Code Breakers: Beta (17 page)

Chapter 23

Sasha cursed herself for breaking the slate so definitively. She’d even broken the RAM that held the location of Elliot’s central data-centre. Without that, she couldn’t get word back to Jimmy or Petal and Gabe about his whereabouts. If only she could have been stronger, stayed in the network longer, until she could memorise its address.

A shuffling noise made her spin round.

The man she’d tied up earlier had somehow got his arms free and launched at her, wide-eyed and frothing at the mouth. His weight fell onto her before she had time to set an appropriate stance, but she twisted her hips and used his momentum to fling them both to the base of the console desk.

“You bitch.” He clawed at her eyes, his hands talonlike as they scraped down her cheekbones, trying to dig into her flesh. Sasha pulled back, swatting his arms away before mounting his chest, her knees on either side of his ribs.

He bucked beneath her, but she clung on and rained down a series of heavy roundhouse punches to his face, turning it into a bloody pulp. The fight-frenzy took her, and she kept punching long after he was unconscious. She only stopped when a hand gripped her shoulder from behind.

She spun and saw Malik hobbling on a crudely made crutch created from bent metal pieces of his chair.

“Easy. It’s just me,” he said, his voice low. He ducked down to Sasha’s position, not wanting to be seen by the factory workers through the wide console room window. “It’s okay. Calm down.”

He wrapped a hand around her bloodied, cracked fist and gently pulled it away.

“We’ve got to stop them,” she said, crouching off the man’s body but remaining below the window. “There’s a guy with a box of chips. We’ve got—”

“It’s okay. I... dealt with him. I have the chips here.” Malik pointed to a case placed by the closed door.

That’s when she noticed the bruises and swelling around his left eye. It looked like an emerging eggplant. “Are you hurt?”

He smiled. “I’m always hurt these days. Listen, did you manage to find a way out of the network? Get word to anyone?”

“I did, but I don’t know if it got out, or if it did, who read it. We’ve got to deal with this situation ourselves until we know for sure who’s on our side. Fuentes might have the entire Security Service and Cemprom working for her, for all we know. We can’t trust anyone but ourselves.”

“Agreed. So what’s the plan?”

“I think I can get into the computers for the factory and disable the machinery. Maybe that’ll cause a distraction, and we can make an escape. I need to get word to Jimmy, tell him about Elliot.”

“What about him?”

“I saw him, his network. It’s closer than we thought. It’s somewhere in the city.”

“Must be here, surely.”

She shook her head. “No, I would’ve known if it was. This place is definitely just an external part of the greater network. I detected traffic coming from, or at least being routed through somewhere else in this pox-ridden city.”

“I can only think of one other place that would have that kind of computing power: Cemprom. That’s where Jasper tried to hack into, after all. Who knows what they have in their underground secure bunkers?”

“Well, we can’t do shit until we know for sure, and I’m afraid my evidence is fucked.” She pointed to the fragments of the slate, now littered on the floor.

“Can you get into these systems, find us a way out, and shut down the production? I doubt we’ve got long with three dead bodies waiting to be found. Not to mention the both of us missing.”

“Fuck it. I’ll try. You watch the door, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Without the slate to connect to the ronin’s network, she’d have to go directly into the console. The thought of Elliot’s mind lurking in the dark corners of the network like a massive and terrible shadow of intelligent malignancy, stalking her every move, made her throat dry and tight.

She connected with the manual cable from the console desk, plugging it into her neck port. Unlike Petal, she didn’t have a suite of internal systems to allow her to connect and hack things remotely. She needed an appropriate slate or a direct connection. The latter brought a host of risks, not least being a high-bandwidth gateway for Elliot to get into her head. She doubted he would so easily fall for her trick a second time.

Still, she and Malik had to get out, so she figured the risk was worth it.

Hunkering down in front of the desk, she waited for her network chip to log her on. The system had the usual Legacy-inspired operating system interfaces. She navigated through the files, spoofing the login credentials of the unconscious man lying next to her.

An interface browser represented, in three-dimensional graphics, the topography of the network in the warehouse district. The place had thousands of computers interconnected, some so small and insignificant their only task was to record the time each door opened and closed.

Then there were servers whose role was to deliver job orders to the factory. She followed the traffic from the node. Like a bloodhound, nose to the trail, she stalked the scent through myriad connections from one node to the next, until she came to a much larger capacity machine: the central factory management server.

Branching off that main server were the individual machines on the conveyer line.

“I think I’ve found something,” she said.

“What is it?”

“A server. If I can overload it, I should be able to shut down the factory.”

“Go for it.”

The server in question was wrapped within a level of encryption. She didn’t have the kind of cracking tools Gabe and Petal would have used, but she did have knowledge of encryption systems thanks to hours of drudgework for Jimmy, during his numerous projects.

This particular system wasn’t half as complicated as the stuff she’d worked on before, but still, it’d take time.

She got to work, probing the various ports and connections to the server to ascertain a weak point. She’d only need one small entry zone, a stream of data to piggyback so she could manipulate the system. A scanning algorithm she’d used before would do the job. Still using the console man’s credentials, she opened a file and mentally typed out a series of code that when executed would test the server for vulnerable areas.

A status bar ticked over when she activated it. It would take a few minutes to deliver its results. She could’ve perhaps come up with a more elegant solution, but under stress she just didn’t have the skills equal to her sister or Gerry. He could probably crack the server with just a couple cycles of his brain, she thought.

“We’ve got a problem,” Malik said. His voice sounded as though it came from underwater.

The scanner still had three minutes to complete.

“What is it?” She opened her eyes and allowed her mind to drop the Legacy interface but remained connected. Malik was crouched by the case of chips to the side of the door, the scalpel in his hand as if readying it to strike.

“I think they’ve found the bodies. A group of five ronin rushed from the factory and down the hall. I doubt it’ll be long before they come back and realise what’s happened.”

“Fuck, we need to wait. I need to get into the server. Got two and a half minutes to run yet.”

“And then what?”

“I get into the server and destroy the files, stop the machines running.”

“But what about the network? We need to get a message out. We’re sitting ducks here.”

“I’m trying. I wasn’t made for this kind of work.”

She heard a commotion coming from the factory floor: raised voices and the clatter of feet across metal gantries. Peeking over the console desk and out of the window, she saw a group of fifteen armed guards rushing across the metal mezzanine straight for the console room. The man in front pointed to her location.

“Heads up, Mal, got a bunch of guards coming this way from the factory.”

“Shit, that’s all we need.”

“Oh, fuck me, there’s worse!”

Malik turned to her; his face said it all.

The console operator’s body began to shake and spasm. His chest heaved, and frothy spittle came from his mouth. Smoke snaked from the ronin-chip on his wrist. She knew what was coming next and berated herself for being so stupid and forgetting. She’d already seen how Elliot had manipulated the chip on the nurse. She ducked away, bracing herself.

Chapter 24

Gabe’s internal system told him it was approaching 20:00. The storm had died down. The cacophonous scraping against the bunker’s ceiling had ceased, leaving behind it the low hum of the power source and the console. A number of ronin moved in the other room. An hour previously he had heard typing; no doubt they were updating their boss of the situation.

“I’m nearly there,” Gabe mumbled through his gag as he rubbed the fabric ties around his wrists against the sharp edge of the racking frame.

For at least three hours he’d struggled with his hands behind his back, scraping the ties against the metal. Bit by bit he managed to slice through the material.

It was clear to him that these so-called ronin were not well trained. They were just regular citizens incorporated into Elliot’s remote army, and, luckily for him and Petal, their captors had made a number of mistakes.

Not killing them was the first; leaving them alone for so long the second. In this instance, he was glad the storm had stuck around for as long as it did. It had probably kept him and Petal alive by not allowing the ronin to finish their job and return to Libertas with the Alpha parts and their corpses.

A few minutes later his hands were free, the fabric finally splitting.

He wiped the sweat from his face and collapsed forward, allowing his sore arms to rest and recuperate. He pulled the gag from his mouth, breathing in the arid air, which was as sweet as anything he’d experienced. The corners of his lips were cracked and sore, but he was free.

“Finally. Fuck that hurts.” He rotated his shoulders and arms, trying to work out the soreness that had developed during his frantic cutting action.

Getting to his feet, he approached Petal on the other side of the room. The shadows wrapped around her so that he could only just make out her shape and the dull pink of her hair.

He kneeled beside her and took the gag from her mouth.

“Are you okay, Gabe?” she said, her voice dry and cracked.

“I’m okay. You?”

“Doing all right. Gerry’s kind of helped—kept me calm, you know?”

“If only I did, girl. I’ll get ya free in a minute. I need to find something with a sharp edge.”

The ronin did a better job on Petal’s bonds. Along with cloth strips they had tied her wrists to the metal frame with plastic zip-ties. Unfortunately, they had taken his katana, and Petal’s spikes would be no good with the way her hands were tied so tightly together.

The room didn’t seem full of options.

Only a glimmer of light from outside dared to breach the door around its rim. It wasn’t enough for him to navigate around, but he padded about the room with his hands out to find a tool or a blade. The shelving racks had nothing of note, just boxes of out-of-date ration powders, a few plastic boxes of basic medical supplies, and dead H-core fuel cell batteries.

He heard movement from outside. It spurred him to hurry his search for something useful when he thought about the bodies, the dark shapes piled into the corner like a mound of meat.

It was a long shot, but perhaps one of them would have something of use on them. And he knew that he had to look anyway. With the photo of his mother and him, plus the book, it was obvious his father and his people had stayed here.

A dread gripped him as he approached the pile.

They didn’t smell like death. He had come to know that stench well over the years, which told him that if they were who he thought they were, they would have not been dead long. In the darkness, he saw and felt no evidence of blood or other liquids on the floor or around the sheet that hung over them.

He reached out and gripped the edge. His hands shook.

Slowly, as if by revealing too fast he’d increase the odds of confirming his nightmarish thoughts, he pulled away the sheet.

Three bodies piled atop each other.

He looked away, not wanting to see the details. He collapsed to his knees with a hard thud. He kept his back to Petal, not wanting her to see, or was it that he didn’t want her to see the pain on his face?

“Gabe, what is it?”

The question hung in the air for a lifetime. The image of his father and his people standing in line, walking to some scream-inducing fate, replayed in his mind. He forced himself to look at their faces. Hundreds of images and memories flashed back from his home. Did he know these people? Or were they just faces of people he thought he knew?

They were part of his father’s tribe; he knew that much. He recognised the clothes and the style of dreadlocked hair. One man wore green and yellow beads in his. He remembered a group of people in his part of the shelter who wore the same ones.

But as he looked, he knew his father wasn’t among the dead. Had he escaped? Or had his body just been left somewhere else?

“It’s them,” he finally said.

“Who?”

“My people. My father’s people.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, Gabe. Is—”

“No, he’s not here.” He hushed his words at the sound of footsteps approaching the door. Holding his breath, he heard his heartbeat rush through his veins. He stalked back to his position after replacing the sheet over the bodies. He sat down and placed his hands behind his back.

The door opened. A young-looking man stood in the doorway, his outline silhouetted by the external light. Gabe squinted against the sudden change in light levels but managed to see that the man had a knife tucked into his belt.

He walked into the room, alone.

That was the third mistake.

Before the kid even got three steps in, Gabe launched himself, forcing his palm against the kid’s mouth while with his free hand he grabbed the knife from his belt. Gabe dragged the kid inside but stopped the door from shutting completely with his foot. He left it slightly ajar and moved further back into the room.

The ronin struggled in Gabe’s grip, but the older man’s strength kept him in place. Gabe brought the knife to his testicles, pierced the dagger point through the kid’s trousers until from behind his palm the boy yipped with pain and froze instantly.

Whispering in his ear, Gabe said, “Unless ya wanna be a eunuch, I suggest ya sit ya ass down.” He had to prevent himself from slicing the kid’s throat right there and then, considering these bastards had probably killed his people, but he stopped himself, checked his rage. There was no evidence the ronin were responsible, and besides, just one look at this kid and Gabe knew he was out of his depth; he was just a pawn in Elliot’s sick and twisted game.

He’d spare this one, find a real avenue for his vengeance.

Lowering the kid until he was sat in Gabe’s position in front of the shelving frame, Gabe gripped the handle of the blade and struck a vicious right hook against the kid’s temple, knocking him out.

He used the knife to cut Petal free, and with the scraps of cloth he gagged and tied the unconscious boy. Like the others, he wore a chip on the outside of his wrist. It wouldn’t be long before the others came to check on him.

Petal stood and stretched out her arms, rubbing the sores on her wrists. “We need to get out of here, Gabe.”

“Ya think? Just wait a second.”

Gabe stood by the door, peered out through the crack, and saw a number of shadows shifting. He heard voices. Some laughed. He identified at least four different people among the chitchat and banter. One voice in particular grew louder. They were coming this way; a shadow blocked the light from the passage. Gabe stepped back and whispered to Petal, “Another one’s coming.” He gestured to the right side of the door, and Petal dashed over, her back to the wall, her forearm spikes extended. Gabe stood the other side, knife in hand.

A minute passed; nothing happened. The shifting shadow was just someone moving around the main part of the bunker. They had returned to their position, and the banter started again. A plan had come to Gabe.

“I think we should storm ’em. I make four. We could take ’em by surprise, recover Alpha’s parts.”

Petal smiled at that, vengeance spreading across her face like a kid finding out they’re having ice cream for their birthday.

“I’ll go out first,” Gabe said, “attract their attention, and you follow up behind.”

“Like the time with those hackers at Xian’s place?”

“Yeah, just like that, but this time, the goal is to get Alpha and get outta here in one piece. We ain’t got no ’Stems to fix either of us up.”

“I got it. Let’s go crack some skulls, old man.”

Gabe opened the door slowly, not wanting a rusted hinge to give up their advantage. He looked back at the kid; he was completely out. He waved at Petal to follow him as he stepped out into the passage. Behind them was the console. Someone had switched it off, but its server still hummed from somewhere. Via his internal systems he could see it on the bunker’s network, but not the external network—the one the ronin were on was blocked from him.

Petal stood close behind him. He sensed the tension in her body: a coiled spring, full of kinetic energy, wound by hours of frustration and ready to explode. He whispered, “Focus. Get Alpha while I distract them. Ya understand?”

“I got it. Let’s get a move on.”

Gabe stepped forward until he was at the edge of the wall that separated the passage from the main room of the bunker. A burst of laughter came from the group as someone had apparently cracked a hilarious joke. He’d use the noise as cover, but as he made to move, the door to the storage room made a loud clunk as it closed behind them. Dammit!

The laughter instantly stopped. He had a choice: move now or wait.

That choice was taken from him when a shotgun barrel followed by a bulky man in brown robes stepped around the wall. Gabe ducked and pushed Petal to the side as the gun went off, firing buckshot into the console, smashing its screen into thousands of fragments.

Before the armed man had a chance to pull the trigger again, Petal shoulder-charged him, knocking the weapon to the ground.

Gabe followed up, driving the dagger into the man’s gut. The ronin slumped to the ground, groaning in pain. Gabe pulled the knife out and cleaned the blood off on his duster jacket.

To their left, in the main bunker room, three ronin wielding shotguns and katanas stood up from a makeshift table.

Fuck. He hadn’t seen them armed when he and Petal had first come in. Now who was being an amateur?

“Step away from the body,” a woman said. “Or I’ll fucking blow you both away right now.”

Gabe did as she suggested, stepping away from the body. He moved slightly into the room with his hands up, letting the knife slip into his sleeve. He moved aside, clearing a space for Petal to slip by.

“Stay where you are,” the woman shouted.

Gabe could tell from the tightness in her face that she wasn’t used to this kind of situation. Her arms trembled with the effort of holding up the firearm. It looked as though she’d never fired a gun in her life, which could be just as dangerous as someone more skilled. It meant she was reckless and prone to panic firing, but on the other hand, it meant she was unlikely to have killed before and would probably hesitate.

“It’s okay,” Gabe said, shuffling forward slowly, cutting the distance with each tiny step. “We don’t need to let this get outta hand now. Let’s all just calm down, yeah?”

The other two ronin standing either side of the woman didn’t look much older than the kid back in the storage room. Gabe had guessed the larger man slumped against the wall was their leader. By the looks of his face with the various scars, he’d seen at least some form of combat.

These others, however, even with their guns, looked scared out of their minds. They looked to each other for guidance.

“Just stay there!” the woman said, apparently taking the default role of leader due to the silence and indecision of her two allies. “If you take another step, that’s it! I’ll put you down like the other filthy dogs.”

So they did kill my people.

He took another step.

The ronin backed up.

“Get the case and run,” Gabe said to Petal.

“I can’t leave you—”

He didn’t give her time to think or argue. He tensed his leg muscles, hunched slightly, and exploded forward into a combat roll over the table. The woman fired. The shot went above him. He crashed into her before she had time to adjust her aim. She fell back, knocking into her two allies, creating a melee of bodies.

“Go,” Gabe screamed as he got to his feet and kicked the shotgun away from the woman, who was now on her back.

The two other ronin had dropped their weapons in the crash of bodies. They desperately tried to reach him, but Gabe kicked out at one, catching him in the ribs, sending him collapsing to the floor, gasping for air.

Petal dashed past him and drove her spike through the throat of the third ronin. She removed her weapon and grabbed the storage case.

“Get to the hatch,” Gabe said. He kneeled and punched the woman as she desperately tried to claw at his face. “I’ll be right behind ya.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Gabe saw Petal stop for a second before running down the short passage that led to the vertical tunnel and the ladder.

The woman beneath Gabe stopped her struggle on his third blow. He then turned his attentions to the man on his hands and knees trying to breathe. He was trying to get free from the tangle and find a weapon.

Gabe kicked out again, hearing ribs crack. The ronin fell unconscious with the blow. Gabe grabbed a shotgun and chased after Petal. He caught up with her, and they both ran down the passage to the tunnel that would take them back to the surface. Petal led the way, climbing the ladder.

She was nearly halfway up when Gabe came to the base. It was there he heard something from his left. More voices... He hadn’t seen it when they first came down into the bunker, but there in the wall was another door. He spun and saw a third door to his right. Damn, how could he have been so sloppy?

He grabbed the ladder and started to ascend when the door opened.

Petal had reached the top and pushed the hatch open, sending the dying light of evening down into the bunker.

A shot fired.

Gabe’s leg felt as if a wasp had stung it; the pain bloomed white-hot. He yelled out, but carried on climbing the ladder, wanting to reach the exit.