Rath's Gambit (The Janus Group Book 2) (2 page)

Rath slid the needle into his right arm first, holding it in place while he tore off a strip of medical tape with his teeth. By the time he had finished his left arm, the researcher was flipping through a paper manual for the dialysis machine. He turned two switches, and the machine hummed to life.

“Well, it’s on,” Stam said. Blood began to flow out of Rath’s left arm, through the tube, and into the machine. “But I’m not sure how to tell it to filter out hemobots. Let me see ….” he turned to a new section in the pamphlet, frowning.

Rath triggered another grenade, then handed Stam his phone. “Look it up online. Just keep the holograms where I can see what you’re doing.”

It took two more grenades, but at last they had it – Stam made the adjustments to the machine, and then gave his phone back to Rath, before taking a seat on a stool.

“How long did it say?” Rath asked.

“About two hours to scrub all of your bloodstream,” Stam told him.

“Fuck,” Rath observed. He opened his Forge and started it on a new set of grenades. “Okay, might as well start on your second assignment, then. Somebody else has access to my neural interface – I’m streaming them a live audio and visual feed. They can see what I do in my onboard computer, all of that. How do I cut them off?”

“Interrupt the connection?” Stam asked.

“No, shut it down. Permanently.”

“But you still want access to all the systems yourself?” Stam asked.

“Ideally, yes. I’d prefer not to go blind and deaf.”

“Sure, right.” Stam tried a weak smile. “Well, that I actually have some experience with – my first research project was with neural interfaces. I’ll have to print out the instructions for your specific model, but it should be an easy fix. We just need to access the hardware – the neural interface chip has to be unlocked. There’s usually a microscopic switch that you flip. It reboots the interface, and that cuts the connection.”

“For good? It doesn’t just boot back up with the same connection?”

“No, it deletes the connection history – if you want to get the connection back, you’d have to set it up as a brand new external connection, start from scratch. But you’ll lose anything you have stored in memory, so if you’ve got any important files or videos you want saved, anything you want to remember …?”

Rath chuckled. “No – I remember enough already. Where’s the chip?”

“Typically at the base of your neck,” Stam said, standing to lean over Rath. “Let me see – yeah, you have a slight scar there – that’s where they put it. We’ve got to cut it open, reach in with a micro-tool, flip the right switch, and then sew you up again.”

“Let’s get started,” Rath told him.

“I wouldn’t,” Stam said. “It’s not a big incision, but it might interfere with the dialysis – I don’t know, the hemobots might cluster there at the site of the cut, to try to heal it, instead of flowing out through the dialysis tubes like normal.”

“Are you sure?” Rath asked.

“No,” Stam admitted. “But ….”

“Okay,” Rath relented. “Get your tools ready. I want to cut in as soon as the dialysis is over.”

* * *

The three men met outside of baggage claim, though none of them traveled with any checked bags – each wore just a single backpack. Silently, they made their way through the spaceport arrivals hall to the rental car agency, found their car waiting in the assigned spot, and climbed in. As the driver pulled out and accelerated up into the traffic pattern, the man in the front passenger seat dialed a phone number on the car’s communication system.

“Identify,” a robotic voice ordered.

The man checked his holophone, and read out a four-digit alpha-numeric code. He heard a series of electronic clicks, and then the robotic voice returned. “Identity confirmed. The line is encrypted, you may proceed.”

“700 reporting in,” he replied.

“With 883,” the driver added.

“And 804,” the man in the rear seat said.

“Rendez-vous complete, request mission update,” 700 said.

“Stand by,” the robot replied.

A new voice came on the line. “This is Group Headquarters. Mission parameters remain unchanged. The target is using EMP grenades to disrupt our connection, but we are in intermittent contact. His latest location is a cybernetics research facility on the outskirts of the city – sending you the address and building blueprints now. Last transmission was nearly an hour ago. Footage suggests he has kidnapped an employee; our assumption is that he plans to force that employee to remove his remaining hemobots and shut down his connection to Group HQ.”

“That sounds likely,” 700 told the voice. “Do you have ID on the employee, and a list of other personnel that work at the facility?”

“Stand by. Yes, I can have that to you in a few minutes. Other questions?”

700 eyed the other two contractors, who shook their heads. “No.”

“Very well. Recommend you deploy drones in advance, to track the target if he escapes from the facility. 700 has operational command – we’ll continue to monitor and support. HQ out.”

The evening rush hour was nearly over, the skies clearing as commuters finished their trips home. As a result, the three men made good time, landing in the area near the target in just over ten minutes. They parked several blocks away, and the contractor in the backseat rolled down his window, allowing three micro-drones to fly out, heading for the research lab. 700 pulled up their feed on the viewscreen mounted in the car’s console, watching as they split up and began circling the building.

“Just one car and the hoverbike in the parking lot,” 883 commented. “They’re probably alone.”

“Most of the windows are shielded,” 804 added. “Can’t see in to determine which room they’re in.”

700 ignored him, tapping a command on the screen. One of the video feeds changed subtly, showing a thermal image of the single-story building. “They’re in this room,” he tapped on the screen. “These windows are slightly hotter than the others – they’re getting warmed from the inside by the lights and their body heat.”

The two other men traded a look. “Maybe,” 883 allowed. “I think one of us goes in posing as an employee, try to lure the research guy out to the front entrance. He’s a witness, we need him out of the way.”

804 nodded. “Removing him would also prevent 621 from cutting off his data connection. As long as he’s connected, he’s at a major disadvantage.”

700 narrowed his eyes, thinking. “The accomplice should be killed, and if we can’t subdue 621 immediately, we should aim to separate him from his Forge and EMP grenade supply. Then HQ can re-establish a connection and disable him, or at a minimum tell us where he is and what he’s doing, which will give us the upper hand. But the minute anyone approaches that building, 621 will get skittish. So we need to go in hard and fast.”

“Breach and clear?” 883 asked. “IP is already on high alert, breaching charges and gunfire are going to bring them running.”

“No,” 700 shook his head. “They’re not out here in force, they’re all concentrated in the city itself – and they’ve been on alert for hours now, they’ll be getting tired. Slow. Disorganized.”

“What if he’s not in that room?” 804 asked.

“Then we sweep room-to-room,” 700 said. “Stun grenades and tear gas. Flush him out.”

“And if he makes a run for it while we’re all inside?”

“We’re not
all
going in at once – I’ll be monitoring the drone feeds outside.”

“It’s
your
plan,” 883 pointed out, frowning. “You want to go in shooting, you should be the first one through the door.”

700 smiled, but his eyes stayed cold. “No. I have operational command – you two will go in.”

“Fuck you,” 804 observed. “I’m not getting killed so you can stay safe outside and collect the credit, operational command or not.”

700 moved in a blur of speed. 804 felt himself yanked forward between the seats, 700’s knife pressed against his throat. 700 held him still for a few seconds, staring expressionlessly into the man’s eyes. Then he held his counter bracelet up for the man to see, triggering it. A golden
42
appeared in the air in front of the man’s face.

“Want to whip yours out?” 700 asked. “I bet mine’s bigger.” 804 swallowed carefully, the stubble on his Adam’s apple scraping against the knife’s honed blade. 700 continued: “We do things my way. I’ll kill you both now, and take care of this myself, or you can take your chances inside against 621. What will it be?”

“621,” 883 answered. 804 nodded carefully.

“Good,” 700 replied. He slid his knife back into its sheath. “Now: gear up, grenades and auto-rifles. I’ll prep the demolition charges and noise cancelers.”

* * *

“That’s everything you need?” Rath asked, as he finished attaching the bandage to his leg wound.

“To cut off your data feed? I think so,” the research student answered. He pointed to items he had laid out on the lab table. “Diagram showing your switch layout, scalpel, antiseptic pads, micro-tool, magnifying lens, liquid stitching agent … that’s all I can think of.”

“Okay,” Rath said. “A little over three minutes left on the dialysis machine, then you start cutting.”

The charges went off simultaneously, with a flash of light and a curiously muffled
whump
. At the far end of the room, a man-sized hole simply appeared in the room’s outer wall, chunks of masonry flying across the room. At the same instant, a section of ceiling ten feet to Rath’s left caved in, and a man wielding an auto-rifle dropped through the hole a split second later. Belatedly, Rath dove forward out of his chair, struggling to bring his auto-pistol to bear as he fell. The man was already tracking him, but he landed facing away from Rath, and in the split second it took for him to turn, Rath managed to fire three rounds. The man fell, and Rath landed heavily on the floor as well, crashing into the lab bench in front of him.

A line of projectiles zipped over Rath’s head, and Stam toppled to the floor a second later, a row of stun darts tattooed across the research assistant’s chest. Rath was hidden behind the lab bench, but he could hear the other shooter moving cautiously toward him, steadily closing the gap.

Stun darts – they want me alive.

Rath checked his IV lines – miraculously, both were still attached, and the dialysis machine appeared to still be running. But the counter on its viewscreen showed two minutes and forty-five seconds still remaining.

Can I please just get these things out of me without any further interruptions!

Rath’s bandolier of spare EMP grenades was on the counter above him, out of reach, but his Forge was closer, and it had just finished making another grenade. Rath held the pistol up and fired several rounds blindly in the second shooter’s direction, then stood briefly to grab the Forge and yank it down next to him. He removed the grenade from the tray, and triggered it a scant five seconds before time ran out on the previous grenade.

Rath checked his pistol instinctively, then did a double take when he saw that the action was locked to the rear, showing an empty bolt.

Fuck!

He scrabbled in his pocket, searching for his spare magazine, but he came up empty: it must have fallen out of his pocket when he dove out of the chair. He scanned the area behind the bench quickly.

Nothing. Shit. Okay, improvise.

Rath heard the other assailant move again, quickly this time, and then stop partway across the room.

He’s repositioning, getting a better angle. Gotta come up with something fast.

He glanced over at Stam’s unconscious body, and then at the dialysis machine, where the last of his blood was being processed.

* * *

Across the room, 883 called up one of the micro-drones in his neural interface, and sent it a new task. The drone dropped out of its orbit around the building and headed across the roof, hovering over the hole the demolition charge had made. It transmitted an image of the 804’s dead body, and then slowly lowered itself through the hole. At the edge of the ceiling it paused, before rapidly dipping down into the room, panning quickly around, and then flying back up into the safety of the hole. 883 checked the footage it had captured – next to the over-turned chair, two other bodies lay draped across the floor – the researcher in his white lab coat, and beside him, propped against the lab bench, 621 sat in a rapidly expanding pool of blood, his wrists apparently slit.

“Damn it!” the contractor swore. “700, get in here – target’s trying to kill himself.”

He sprinted to the end of the room, and swung around the corner of the table, rifle leveled. On the floor, the bleeding man slumped over. The contractor slung his rifle and knelt next to the man, reaching for his wrists to begin first aid. But when he wiped at the blood, he couldn’t find a wound.

* * *

Behind him on the floor, Rath cracked one eye open. He wore Stam’s white lab coat, having hurriedly stripped it from the researcher’s inert body, before yanking the needle from his arm and smearing Stam with blood coming from the dialysis machine. Rath judged the distance, then vaulted to a kneeling position, hamstringing the contractor with a single back-handed knife swipe across the back of his left knee. 883 bellowed in pain and toppled backwards. Rath finished him with a knife thrust to the neck, then stood up.

“You must be 621,” Rath heard a voice say behind him. He turned, and found a third contractor pointing an auto-rifle at his head. Rath had not heard him enter. “I’m 700. Drop the knife.”

Rath sighed, and did as he was ordered. “I’m going to show you something,” he told the other contractor. “Don’t shoot.” He lifted his wrist into the air and triggered the counter bracelet. The gold
50
spun in the air above it.

700 studied it, frowning. “What’s your point?”

“They don’t pay you when you reach fifty. The money’s a lie … they just take your hemobots and your implants and leave you to die.”

“Fascinating. Makes sense, I suppose. Can you volunteer to keep working for them?”