spraying up a cloud of dirt behind them. Eventually they came to a stop. Dirt and leaves and branches rained down on the windshield.
 

“Fuck that,” Petal said as she tried to move. Pain shot up her spine, the flight seat unable to absorb the effects of the impact. It jarred her for a moment, winding her. She turned her head, easing the pain from her neck muscles. Xian’s head had dropped to his chest, and his arms were limp against his frail body.
 

“Are you okay, Xian?”

Petal unclipped the harnesses and reached over to shake him by the shoulder. “Hey! You alive?”

“Eh?” He lifted his head, shaking it slowly, his eyes clenched tightly shut. “Landing rough,” he eventually said as he began to move.
 

“Yeah, that’s one way of saying it. Can you move? We need to get out of here.”

Xian nodded and sucked in his breath sharply as he unclasped his harnesses and turned to push open his door. It wouldn’t budge. Petal tried hers, and the entire thing fell to the ground with the barest of touches. When she looked closer, the hinges had sheared off through the rust. She realised how lucky she was it hadn’t come off mid-flight when she wasn’t strapped in.

After helping Xian out of the craft, and taking an automatic rifle with her, Petal got her bearings. She traced a line from the control tower to the west over a series of smaller towers: the business district, until she saw the tallest and brightest tower in the Dome’s skyline: Cemprom’s building.
 

She felt Gerry in her mind urge her towards it, and a familiar buzz of a private network; somewhere close was one of her virtual private networks. It wasn’t Gerry or Gabe, which left only one other person: Enna.
 

Probing out with her mind and using Gerry’s skill to shroud her connection from Elliot’s awareness, she connected to Enna’s VPN node with her internal systems and sent her a message, telling her what had happened to Alpha and Gabe, and that she was heading to Cemprom. She also enquired about Omega’s whereabouts. They’d need it in order to go up against Elliot.

Even then she doubted they’d be up to the task, but Gerry’s calming influence within her prevented her from falling into a pit of self-defeatism.

“We’re not far,” she said to Xian, who shuffled behind her, moaning under his breath about his poor old knees and hip joints. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. Just keep your eyes open for ronin. Stick to the shadows.”