Rules of Conflict (48 page)

Kilian had hidden behind the partition during Odergaard’s short
tirade. Now, she jerked. Gasped. “
Run
.”

“Captain—”

“
Run
.” She looked him in the face, but whatever her eyes
saw, he knew it had nothing to do with him, or anything else in the here and
now. “Get out while you still have a chance. Neumann’s made a deal with the
Laumrau. They’re going to perform tests on you. You’ll die. You have to go
now!
”

“But they check for stragglers after everyone is outside—”

“Let them.” She grabbed him by the elbow, dragged him out of the
office, and pushed him down the hall toward the exit. Then she took off in the
opposite direction and disappeared around the corner, her stride an odd
skip-walk because of her stiff right leg.

He stood in one spot, the siren blare squeezing him until he
thought he’d scream.
Run! Neumann’s coming!
He pelted down the halls,
his weak leg causing him to stumble, up the stairs, through the building entry,
out the door, and collided with—

He looked up into the face that stared down at him, saw white and
death and eyes like ice. This time, he did scream.

“Oh bravo, John.” Another man slipped an arm between Sam and
certain doom and pushed them apart. His hair was light brown, his skin pale,
but he looked like night next to the grey-suited thing beside him. “My name is
Val Parini. This is John Shroud.” His voice held that clipped, professional
calm that reminded Sam of flavored ice—sweet, cold, nothing. “We’re looking for
Jani Kilian—do you know who she is?”

“That lieutenant said she fled here from the party.” Shroud
stalked to the SIB entry, his white skin glowing beneath the chemical discharge
of the security lighting. “We need to get her out now. If what Pimentel says is
true—”

“What do you mean,
if!
” Pimentel of the surgery threats
broke away from a nearby huddle and strode toward Shroud, his finger raised
like a shooter, medwhites fluttering in the night breeze. “Are you doubting my
veracity
again
, Doctor?”

Parini stepped between Shroud and Pimentel. “If you two don’t shut
the fuck up—!”

A Spacer in black night fatigues ran past them. “The doors are all
locked,” she said to a similarly garbed figure who’d been talking to Pimentel.
Behind her came outlines. Many outlines.

As Pimentel’s black garb drew closer, shadows resolved into a
pushed-up hoodmask. Hair like corn-silk. “Did you try the emergency exits?” the
young man asked as he pocketed a handcom.

“They’re locked from the inside.”

“Shit.” The handcom beeped, and he slapped it silent. “Is anyone
left in there with her?”

“Not according to the Fire Drill Teams. Everyone present and
accounted for.” The young woman hesitated. “Sir, I think she’s gotten into
central systems. That means she’s controlling all access and environmental.”

“Override from South Central Facilities.”

“I tried them. They can’t. She’s blocked them.”

“How!”

“She said one-finger locks were easy.” Sam floundered when he
realized everyone had stilled to listen to him. “That—that’s what she said.”

“Does she know that much about structures?” one of the fatigues
piped.

“She was a registrar and a smuggler,” another said. “She knows
where to look and where to hide.”

Glum silence fell. They turned as one to look at the building, as
if to assure themselves it was still there.

“Her ID chip’s rigged with a security lock,” someone mumbled.
“Just blast her one and get it over with.”

“
Who said that!
” Shroud’s voice boomed over their heads.
“Captain Kilian is gravely ill. She requires immediate hospitalization. She is
unarmed and a danger to no one but herself. If you spot her, mark her position
and notify a med immediately.” He turned to the corn-silk blond, and his voice
dropped. “She is unarmed, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Cornsilk said. Both men sagged in relief.

Shroud’s ice stare sought out Sam. “Is she hallucinating?”

Sam nodded.

“Do you know who she sees?”

“I think that’s rather obvious, John,” Parini said. “Considering
the circumstances.”

“You need to get in there.” A thin, dark-haired man broke away
from another huddle that had gathered by an ambulance. “Carvalla said she was
showing signs of respiratory distress.”

“Her breathing isn’t right,” Sam said. Again, he hesitated as
everyone quieted to listen to him. “She’s dragging her right leg.”

“Did she seek you out?” Shroud asked, broad brow furrowing.

“That’s Mr. Sam Duong,” Pimentel said. “I told you about him.”

“Oh.” Shroud’s gimlet eyes narrowed.

“Can we get back to the matter at hand?” Parini snapped. “We know
her neuropathy’s progressing. Is paralysis ever complete?”

“Rarely,” the dark-haired man said. “It’s not unheard of,
however—”

“Answer the goddamn question, Hugh!”

“Could she stop breathing! Yes!”

Shroud paced the sidewalk. “We need to get in there.”

“We’re rousting someone from the JA with a spotter so we can
pinpoint her location using her chip.” Cornsilk’s handcom squealed once more.
This time he answered. Barked one-word questions. Signed off. “The cracker team
is on their way with ramming equipment. They’ll be here in two minutes.”

“We may not have two minutes,” dark-haired Hugh muttered. A ragged
look passed between him and Parini.

“What the hell?” A single voice lilted in wonder. “What is she
doing?”

Everyone turned, and watched as section by section, floor by
floor, the lights went out all over the SIB.

Jani flashed the stylus, flicking closed the last UV
switch and shutting down the hospital’s
interior lights as she had the entrance-exit controls and the ventilation. It
would be difficult to see her way out of the central-utilities chase with only
the sulfur glow of emergency illumins to light the narrow walkway, but it was
safer that way. The Laumrau monitored the building systems using remotescan,
and aimed shatterboxes at any area that showed signs of electrical life.

“I should have thought of this before the first wave.” The barrage
that followed her killing of Neumann and the subsequent fleeing of the Laumrau
staff to the safety of the hill camps. The barrage in which Yolan died.

“If fucking were thinking, you’d be a genius, Kilian.” Neumann’s
voice sounded from a pitch-dark corner of the chase. “Otherwise, you’re boxed
rocks.” He had followed her into the guts of the building as he had through the
halls and offices, offering sarcasm and useless advice as she broke into desks
and cabinets in her hunt for weapons and handy objects like the stylus.

“You only started calling me stupid after I turned you down.” Jani
closed the switch box and turned to walk to the door. Tried to walk to the
door. Her right leg hung her up again. “I think your bias is showing.” She
leaned against the wall and tried to shake the feeling back into the numb limb.

“Still time to make up for any regrettable lapses in judgment.”
Neumann stepped between her and the door and waggled his bushy eyebrows. She
would have maneuvered out of his reach if she could have seen him approach, but
he seemed to follow quantum rules when it came to movement. First he’d be one
place, then another, with no transition she could see.

“I’d rather be found dead in this basement,” she said as she
brushed past him, close enough to smell his cinnamon breath. His thick,
grasping fingers closed around her arm, and she struck out. His cry of pain and
rage as her fist connected with the point of his chin was worth the agonizing
shock that rang from her knuckles to her shoulder.

“You’re gonna get your wish, Kilian!” he called after her as she
exited the chase. His voice sounded muffled, as though his mouth bled.

The thought made her smile.

“
Borgie!
” She sagged against a wall and struggled
for breath, then grabbed for a door handle for support as her legs crumpled
beneath her.

“He ran.” Neumann leaned against the wall opposite and folded his
arms. “Left you high and dry.” The right arm slipped, and he shoved it back
into place with a muttered curse.

“He’d never do that.”

“Could, would, and did, Kilian.” Neumann fussed with his bloody
sleeve. “You always put your faith in the wrong people.”

In the distance, a dull thud echoed. Jani pushed away from the
wall, and looked down the hall in the direction of the sound. “What was that?”

“How the hell should I know?” Neumann ratcheted his leg, which had
twisted out of position. “Maybe it’s company.”

“Second wave?” Jani limped down the hall. The thud sounded again,
this time with a higher pitch.

“Shatterboxes don’t thump, you dumb bitch, they sing.” Neumann
shambled toward her. “Sounds like a door ram to me.”

“I set all the main doors to close before I deactivated the access
controller.”

“So whoever’s out there is going to have to ram through a whole
lot of doors before they get to us. Great. That should make them good and
pissed by the time they get down here.” He squinted. “What’s that stuff yorking
out from the stairwell?”

Jani looked to the end of the hall, where a thick stream of
gaseous muck billowed under the sealed door. Gaseous, fuchsia-colored muck.
“They’re lobbing pink.” Jani’s throat closed at the memory of the thick,
cotton-candy smell. “Pink’s
heavy
—it drifts down.”

“And we’re in the basement.” Neumann laughed. “Good job, Kilian.
You’ve set yourself up to suffocate to death.”

“Pink’s
heavy
—the cloud will settle around my knees.”

“And what knees those are.” Neumann’s leer stripped her trousers
away like paper. “Well, the real one, anyway. The fake one, however, could be
in for a bit of malfunction. In fact, those animandroid limbs of yours might be
just what those little beasties need to whet their appetites for the comports
and workstations.”

Jani tapped the fire-alarm touchbox inset in the wall by her head.
“It washes out if you catch it fast. You can hose bright red air clean in
seconds.” She removed the purloined UV stylus from her pocket, activated it,
and pressed it to each corner of the alarm pad in turn. As she touched the last
corner, the plastic shield disconnected and fell to the floor, revealing a host
of fire safety contacts, all clearly marked. Elevators. Alarms. Extinguishers.

Jani touched the stylus to the Extinguishers slot. With a series
of hisses, reservoirs in the walls and ceiling opened. Liter after liter of
fire-retardant foam spewed from inset sprayers, coating all surfaces in heavy
white cream.

“
You idiot!
” Neumann covered his face with his hands and
dashed into the nearest clear space.

Jani followed. Stopped in the entry. Looked around.
What’s a
vending alcove doing in an idomeni hospital?
That disquiet made way for
greater concerns when she saw that no foam streamed from any orifices in the
alcove walls or ceiling. Any pink that wended down the hall would find refuge
here, seeping into the air-handling system through the floor-level vents.

“I don’t believe you did that!” Neumann spat foam, coughed foam,
blew it from his nose and scooped it from his eyes and ears.

“Anything that can push the pink out of the air and down will work
long enough for me to think of what to do next.” Jani slapped foam from her
arms and face as she opened the coolers, the cabinets, and dispensers, looking
for anything she could use as a hammer. As Neumann muttered and sputtered, she
yanked opened the last door.

What the—!
She reached out, picked up what her eyes saw and
what her mind called impossible. The long handle, that seemed molded to fit her
hands. The sensuous curve of blade. What a Sìah fighting ax was doing in a
vending alcove janitor’s closet, she had no idea, but she wasn’t going to argue
with providence. She swung it at the plastic cooler and dispenser
connections—water geysered to the ceiling and rained to floor.

“They’re coming, Kilian.” Neumann sloshed to the door and stuck
his head as far as he dared into the jetting whiteness beyond. “Those bashes
are sounding closer and closer.”

Jani swung the ax through the private rainstorm, and heard another
sound, a sound she knew Neumann couldn’t hear. A sound of her very own.

Do that again,
augie whispered as metal cut the air.
I
like it.

“Hey, Kilian, stop making like the Ride of the Valkyries. We need
to find the way to the subbasements. I think
they’re in the stairwell.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Jani stilled the blade, held it up to
her face, and caught sight of her bright eyes in the mirror metal.

You owe me, you know.
Augie whispered sternly in her ear.

Jani nodded in agreement. She was never meant to escape. Never
meant to be free. She was meant for steel and rainbow edges glistening in the
light. “Didn’t you say something recently, sir, about me waiting for the chance
to blow your head off?”