Rebel's Consort - Phoenix Book 1 (8 page)

“Thought the guy was a real prick,” Babcock said.

After pouring another drink, Aaron made a point of sipping his own. When Babcock finally nodded and grabbed the glass, his worry receded.

“I had a friend, did security work in one of the other buildings.” He licked his lips and rubbed the back of his hand across them until they stood out cherry red. “They rotate everyone in those places. Don’t want anyone getting friendly and mucking up their priorities.”

He rolled the glass and stared, searching for some prize on the bottom and not finding it. For his part, Aaron couldn’t figure out how the man could drink so much and keep upright, much less see straight.

“Sam had a sweet offer for a long weekend. Plenty of company, if you know what I mean. He offered me some high creds to take his place. No one knew anyone’s name, so I took his security ID. What the heck. Two days. A hundred creds. Good deal.” He shrugged, closed his eyes and let the whiskey touch his lips, not drinking. The glass lowered to rest on his belly.

“First night, no problem.” The crackle of his breathing rang out, jarring the quiet of the room. “Second night—the alarms go off. We rush to the lower levels.”

Aaron waited and scrutinized the more-salt-than-pepper stubble over the sunken jowls. Then he glanced higher. There wasn’t any recognition in Babcock’s eyes, the man too absorbed in his past.

“Those lower levels—a nightmare.” Babcock’s head lowered, his chin resting on his chest for a minute. “Always considered my job posh, sparkling clean in the part of the city all fresh and new.” His paw stroked the glass over his huge belly.

“The alarms rang like fucking jackhammers in my brain. Must have been twenty of us responded. Took six to hold back the guy who was in the room.” His head shook in denial as his hand shook from too much whiskey. “The doc—took six of them to pull him off. Lined up like fucking dolls, all these dead … kids. Ripped open, missing parts, organs, limbs—not like they had some fuckin’ accident. No, this was …. fucking dozens of them. Those rumors, they’re all true.” A garbled sob bubbled from Babcock’s mouth.

“Near the end of the line was the doc’s wife. All quiet for a change. No more sparkle, total whitewash, deader than dirt. Little girl beside her, dead too. Looked like her mother, except her chest was carved open.” He paused. “Wide open, like they’d come back for more.”

He tilted his head back and swallowed a good six ounces of the whiskey. Aaron flinched.

“Doc was insane. Called us murderers. Kept yelling he’d made a deal.” Babcock stared at the floor. “They tranqed him and took him away to the prisons.”

“What did you do?”

Startled, Babcock looked up as if he’d forgotten Aaron was there. “Do? I left that fucking place and never went back. Didn’t ask for the creds from my buddy, went home and—”

Aaron reached for the bottle and, thinking better of it, finished his own drink before pushing the bottle to Babcock. “You ever find out who the Doc was?”

Babcock’s eyes lasered in on Aaron’s, causing his hackles to rise again. The hard gleam in those eyes, much colder and alert than the drunken man he’d been leaching for information. “Found him in the system the day I got back. Doc Boden, Doctor Trace Boden. Next day—no records, no history—like he’d never even worked there.”

Not sure how to push more, Aaron put all his effort into not fidgeting or giving in to the urge to bolt.

“Your friend ever say anything?”

Babcock pitched his empty glass onto the table, grabbed the bottle, and took a big swill. Cradling the container to his belly, he glanced from Aaron’s half-empty glass to his face. “Disappeared. Went to my buddy’s place. Landlord said he hadn’t been there for months. Like that Doc, he disappeared, wiped clean off the face of New Delphi.”

Aaron rubbed his face again. The images of Babcock and his story faded from his vision but lingered in his gut.

In the quiet chill of the cavern, he looked around at Analena and the kids. He brushed one knuckle over the tears on her cheeks. He’d never seen her cry. She cursed, she fumed, she planned, but regret and sadness, those she kept locked tight. “He finished with the Regents before any of us entered the detention camps.”

“You really think that was his wife?” Hena asked.

He couldn’t quite tell if she wanted denial, so the story never happened, or confirmation, so they were all solid in their assessment. He gave her the truth.

“A six-year-old daughter,” he leaned forward, elbows on his knees fingers folded together, and hung his head. “Babcock confirmed the kid, the wife—whole thing before they got wiped from the records.”

“Somehow he got free.” Analena’s voice was steady, though her eyes remained closed.

“Yeah, somehow, nine years ago, he got free. Coincides with the riots back then. He started over, like you did.” He ran his fingers through his hair and stood up. “I’m going to bed. I’ve had enough truth for one night.”

He paused halfway to his tunnel, and spoke over his shoulder. “There’s word on the street they’ve laid in new plans. For the camps.”

“I’d expect as much after my last breakout.”

“Nobody’s talking, Analena. I think it’s time for you to lay low.” He caught her shrug.

“I don’t make the calls, Aaron.” Analena glanced toward the dormant vid screen above the far table.

There’d been no messages since she’d extracted Gar. There might be none for months. That’s the way it went. But Aaron knew if Radar messaged, she’d go.

“You know the way it works. If one comes in, I go,” she said.

Yeah, he knew.

Chapter 6

“I don’t like this. We’ve never gotten intel from anyone but Radar before.”

Analena injected a canister of coagulant into the pouch in her belt and activated the padding before turning to Aaron. “I don’t like it either, but the word from the market says they’re taking a heart tonight. I don’t have a choice. Look, even if security is tighter in the detention camps, I’m not heading there. This is out in the open. I can change my mind if the situation calls for it.”

“Did you try to confirm with Radar?”

“I can’t seem to reach the network. Not even from the market. But I scheduled messages to keep alerting him so he’ll know and I can have confirmation.” Acknowledging his worry, she nodded back to the kids. “I’ll be back in two hours.”

“If you’re not, I’m going in to get more information.”

“You need to stay with the kids.”

“Hena is here with the kids. They’re more likely to do what she tells them than what I say anyway.” Aaron folded his arms with a scowl. “You don’t even have Trace ready, do you?”

She didn’t want to explain that one. Her emotions were in conflict where Trace was concerned. Part of her felt terrified of the new feelings he elicited, the other part mourned the absence of his advance commitment on this mission.

“It’ll be fine. If I get out with the kid, then I won’t need him because they won’t have operated.”

But she wasn’t certain and that fed her conviction that she needed to practice her own rules. No silly worries about depending on others. She’d been running missions before Onyx joined her efforts and she would run them now. In spite of Aaron’s details absolving Trace of his past, the man had too great a hold on her emotions. A little distance would be good.

Grabbing her pack and her vid mask, she headed for the exit tunnel. She didn’t say good-bye or turn around. The first would have worried the children. The second would probably have caught Aaron sneaking out early to do just what he’d threatened.

She could hardly blame him for doing what she’d trained him to do.

***

Shepherd: Onyx?

Confirm

Shepherd: U scheduled for Piper?

No—why?

Trace clenched his teeth in frustration at the delayed response.

Shepherd: received intel that Piper was delivered extraction details

Intel delivered by who?
The only people who relayed team information in Down Below were Radar or Shepherd. Even distress calls were verified by one of the two of them.

Shepherd: not team

U have confirmation of this intel?

Shepherd: confirmation received in dark side

Shit. The Dark Side consisted of a collection of brothels and tightly managed sex clubs. The menu delivered offerings to suit every taste, but more important, the establishments catered to New Delphi clients and Regent guards, as well as Down Below clientele. Information, always available there, came at a price. If Dark Side intel claimed an external feed for an extraction request, then it had already been delivered and most likely indicated a setup.

Confirmation from Wolf?

Shepherd: off grid—not responding

Shepherd: your plan?—if Piper a target they will be at your doorstep next

Pack up—bug out—find her

Shepherd: copy

***

A squad of sentries, eight men, paced the exterior of the Med Lab Building. Laser cannons strapped to each thigh, they checked the IDs of every citizen entering and leaving the building. Another squad held positions inside in the lobby, beside the lift elevators and along the rear of the foyer, all visible through the twenty-foot glass windows.

Analena adjusted the hood of her cloak, lifted her face to the sun, and leaned back against the building’s metallic gravel surface. It wasn’t too late to back out, but nothing had changed in her assessment of the situation, with either the personnel or the surrounding environment.

Thick traffic covered Regent’s Square. Shuttle pods punched up from the transport rails below the street every two minutes, depositing ten to twenty citizens for work in front of the various buildings along the square. Hover vehicles zipped above the center grid of the street, while solar bikes and two-wheeled lazy platforms added more people to the mix.

She could enter a pod, follow the transport line to its end, and blend back into the stream of night workers heading back home to Down Below. But bailing now didn’t sit well with her. She’d been extracting kids for a long time. This should be nothing new. Her recon for this mission was thorough, no different from the rest, and the little girl targeted wouldn’t survive to see the detention camps. Heart donors never did. So, Analena waited for movement from the building.

Discretely angling her hand, she tapped through the latest security message feeds and localized broadcasts. All relayed more snippets for a secured personnel relocation from the Med Lab to another small facility on the New Delphi grid. Nothing from Radar. That, combined with the increased security after canvassing Down Below, torqued the chill already biting along her spine. Her refusal to contact Onyx weighed heavier. Her ostracism of him felt like betrayal, and perhaps it was, but she was too far along to send a message from above the grid.

Her reconnaissance of the destination facility, twelve blocks away, targeted five access points to the Down Below. Too convenient for ambush.

She’d chosen to intersect the security vehicles at a transfer point on their route. If this were a trap, they’d expect her at the termination point, not at a point en route. In theory, she could back out any time before she committed to the extraction. The transportation lines just below the street provided multiple avenues to Down Below.

The squads in front of the Med Lab shifted, assembling before the solar-paneled front doors. Four men emerged from the building in escort around a rectangular box, floating two feet from the ground. Sentries shifted at the ready, palming their weapons.

Quite the show for broad daylight.

Analena let her hood drop from her face, pushed away from the building, and turned to the nearest transportation pod. A rear image view flashed across her hand device, confirming the sentries had finished stowing the rectangle into a military hovercraft.

She waited, pretending to fiddle with her hair until the security vehicle descended beneath the road’s surface to the dedicated security transport tunnel. Then she entered a civilian transport pod.

A quick ride to the next intersecting station, and she exited her pod. Milling with the crowd, she ducked into a service door for the tunnel. Cages ran vertical to the tunnels with stairwells throughout the connecting transit lines for servicing the grid between New Delphi and Down Below. The same service cages also supported the military tunnels. While the military tunnels accessed the major buildings, the destination facility for the child wasn’t on the secure line. The Med Lab’s hover vehicle needed to borrow the public route for its final leg, providing several minutes of delay while it waited for clearance for access to the public line.

That was her target.

Cloak whipped off and reduced to a small, flat wafer in airless plastic, Analena tucked it in her back pouch, climbed down one of the flights of stairs, and ran the final leg of the journey.

Sure enough, the hover transport floated in front of a locked gate, awaiting security clearance. Four sentries accompanied the transport. The two managing the navigation were visible from the front viewport. The others would be guarding the delivery in the back.

Her thumb activated the button for her dampening field. At best, she had five minutes undetected. Fingers splayed, she covered the security panel at the rear hatch of the craft. Silver rippled along her hand and wove into the panel.

A bolt of current surged through the panel, locking her to the outside of the craft. Shocked and unable to move, she watched streams of blue light rip from the panel through her skin. Flashes ignited as the blue devoured her flesh, sizzling nanites and her brain’s control over her extremities. Her body jiggled against the hover’s frame as a siren split the air. A bright flash accompanied a pressure that flung her back against the tunnel’s rock wall.

With a grunt, she slid down the wall, her legs struggling to support her.

The front hatch of the hovercraft swung up. She concentrated through a daze to lock her laser on the two navigators. Damn. Her transparency cover had been blown with the shock, leaving her exposed to the guards.