Rat Runners (31 page)

“Hey, Muntz,” Scope said to him. “Could you do me a favor and hold onto this for me?”

Holding out the bundle of money, she held onto the magnet as he took it from her. His frown brightened into a smile as he realized what it was. Removing the magnet had armed the dye pack hidden in the bundle. Scope walked back around the corner, and a few seconds later there was a loud bang, a hiss of burning gas and paper, and a scream from Muntz. He came staggering around the corner, covered with pink dye and blowing on his burned hands. Scope stuck out her foot, and he tripped over it, falling flat on his face. Careful not to get dye on her clothes, she knelt on his back and used a hypodermic gun to inject a strong sedative into the side of his neck. A couple of seconds later, he was unconscious.

Scope went over to the door, and typed in the four-digit access code. The door slid back into the wall, and again, there was no alarm. Standing on the other side was Nimmo.

“We’re cutting it close,” he said, stepping inside. “Vapor’s lot will be here any minute.”

“We better hope we’ve timed this right,” she replied. “The techs will have the alarm system back online in less than five.”

KRIEGER AND HECTOR showed up three minutes after Nimmo entered Move-Easy’s Void. They found the door standing open, and on further inspection discovered the unconscious, dye-stained and slightly scorched body of Muntz. Both of them stood looking down at the sedated thug with guns drawn. The weapons were a risk—even for men with their connections. Guns could buy you a lot of trouble in a WatchWorld city. But Nimmo had asked them to fire off some shots once they’d got inside the Void, to create a diversion for the rat-runners. And even with the security system down, if you were going to trespass on Move-Easy’s domain, being well-armed was a sensible precaution.

“The vermin weren’t kiddin’,” Krieger grunted with grudging respect. “They got inside. Want to see what we can find?”

“I still don’t like this,” Hector said. “There’s nothing Vapor can do to protect us if we get cornered down
here
. We’re in a right snake pit. If it wasn’t for those pesky kids, we’d have had that bloody implant by now. I think we’re bein’ set up for something here. We should—”

“Did you really just say ‘pesky,’ Hector?” Krieger sneered. “You are such a bloody nerd, y’know that?”

“Bite my hairy ass, you gimp. Come on, let’s see what there is to see.”

“All right, but don’t go too far into this pit until we know what’s going on,” Krieger said in a low voice as he looked around. “One of us needs to stay by the door—”

At that moment, the door slid shut, and the lock clicked and beeped. A light on the keypad beside it showed that the alarm system had been armed once more.

“To make sure we don’t get locked in,” Krieger finished with a dismayed voice.

“You can crack that lock, right?” Hector asked.

“Sure, if we had time,” Krieger answered, taking the safety off his sub-machine gun. “But it sounds like time’s somethin’ we don’t got.”

From down the corridor there came the noise of several pairs of heavy feet.

Nimmo made his way carefully along the corridor. It was his job to find the cells where Manikin was being held. He was on a tight deadline, and he couldn’t afford to be seen. Three different brundleseeds had been planted in his body to aid him in his task. All of the designs used to program the seeds were based on Safe-Guard technology. Nimmo had stolen the designs a couple of years ago. Just being in possession of them was highly illegal.

In the palm of his left hand, just beneath the skin, was a thermographic camera. Using infra-red radiation, its ‘sight’ was based on heat—seeing people and objects based on how much heat they gave off. Inside the palm of his right hand was an x-ray camera. With these two devices, he could see in the dark, through thick smoke, through solid objects. By looking through walls, he could effectively see around corners, so that he could spot security cameras before they spotted him. And he could search for Manikin without opening doors, or calling out for her.

A third implant had grown into one of the Safe-Guards’ most useful devices: a key fabricator. Using his x-ray camera, he could identify a type of lock, and the fabricator built into the longest bone of his right index finger could then, in a matter of seconds, create a key to fit it. This was the technology that allowed peepers to go almost anywhere in the city.

Nimmo knew roughly where the cells were in Move-Easy’s bunker, but he had to take a number of detours to avoid running into any of the gangsters. Like a shadow, he passed through the Void, slipping quiet and unseen through the maze of tunnels.

When he eventually found his way to the corridor leading to the ‘guest rooms,’ he ran his scanners over the wall at the corner. There was a chair at the top of the corridor, but nobody was sitting in it. There were people in some of the cells, but he wasn’t close enough to tell if any of them was Manikin. Stepping silently around the corner, his eyes took in every detail of the drab gray-green-painted hallway. There was a door ajar at the end of the corridor—the only one of the eight doors that was open. He walked down the corridor, holding his hands out to the sides, his strange new technological senses checking each cell on either side as he passed.

There were prisoners here, but no sign of Manikin. He did not release any of the captives. Some might not be friendly, and they would all be released anyway, when the police raided this place.

“Look, I cocked up, all right?” a plaintive voice protested. “But she’s in a locked-down bunker! Where the bloody hell can she go?”

“I dunno, why don’t you go ask the
Turk
? You wazzock!” He came to the cell with the open door. Inside, one of Move-Easy’s thugs—presumably the one charged with guarding the cells—was unlocking the handcuffs of a boy who was chained to the wall.

The boy was Tanker, and he was wearing only a T-shirt and his underwear. Nimmo took in the scene in a couple of seconds. There was a blossoming bruise on Tanker’s forehead, where he’d obviously taken a nasty knock. A pair of blue and gray reversible jeans that could have been Manikin’s lay crumpled on the ground, as well as something that looked like the remains of her fake birthmark.

“Hey!” The troll looked up, his face twisting into a snarl. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He lunged at Nimmo, who calmly swung the steel door shut in his face, and locked it. Turning to head back up the corridor, ignoring the shouts from behind him, he let out a sigh.

“All right, but where the bloody hell did she go?”

THE RAT-RUNNERS’ TIMING had been a bit off. FX wasn’t brought to Scope’s lab as quickly as they’d expected. They’d almost got it right—Vapor’s men got locked into the Void just after the computers in the checkpoint went down. As soon as the intruders were spotted on the reactivated cameras, Easy’s men assumed the Void was under attack. Which was all according to plan.

It was just that FX should have reached Scope by the time it happened. Instead, he and Coda were still making their way along one of the lengthy corridors.

“Oh Jesus, it’s them, isn’t it?” FX cried as he heard the sound of gunshots. In a pretty convincing show of terror, he grabbed Coda’s arm. “Please, man, don’t let them take me! This is it, they’re coming in! They’re gonna take me!
They’re gonna take me!
”

Coda threw him a suspicious glance, and FX suspected that if he hadn’t been the key to getting the brundleseed, he’d have been dead right then. Instead, Coda shoved him back against the wall and bound his wrists to a pipe with a large plastic cable-tie. Instead of heading in the direction of the gunfire, Coda strode quickly in the other direction. FX watched him go in frustration. He’d hoped the gunfight would get Coda out of the picture for a while.

Krieger and Hector were inside, and facing the wrath of a nest full of gangsters. Their deaths weren’t a necessary part of the plan—the rat-runners had just arranged for them to be there so that the two men would be in the right place at the right time, when people started getting arrested. Right now, police would be surrounding the bunker and blocking off all the exits. Fifteen minutes ago, an email sent on timed delivery had plonked into every police inbox in the city, with a detailed layout of Move-Easy’s Void, drawn up by Scope, along with information on all the operations going on down there. FX just had to stay alive until the coppers got inside.

“The law’s outside!” someone yelled down the tunnel. “The bloody law’s outside! They’re everywhere! Where’s the shotguns? Someone’s gonna die for this!”

Now FX was struggling to keep his bowels from emptying into his pants. Because the gunfire was getting louder, and he was stuck to this pipe. Instead of just providing a few minutes of diversion, Vapor’s men appeared to be killing their way towards him. And now that the police
were
here, one of the many ignorant, violent nutters running past him might decide FX was a liability they could do without. There’s no lock to pick on a cable-tie, and he had no means of cutting the toughened plastic.

“You!” a voice growled. “What the hell are you doing ’ere?”

It was Punkin. Speaking of ignorant violent nutters, here was the treacherous rat-runner who’d reesed them so he could get in with Easy’s mob. The one who hated FX and his sister with a vicious passion. The dangerous little thug who
probably didn’t know how important FX was to Move-Easy
. Punkin extended the blade from his wrist and held it to FX’s throat.

“See? Like Wolverine’s,” he hissed.

“Wolverine has three blades,” FX corrected him, unable to stop himself. “On each hand.”

“You and your sister slipped a bloody dye pack into that caterpillar, you little fart,” Punkin spat. “Nearly got me an’ Bunny killed when we brought it down here. We still owe you for that one. And I
know
your sister nicked my wallet.” He gave FX a nasty smile, swiveling the blade so it caught the light. “Now, look! Here you are, all gift-wrapped. Sweet!”

As usual, when FX got scared, his mouth developed a mind of its own.

“Really? She took your wallet? The thieving cow! Was that the time, y’know, when you, like, reesed us over for a caterpillar full of cash? That time? I’m sorry, man. That girl’s just got no principles. Get me out of this and I’ll give her a right tellin’ off. Have it back to you in no time.”

“Seems like stuff always goes pear-shaped when you’re around,” Punkin muttered. “There’s enemies in the castle. Now, how did they get in, do y’think?”

“I dunno. Maybe they followed that
smell
your head gives off—ever since you shoved it up
Easy’s arse
?”

Punkin’s blade twitched, but then his arm was pulled back, twisted into a lock, and he was flipped onto his back. He hit the floor with a thud that knocked the air from his lungs. A black girl who looked a bit like Tanker, but without the cornrows, laid in a few more thumps while he lay there winded. Before he could recover, he was dragged over to the same pipe FX was attached to and bound alongside him. He swore loudly as he realized
the plastic around his wrists was out of reach of the blade sticking out of the back of his hand. The girl gasped in exasperation at FX as she cut him free.

“‘The smell your head gives off—ever since you shoved it up Easy’s arse’?” She grimaced. “That’s the only line you could come up with?”

“I had a knife to my throat! It was the best I could do under pressure.”

Manikin looked up and down the corridor. There was no one coming in either direction.

“What’s with all the shooting?” she asked.

“We tricked Vapor’s gimps into coming down and got ’em locked in.”

She looked at him with a puzzled expression.

“What, there weren’t enough psychos down here already?”