Code Breakers: Beta (17 page)

“You’re incredible,” Robertson said after wiping his face with the sleeve of his lab coat. “Even after all this, you’re still wanting to fight.”

“It’s what you created me for, right?”

“Amongst other things, yes, I suppose so.”

“Well then, Doc, you need to fix my implants, then tell me what kind of weapons we have at our disposal.”

“I can do that. Come with me,” Robertson said, striding towards the door.

Petal followed, and within a few minutes they raced back to her medical room, with Robertson enthusiastically spewing technical details about her DNA, what she could do, and a whole bunch of inventions he had that he needed help with.

When they arrived back, Petal saw Sasha sitting on her bed. She jumped when Petal opened the door.

“Oh, hey. Just the people I’ve come to see,” Sasha said, her smile stretching across her face. “We have a problem.”

Chapter 23

F
rom the Jaguar came a burst of machine-gun fire. Each shell crashed into the tower, transmuting stone and concrete to dust, creating a matrix of holes in the back wall of the room.

From his slumped position in the corner, Gerry watched as a number of shells ricocheted off the obsidian-coloured server with a spark of blue light. A scream peeled out over the cacophony of those terrible guns. One of the half-masked men fell to the floor clutching his knee, below which a pulpy red and pink bone-shattered shin hung from tendons.

Liza-Marie roared in fury from her position behind the server. She reached down to her fallen compatriot, took his laser pistol and in a display of unthinking rage, stood up amidst the barrage, and fired two shots before ducking for cover.

The enemy aircraft pitched to the right in a sudden movement, bringing it into Gerry’s full field of vision. Two small holes punctured the blood-spattered windshield. The Jaguar continued to pitch to the right, the guns spewing a stream of shells up the tower and in a wide, dipping arc. And then it fell. Fanatics and Darkhan citizens alike ran from its trajectory like panicked ants as it headed for them.

Gerry stood, moved closer to the window, watched as the rotors hit the ground first, splintering and firing off at all angles. The shrapnel caught a number of Red Widow members, sending them sprawling to the ground, holding various damaged parts of their bodies. Small pools of blood spotted the landscape.

The Jaguar smashed into the ground roof-first with a terrible crash and the sound of rending metal. For a few seconds it spun round on what was left of the VTOL rotors: the tail first sweeping into a group of panicked people and then crashing against the tower and splitting into two.

The dozens of Red Widow fighters on the bridge stopped and looked on at the carnage, as one surged forward, screaming and yelling with hate and fury.

“Now that was a great shot,” Gerry said looking back at Liza-Marie who now stood from behind the server. He couldn’t gauge her expression behind the mask. She nodded at him, attended to her fallen ally. He no longer moved. Gerry suspected the shock and sudden loss of blood had finished him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not knowing what else to do for her.

She hunched over the body of the man while her other compatriot calmly placed a trolley under the black server, leaned it back lifting it off the floor and wheeled it out of the room. Before he left he looked back at his leader and said. “We have to grieve later. We need to go now.”

She closed her eyes, shook her head. “You go on. Gerry, you go with them. Get ‘em out of here. I’ll be with you in a short while.”

Gerry grabbed her by the shoulder. “You don’t have a while, short or not. If you stay here, you’ll die too. Now come on.”

He pulled her up, ignored her weak slaps and the tears that fell from her eyes, and dragged her from the room as rifle shots peppered the tower.

Pietor, in the other room, leant low on one knee by the window, the riflescope to his eye and fired down at the Widows. With each pop a Widow fell to the ground. It was initially enough to keep them at a distance: not knowing how many snipers were in the building slowed their first charge.

“I’ll hold them,” Pietor said. “You get to the rear elevator shaft.”

A shot from a fanatic whined past Pietor’s head and crashed into the wall behind him, making Gerry and Liza-Marie duck. Ghanus, her compatriot with the server, had already wheeled it out into the corridor.

“Come on!” Ghanus shouted, his voice echoing down the tomb-like hallways. Wasting no time, Gerry rushed through the door, urging Liza-Marie along with him. He had to sprint to keep up with Ghanus as the eager Upsider led them towards the rear of the building.

“I thought the elevator was damaged,” Gerry called out.

“We rigged something up on the emergency shaft,” Liza-Marie finally said, her voice croaking and shaky but regaining some of its energy. Hopefully it meant she would be focused.

While Gerry followed the Upsiders to their escape shaft, he contacted Malik and the others over his VPN, using Mags to translate his thoughts to text.

—
Malik, it’s me Gerry. We’ve got a problem. I need you to get Enna or Gabe to bring the truck to my location right now.

— Where are you?
Malik said.

Gerry sent him the location and a visual map of the tower over the VPN.

—
You’ll have to come round the back. The bridge is held by the Red Widows. And get everyone armed ready to fight. They’re closing in on our location.

— Got you, Gerry. Hold tight, we’re on the way.

***

The old elevator shaft, although having no working elevator, still had its cables in place. Using a rope sling as a pulley, they lowered the server and descended to the ground floor of the tower. Gerry had to use his night-vision upgrades to help navigate their way to the escape doors that led out to the street that ran parallel to the bridge.

He scanned the area, couldn’t pick up any IP or radio traffic. And yet as they approached the rear doors he couldn’t quite get rid of the image of an army of fanatical fighters waiting on the other side.

“After three,” Gerry said. “I’ll open the doors and we keep to the sides. Just in case.”

Liza-Marie and Ghanus nodded, their half-masks shaking. They moved into the shadows, waited. Gerry approached the old, rusted metal doors. For a moment he wondered if they’d even open. Had the hinges rusted so badly as to fuse the hinge and pins together?

He pushed down on the safety bar, felt a satisfying clunk from the mechanism. With his breath held, and his senses alert, Gerry pushed the door open a crack, felt the cool air waft in. He peered through the gap; saw nothing but a bundle of trash and old paper piled up in a narrow alley. A number of small, flat-roofed warehouses, empty, and half collapsed stood on the other side of the alley

Nothing stirred beyond: no high-pitched, hysterical voice of a Red Widow called out, just the background noise of the shooting from the other side of the tower. The concrete and stone structure buffered the sound, making it appear as if it came from somewhere far off.

As he pushed the door further open it jammed against something. Gerry slipped through the gap, assessed both sides. A few bedraggled Darkhans ran down the alley, trying to get clear of the war zone, but no one else followed. On the ground, and in front of the door, was the source of the blockage: a round pile of rags, covered in old paper, cardboard, and bits of wood. It yelped when Gerry tried to clear it away.

“Ow!” it said pushing Gerry away. The old papers and rags fell to the ground. A dirty, but familiar, face looked up at him. The girl on the wheeled board!

“Hey, it’s you,” he said, unable to think of anything more erudite. “What are you doing here? Are you following me?”

“No,” she said. “I just listen. I heard the man in the box when you found him.” She smiled, a satisfied ‘I told you’ kind of smile. Her gaunt cheeks dimpled, and despite her condition her eyes shone bright, as if lit from some inner force.

“Who are you?” Gerry asked. “What are you?”

“I’m Jess,” she said. “I’m just me.”

“Huh. Well, that’s not very clear. How do you hear these things? What is it that you hear?”

She shrugged, gave him another wide grin. “Dunno, just do. I used to hear much more. It’s much more quiet now.”

He realised she meant the Meshwork. She must have some kind of inner receiver that picks up on data. “You’re a strange one, aren’t you? Listen, you shouldn’t stay here. Do you have any parents or guardians?”

She dropped her chin, shook her head. “No one. Mom and Dad died.”

“Well, we can’t stand around, we’re under attack. Do you have anywhere safe to go?”

She shrugged, moved herself out the way of the door.

Worried about the Red Widows catching them, Gerry pulled the door open. From behind him stepped Liza-Marie and Ghanus. Gerry received a message from Malik.

—
On route, Gerry. ETA: two minutes. The place is crawling with Red Widows. They’ve got a whole army in this place, all on the bridge side. You better be ready to jump in and go, otherwise we’re gonna get caught in the middle of it all.

— We’re in the access alley behind the tower. Be quick!

Gerry didn’t want to stand out in the open like this, all it would take would be a single Red Widow fighter to spot them and call it in. The fact they were storming the front, probably meant they were already on their way around to secure the street. Pietor would have to hold them off for a little while longer. Even as he thought that, he heard the familiar whine of a UAV drone coming from behind the tower.

“Back inside, now,” Gerry ordered.

He grabbed the girl and pulled her into the darkness of the tower.

“Let me go!” the girl said, batting against Gerry as he dragged her in and pulled the doors close behind him. He could hear the rifle shots getting louder now. He thought of Pietor stuck up on the floor, taking out the fanatics one at a time. It’d be like throwing pebbles at the tide in order to hold it back. Gerry moved the girl beside the doors. “Be real quiet, you understand?” he said to Jess.

She understood, instantly closed her mouth, and sunk onto her board.

Gerry turned to Liza-Marie standing on the other side of the door with Ghanus. Both of them stood with their backs to the wall and laser pistols trained on the open elevator shaft.

“Transport will be here in a minute,” he whispered.

“That’s if we last that long,” Liza-Marie replied with a breathy, tense tone.

The clanging of metal cables echoed down the shaft. Someone was coming down. “You be very still and quiet,” he said to the girl, who nodded, her eyes wide and wet. She stunk like rotting vegetables. If she didn’t give them away by speaking she’d probably do it with the stench.

Gerry took the shotgun from his back, checked the ammo: three shots left. Using his stealth protocol, he dashed from the doors to stand with his back against the wall by the left-hand side of the open elevator shaft.

The noises increased in volume. Someone was definitely coming down.
It must be Pietor,
he thought as he gripped the cold graphene-steel of the shotgun ever tighter. He spotted a pair of black boots wrapped around the steel cables. As the person descended Gerry tried to remember if that’s what Pietor wore.
It must be, he was all in black. Even the trousers were black.

Gerry loosened the grip on the gun and breathed out. He was being paranoid. Of course it was Pietor. He turned his head to the others to indicate to them that it was their compatriot when he heard the thump on the ground. He turned to see if he was okay. Gerry’s eyes grew wide as he looked into the surprised face of a Red Widow fighter. For a long second they both stared at each other, paralysed and startled. But Gerry’s mind worked faster. How could he have been so lax?

Before the woman could react, Gerry shifted the weight on to his left foot, swung his right hip round as he lifted the butt of the gun in front of him. He connected with her chin. The force of the blow sent her crashing back into the shaft. She collapsed, unconscious before she even hit the ground. Her shotgun clattered to her side.

Gerry quickly grabbed it and strapped it to his back with the other gun. He lent beside her, noticed a communication bud within her ear. He took it out and stamped on it so the signal couldn’t give away her location.

Liza-Marie rushed over and inspected the Widow. Her robes were covered in blood, but not her own. Liza-Marie looked up at Gerry with the realisation that Pietor was probably no more. Gerry looked away, unable to hold her gaze. They couldn’t go back now. He fought back a tremble in his hand as the anger started to flow through his body, fuelled by the adrenaline.

Liza-Marie took the laser-pistol from her belt and aimed at the woman. Gerry stopped her.

“No,” he said. “We need to keep quiet. There could be more of them up there. And when they don’t hear back from this one, they’ll know something’s happened.”

“What do you suggest then?”

“Tie her up, hide her out of the way.”

“Just kill the bitch,” Liza-Marie said.

Gerry shook his head, placed his hand on her shoulder. “No, we’re not doing that.”

“Whose side you on?”

“Mine,” Gerry said. “And if you want to get yourselves and the server out of here alive, you’ll be with me.” A message from Malik came through.

—
Where are you? We’ve turned into the alley. I think a UAV has seen us. We need to go before they realise we’re not one of them.

— See that pile of wood and paper? We’re in the tower by that. We’re coming out now.

Before Liza-Marie could say anything else, Gerry grabbed her by the arm. “They’re here. It’s time to leave.”

“But Pietor!”

Gerry couldn’t say anything. It was too much of a risk to go back now. Liza-Marie knew it too. She moved towards the rear doors, hesitated for a second, and then moved on.

When Gerry opened the door a crack he saw the Red Widow truck, driven by Enna, approach the building. He flagged them down. They drove forward so that the back of the truck, now open, aligned with their exit.

“Come on, we’re leaving right now,” Gerry said to Ghanus and the others.

Within a few seconds they had lifted the server into the back of the truck. Addressing Malik, Gabe, and the others in the truck, Gerry pointed to the two Upsiders, “They’re coming with us.”

“Good to have ya aboard,” Gabe said, flashing them a smile.

Gerry jumped into the back of the truck and was about to close the doors and tell Enna to get them out of there when he looked out and saw the girl kneeling on her board in the tower’s doorway.

She bit on a loose bit of rag wrapped around her tiny hands, he eyes wide as if she were staring at her first hot meal. The truck was already so cramped what with the two servers inside, but the way she stood there, so young and innocent. No place to go.