Cassandra Kresnov: Breakaway Part 8

Vanessa swore to choke off a treacherous smile, and held her grim demeanour in place with effort.

"Where you wanna go?" she drawled, as the cruiser climbed slightly into a regular skylane, banking low across the Lagosso skyline. The major river bend that was the central Shoban itself, broad and mirrored with gleaming reflections. Another few automatic sorts came clear, and the options narrowed further. And again. "Sandy?"

"Just a second." Eyes unsighted as the cruiser swung above the river bend, violating regular skylanes on emergency privilege as Sandy let her functions run down, flashing through electronic mountains of digital data, recent transmissions. Seeking patterns or variations on that sleeper code a "Sandy," Vanessa warned, eyeing the navscreen, trajectories headed out from Lagosso as the Shoban swung away beneath them. "Sandy, I'm running out of airs.p.a.ce here, even emergency privilege doesn't like me below fifty metres anywhere up here. There's too much highrise a" as mid-level towers loomed ahead, around a bend where the Shoban curved back upon itself, luxury apartments overlooking the gleaming waters a "Got it," Sandy said as it came clear, and Vanessa blinked, her navscreen abruptly reconfiguring to a new trajectory, sending instructions to central control, clearing them for a new course.

"Jesus, Sandy," she muttered, swinging them about. "That's spooky, you've got an interface like a d.a.m.n Al."

"Get used to it. See the building?"

"Yeah, I've got it," Vanessa said, with a narrow-eyed glance through the windscreen, past the faint green lines of holographic HUD. The cruiser levelled out once more, humming at barely forty metres as it headed back along the riverside. Bridges spanned the width, glistening stretches of light across the mirror surface. Sandy fixed her eyes on the building, two blocks in from the riverside up ahead. Lower mid-level residential, just twelve storeys, balconies and broad gla.s.s. Inexpensive, relatively a for Ta.n.u.sha. Her mind found the barriers-basic security that gave with barely a nudge-and she was in. Found the room in question, clear traces of code, coming back to a single operational terminal on the left wall by the sliding window to the balcony, ten storeys up a Vanessa banked them in over the riverside, losing velocity as they drew near.

"Tenth floor," Sandy told her, "this one here, overlooking the river a Pointing at the apartment.

"This one?" Bringing them gliding close, and dropping level, engines throbbing on hover pulse, a deep, shifting vibration.

Sandy flashzoomed beyond the window reflection a The room looked empty, unlit, untidy, with plants that hadn't been watered on the balcony and an empty deckchair.

"Got anything?"

"Nothing, looks like they're gone a" Scanning further down the links, but beside the single terminal, nothing else registered. "Door please."

Clack-whine, and the door heaved open, panel lights blinking a red indication of safety restraints overridden a A breeze blew in, and the abrupt, loud throbbing of the engines, echoing off the building side here at the tenth-storey level, buzzing the balcony gla.s.s. The cruiser performed a gentle sideways slide as Vanessa's hands moved on the controls. Sandy unfastened her belt, checked her pistol, grabbed the door rim with both hands and performed a careful, controlled leap. Landed smoothly on the balcony between deckchair and potplants, a controlled impact with the gla.s.s door to stop her. The door was locked-mechanical lock, nothing electronic that could be hacked. She grabbed with both hands, and gave it a sharp yank. Crack! as the mechanism broke, and the door leapt back on its runners.

The apartment room beyond was indeed empty. Her vision tracked through multiple spectrums about the bare walls, a made bed in the right corner, a dresser alongside with a small interface terminal in the wall a She walked over, and stared at it. Strained her eyes to the most sensitive extreme, squinting slightly. There was a faint rectangular mark on the dresser bench, near the terminal. Like someone had used a portable here. Nothing special in that a under other circ.u.mstances.

She turned around. A cool breeze billowed the curtains, alight with the blinking flare of running lights from the cruiser, a great angular shape hovering just beyond the balcony ledge. The engine whine was nearly deafening, and she tuned her hearing into differing frequencies, taking the edge off it. And saw a clear mark on a wall. A handprint, quite recent, red with residual heat. But there was nothing to indicate the apartment had been lived in. It was small, empty, and mostly undisturbed.

She checked the bathroom, and found it empty. Opened the front door and went out into the corridor. Someone was standing out there, ten metres down.

"Hey!" A man, dressed only in a towel. A big man, Asian, with bulging muscles and tattoos. "That you cruiser? I hope serious, you big trouble, you wake me up, d.a.m.n noise, huh?" The noise was indeed loud, the man's voice, raised.

"Sorry, CSA." She flashed him her badge as she walked over. He squinted, frowning. "You hear or see anyone using this room just now?"

"That room?" The noise was less loud down the corridor, away from the open door. "Nah. I sleep. You wake. What you do, huh?" He didn't seem particularly helpful, Sandy thought. Loud, big and frowning obnoxiously. And his English seemed almost deliberately bad.

"Do you know if anyone lives there?" she persisted, looking calmly at the broad, frowning face as she refolded her badge and tucked it into her jacket.

Hard shake of the head. His second chin wobbled. "No. No idea." Walked up close and jabbed a finger at her chest. "You get d.a.m.n car away from building, hey? You make big noise. I call cops!"

"I outrank the cops," she told him mildly. There was a lot of him for just one towel to cover. All that skin smelt funny, at this range. "Are you certain you don't know if anyone lives here? Or are you just being difficult?"

"Difficult? I give you difficult, girlie, you know what I am?" A hand grabbed her shoulder, hard, as he prepared to explain something to her. Sandy took his wrist and gave a twist a thud, the big man went down on one knee, face straining in sudden pain as she applied a simple armlock with hands on wrist and elbow.

"No," she told him. "You see, I'm in rather a hurry, I don't really care who you are, and I don't know if you recognised the badge or not, but to you that means "don't touch," okay?" Applied a gentle pressure, and the man yelled, protestingly. His once stubborn face was now contorted. And the towel was slipping.

"Sandy?" said a voice in her inner ear. "What's going on?"

"In a minute," she said, not bothering to formulate an internal reply. And cut off the link. "Now, let's try again a Who lives in that room?"

"Not know," the man gasped, shifting about to try and take the pressure off his arm. "You a big augment, huh? No do, I sorry. Very sorry. No problem, huh?"

"Sure, no problem." She let him go and he collapsed back onto his knees, grasping his arm. Sandy gave him a disgusted look. "Thanks, friend, you've just wasted my time." And took off running down the corridor, toward the stairs.

"Hey," came the shout from behind, "you know me? I Chai Chong Li! I big fight promote! You want good money, you call, huh? You big augment, I make you good money a !"

"Sandy," came Vanessa's voice again a "Nothing," Sandy told her, crashing the stairwell door and leaping down, four at a time at half-falling velocity. 'Just I nearly got recruited to the local underground fight scene." She was, in fact, rather amused. And even more so at the thought of the man's expression if he ever figured out who she really was.

"I won't even ask," Vanessa said dryly. "I read you going downstairs a you want airborne cover?"

'Just you, Ricey," Sandy said, hammering down the fourth flight, rebounding hard off the wall and taking the next just as fast. "Better keep it away from the windows, you're upsetting the populace."

"Any decent Ta.n.u.shan would be out getting drunk and laid at this hour," Vanessa retorted. "Underground hours," Sandy knew that meant a maybe three drug-accelerated hours' sleep per cycle, to be grabbed at all kinds of unusual hours before racing off to work, party, or generally make trouble. The spreading popularity of such irregular hours had doctors and sociologists worried for a mult.i.tude of medical and social reasons, but, as of yet, no one had arrived at a totally convincing argument as to why regular, natural rest was superior, when the drugs and enhancements evidently did such a good job. Ta.n.u.shans were frequently accused of decadence, but rarely laziness, and most Ta.n.u.shans would evidently rather party than sleep.

Sandy sensed the cruiser's ID beacon shifting further away, out beyond the side of the building. She finished the last flights in a freefall plunge, accessing the front door security system with her links. Hit the bottom flight and bashed out the door a into the lobby, as her links connected on the security camera, overrode the lockouts and raced backward through the last few minutes of footage a there.

A young man in a heavy coat, goatee-bearded under a baseball cap. He held a portable case cover under one arm, and walked with a brisk, nervous stride. She chopped that five seconds of footage, looped it, parcelled it, and shot it up to the cruiser, all while running out the main door and into the street outside. Some people were at the point of entering, and stood aside in surprise. She ignored them, scanning on full-spectrum.

"Ricey," she formulated, "get this image out on the net, I reckon that's our guy." It was a small street, no traffic, just a few wandering pedestrians. Streetlight shone wetly along the roadway.

"This guy?" came Vane ssa's voice. "Looks a bit like Ruben."

Sandy nearly smiled. "Yeah, that'd be a turn-up, huh?" Exhaled hard, staring vainly up and down the street. From nearby above, an aircar's engines were throbbing in steady hover. "So where d'you reckon he went? Public transport?"

"Could be private a you're not getting any more traces?"

"Of what? He's not transmitting anything. "

"Wait a there's a pair of aircars on emergency privilege another kilometre up the river, they're hovering. I read them as SIB. Looks like they might be on to something. "

"Well, for now, that's as good as anything." She set off running down the street, boots pounding on the wet pavement.

"You don't want a lift?"

"No, you go ahead and ask them. Don't let on that I'm even here, they won't like it." The whine of hovering aircar engines shifted in pitch, cruising somewhere overhead and then away. "One thing's for sure, with all this activity our boy will now know we're after him. "

"No doubt. "

Sandy kept running, holding her speed within respectable parameters. A fast run, by unaugmented standards. Flying at sixty down the road would attract too much attention. She kept to the wet roadside under the dripping trees, ignoring the curious looks she got from people out walking. The district was mostly mid-level residential, with several-storey buildings, low apartments, a casual concentration of mid-sized living s.p.a.ces amid the trees and taller apartment buildings. She glanced to her left as she ran, toward the river and the taller lines of buildings that were cl.u.s.tered there. The lights were brighter from the ground, and colourful displays flowed down the sides of buildings. Nightlife always cl.u.s.tered around the river, she'd noticed. Any river. The Shoban Delta had hundreds.

At that moment, her links found something strange. Surprising, because she hadn't been consciously aware she was uplinking a but that was typical enough. A single call along the basic cable net, voice audio and scrambled a nothing unusual about that, but this felt familiar. She locked onto it and began breaking it down. A split second's a.n.a.lysis showed that it would be difficult to decipher without further work a but the shielding was clearly familiar. She switched directions, crossing the street and heading down a side road, toward the riverfront and the gleaming light displays amid the apartment buildings.

"Ricey, I've got something. Over by the river a Keep an eye on my position, but don't let the d.a.m.n SIB know anything."

"d.a.m.n right," Vanessa replied, "they haven't told me anything. They recognise the callsign, evidently. "

Snowcat. Yes, she supposed they would. And they'd know that where there was Kresnov, there was Rice.

"What've you got?"

"I think he just made a call. Nothing specific, it's just a feeling a I might know roughly where he is." Running faster now, hurtling down the narrow, one-way street, walls on either side. Nudged past forty kph, and kept accelerating, jacket flying out behind her as her limbs pumped in powerful fast motion.

"You think?"

"Hunch, Ricey. Weird software."

"You're telling me. "

The side street erupted into a busy nightlife zone, and Sandy skidded to a halt amid the busy pedestrian flow on the sidewalk. Up and down were restaurants, cafes and nightlife of every description. Low key, by some Ta.n.u.shan standards, but busy, colourful and bustling enough. Groundcars cruised along the street in four lanes, tyres hissing a She crossed at the first opportunity, knowing the grid sensors would probably bust her for "dangerous jaywalking," but that hardly mattered.

Up a garden alley between premises, past park benches where parents were attending to a noisy rabble of children with balloons and party hats-strange hour for a kids' party, Sandy couldn't help thinking as she jogged, at slower pace now, through the moderate numbers of people. Maybe their parents were taking them bar-hopping.

And out, then, onto the riverside walk. The water was dark and wide, shimmering with broken reflection. A curving walkway paved the bank, marked by decorative light posts. There was a public combooth to the right, by some garden bushes. It was the right area, she thought a although the call had not been long enough nor precise enough to offer a clear location. But landlines were tougher to track than mobiles-landlines vanished into the ma.s.s of opti-cable- encrypted networks, airborne frequencies were more traceable and less directional. Unless they possessed quite her level of sub-harmonic technology, and she doubted that.

She started jogging to her right, along the broad walkway. There were many people walking up ahead, some strolling, some out jogging for the exercise. But the road hubs came closer to the river up this way, and she just had that hunch again-and could see, then, a figure walking up ahead, among the many figures. In a long, dark overcoat with something clutched under his arm. She kept jogging, vision zooming close, but unable to make out more than his back a A road joined the riverside up ahead, a cul-de-sac roundabout, cars parked to take in the view.

"Ricey," she formulated sharply, "I think I've got him a " Transmitting details as she jogged.

"Got that, don't scare him. "

She scanned the cars at the roundabout, saw one set of windows darker than the others, and vision-switched a Saw someone watching in her direction. And caught the faint edges of a uni-directional transmission-the coated man abruptly turned around and stared. Sandy sprinted. The man sprinted. The car engine gunned to life.

"Ricey, they're leaving!" Abruptly her traffic-links disintegrated, and local-com went to h.e.l.l a virus, she realised, weaving at increasing velocity past startled pedestrians as the coated man flung himself through an open car door, and the bright blue Ashanti sedan screeched away with no sign of speed buffers or central controls, and went howling out of sight up the street.

Sandy took a fifty kph shortcut across a gra.s.sy lawn, hurdled some bushes and the couple seated on the adjoining park bench, and went hurtling onto the cul-de-sac in time to hear an enormous screech of tyres, and a loud, hammering crash from up ahead. Hit the road with boots skidding dangerously at velocities the basic human frame was not designed to cope with, muscles powering against the lack of traction. Shot past an oncoming car, rounded a mild bend and saw chaos up ahead-the blue Ashanti gracelessly entangled with another pair of cars, hoods and bodywork mangled, broken windows, smoke and wreckage fragments strewn across the road a Doors were open from impact or escaping pa.s.sengers-already two figures were off and running down the street, one limping a A third emerged stumbling, turned dazedly about as Sandy launched herself and slammed him over backward in a tangle of limbs, thudding into the side of another car. Sandy unwrapped him from her embrace a shielded from the worst of the impact but still unconscious. Checked pulse, pupils and breathing, and all were satisfactory. She'd made a dent in the side of the other car with her back, though.

All about were shouted voices and running footsteps a And above it all the clear shouts of "Clear the way! SIB!" She got up fast. A pair of plainclothed women were racing up the street toward the gathering crowd about the auto wreck.

"CSA!" she yelled at them. "Two more went that way, you take care of this guy!"

"Snowcat!" one of the SIBs shouted back. "Is that Snowcat?!" Sandy ignored her and took off running. "Snowcat! You get back here right now! Stop or I'll shoot!"

She wouldn't dare, Sandy thought disgustedly, accelerating up the roadway, past milling, uncertain traffic as the network tried to make sense of both accident and virus, and adjust for both a And felt the tingling caress of a targeting sight brush the back of her skull.

"Snowcat!" came the more distant yell. Sandy ducked right and slid hip-first behind a dawdling car a Crack! And a shot went past, then up and sprinting through the sidewalk crowds amid panicking screams from frightened pedestrians. She ought, Sandy thought darkly as she ran, to turn and shoot the b.i.t.c.h-she was a public menace, and if some innocent bystander further up the road had taken that slug in the face, it would be no surprise. And she was shocked. The SIB were under instructions to shoot her, if they deemed necessary. Things were getting insane.

A commotion up ahead, cars stuck nose to b.u.mper (a traffic jam in Ta.n.u.sha!!), the limping escapee accosting some pa.s.sing cyclist for his bike a Thud, as the angry cyclist decked him with an impressive right hook.

"CSA!" Sandy shouted as she ran up. "Keep him down and wait for help, good job!" And ran off, leaving a certain cyclist looking rather pleased with himself. The last runner took a left up ahead, back toward the river a It was the man with the coat, sprinting desperately, and Sandy closed the gap to the turn-off with effortless, powerful strides, shooting past the crawling traffic that was starting to block the road on the inbound lane.

Saw two figures running in from the right up ahead-plainclothed, with weapons in hand, dodging past cars and onto the road a Sandy skidded left, lost traction entirely and leapt with the last of her footing, crashing headlong into the front b.u.mper of a parked car as shots popped, a hard smacking of rounds into metal bodywork. Sandy rebounded, rolled and leapt, pistol abruptly in hand and firing four machine-rapid shots while airborne. Landed hard on her feet, spun and kept running, while the two new SIB agents fell, clutching their legs and shrieking. Shoved the pistol back into the shoulder harness and sprinted off down the laneway.

"Sandy!" came a terse, hard call in her ear. "Cruiser coming your way, they're onto you. Central's nearly got that disruption virus down, we've got audio now, three minutes and every d.a.m.n unit within twenty zones'll be coming down on your head. "

"Oh, f.u.c.king h.e.l.l," Sandy retorted as she sprinted down the side road, "aren't they so f.u.c.king efficient all of a sudden." She could hear the engines keening nearby, drawing closer. "I just got shot at twice, they'll be using sniper cannon next."

"Not if I can help it."

Back onto the river walk then, pedestrians ahead ducking aside, shouted exclamations marking her target's pa.s.sage. She accelerated again. The man was over a hundred metres ahead following her brief delay, but she could eat up that distance in no time a Engines abruptly howled overhead, a large, dark cruiser swinging around the side of a tall building with running lights blazing, and a familiar, bulbous nose protrusion that meant electronics. It swung about sideways, slewing out over the river to the exclamation of many along the riverside. Some were now scattering, sensing trouble, the cruiser's side window winding ominously downward.

"Oh s.h.i.t," Sandy complained, at full sprint and gaining fast. "I was just kidding about the sniper cannon, guys. This is silly." Her left hand itched for the pistol grip-a few quick shots at full sprint, targeting out the corner of her eye, would put a quick end to the attemptedsniper now parallel with her and matching her pace along the riverfront. A weapon muzzle appeared. "Ricey!"

A second howling engine, cutting in from the right past the towers. It cut straight toward the SIB cruiser on an intersecting trajectory, forward lights blazing off nearby windows and water. The SIB cruiser hauled up and over like a stalling acrobat as Vanessa's car went howling past in front. Sandy resisted the temptation to stare-not having been aware that you could actually do that with a civilian aircar-but now her man ahead was turning in panic with a pistol in hand a "Oh h.e.l.l, don't do that a" She drew fast and shot it from his grip, closed the remaining distance before he could recover from the shock and pain, and nailed him with a shoulder tackle that might have only broken ribs, if he was lucky. About them, the remaining pedestrians either fell over screaming or ran at full speed somewhere else. She rolled on top of the man, who struggled, pinned beneath her effortless grip. Stared up at her with wide, frightened eyes, gasping for air.

"You're a complete idiot," she told him testily. "You do know that, don't you?" He blinked, too stunned to reply. A young guy, no more than twenty-five. European, no identifying marks. He didn't look like a terrorist. He looked like a college student. In the air about, engines were throbbing loudly. She looked, and saw the SIB cruiser coming back around. And looked the other way, to see Vanessa doing the same in a low, flat bank across the dark water at speed. She nearly laughed. Wargames with civilian toys. How absolutely absurd. "Just don't crash into the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Ricey!"

Found the requisite frequency by reflex, and found SIB voices yelling in frantic protest as Vanessa's cruiser came screaming back at them a There were more engines from nearby, and a quick scan of restored traffic-links showed many more marks on the way, CSA, police and SIB. Vanessa missed them by a couple of metres, and again the cruiser broke away, losing the rear end in an embarra.s.sing airborne pirouette.

"Freeze!" yelled a nearby voice, and Sandy looked with unsurprised calm at a pair of uniformed police officers emerging from a nearby lane between buildings, weapons levelled.

"I'm CSA, you moron!" she called back, pistol out in one hand, just in case. Her cunning prisoner took advantage of her onehanded distraction to lash out and struggle-Sandy grabbed him more firmly with that one hand and smashed him back against the ground, hard. He stopped struggling. "Check your links!" She re-tuned to police frequency a "a callsign Snowcat!" Vanessa was telling them, sounding utterly p.i.s.sed off. "Yes, that's right, you check it with central, you do that right now a Vanessa's cruiser was coming back low, decelerating as it headed toward them, and the SIB cruiser tried to manoeuvre around behind.

Vanessa's car remained conveniently in their way.

"Ricey," Sandy said plaintively, "I think they're trying to shoot me."

'Jesus Christ, you idiot," came Vanessa's incredulous reply, "you think this is FUNNY?! You utter maniac." Slipping the car about sideways as the SIB cruiser continued to move, seeking a clear angle and not getting it. Sandy found the universal, encrypted SIB frequency and broke in.

"Why are you trying to shoot me?" she asked them. "What'd I do?"

Who the h.e.l.l a ?"

"Who's on the frequency? Who's speaking a ?"

"It's her, you idiots, she broke in a" And a mad scrambling of alternative subroutines and encoded adjustments ensued.

"I don't think they want to talk to me, Ricey," she said, back on her private channel.

"I don't want to talk to you either, you're crazy. "

"Oh, please?" Her prisoner, she realised, was staring up at her as she apparently talked to herself, not bothering to formulate. "You think I'm crazy too, don't you?" Blink. "What's your name?" Another blink. "You like blowing people up? You think it's funny?"

Nearby, the cops were walking over, weapons still drawn but no longer pointed. Satisfied, she guessed, that she was CSA, but confused as to everything else. For which she could hardly blame them. And her prisoner was now staring up at her with an entirely different expression. Absolute, unadulterated terror. Well, she supposed, the synthetic ferocity of her grip, at this range, could only be mistaken for basic augmentation for so long.

"Oh." She smiled pleasantly at him. "You just figured out who I am, huh? That's flattering, really. I might just stay down like this for a while and let you s.h.i.t yourself." In truth, she had no desire to stand up again while that bed.a.m.ned SIB cruiser was still circling. Vanessa's engines were very loud now, as the cruiser came in for a landing alongside. The two cops arrived. One crouched beside her.

"Got a badge?" he asked, nonchalantly. Looking curiously at the young man pinned beneath her.

"Inside left pocket," Sandy told him.

He reached and removed it from her jacket. Looked at it, eyebrows raised.

"Well, Agent Ca.s.sidy," he said, "I reckon you can get up now."

"That cruiser's trying to kill me."

"Them? They're SIB."

"That's what I mean."