Shadowboxer (36 page)

“This must be the part they call Beyond the Wall,” said Moonfeather.

“Every city’s gotta have a junkyard,” said Thumbs philosophically. “Might as well use it for insulation.”

“We’re out of that sewer, that’s all I care about,” said Delphia.

Coming to a corner, they paused briefly then spread out, checking the other side to make sure it was clear of hostiles before continuing on.

“And that wasn’t a sewer,” corrected Silver. “It was a storm drain. And that huge machine we traversed was a pumping station. If the dome ever cracks or gets a leak, that’ll return the water back outside and keep the bubblecity from flooding.”

“Is that what it was?” asked Thumbs, arching one eyebrow. “We crawled through the heart of a giant pump?”

“Hey, nobody sane would follow us.” Moonfeather gave a rueful laugh. “Or even believe we did it.”

“I did it and I can’t believe it.”

“See? We’re safe.”

“Yar, arctic.”

Half a block later, Delphia called a halt near a broken wall, the angled ruins offering excellent coverage. Everybody put their back to the wall and spread out a few steps so no single blast could geek them all in one shot.

“No rats,” said Thumbs, glancing at the rubble and refuse piled high about them. “Garbage, but no rats.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” said Delphia, checking the setting on the PocketDoc strapped to his hip. “But you’re right. No bugs, no rodents, not even any crabs.”

Silver nodded. “There’ll be nothing down here the Gunderson Corporation didn’t specifically import for its own private use.”

“Except us,” said Moonfeather with a grin. She was sitting crosslegged on the granite slab that was the ground here in the bubbletown. The unyielding nature of the material seemed not to bother her in the least.

“Check. And they do wish to correct that mistake, don’t they?”

“Check and mate.”

“So, where are we?” said Delphia, taking a seat on a chunk of ferrocrete. “Accessing the Gunderson mainframe via radio didn’t work.”

“Only one thing to do now,” said Silver, also sitting down. Easing off her sodden shoes, she poured out the water acquired by diving down the pipe in the floor of the tank, then slid the shoes back on. “We gotta try to find some allies.”

Thumbs reached into a pocket of his vest and brought out a pack of smokes soggy as forgotten breakfast cereal. “Any ideas how we do that?” he sighed, tossing them away over a shoulder.

“There have to be a few dissatisfied citizens in this place. Would you want to be trapped for life under the ocean working as a drone for some corp?” said Delphia. “Maybe we can hit some bars or brothels, and see who comes out of the woodwork.”

“Not bad.” Thumbs looked impressed. “Gotta say, Mr. D, you got cojones.”

Delphia stared at the troll for a long hard minute. Slowly his gun hand relaxed. “Thank you,” he said softly. “Thank you very much, sir.”

Then he stood up. “Time to book, my friends.”

“Yar, let’s go find another sewer,” rumbled Thumbs. “Storm drain!” said Silver.

“Whatever.”

* * *

An hour later, the group was creeping through piles of bricks and glass toward The Wall. Several of the street lamps in this area were broken, and the dim shadows generated by the ghostly luminescence of the dome itself cloaked the street. They saw that a tunnel passed through the granite barricade at this point, the truck-sized opening sealed shut with rusty doors of riveted iron. There was a sign bolted to door, its lettering long gone to ferric oxidation.

“Old,” whispered Silver, hefting her Seco. “Real old.” Delphia touched his ear. “Anything?”

Thumbs shook his head no. “All clear. Can’t hear a sound on this side except for us.”

Bracelets jingling softly, Moonfeather stood. “Good.”

“Stay on guard,” said Delphia. “This place is tailor-made for a trap.”

Weapons at the ready, the team looked around them for any suspicious movements. There were none.

Directly in front of the tunnel was a water-filled pit, an impressive pothole. Razor wire and the crumbling remains of a kiosk were strewn about. In contrast to these ancient guards erected against unauthorized intruders was a very modern underwater keypad on the side of the imposing iron barrier.

“Probably there for City Guards or suits who might get trapped on this side,” rationalized Thumbs, unfolding the stock on his Mossberg CMDT. “Can you ramjam it, Silver?”

“Cake,” she snorted. “The ThunderClub in Overtown has better locks in the ladies room.”

“Thanks for sharing that.”

“No prob.”

As Silver unlimbered the Fuchi deck from her shoulder bag, the rest formed a protective half-circle around her. The ruins and refuse were motionless as there was no breeze to move bits of paper, no leaves to be gusted by thermals. It was like standing in a painting. All was still. Then the tiniest ripple marred the surface of the muddy pit before them. Delphia froze for only a tick before starting to angle away. “Jessie Owens,” he said to them in casual tones. “Saigon bug-out.”

“Who?” returned Thumbs.

“What?” said Moonfeather, not amused. “Where are you going? To drop a penny?”

“Warp speed, Mr. Sulu,” Delphia said in staccato tones, moving quickly toward the dreary dossplex to their right. Suddenly, the Manhunter was in his hand.

Lowering the Mossberg, Thumbs just stared at him. “Can’t you talk English,
omae
?"

Still moving, Delphia frowned and gestured at the ground. Out of the corner of her vision, Moonfeather saw a bubbling in the muddy water. “Eh?” she said aloud. “Where the frag could mud come from in a city built on solid rock?” Then the bulbous orange helmet of a Gunderson Corporation Jym suit broke the surface, the ork face inside smiling widely.

“Dorsey Park!” screamed Moonfeather, firing her Remington at the helmet. The barrage of pellets hit the armor suit dead on, but failed to break the faceplate. The Jym suit kept on rising, joined now by several others, their massive gauntlets holding automatic weapons wrapped in plastic.

Galvanized, Silver yanked her deck free from the keypad and hit the ground in a dive roll, then came to her feet meters away. Tucking the priceless Fuchi under one arm, she started running for all she was worth, firing her Seco pistol behind her blindly. “It’s a trap!”

At her cry, several rapidfires opened up from the gaping windows of the twin plexes. Caught by the crossfire, exposed in the middle of a flat ferrocrete apron, Delphia flew backward off his feet and hit the ground limp as a ragdoll, the Manhunter dropping from his twitching fingers.

31

The Remington boomed again, and Thumbs’ Mossberg added its chattering fury to the battle as the Jym suits fired the bulky pistols and rifles in their cumbersome gauntlets. Silver cried out and clutched her shoulder, but then dropped to one knee and returned fire with her Seco. The small-caliber rounds bounced off the underwater armor like gumdrops.

Shouting City Guards came rushing out of doorways from every direction, and as they cleared the building, Delphia rose with the Predator in his hands, spraying hot lead death everywhere. The Guards tumbled back out of sight.

“Idiots,” he muttered, snatching the Manhunter from the ground, while firing the Predator one-handed.

Moonfeather gestured with both hands, and one of the armor suits split apart in a series of ringing crashes, leaving the stunned norm inside wearing only his helmet. Her Remington shotgun spoke again, and this time killed.

As Thumbs frantically reloaded, he looked around for protective cover and saw none. The granite Wall was on one side, the Dome on the other, the pool ahead of them, apartment complexes behind. It was a perfect quadrangle set-up. They were trapped in a valley with snipers to the south, armor to the north. Dead meat. Hasta la bye-bye, amigos.

Thumbs began to run, screaming incoherently over his chattering Mossberg. He touched the third molar on the left side of his mouth with his tongue and accelerated to triple speed. Spreading his arms wide, he began to sweep down toward the others.

With a curse, Moonfeather ducked under his outstretched arm and he missed her. He did manage to scoop up Delphia and Silver as he charged the Jym suits waddling out of the water. Caught by surprise, several of them raised their weapons, but Thumbs had already reached the edge of the pit and leapt over the muddy water.

Even as he was airborne, a net spun toward them but did not connect. Landing heavy but still gripping Delphia and Silver, Thumbs stumbled for a moment. A shot cracked off the rocky ground near his boots. Then another, and Thumbs was sprinting again.

* * *

“You meta-motherfragger!” cried Moonfeather, watching the troll race off into the ruins. She threw a shield between herself and the snipers, but the net was already over her, pinning her arms to her sides. Struggling, she was hit by another net, a third, a fourth. The sticky strands of plas got tighter and tighter until she was barely able to breathe.

Slowly, cautiously, the Jym suits approached her, their big guns pointed steadily at her supine form. Unable to get a good deep breath, Moonfeather was reduced to unintelligible curses.

“We got one, sarge!” called out one of the Jym suits over the external speaker.

“Shoot him if he’s armed!” commanded somebody.

“Unarmed!”

“Great! Don’t geek ’im yet!”

Moonfeather hissed at them. “You gleebs won’t be geeking anybody!” she stormed. “I’m not a pirate, you morons! I work for Gunderson Corporation, just like you.”

City Guards in uniforms of ballistic cloth joined the Jym suits standing over her. Their faces showed disbelief.

“Yeah, prove it, biff,” snarled an officer. “What’s the password for this month?”

“I don’t know the password for pirates, you hoop-wipe!” she raged at him. “I told you, I’m not a fragging pirate! I work for TGC—for Harvin himself—and you nullheads have just screwed up a major covert operation!”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure,” said a Guard, shouldering his Mossberg. “Sing us another one, slitch.”

“Let’s stuff her into The Pit,” said the officer, holstering his pistol. “We’ll find out the truth later.”

“I tell you I’m working for the Gunderson Corporation, you sexless gleeb!” Moonfeather spat at them, outraged.

“Nope, I don’t think so,” said the sergeant calmly as he lowered his pistol and shot her.

“Argh! Jesus and Buddah!” she screamed, trying to clutch the wound in her shoulder. The pain was like a white-hot iron shoved into her flesh. She felt dizzy and sick to her stomach. “Motherless . . .”

“And that’s how you subdue a mage,” the City Guard told the other soldiers.

“Think again,” hissed Moonfeather. She pointed at the officer, a red shimmer briefly tinting the air and then he burst into flames.

A screaming human torch, the norm beat at his burning flesh with fiery hands. When one of the Jym suits tried to grab him, he backed away, shrieking even louder. Stumbling for the muddy pit, his fiery form almost made it when he dropped to the ground smoking and crackling. The City Guards not in Jym suits covered their mouths and pinched their noses shut.

“Ghu, the smell!”

“I’m gonna yarf.”

“Slot you, witch,” snarled the lieutenant, drawing her gun. The Guard fired at Moonfeather, pumping in round after round until the mage’s body bristled with darts. Moonfeather felt the world spin madly round and round, and then a great warm blackness swallowed her whole.

* * *

“Narcoject,” the lieutenant told the others, reloading her weapon before holstering the gun. “Take ’em alive and easy. Now you and you in the Jym suits get this biff to The Pit for interrogation.”

“Yes, sir!” they chorused and lifted the norm as if she weighed nothing.

“Strip her of everything that looks like a weapon ... no, just strip her to the skin, and check inside,” commanded the officer gruffly. “But don’t play with her. I want her alive and sane for questioning.”

“Sir, what about the sarge?” asked a Guard, swallowing hard.

The officer craned her neck to gaze at the smoking form sprawled on the ground. “Looks like his equipment is cooked. Leave it for the trash collectors.” Lifting a whistle to her lips, she blew two sharp keens.

Unnoticed among a gaggle of broken and rusted-out vehicles, a wheelless wreck of a trailer truck opened its back door silently on oiled hinges. A ramp descended and technicians rolled out six sleek Hyundai OffRoader motorcycles.

The front wheels were bracketed with small-caliber machine gun ports while the fat tube of a grenade launcher protruded from the top like a unicorn horn.

“Data upload, troops,” the lieutenant said, walking over to the low-slung rice-rockets. “Cars can’t follow fugitives in the ruins, but these sweet roadsters can go wherever they do, and more besides.” Taking the lead bike, the lieutenant climbed on and slid her sidearm into a cushioned holster under the clutch.

“Now, let’s go scrag those pirates,” she said, revving the electric engines to a whispery hum.

* * *

Over piles of rubble and through doorways lacking walls, Thumbs ran and ran, pushing himself to the limits of his body. He sprinted through the broken streets, gaining ground and making time. When there were obstacles, he went around, sometimes over, and occasionally underneath. Cresting a small mountain of rubble, he spied a lone figure standing in the middle of an empty lot a half a block ahead of them. Lurching off to the side, Thumbs forced himself to stop in the lee of a section of macadam tilting upward like a skateboard ramp. Releasing Delphia and Silver from his grip, he slumped to the ground, dripping with sweat, gasping for breath.