Elite (Citizen Saga, Book 1) (12 page)

I looked toward Trent, whose face was stoic and hard. His fingers tightened on my hand, a signal I took to mean defeat. We were hemmed in, trapped by armed drones, about to be arrested and probably wiped.

For the first time in my life I questioned our existence. Lately my world view had been changing. But right there on that platform, society represented in the mixture of rage and angst and confusion on the faces of the commuters, and our imminent death coming ever closer in a synchronised wave, I wondered what it was all for.

Wánměi and the Elite. Citizens who coasted through life drugged by the Overseers. Cardinals who obeyed their commands and killed on order. Why?

So we could avoid overindulgence. So we could live model lives.

Why?

"Fuck," Trent muttered, sweat glistening down the side of his neck. I watched numbly as a droplet ran under his t-shirt collar, his jaw tight, a muscle flexing along the sharp edge. "Well, this has been fun, Elite," he said with mock humour, in what I was beginning to see was his way of coping in a heightened emotional event.

I glanced back at the closest drone, his arm up already to iRec, and felt a strange kind of inevitable calm. This was it. This was what my hobbies had led me to.

It was a shame I was taking a somewhat innocent man down with me, and all because I took a file with Sat-Loc codes from a prominent Elite on the payroll of General Chew-wen.

"What are the codes for?" I asked.

"You want to know that now?" Trent shot back incredulously.

"I'd like to know why I'm about to wiped."

"Such an optimist," he supplied, his hand coming up to scratch at his ear.

Or adjust the earpiece he'd put in earlier.

"Tell you what," he said, looking around the platform, gauging the distance between us and the approaching drones.

He started to push me closer to the railway tracks, but why I didn't know. They were cut off by a glass security wall and electronically controlled doors which I couldn't bypass in the three seconds it would take the nearest drone to reach us if he suddenly rushed. The trains had been stopped too, so no quick escape onto one of them would be forthcoming either.

"Show me where you hid it," Trent added. "And I'll tell you what they do."

I laughed, quite inappropriately for our situation, and he raised an eyebrow at me, an incongruous smirk on his lips.

Just as the doors closest to us swished open for no reason at all.

"Jump!" was all he said, before he pushed me through the opening, following behind as gunfire rang out over our heads.

I landed almost on top of the live third rail, the hum of 750 volts of electricity making me yelp. In the next instant I was hauled to my feet by Trent, and we were off running again.

My ankle throbbed and I prayed I didn't twist it on the uneven railroad ties. But soon ignored the ache as I heard the drones land on the loose gravel behind us. Their boots thudded loudly against each railway sleeper. They wouldn't tire. They wouldn't misjudge their step. Unless something unexpected happened, they wouldn't trip and fall.

But we could.

My heart pounded inside my chest, blood pumped through my body as my arms swung in unison with each step. I could hear Trent's harsh breaths, mingling with the sounds of Wánměi on the other side of the glass security wall. Behind it, below the raised track, the city continued on oblivious. Up ahead the screen stopped, making the above ground railway exposed to the elements. It was raining again, which I knew would mean the ties would become slippery, and if we miss-stepped and landed on a dormant metal track, then we'd definitely lose our footing.

I only wished the drones would, but their pacing was too perfect. There was no chance of them slipping and the rain would barely impact on their progression at all. Visibility would decrease for the Cardinal operator, but not enough to give us an advantage.

We came out into the open, immediately getting soaked by the downpour. Lightning flashed in the distance, heralding an afternoon thunderstorm. I glanced over the side of the track and took in the twenty foot drop. There was no way we could jump and for the next hundred metres there was only a grassy park and spindly trees to stop our fall. We needed a building, an awning, something to make the plummet less lethal. But there was nothing for a hundred metres it seemed.

I was starting to get quite puffed and with the exhaustion came mistakes. I tripped, saw the ground rush up towards me, felt the graze of the gravel even before I'd hit it, and was sure my body was magnetised to that blasted live rail. Then a hard arm wrapped around my body, hauling me up before I hit dirt. I gulped in air, feeling winded by Trent's action but grateful all the same time.

We wouldn't be able to outrun them. The knowledge was right there in the front of my mind as breaths sawed in and out, and my ankle throbbed to the same beat as my pulse, and sweat mixed with rainwater and drowned out the rest of the world, bringing my focus down to just this. Survival. Running for our lives. The futility of our efforts, but the frantic, desperate desire to keep trying.

Neither of us urged the other on. We didn't need to. We were both giving it our all, and we both knew it was useless. I fumbled in my little handbag, which was slung across my shoulders and body, for a weapon, determined I would not go down without a fight. There was no point conforming now. We may not have been iRec'd successfully yet, but we'd ignored commands to comply. In the sPol drones' eyes, who continued to doggedly pursue us, we were already guilty.

And the only sentence for our transgressions was either arrest or immediate wipe.

My fingers found my disconnected cellphone in one pocket next to my PDA, and a small Swiss Army knife I used to pry open keypad casings and such in another, which would be useless against metallic bodied drones. Then they moved on to the other side of the bag and located my decoder sitting snugly in place. Beside it, in its own compartment, was my wallet. For a second I thought it sat alone in its hiding spot. Then my trembling fingers wrapped around my laser pointer and pulled the device out.

I looked at it, as I continued to sprint down the track, then glanced up and noticed we'd made it to the other side of the park. Buildings rose on one side, the
busy main road in Rahroh Tohah
on the other, rows of cars moving at a sedate pace drove along it unaware of what was transpiring above their heads.

I looked left. I looked right. I saw our opportunity, but knew we'd never make it. The footsteps of the thundering drones sounded right behind my ears. My thumb rubbed over the laser pointer, and then depressed the button to make it light. I glanced over my shoulder, my speed slowing compared to Trent's, and aimed.

It was impossible to get a straight line to the drone's camera lens. I was moving, it was moving. My hand shook with the incredible amount of stress. I bit my lip, kept waving the pointer over my shoulder and hoped luck would prevail.

It didn't, but when I looked ahead and saw Trent had already made it to the closest awning and had realised I'd fallen behind, I thought that was probably as good as our fortunes would get.

"Jump!" I yelled, fully prepared to sacrifice myself for his sake.

My hand went to my bra, feeling the outline of the thumb-drive and I wondered if I could extricate it and throw it to him in the small amount of time we had left. Too many variables. Too easily it would fall over the side of the tracks. And throwing away the one thing that had caused this entire disaster seemed like an enormous waste.

I lowered my hand, still flashing my pointer over my shoulder blindly and watched as Trent steadied himself, widening his stance, lifting two hands up and then fired.

I couldn't see what he held. I expected it to be a small pistol of some description, but the sound of a bullet being shot didn't follow.

Just the red glow of a laser pointer as he aimed at the closest drone to my back.

I made his side as I heard the unmistakable sound of a drone losing his footing and going down hard. Followed by the crash of several drones behind him being caught off guard and following in his path.

"Go!" he yelled beside me, nodding towards the awning of a building to the side.

The drop was longer than I had anticipated and slightly further away than it had initially appeared. More footsteps sounded out as the drones behind those original ones to fall managed to pass the obstacle and kept on coming. I knew I didn't have time to think about it, I just had to commit.

I took a step back, sucked in a deep breath and then threw myself over the side of the railway track, falling, falling, falling through the rain and heated air. The surface was wet, of course. The awning angling down. I hadn't thought about that. I'd prepared myself for that first impact, but not for the subsequent loss of balance and inexorable slide down the metal siding and onto the concrete pathway below.

Agony burst through my ankle and there was no way to stop the scream that erupted from within. I was sure it had been broken. I blinked through the white hot spots of pain before my eyes and tried to see if a bone was protruding from the skin. My vision blurred evermore quickly, making the last thing I saw, as I narrowed my eyes at my throbbing leg, two scuffed looking booted feet.

I lifted my head and heard shouts from above and then felt myself fall backwards into someone's arms. The boots before me shuffled in the wet puddles, as the hands that gripped me from behind lifted my body up into the air.

I thought I lost consciousness, but when a bolt of blistering heat shot through my ankle like a knife, I opened my eyes sucking in air as I swallowed my scream to see someone - the booted feet I presumed - lifting me up by my legs. A big hand right over my injured ankle, searing my skin and grinding what had to be broken bone against broken bone.

My body rocked as I was deposited into a van, more detail than the fact there was a bench seat across the back wasn't available. My sight waxing and waning and making it impossible to make out faces or colours or even the model of the vehicle which had started to move.

"Is she OK?" I heard Trent say, and for some reason that made my entire body relax.

And then we turned a corner at high speed and I just about fell off the seat, jostling my ankle and making me want to throw up.

"Here," he said, closer than before. "Let me hold her steady."

I didn't hear the grumbled reply, too distracted by the bitter-sweet agony that suffused my body.

Bitter, because my ankle hurt like fuck.

Sweet, because Trent had lifted my head up and cradled me in his lap tenderly.

"She'd better be worth it," a guy's voice said. It was hard to tell who in my current state, but my money was on the black clad man from Wántel.

"The file she carries in her bra is," Trent replied steadily, and I tried to reach up and cover my breast to stop anyone, especially him, from taking it. But my arms didn't seem to want to obey the command.

A chuckle from the other side of the vehicle, then, "Do you want me to fish it out? Your hands are currently occupied holding her steady."

I heard the growl rumble through Trent's chest directly into my ear where my cheek rested.

"If anyone is fishing around in her underwear, it'll be me."

Laughter rang out and then the gentle caress of his hand in my hair, brushing it away.

"Lena?" he said softly. "Zebra, you with us?"

I played dead. It wasn't hard. I felt halfway there as it was.

"She's out of it," the other voice said.

"No time like the present," Trent replied, voice level and detached.

And then his hot hand snuck under my sundress décolletage and brushed the top of my breast.

I had my switch-blade up under his chin in a second, despite not being able to see what the hell I was doing too well.

"I wouldn't if I were you, Citizen," I snarled.

His hands came up empty, palms open, surrendering under the pressure of my knife. Tension hung in the air, the sound of rain splattering on the rooftop of the van and the swish of wiper-blades the only counterpoint to my harsh breathing. I think Trent had stopped breathing completely. I wasn't entirely sure what the other man was up to, and I needed to be. But right then, focus was damn hard.

"A gentleman always asks first," I added for effect.

"Lena," he warned. "You're about to pass out."

"I'm more tenacious than you think."

"I've noticed." Pause. "Put the knife away. I promise not to touch you again."

"And the thumb-drive?"

He hesitated. Then offered a short nod he must have known I would have had trouble seeing.

I flicked the blade closed and pocketed it automatically, then forced myself to sit up. I felt too vulnerable cradled in his arms and I needed to remember why he'd saved me; it had nothing to do with being kind.

My ankle ached as I rested it gingerly on the floor of the still moving van. Blood rushed to the site of injury aided by gravity. And the ever present rapid beat of my heart. My head swam, and for a moment I was sure I'd black out. Sheer will and stubbornness had me clinging to consciousness, even as bile surged up my throat.

"If it's any consolation," Trent said, "I don't think it's broken."

I attempted to glare at him, but my pupils could have been a little cross-eyed. God, I felt ill.

I rubbed my face dry with both hands and fished a tie out of my wallet, pulling my hair back and scrunching it into a very messy and entirely inappropriate bun.

Then I focused on the guy across the other side of the van. I'd been right, it was the black clad man from Wántel. Now dressed in Citizen appropriate jeans and t-shirt. His were the scuffed boots of before. I stared at his big hands. It wasn't that he was huge, he was of
Wáikěinese
descent, so not enormous. But he must have had an ounce of Anglisc in him, because he was broad and possibly tall and those hands had been huge against my injured leg.

Or they had seemed so at the time.

"And you are?" I demanded, falling into Elite mannerisms with such ease.

"The man who saved your Honourable arse," he replied with a sneer. "Feel free to show your appreciation."

I flicked my gaze to Trent, not bothering to answer. Part of me wanted to ask if he was hurt in our escape. A bigger part, made up entirely from my pride, couldn't do it.

"What now?" I said instead.

"You wanted to see my home," he replied in a low and seductive voice. I was sure he was doing it on purpose. "Now's your chance."

"Well," the guy opposite, who I realised hadn't actually introduced himself despite my earlier question, interrupted. "Not exactly
see
."

"Excuse me?" I asked, eyebrows raised in what I was sure looked pure Elite. Something about this man called forth the Honourable in me.

He made an elaborate and slightly sinister show of unfolding a bandanna from his pocket, his gaze holding my stare. It took a second or two for me to comprehend what it was for. The way Trent sighed, scrubbed a hand over his damp and dishevelled hair uncomfortably, and then offered me an apologetic shrug of his shoulders, helped decipher the moment.

"Ah," I managed to inarticulately say, just before the bandanna wielding man moved to cross the rear of the van towards me.

"I'll do it," Trent growled, reaching out to snatch the slip of material.

"No you won't," I argued at the precise moment the guy opposite suggested, "Make sure it's tight."

"Lena," Trent said, an edge to his tone. "We don't know if you can be trusted."

For some reason his words hurt, when they shouldn't have. But I was damned if I'd show them that.