Hex (23 page)

“They're still coming,” he told Kez, and articulated the boy's unspoken thought when he added: “We can't hold out much longer.”

“Shall I tell Wraith?” Kez asked, gesturing to his wrist com unit.

“Go tell him in person,” Jeeva replied. “Show him we're not kidding.”

Kez didn't need any further persuasion. He swung round and raced back up the corridor and into the control room, coming to an abrupt halt as he realized an argument was in full force. Wraith and Raven were quarreling furiously, the girl having left her post in front of the computer keypad in order to argue her point more fervently. Ali and her friend were watching them anxiously, while keeping half an eye on the monitors which showed the advancing guards. Kez grabbed Wraith's arm.

“We've got to go now!” he insisted, ignoring the ganger's cold stare. “We can't hold out against the guards much longer.”

“That's it then,” Raven said. “We go . . . if we still can.”

“If you leave now nothing will have changed,” Ali's friend said softly. “The lab will just go back to normal, and the experiments will continue.”

“Luciel!” Ali looked desperate. “There are
hundreds
of test subjects. How do you expect us to break them all out, when we're having enough problems getting ourselves out?”

“So there are hundreds of people here,” Luciel replied fiercely. “Have you any idea how many
thousands
have died as a result of the CPS's illegal experimentation, how many have—”

“Wait!” Raven commanded, and Ali and Luciel turned to look at her. “What did you say?” the girl asked, dark eyes fixed on Luciel.

“That there are thousands who have died,” he replied. “Surely you know that?”

Raven had already turned away from him and faced Wraith. For the first time since the ganger had arrived she didn't look angry.

“The experimentation is illegal,” she said in a considering tone of voice.

“So?” Wraith prompted.

“We can't take the test subjects with us, but we can let other people know they exist,” Raven replied. She turned and gestured to the computers. “This database is full of records of the test subjects and the experiments performed on them. I can dump that information straight into the main net and into all the databases of the news channels. With a scoop like this the media will have people here in under half an hour.”

“And you think that'll be enough?” Luciel challenged, still not looking convinced.

“It'll have to be,” Wraith replied, having made his decision. He pressed two buttons on his wrist com unit and spoke into it. “Jeeva, Finn, can you hold on another fifteen minutes?”

“It's cutting it close, but it'll be chill,”
Finn replied, followed shortly after by Jeeva's voice agreeing.

“Right then,” Wraith said, shutting his com unit off. “Get to it, Raven.”

•  •  •

Three floors below the control center Dr. Kalden addressed a team of guards, while the scientists clustered in an alarmed huddle around him. A penetration of the facility alone might not have worried them, but the revelation that there was a rogue Hex on the loose had thoroughly frightened them. They were used to dealing with cowed children who barely understood what being a Hex entailed, let alone how to use those abilities. But now they knew that, not only were three of their test subjects on the loose, the gangers had brought their own Hex with them.

“She must have broken past our virus safeguards,” Kalden was saying angrily. “That means they're in control of the facility.”

“There aren't that many of them, sir,” one of the armed guards pointed out.

“There aren't that many of us either,” a scientist said anxiously and Kalden frowned warningly.

“The intruders must be captured and disposed of,” he insisted, “and do it quickly. If word of this gets out, there will be a number of awkward questions asked.” A few of the scientists exchanged incredulous glances at the understatement, but most were too horrified by the possibility of discovery to do more than fix the remaining guards with hopeful eyes.

“We'll get them out of there, sir,” the guard stated confidently. “A bunch of street trash and a few scruffy kids won't present any difficulty.”

“They've already done that,” Kalden said curtly. “Now get rid of them.”

The security guards headed for the door, but Kalden halted them before they could leave.

“Wait,” he ordered, his eyes narrowing to slits as he thought. “Leave the stranger, the Hex, alive if you can. I think she would make an ideal test subject.”

•  •  •

Raven stiffened at the words, a fragment of her consciousness alerting her to the conversation picked up by one of the monitors. One of her hands clenched slightly, but she didn't allow herself to become diverted from her purpose.

The laboratory's system was separated from all of the main information networks and she had almost given up hope of getting a message out. The communications lines were sealed against computer data flow, scrambling any signal sent out from the lab's computers. But there was one angle Kalden had failed to cover. It was a residential facility and the scientists required certain amenities. She had tracked the power grid to the residential area of the lab and discovered the vidcoms in almost every room. The vidcoms, used for recreation by the scientists, were configured to handle the data flow from the channels they picked up and send signals out in return. Raven tapped into that connection and began rigging up a physical circuit in the control room to handle the jerry-rigged communication channel while she concentrated on the message she had to send.

She had no difficulty in finding convincing evidence of the CPS's illegal experimentation. From the moment she had destroyed the virus nesting within the system she had been downloading its data files. The duffel bag on the floor beside her was rapidly filling with disks. But in the course of her rape of the system she had located the evidence she would need, records of the experiments performed, complete from original assessments to final autopsy reports, coupled with a small but chilling selection of video recordings of some of the test subjects. She patched the records together with the location of the lab, the identity of Dr. Kalden, and the relevant section of European Law that allowed the extermination of Hexes and imposed the penalties for allowing a known Hex to live. There was no legislation precluding experimentation, but on that subclause alone, the CPS would find themselves with a lot of explaining to do.

The data package complete, Raven dived into her own connection with the network, and streamed toward the main UK directory. Tendrils of her consciousness snaked through the database, collecting listings of media channels, humanitarian organizations, government ministries, and foreign embassies. She intended that this information dump would be as much of an embarrassment as possible to the government, which must have colluded in it. Her list complete, she added it to her information dump, so that those who received it would know exactly how widespread its release was.

> send message <
Raven commanded and the system complied, sending out a thousand data pulses in every possible direction, arriving simultaneously in systems across the country.

The Hex's mouth tightened into a grim smile, but she wasn't finished yet. This time she was heading for the vidchannels themselves, tracking those streaming paths of data to their source. It was something she'd never tried to do before; the incompatibility of technologies would have made it difficult even when not operating from a separate system, but her use of those channels to send her message into the net gave her the idea of utilizing them more directly. As her consciousness ranged through each of the media vidchannels, leaving a tag on each, she directed the video monitors in the control room to pick up the feed from ten major channels, from news to entertainment. Then with a brief moment of intense concentration she pulled on those tags and released her data package.

•  •  •

Ali gasped as she saw what was happening. Ten of the monitor screens had been showing the images from vidchannels, apparently at Raven's command. But, just as she was about to inquire whether the other girl thought they were in need of some light entertainment, all the vidchannels blacked out for a microsecond, coming back on line simultaneously to show the same image. Pictures of mutilated children passed across the screen, covered by a continuously scrolling text, comprised of the test results. Test subjects followed each other in rapid succession, each image accompanied by a name, details of the experiments performed and the date of death. Raven was flooding the vidchannels with proof that the world couldn't ignore.

As the others stared, Raven detached herself from the computer and turned to challenge Luciel with dark eyes.

“Satisfied?” she asked.

“Not entirely,” he replied. “But it'll do.”

“My pleasure.” Raven bowed ironically and then turned to Wraith. “I'm going to bring the flitter to the roof of this building; we'll have to get up there somehow.”

“Is that safe?” Kez asked, warily.

“How can you do that?” Ali demanded, their voices overlapping.

“I left the flitter's com-channel open. The scanning devices here don't pick it up as anything more than white noise, but if you know what you're looking for, and you have the skill, you can hack into its controls.” She shrugged. “With running lights off, no one'll see it coming. But we can't afford to cut it much closer.”

“Right,” Wraith agreed and switched on his wrist com, broadcasting to Finn and Jeeva at once. “Get ready to make a break,” he ordered. “The flitter will be waiting on the roof. We have to make it up there.”

“OK, get ready to run then, friend,” Jeeva's reply came back. “We won't be able to hold them here while we're heading in the opposite direction.”

“Raven, can you control the lab system once we've left here?” Wraith asked sharply.

Raven reached into her coat and produced a small black control pad, which emitted a piercing sound, traveling quickly through the upper harmonics before disappearing from their hearing range. She held it in her left hand while her right hand traveled quickly over the keypad and then turned back to nod at Wraith.

“I can keep control for a while, but as soon as the scientists get back in here they can lock me out,
and
trace me by the signal from this.”

“They'll be able to trace us anyway, once they've got their system back,” Kez pointed out and Raven grinned at him.

“Not for long,” she told them. “I'm setting an automatic domino circuit fuser. Once I trigger the right command this system will be irretrievably trashed.”

“The data from the experiments will be lost?” Luciel asked.

“Unless they have copies,” Raven replied. “But even if they lose it all, I've still got it.”

“You downloaded the data files?” Luciel asked, wavering between surprise and disgust.

“The CPS have had access to these files for years,” Raven pointed out. “It's about time a Hex got the chance.” As she spoke she grabbed the last stack of disks and threw them into her bag. “I'm set,” she told Wraith.

The ganger immediately switched on his wrist com and alerted Finn and Jeeva.

“Meet us at the elevator, one minute,” he told them. “We're getting out of here.” Wraith slung the slumped form of Revenge over his shoulder and handed his gun to Ali. “Cover my back,” he ordered and headed for the door.

“Wraith!” Ali's protest was almost a wail, but the ganger wasn't listening.

“Here,” said Raven, coming up behind her. “Hold it like this.” She adjusted Ali's hands on the weapon, placing one of them lightly on the trigger. “You see anything, shoot.”

“But . . . ,”Ali began.

“It doesn't matter if you don't hit anything,” Kez told her, reloading his own gun. “The guards won't charge into gunfire, and the important thing is to keep them back.”

•  •  •

The CPS guards charged around the corner of the corridor as the sound of gunfire ceased, just in time to see the elevator doors close. The first man to arrive at the elevator pressed the call panel, but it was already dead.

“They're still in control of the system,” he announced.

“But they're out of the control room,” his leader responded. “Call Kalden and tell him this floor is secure. Have him get his scientists to release the lock on the elevators. Then get after the intruders.”

Raven was jammed between Finn and Jeeva in the elevator, one hand gripping her customized gun, the other holding the link to the computer system. Through the transceiver she was aware of the computers still obeying her orders, pumping out the evidence over the vidchannels, locking out the security systems, transmitting all the data they had to Raven. She leaned against the hard white metal wall of the elevator, closing her eyes. They were burning with the pain of sensory overload and she could hear a buzz building up in her eardrums. Raven bit her lower lip hard, trying to concentrate on an easily defined pain, rather than the reality of what was happening to her. She had never engaged in so many complex computer operations at once. Now her body was finally feeling the strain and she knew that she was reaching her tolerance levels.

Slumped against the wall, trying hard not to succumb to the overwhelming flood of exhaustion, Raven didn't notice when the elevator began to slow. But when it ground to a halt, Wraith grabbed her arm, shaking her roughly awake.

“Raven!” he demanded. “What's going on?”

“Wraith.” Raven opened her eyes with an effort, not wanting to admit the truth. She concentrated and the elevator started again, the effort causing her knees to buckle. Kez caught her before she hit the floor and held her upright.