Continuance (42 page)

Shouts sounded
behind him, and Jason spun as several men fanned out into the hallway.

“Mr. Day.” The
rasp in Neal’s voice was the sound of a sword across a whetstone.

Agents stood to
either side, one tall and burly, the other olive-skinned, with slicked back
hair. Three sets of smartglasses reflected the overhead lights like comet tails,
giving the spiders a strangely similar look. Except that the pair flanking Neal
both had guns aimed at Jason’s chest.

As an
afterthought, Jason noted Vance with them, too, hanging behind the others. The
look he gave Jason made it clear he didn’t relish being a part of this, but his
hands were tied.

Slowly, Jason
backpedaled, trying to put some distance between them. But Neal kept pace, a
casual stroll down the hallway as he drew the other two behind him. Jason had
nowhere to go except the way Chaela and Amanda had, into the IC. Maybe he could
stall Neal long enough to give them a chance to hide. Steeling himself, he
stopped, prompting a smile from Neal.

“I think it’s
time you got better acquainted with my associates,” Neal said. “This is Agent Wright.”
He nodded over his shoulder at the burly spider. “And Agent Costilla.” The
other agent’s tight smile made his face look pinched together.

“They saw you in
action earlier tonight.” Neal said. “Wright tells me he’s never seen driving
quite like that.” He turned to the big man. “What was the word you used?”

“Superhuman,” Wright
said with a smirk.

Costilla put a
hand to his ear, listening. “The SLIDe in the stairwell’s disabled. Chen’s team
can’t get in.”

“Would you mind,
Lieutenant?” Neal’s tone made it an order, not a request. Vance looked annoyed
sparing a resentful glance and Neal, but trotted back down the hallway.

“Right. Superhuman,”
Neal said. “As you can imagine, that interests us.”

Jason sniffed. “I’d
give you an autograph but I don’t have a pen handy.” The comment got a laugh
from Costilla, but Neal didn’t seem amused. Grieves had said it wouldn’t do any
good, but Jason used the only ammunition he had. “And it wasn’t as superhuman
as you made it out. We know about your inhibitor stunt. And unless you want the
press to know too, you and your
associates
might want leave it at
introductions.”

Neal’s face
darkened. “The only thing you’ve signed is a warrant to get yourself Arkived. And
I wouldn’t worry about your little blackmail scheme. It doesn’t matter if your
professor talks. With what we’ve got on her now, she’ll be discredited as a retread
sympathizer and locked up for a stack of Moratorium violations so high they’ll
come up to my balls. Nobody’s going to believe her.”

Neal took a step
closer. Jason mirrored him, backing away a step, keeping his distance.

“And you?” Neal
sized Jason up, a dismissive flicker of the eyes. “Ones and zeros don’t talk to
reporters.”

He turned to
Costilla. “When Chen gets in here, find Fairchild and Oriole. Go room to room
if you have to.” Neal turned back to Jason. “Wright. Mr. Day’s into cars. Show him
the back of one of ours.”

Wright seemed
eager to comply as he produced a set of force restraints. Keeping his pointed gun
at Jason, he took a single step, then hissed a curse as he brought the heels of
his palms to his eyes. A burst of light had flashed from the smartglasses of
all three spiders, intense enough even Jason had to blink. Costilla doubled
over with a grimace while Neal flung his glasses against the wall, bringing his
hands to his eyes.

Chaela.
She’d run the
script on his AP – the same one he’d used to link the camera and SLIDe feeds
outside the parking structure, with similar results. The after images burned
onto his retinas had lasted half a minute or more.

Letting the
perks guide his movements, he planted a shoulder in Wright’s midsection. The
big man grunted as the air left his lungs, sprawling to the floor hard enough
his head bounced. Jason remembered that day in the Spire, how easy it had been
to subdue the spiders with Shane. But now he was alone. He spun, and Costilla fared
no better than Wright as Jason brought an elbow to the bridge of his nose. He
heard the quiet snap of breaking cartilage, followed by the audible hammer of a
gunshot as Costilla squeezed a blind round off into the far wall.

Jason was
already moving toward Neal, using his momentum to pivot his shoulders for a
hook to the face. But the gunshot surprised his target, and Neal jerked his
head in Costilla’s direction. The blow glanced to one side, but still connected
well enough send Neal staggering backward to land hard on the floor.

Shouts sounded
from the other end of the hall. Vance had executed his task, and uniformed
police poured through the stairwell door. Jason didn’t wait around to see more.
He fled down the hall in the only direction he could – toward the imaging
chamber.

Running flat
out, Jason’s footfalls sounded a staccato rhythm against the background of shouts
closing from behind.

Jason slid his
fingers over the door control as he skidded to a stop against the IC entry
doors. Another gunshot sounded behind him, and a section of wall near his head exploded
in a spray of paint and mortar. He forced himself through before the door
completely opened, already reaching for the control on the other side. But the
door, oblivious to the situation, glided to the fully open position before
starting its lazy backward slide the other way, giving Jason a terrifying pair
of seconds to look back down the hall.

He wasn’t
surprised to see half a dozen men sprinting toward him, most in the black
uniforms of police. What shocked him was seeing Neal twenty paces in front, rage
contorting his face as he steadied for another shot. Jason dove as a bullet
found its way through the door, embedding itself in one of the panes of
aeroglass surrounding the chamber.

He scrambled to
his feet, slamming a hand down on the inner door controls. At the nearest
workstation, he forced himself to pause long enough to key the commands to
activate Chariot’s imaging sequence, then he darted into the chamber.

Unwilling to
head down to the sublevel where Chaela and Amanda had fled lest he lead the
spiders to all three of them, he looked around the chamber for a place to hide.
Finding none, he peered through the grated flooring, unable to make out
anything more than the indistinct shapes of coolant tanks and power conduit
below. He hoped that was a sign they’d found a way out. With the imaging
sequence activated, Chariot would seal the chamber, keeping the spiders out for
a handful of minutes. Jason took a breath, steeling himself for the wait as the
inner door came to a close.

But before it
did, a pair of hands jammed through from outside – one keeping the door from
closing, the other holding a gun. Cursing, Jason kicked hard, and the gun clanked
to the grate floor. Instinctively, he dove to retrieve it, but his perks – noting
the pressure of the hand on the door, the body pressing against it from behind
as Neal forced it slowly back open – told him his mistake even as he did. Neal
squeezed the rest of the way through, slamming a foot into Jason’s ribs as the
door slid closed behind him.

Pain lanced
across Jason’s side, and he crumpled to the floor in a fetal position. Chariot’s
familiar bass hum filled the room as the emitters powered up, starting the
imaging sequence. Desperately, he reached toward the gun, still lying within his
grasp. His hand brushed the butt of the pistol before Neal brought a vicious
foot down. Waves of agony tore through his arm, dwarfing the pain in his ribs.
The room faded to a hazy white, like the contrast of an ancient video screened
turned all the way up.

He heard a
scream, felt surprised it wasn’t his own. “Jason!” Chaela’s voice, coming from
somewhere below.

The agony in his
arm and side paled compared to the sudden despair that threatened to cripple
him.
No! They didn’t get out. No, No, No.
The whine of the emitters grew
louder.

“Well, Well.”
Neal’s rasp sounded like a parent who’d just found contraband in his son’s
bedroom. “I guess we found our little bird. You hear that, little bird?” he
called out. “Looks like you caught us another butterfly.”

“Not yet.” Jason
knew it sounded desperate, but he’d have said anything to draw Neal’s attention
from Chaela. When the whiteness cleared from his vision Neal was standing over
him, gun trained on Jason’s chest.

As Jason stirred,
Neal backed away a few paces. “Get up.” Behind him, the platform bed activated,
pivoting upward.

Feeling the bite
of the floor grating against his cheek, Jason made out a silhouette in the
shadows below. Chaela, looked up at him through the floor, and further behind Amanda
stood hidden between a pair of coolant tanks. He didn’t think Neal had seen
her.

“Get out of here!”
Jason’s yell sounded distorted with his face pressed to the floor. Only minutes
remained before Chariot completed its cycle and the room flooded with spiders. He
had to find a way to deal with Neal while they escaped. From the corner of his
eye, the platform bed rose to full vertical, locking in place as the empty
restraints retracted.

“Get up!” Neal
barked again. Jason ignored him.

“The shaft
grates are locked!” Chaela shouted. “There’s no way out!”

Neal’s patience
ran out, and he advanced on Jason. “I said get UP, retread!” Jason
watched
Neal shift his weight, the way he tensed his muscles, telegraphing the kick to
the ribs long before it came. It was all the opportunity Jason needed. Catching
Neal’s foot in his hands, he ignored the pain from his crushed fingers and
twisted. Neal went sprawling, landing spread-eagle on his back at the edge of
the imaging platform.

Jason rolled,
using his momentum to coil his body and spring. Still in the air, he saw the
gun in Neal’s outstretched arm, watched as the spider moved to right himself.
But it was too late. Jason landed on him like an avalanche, pinning the arm
with the gun. Neal cried out as Jason wrenched his wrist backward, trying to
pry the gun away. The man had a grip like a hydraulic press, but Jason twisted with
both hands, felt the gun slip free.

A sharp pain bit
into Jason’s side, like the prick of a needle drawing blood. But rather than
subside, it blossomed through his core, burrowing deep. He pressed a hand to
his ribs, feeling a sticky wetness. Beneath him Neal heaved, dumping Jason to
the floor. Feeling dazed, he scrambled to his feet. Or tried to, but his body
seemed to rebel. His perks worked like mad, trying to guide muscles that didn’t
quite work right, like a symphony conductor waving a frenzied baton at an
orchestra of school kids. He collapsed to the floor again, a detached corner of
his mind noting his hand covered in blood.

Somehow, Neal
was back on his feet, holding the gun again in one hand. Jason’s insides twisted
in vile recognition as he saw what the spider held in the other – an
odd-looking blade with a double pointed tip. Blood smeared its length from edge
to handle.

“You!”            Anger
boiled in every vein as Jason remembered his escape from the Spire, the
betrayal of Chrysalis by Shane’s brother. He remembered rain sheeting down the
window of a Thai Bistro, the flutter of a business card as it hit the floor.
T.
Isaac Neal. Special Agent.
Thomas Isaac Neal. “You were the one. You
murdered your brother. You murdered them all.”

The violet
plasma of the emitters hovered in a ring above Neal, turning him into a demonic
silhouette. “I thought it might have been you. The one that got away.” He
raised the gun, training it on Jason’s head. “
Almost
got away. For the
memory of Patrick Dawes.”         

Jason found
himself laughing. “I AM Patrick, you ignorant son of a bitch!”

“You’re
programmed to think that.” Neal said. “But whatever you are, it’s not Patrick
Dawes. It’s not even human.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Your time
here is over.”

This is it then.
Calmly, Jason
forced himself to his feet. There would be no humane recovery and re-Arkive.
Not for him. Neal planned to end things here. Now. Dizziness threatened to send
him back to the floor, but he fought it off, determined to look the other man
in the eye. The limp silhouette of the retroweave suit hung nearby, silently
mocking him over Neal’s shoulder as the imaging field materialized over their
heads, washing Neal’s face in electric violet.

“Do it.” Jason
said. “Just remember. When they bring me back again, I’m coming for you.”

Neal laughed. “I
hope so. It’ll give me the chance to do this all over again.” He aimed the gun
at Jason’s head.

Jason felt his
body lurch to the side as the gunshot cut through Chariot’s sizzling drone. The
absence of pain came as no surprise, but for a split second, Jason struggled to
understand why Neal had stumbled sideways too – in the opposite direction.

The imaging
sequence!
The
platform disc had activated, revolving to slowly ascend toward the imaging
field above. The jolt had thrown Neal’s shot off, and he’d missed Jason
entirely.