Edward (6 page)

It was a Taik with dark fur and dressed in dark
colors.  He was stationary, kneeling, removing something from a bag. 
Edward carefully moved closer for a better look and his fears were confirmed.
“Target sighted with a rifle,” he whispered over his comlink before he turned
it off.  Closer.  Must get
closer.  The man brought the rifle up to his shoulder.  Out of
time!  Edward followed the aim down to the stage below and, to no surprise, it came to bear on Tatiana.  No time for
stealth, time for speed!   Edward jumped from the catwalk down to the
stage below.  As he fell his Live Steel Armor wrapped around him and he
slammed to the stage in front of Tatiana just in time to catch a bullet
smashing against his armor.

The stage crew ran for cover.  Between the gunshot and
Edward jumping from the rafters, no one wanted to be around.  Edward moved
Tatiana to the back of the stage where he knew the sniper would not be able to
get an angle for another shot.  “Stay here!” as if she needed to be
told.   Edward looked for another way to head back up to re-engage
the sniper, but Alex had already come to bear.  Good man!  The sniper
made a quick escape via a rope to the stage below so Edward instead charged
headlong after the thug.

His target wasted no time leaving and tore across the stage
at breakneck speed and down the side corridor toward the rear exit. 
Edward ran after him at top speed and silently had to curse himself, the man
was simply faster than he was.  No two ways about it, he was the slower of
the two!  But Edward wasn't going to give up and made up his mind to rely
on endurance if he didn't have speed.  As he made the first set of doors
he heard the odd footsteps of a Shukurae behind him.  Kadu! 
Excellent!  As she passed him, he leaped onto her back.  Now
they
were the faster!  Just like old times, the pair tore down the halls at a
thunderous pace.  Even with Kadu ducking slightly they were still making a
good time and starting to catch up.  As they rounded the last door and
burst outside they crashed through the recently dismissed musicians.

Chaos greeted them as there were people everywhere but that
gray outfit was in hard contrast to the lively outfits of the musicians. 
Their joy was short lived for as they closed so, too, did an exotic
motorcycle.  Black and silver with its turbine whining, it slid short of
their man and he hopped on the back.  The pair lurched and was soon off
with a squeal of tires and whine of the turbine opening
up.         

Kadu slapped her comlink and barked back to the rest of the
crew while Edward turned and addressed the musicians, “Any of you able to
follow that?”

“Are you crazy?” was the mostly uniform response.  Not
that Edward could blame them.

“I can't go very fast unless I yank the governor.  You
going to handle the cops if I pull it out?” came the
reply from Zoë.  Edward blinked, he almost didn't
recognize her wearing motorcycle armor.  Leather, titanium and Kevlar,
practical if not a little out of place for what he had expected for a pianist.

Edward had no idea what she was talking about, “If it means
you can go faster, we'll work it out.”

“Excellent!” she beamed with a childish grin. 
“Tomish, can you loan him a helmet!”

Soon Edward found himself on the back of Zoë's blue and
black motorcycle.  As he fit his helmet and tied his comlink into the
helmets radio, she pulled a circuit board from the engine's computer and the
turbine started to whine to life.

“We are losing time,” muttered Edward.

“Sorry, it takes time for the engine to come on line. 
Your people have any info at all?”

“Up and out, then north to the main exchange is all we
know.”

“30k rpm.  Okay.  Let's go.”  Zoë expertly opened up
the throttle and they shot out the back lot at an alarming rate.  
Edward found he had to hold on much tighter than he had expected.  “Watch
the hands please,” came Zoë's voice. 

“Sorry,” blurted Edward over the bike's comm system. 
He quickly slid his hands down a little lower and a lot tighter as they
continued
to accelerate.  A pair of airfoils unfolded from the middle of both of the
wheels.  The little wings fluttered with the turns and strained to keep
the bike glued to the ground.   He risked a peek at the bike's
gauges, they were showing 150 km/h and the engine was at 40k rpm.  “How
fast does the engine rev up to?”

“80k rpm with the governor off.  We have full magnetic coupling to both wheels so we
ought to be able to hit 300 in the straight-of-ways.”

Traffic!  Lots of traffic!  They started weaving
in and out of traffic at what Edward was sure was an insane speed.

“Lean into the turns, darn it!  The bike won't fall over!  Lean!” 
barked Zoë.

Edward nodded.  That was silly!  She couldn't see
him nod.  But as they started to thread through traffic again, Edward,
much against his better judgment leaned into the turns and they were, in fact,
faster and smoother.

“Quick learner!  Excellent!  Woo!  This is fun!  Never had it up this fast inside the city!”

That wasn't exactly inspiring but she was handling the bike
expertly.  More importantly Edward could see the fugitive pair on their
bike less than a half a kilometer ahead and they were closing fast. 
“Trevor, I have visual.  Less than 500 straight ahead.”

“Relaying to the locals.  I should have the pair of you on a street camera in
15.”

“How close do you want me to get?” asked Zoë.

“Impress me.”

Edward could make out a faint giggle as they continued to
close.  Suddenly the second bike lurched ahead.  

“Oh no you don’t!” screamed Zoë as she opened the throttle
all the way.

Edward had to use his claws to hold on they accelerated so
hard.   He was glad the bike was a two wheel drive or he was sure he
would have been thrown off the back.  Instead, he was merely hanging on
for dear life.  And here he had thought orbital insertions were a rough
ride!  At least there he was in a capsule to protect him and they were
flying in a ballistic arc.  Here the wind was buffeting him directly and
they were zigging back and forth at a furious rate.

Something caught Edward's eye.  Something
small from the back of the other motorcycle.   “Grenade!”
screamed Edward.

Zoë swerved the bike over to the median and with a careful
flick of the wrist tweaked the commands to the airfoils in the wheels and
suddenly the entire bike briefly went airborne, hopping the dividing
barrier.  They now had a concrete barrier between them and the
grenade.  They were now also going the wrong way in traffic!  Zoë
kept the bike glued to the narrow shoulder while vehicles blew past them a
whisker’s width away.  A flash and crack announced the detonation of the
grenade, and Zoë repeated the hop back over the median.  Not only had they
avoided the grenade, they had also closed ground!

“200 meters and closing,” called out Edward.

“We have you both on traffic control.  The locals are
hard pressed to get ground assets in front of you.  Gunship will be
airborne in less than five minutes.”

“Where could they be going?  They would have to expect
to be picked up on traffic cameras.”

“The old ship docks,” interjected Zoë.  “Very few
cameras and the sats can't track well in the concrete jungles.  That is
where they have all the motorcycle races.”

“You catch that Trevor?”

“Yes.  The locals confirm that as a reasonable
local.  Diverting ground assets there now.”

“They saw us again!”

Sure enough the other bike started to try and pull away again
weaving aggressively through the late morning traffic.  Zoë growled and
her bike hummed as they rocketed after them deftly dodging the other
commuters.  Zoë had the more powerful bike, that
was showing.  She also had the least experienced passenger,
that too was showing!   But Edward wasn't going let himself be
the stumbling block.

“If I jump off the bike sideways, will it knock you off
balance?” asked Edward.

“If I know you are going to do it, I can lean the bike into
it.  No problem,” replied Zoë.  “Are you sure you want to jump off at
180 kilometers per hour?”

“You worry about getting close enough that I can
jump.  I'll worry about how fast we are going.”

“I'm going to pull up hard to the side of them.  I'm
going to expect you to jump.  If you don't, we'll ram them and it'll be
bad for all of us.”

“Understood.”

Zoë opened up the throttle all the way again and Edward
found his claws sinking deep into her driving suit.  He'd probably need to
buy her a new one when this was over.   They scraped the airfoils as
they threaded between a pair of vehicles and briefly pulled ahead of their
prey.  Zoë then snapped the steering and brakes and sent them careening
toward the other bike.  At the last second, Edward raised his Live Steel
armor in a blue shower of sparks and jumped off Zoë’s bike, slamming sideways
into the two on the back of the other bike.  He desperately grabbed hold
of both of them as he felt his armor extend around them.  Good. 
Otherwise they weren't going to survive the fall. 

Falling sideways off a motorcycle is never a graceful
thing.  Doing it at 200 km/h is even less so.  Fortunately for those
involved, Edward's armor cocooned them all as they
bounced off the pavement, through a street sign, a billboard, over an
embankment and into a lamppost.  When the three of them at last came to a
stop, the other two seemed more amazed at their
lack
of injuries than
anything else.  Tickled pink to have his quarry, Edward, winked in a pair
of Live Steel swords and kept his prisoners in place as he waited for the
police to arrive.

As per protocol for a highway accident, the pair were examined at the hospital before being remanded back to
the police and the 517th.  Edward made his statement and soon returned to
the concert hall, while Trevor and the locals spent hours interviewing the
pair.

Gillian cornered Edward as he walked back in the door, “You
caught them then?  So it’s over?”

Edward frowned, “Well, yes, we caught the gunman, but we
don't think it’s over.” 

“How so?”

“From what we can tell, the guy was a hired gun from off
world, and the driver was from a local motorcycle gang.  They were both
paid for their services.”

“Hired?”

“Yes ma'am, er, Gillian.  Now here is the weird
part.  From what we understand, and we have no reason to disbelieve the
man, he was shooting to wound.  The goal was to make sure the concert was
canceled.  This is starting to smell like some bizarre insurance scam or
something.  Who would profit if the concert was canceled?”

“Um, the local unions.  But honestly that is petty money.  That all
sounds pretty far-fetched.”

“I know, but we have to check every angle.”

“You really think he was shooting to wound?”

“Considering where I was hit and where I was standing
relative to Tatiana, I'd say she would have been shot in the lower leg. 
Also consider the bullet was a solid low velocity round; if you wanted to shoot
to kill you would use a high velocity hollow point round.  It's all quite
a mess.”  Edward’s brain churned, grasping for straws, “Are there rival acts
that would go this far to try and cancel a show?”

Gillian shrugged, “Show biz is pretty cutthroat, but
honestly, they are also pretty squeamish, too.”

“Oh this is a mess.  Every time we get closer, the
tempo picks up,” muttered Edward.  “I think we are going to need to get
the rest of the team involved.  This is getting too big too fast.”

“This isn't the entire team?”

Edward shook his head, “Half was on reserve so we could
slowly swap people in and out for relief.  But I think they are talking
about pulling in the whole team just to have more feet on the
ground.   Takru and Kadu will be the ones to make the final call, but
this has gone pretty far afield from pipe bombs in trashcans a month ago.”

“I applaud your team's devotion and professionalism.”

“Thank you.  It seems you had some problems with
professionalism here today.  Do you think any of the staff could be behind
these attacks?”

Gillian rolled her eyes, “Please, these kids have stars in
their eyes.  They wouldn't do anything to mess up their chance to climb up
the food chain.  I'd be more worried about people stealing makeup and
swapping out hair dye than anything as draconian as real violence.”

Edward shook his head, “That is the problem.  No one
fits well.  Yet, here we are with a shooting right on the heels of a
bombing.  The best way to break the cycle is to stop an attack before it
leaves its hideout, as it were.  And we are coming up empty.”

“The bomber from last night?”

“Was killed,” replied Edward.  “Which
marks the first loss of life.”

Gillian grimaced, “We are in your hands.  We will
change things as needed for security short of canceling the concert.”

“That is all we can ask.”

They threaded back into the concert hall where Gillian quickly
whipped the remaining group back into form for one more try.  Maybe they'd
get it right this time.  Maybe...

Edward wandered up to Kadu, “Um, can I borrow your
comlink?  I lost mine someplace in the bike wreck.”

“Certainly, I have a spare,” replied Kadu with a toothy
grin.

“You are always prepared aren't you?”

“I do try to be.”

Edward grinned as he tapped the link, “Trevor, this is
Edward.  You have a moment off the clock?”

“Off the clock?  What have you done with Edward?” came
Trevor's voice with mock confusion.

“Ha ha. Seriously, you have a moment?”

“Sure, what's up?”

“Trying to ring Zoë Sylva.  She is one of the musicians and was the one driving
the motorcycle this morning.”

“Oh, not enough to have Tatiana at your beck and call, but adding
another...”

“Give it a rest, Trevor.  I just want to make sure she
is okay.  It was quite a fiasco.”

Trevor's laugh was sincere and friendly.  Edward
needed that.  “Number is patching through now.  Don't abuse it.”

“Thanks Trevor.  I'll be nice.  Out.”

“Out.”

Edward looked at the number on the display and quickly hit
the save button.  He was rotten with numbers.  Two quick pokes and
the comlink was linked to the regular phone service.

After two quick rings Zoë's voice answered, “Hello?”

“Zoë?  This is Edward.  I was just calling to check on
you.  I didn't know what happened to you after I jumped off the back of
your bike.”

Zoë laughed heartily, “Well, I'm all right, but my bike got
scraped up a bit.  The governor's guys came by and are paying to have it
fixed.  Also dropped me off a nice cheque for helping
you.”

“So you quitting the gig?”

Zoë laughed again, “It wasn't
that
big of a cheque,
so you are stuck with me for a while longer yet.”

Now it was Edward's turn to laugh, “I think I can live with
that.  Take care.  I'll see you in the morning.”

“You too.  And don't lose this number.  It's unlisted, you might not get it again!”  Zoë giggled and
hung up.

Edward stared at the comlink.  He wasn't sure what he
expected it to do.  A trick maybe.  But it
seemed so alien to him suddenly.  What had he gotten himself into?