This time, Mark drove.
"Okay, I have to ask," Sharon began. "What did you do to him?"
"Tied him up on the fire escape."
"That was nice of you."
"Eh. Not really."
---
Gary "The Gun" Winthrop woke up on one of those days where it just wasn't worth it. That had been two hours ago, when he got "the call". "The call" had directed him to "the place" to get rid of "the target", an adventure which had concluded with Gary being "fucked".
Now he was suspended from a web of duct tape, that same tape being haphazardly wrapped around the cast-iron handrail of a fire escape. He wanted to scream but couldn't, figured he'd been tape-gagged and thought that it was going to hurt removing that...then he saw the drop, which was merciful only in the sense that it would leave him to tumble down several flights of metal stairs in lieu of a direct route to the ground three levels below. He swayed lightly in the Manhattan wind, every tug of Livos - thanks for that piece of trivia, NYU! I still want my money back! - stressing his attachment further. He couldn't quite turn his head all the way back - his neck was hurting like hell -, but he thought he heard something tear above him.
Yeah, definitely pain.
---
"You see, I'm not a nice guy," Mark said and shifted the gearbox with a quick yank, producing an unhealthy groan and mostly ignoring it.
"We've established that," Sharon said, "I think. You don't have to, like, impress me."
"I'm not trying to."
"Okay."
"Seriously," he said, shifting again. Sharon popped the last nicotine gum into her mouth and bit down on it, hard.
"So...you done this before?" she asked.
"Yeah, I answer stupid questions all the time."
She pulled her lips apart, giving him a brief look at something like a sneer - with just a bit of tongue sticking out.
"I bet you're really popular."
"I get the job done."
"Oh, I get it. You're in hardass assassin mode now."
"What?" he said, more focused on the curve than on what she was saying.
"You switch it on, don't you? This whole super-confident 'been there, done that' swagger? When you sang to me barely an hour ago? That was cheesy. Now I know it's fake."
"Huh."
"You want what everybody wants," she said. "Control. When you have it, you make it look easy. When you don't...you look like you're working."
He gave her a look.
"Hello?" she said, holding up her badge. "I'm a cop. I read people."
Mark read people too. He had a speech for that, all ready to go. He was going to tell her that she was disturbing him (no mean feat), and that the whole unreasonably "cool" 80s routine everybody was giving him these days wasn't working for an old school guy like him. Oh, how he was going to tell her. He'd say that she shouldn't be so blasé about having two attempts on her life within the hour. He wanted to tell her that it was okay...that it was okay for her to be afraid. And maybe admit that he was a bit afraid, too.
But they were already at the hotel.
Mark killed the Mazda's engine. It was interesting how he could even make turning a key look & sound like strangling someone to death. Sharon had jumped out, amped up on the fresh nicotine finally hitting her bloodstream, and collected her luggage from the subcompact's trunk. The place was not a dive, not the kind of cheap motel on some godforsaken Interstate where you go when your man's been pushin' your face into walls. It was a perfectly nondescript hotel in Queens, with Venetian blinds on the ground level windows and a sign from before the days of neon. Someone poked the phrase "family business" into Sharon's head; she let a quick laugh escape from her lips, but her case was heavy - hey, what if you never see that apartment again? - and Mark wasn't about to help her. In fact, he gave her a specific "Feminism cuts both ways" face that she reckoned had seen some practice time with a mirror on a slow weekend.
He did hold the door open for her.
When he entered the lobby behind her, he caught a pair of room keys tossed at him without really trying; experience helped. The guy at the reception desk didn't actively acknowledge them, but Sharon saw the bulge under his windbreaker - more heat than a microwave oven. She didn't feel safer.
"No elevator music?" she asked when they stepped into the same; Mark shrugged and pointed to a patched-up panel in the side of the elevator cab.
"Yeah, somebody voted against that," he said. "Or I could sing."
"Ah, you feel back in control."
"No, I just really like singing."
"Control."
"That's not a fucking mantra."
"Everything's a fucking mantra."
"Okay. Control. Happy now?"
"Well, happi-er. Relative."
"We're safe here," Mark said.
Due to some unspecified surplus of karma - no doubt accumulated for helping old ladies cross the street or buying "raging addiction" amounts of Coconut Girl Scout cookies -, the universe didn't bitchslap Mark for saying that. They did, in fact, reach the top floor without any mechanical or electrical hiccups. Mark led the charge all the way to the end of a hallway, then motioned for Sharon to set down her luggage.
"Your room," he said as he handed her one key. "My room," he said, dangling the other.
"Yeah, I've heard of this 'key' thing."
Mark unlocked the door to his room; Sharon took a look inside and surveyed a well-stocked weapon storage facility, a mess of racks and lockers with a single bunk in the middle.
"You said we can't deal drugs," Mark explained.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Two Guns - Chapter 2 - Drive
As a matter of fact, it was still snowing by noon the next day, when Detective-Investigator Second Grade Sharon Collins left the building, straight from the ceremony. She wasn't angry, she was pissed off, and it had been all she could do to smile and nod rather than scream. That plaque next to the door - Organized Crime Control Bureau - didn't even warrant a look. Her instincts fired a second too late; by the time she was aware that there was someone behind her, he'd already closed the distance.
Simmons.
"Where are we going, DT?" he asked.
"Get lost."
"Come on, you have two weeks off. Don't start a vacation in anger."
Sharon froze in her steps, on the steps, then turned her head to look at the hitman. He was standing there, all unassuming in his winter coat looking way too much like a normal human being for her taste.
"Number One: We know," he said. "Number Two: We'll wait for things to settle down before we move again. Number Three: You're now officially on Silvestro's shitlist. Couldn't be helped. That's why I'm here."
"Oh, I saw how you solve problems."
Sharon didn't really know what the hell to expect from a professional assassin. But even accounting for that, having him sing was not a reaction she'd seen coming.
"Alas, my love, you do me wrong..."
He broke it off when he noted her glare. She threw her hands into the air and walked on; he chose an intercept course across the steps and caught up with her.
"Don't fucking serenade me," she said.
"You can be mad at me all you want, but I'll be on your case until my boss calls me away, so I figure we should start over. I'm Mark."
After a few seconds of walking and fuming, Sharon tried to say something, but forgot what it was. Fortunately, Mark was there to cover the silence.
"This isn't where you parked your car," he said matter-of-factly.
"Will you kindly shut up!"
"Sure. Your wish is my command."
"I wish you would feck off."
"...except that."
"Look," Sharon said, and some the steel disappeared from her voice. "Simmons."
"Mark."
"...Mark. You framed me. You fucking framed me! You're the last guy in this stinking city that I want to see! I keep wanting to smash your face in, okay? You get that? What I'm describing is the phenomenal amount of glass bottles I'm going to open on your forehead, right! So you'd better..."
"Get behind me," Mark said; Sharon froze again instead, which was just as good.
A car rode past them, with two smiling gentlemen inside; Mark kept his body between them and Sharon until the car was further down the street.
"What?" Sharon asked.
"Drive-by," Mark replied. "Silvestro's getting antsy. Must be something more to the drug deal. Oh, and I got their plate, if you want to check it - but I guess it's stolen."
"...o-kay. All I saw was a Volvo passing us."
Mark gave her a small smile.
"Exactly."
Sharon didn't know whether it was superior insight or paranoia, but it was somewhat disarming.
---
"Nice car," Mark said, riding shotgun, and like everything he'd said to Sharon, she wasn't sure if he was being outright sarcastic or just trying to be nice and failing.
The truth was that her Mazda GLC had never been a dream car to begin with, just a "sensible" choice for a girl "starting out". After nearly a decade of using the car, the old justifications felt as uncomfortable as the seats. She'd just never managed to scratch the cash together to replace it, and now she had a guest in it. She wanted to impress Simmons somehow, though she didn't quite know why.
"So, Silvestro," she said, hoping for a nice, one-sided discussion.
"Silvestro Rodriguez, a.k.a. The Silver Colonel. His cartel has been trying to plug into the local underworld. Hiring muscle, selling product. We told him it wouldn't fly. We thought we had the problem licked, but..."
"...but?"
"He didn't take the hint."
"So, what? Now you're going to kill them all?"
"You know, for somebody in Organised Crime, you have a strangely naive idea of how we work."
"I'm pretty sure I know how you work."
"Okay, now that's just insulting."
"What? You kill people."
"Yeah, but..."
"But?"
"But not, like, all the time."
"Yes, your honor, killing people is my job," Sharon said, aping Mark's inflection, "but I take the weekends off!"
Mark laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"You are. You're pretty morbid, Detective."
"...huh. Yeah, I guess I am," Sharon said, stopping the car at a red light. "If it had been me, I would've shot them, too."
"You would've called for backup," Mark said. "Three guys, armed. No way you were gonna try to take them in a shootout."
"You don't know me."
The two fell silent; a green light and an intersection later, Mark spoke up again.
"What's your routine, anyway?" he said.
"Generally, I work. Then I go home and sleep."
"...weekends?"
"I read. Oh, I rent videos sometimes. Why did you ask?"
"Figuring out how to protect you."
---
"Nice pad," Mark said, but Sharon didn't acknowledge him. His look surveyed the apartment, failing to come up with a single sign of dust or disorder. That made a certain amount of sense to him - with so much time at home and a trained "What's wrong with this picture?" eye, he figured every cop had the potential to be a neat freak. Out of random interest, he strolled into the bed room to the sounds of a running sink nearby. Again, no signs of dirt - or life. He grabbed the book on the nightstand and smiled - The Poor Man's James Bond, Volume 3. It was starting to look like his charge was rather more interesting than he'd thought before.
Then, the apartment door creaked open. With practiced spatial awareness, Mark took a silent step back against the wall, opened his coat and surveyed his options.
The Colt was right out - too much noise here, even with the suppressor. The combat knife was tempting, but likely to leave massive amounts of blood - also not good. With a sigh, Mark reached into his pocket, drew out his keyring - with attached kubotan - and gripped it in his right hand. He stole a glance through the door frame. There was a bony man there, wearing a leather jacket and wielding a suppressed .22. In fact, except for the creaking door, the intruder was doing a pretty good job sneaking about. Of course, Mark couldn't have that; he slipped through the doorway, then slowly closed the distance.
It was at this precise moment that Sharon left the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her crimson hair and switched on the light in the living room. Mark noted too late that the new light source was behind him - and that the intruder could now see his shadow.
To Sharon's credit, she didn't scream, but moved, and the tracking motion the intruder had to use to aim his gun was enough for Mark to finish his approach and punch him in the side of the head with the kubotan, barely missing the pressure point behind the jaw. The intruder dropped his gun; Mark kicked it away and followed up his first attack with an elbow to the face of the stunned intruder. However, the man easily blocked Mark's next attack and gave him a hammer punch to the kidneys, forcing Mark to spit out his breath and stumble back. Unflinching, the intruder grabbed Mark's shoulders and rammed his knee into the enforcer's chest, dropping Mark like a sack of potatoes. Sharon rolled out from behind the cover of her couch, Glock drawn, and aimed at the intruder. The momentary distraction was all that Mark needed to recover; never one to shy from painful tricks, he snapped his right foot upward, planting the steel toe of his boot right smack in the assassin's crotch. Turning and twisting on the ground, Mark swept the stunned attacker off his feet, forcing him face first onto the ground next to Mark. With a final roll, Mark was on top of the man and wrapped his left arm around the intruder's neck, then pulled it closed with all his might.
"Down down down!" Mark cough-sang with heavy breaths while the assassin's face turned reddish; after a few painful seconds, the assassin's eyes glazed over and he dropped to the floor.
"...really fucking desperate," Mark managed to spit out; his entire side was still hurting from the kidney punch and the exertion, but at least he'd won the fight.
"Is he dead?"
"No," Mark said as he picked himself off the floor; spotting the .22 on the ground, he picked it up. "Don't see a reason to get my hands dirty."
"Point. Now what?"
"Put the gun down," Mark said.
"You put the gun down," Sharon said, and there was something like a playful smile on her face.
"...'kay," Mark replied, then stashed the weapon beneath his coat. "Two things, DT. I want you to start packing. This place isn't safe."
"Yeah, not disagreeing at all," she said. "Number two?"
"I need to know where you keep your duct tape."
Simmons.
"Where are we going, DT?" he asked.
"Get lost."
"Come on, you have two weeks off. Don't start a vacation in anger."
Sharon froze in her steps, on the steps, then turned her head to look at the hitman. He was standing there, all unassuming in his winter coat looking way too much like a normal human being for her taste.
"Number One: We know," he said. "Number Two: We'll wait for things to settle down before we move again. Number Three: You're now officially on Silvestro's shitlist. Couldn't be helped. That's why I'm here."
"Oh, I saw how you solve problems."
Sharon didn't really know what the hell to expect from a professional assassin. But even accounting for that, having him sing was not a reaction she'd seen coming.
"Alas, my love, you do me wrong..."
He broke it off when he noted her glare. She threw her hands into the air and walked on; he chose an intercept course across the steps and caught up with her.
"Don't fucking serenade me," she said.
"You can be mad at me all you want, but I'll be on your case until my boss calls me away, so I figure we should start over. I'm Mark."
After a few seconds of walking and fuming, Sharon tried to say something, but forgot what it was. Fortunately, Mark was there to cover the silence.
"This isn't where you parked your car," he said matter-of-factly.
"Will you kindly shut up!"
"Sure. Your wish is my command."
"I wish you would feck off."
"...except that."
"Look," Sharon said, and some the steel disappeared from her voice. "Simmons."
"Mark."
"...Mark. You framed me. You fucking framed me! You're the last guy in this stinking city that I want to see! I keep wanting to smash your face in, okay? You get that? What I'm describing is the phenomenal amount of glass bottles I'm going to open on your forehead, right! So you'd better..."
"Get behind me," Mark said; Sharon froze again instead, which was just as good.
A car rode past them, with two smiling gentlemen inside; Mark kept his body between them and Sharon until the car was further down the street.
"What?" Sharon asked.
"Drive-by," Mark replied. "Silvestro's getting antsy. Must be something more to the drug deal. Oh, and I got their plate, if you want to check it - but I guess it's stolen."
"...o-kay. All I saw was a Volvo passing us."
Mark gave her a small smile.
"Exactly."
Sharon didn't know whether it was superior insight or paranoia, but it was somewhat disarming.
---
"Nice car," Mark said, riding shotgun, and like everything he'd said to Sharon, she wasn't sure if he was being outright sarcastic or just trying to be nice and failing.
The truth was that her Mazda GLC had never been a dream car to begin with, just a "sensible" choice for a girl "starting out". After nearly a decade of using the car, the old justifications felt as uncomfortable as the seats. She'd just never managed to scratch the cash together to replace it, and now she had a guest in it. She wanted to impress Simmons somehow, though she didn't quite know why.
"So, Silvestro," she said, hoping for a nice, one-sided discussion.
"Silvestro Rodriguez, a.k.a. The Silver Colonel. His cartel has been trying to plug into the local underworld. Hiring muscle, selling product. We told him it wouldn't fly. We thought we had the problem licked, but..."
"...but?"
"He didn't take the hint."
"So, what? Now you're going to kill them all?"
"You know, for somebody in Organised Crime, you have a strangely naive idea of how we work."
"I'm pretty sure I know how you work."
"Okay, now that's just insulting."
"What? You kill people."
"Yeah, but..."
"But?"
"But not, like, all the time."
"Yes, your honor, killing people is my job," Sharon said, aping Mark's inflection, "but I take the weekends off!"
Mark laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"You are. You're pretty morbid, Detective."
"...huh. Yeah, I guess I am," Sharon said, stopping the car at a red light. "If it had been me, I would've shot them, too."
"You would've called for backup," Mark said. "Three guys, armed. No way you were gonna try to take them in a shootout."
"You don't know me."
The two fell silent; a green light and an intersection later, Mark spoke up again.
"What's your routine, anyway?" he said.
"Generally, I work. Then I go home and sleep."
"...weekends?"
"I read. Oh, I rent videos sometimes. Why did you ask?"
"Figuring out how to protect you."
---
"Nice pad," Mark said, but Sharon didn't acknowledge him. His look surveyed the apartment, failing to come up with a single sign of dust or disorder. That made a certain amount of sense to him - with so much time at home and a trained "What's wrong with this picture?" eye, he figured every cop had the potential to be a neat freak. Out of random interest, he strolled into the bed room to the sounds of a running sink nearby. Again, no signs of dirt - or life. He grabbed the book on the nightstand and smiled - The Poor Man's James Bond, Volume 3. It was starting to look like his charge was rather more interesting than he'd thought before.
Then, the apartment door creaked open. With practiced spatial awareness, Mark took a silent step back against the wall, opened his coat and surveyed his options.
The Colt was right out - too much noise here, even with the suppressor. The combat knife was tempting, but likely to leave massive amounts of blood - also not good. With a sigh, Mark reached into his pocket, drew out his keyring - with attached kubotan - and gripped it in his right hand. He stole a glance through the door frame. There was a bony man there, wearing a leather jacket and wielding a suppressed .22. In fact, except for the creaking door, the intruder was doing a pretty good job sneaking about. Of course, Mark couldn't have that; he slipped through the doorway, then slowly closed the distance.
It was at this precise moment that Sharon left the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her crimson hair and switched on the light in the living room. Mark noted too late that the new light source was behind him - and that the intruder could now see his shadow.
To Sharon's credit, she didn't scream, but moved, and the tracking motion the intruder had to use to aim his gun was enough for Mark to finish his approach and punch him in the side of the head with the kubotan, barely missing the pressure point behind the jaw. The intruder dropped his gun; Mark kicked it away and followed up his first attack with an elbow to the face of the stunned intruder. However, the man easily blocked Mark's next attack and gave him a hammer punch to the kidneys, forcing Mark to spit out his breath and stumble back. Unflinching, the intruder grabbed Mark's shoulders and rammed his knee into the enforcer's chest, dropping Mark like a sack of potatoes. Sharon rolled out from behind the cover of her couch, Glock drawn, and aimed at the intruder. The momentary distraction was all that Mark needed to recover; never one to shy from painful tricks, he snapped his right foot upward, planting the steel toe of his boot right smack in the assassin's crotch. Turning and twisting on the ground, Mark swept the stunned attacker off his feet, forcing him face first onto the ground next to Mark. With a final roll, Mark was on top of the man and wrapped his left arm around the intruder's neck, then pulled it closed with all his might.
"Down down down!" Mark cough-sang with heavy breaths while the assassin's face turned reddish; after a few painful seconds, the assassin's eyes glazed over and he dropped to the floor.
"...really fucking desperate," Mark managed to spit out; his entire side was still hurting from the kidney punch and the exertion, but at least he'd won the fight.
"Is he dead?"
"No," Mark said as he picked himself off the floor; spotting the .22 on the ground, he picked it up. "Don't see a reason to get my hands dirty."
"Point. Now what?"
"Put the gun down," Mark said.
"You put the gun down," Sharon said, and there was something like a playful smile on her face.
"...'kay," Mark replied, then stashed the weapon beneath his coat. "Two things, DT. I want you to start packing. This place isn't safe."
"Yeah, not disagreeing at all," she said. "Number two?"
"I need to know where you keep your duct tape."
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Two Guns - Chapter 1 - Live And Let Die
New York City was cold.
The snowflakes seemed to be the only ones enjoying themselves, dancing on the wind and making the most of their life before being stomped into the sludge over the sidewalk. The wind was the worst part of it; it found the smallest pieces of exposed skin and chilled people to the bone. Well, not all of them - Detective Collins sat in her car (a cheap Mazda with a busted radio) and scanned the area with reddened eyes. The docks were closing down for the day; the few people that still hung around there were all headed home. She took a sip from her coffee and had to fight it all the way. It was lukewarm and too strong for her own good, and taking nervous gulps from it whenever she actually wanted to have a smoke didn't help. Neither did the nicotine gum, for that matter; she seriously reconsidered that investment and felt cheated - a familiar feeling.
Another sip emptied the plastic cup; Collins tipped her head back to drink the last few drops of coffee, then nearly spewed the beverage back out when she saw a delivery truck pull up to the warehouse ahead; the sectional door slid upward, and two men in heavy coats got out, then walked alongside the truck as it crawled into the warehouse.
Paydirt.
Collins opened the door; the cold air was like a hammer punch to the face, and her eyes snapped shut out of reflex for a few seconds. Still mostly blind, she pushed the door closed, locked it and folded her arms before her chest, pulling her own coat tighter together. With the initial shock gone, she headed for a side alley and observed the deal going down. She reached into her coat and retrieved a camera, then set to snapping pictures of the men with coats.
"I'll have that film," he said, and then there was a click.
Collins recognised the sound - a hammer being cocked. The Glock 17 in her shoulder holster felt like it was a thousand miles away for all the good it was doing her there.
"You don't want to do that. I'm a cop," she said, and thought she sounded fairly confident. She slowly raised her hands, opening her coat up further. Brr, cold, she thought.
"Let's see a badge."
"Clipped to my belt."
"Take three steps back."
Collins realised that this would take her out of sight from the main road, but there was no arguing with a gun aimed at her back. When she stopped, she felt the man breathing behind her. His gloved left hand pulled her coat back, found her badge and grabbed it.
"Hmm," he said. "Collins...Detective-Investigator Third Grade? Doesn't sound like much of a career."
"Can I have my badge back now?"
"When we're done talking. Now, there's so many beautiful things in the city to take pictures of. Why this?"
"I'm...I'm following up on a tip. About a drug deal."
"Well, DT, you should know that there's none of that in this part of town. Precisely so overworked people like you don't have to wait in the cold and take photos, photos that are just gonna disappear anyway..."
"I'm telling you, it's a drug deal!"
"I suspect I'd know."
"You think I'm stupid, is that it? You think I'm suicidal?"
"Sure lookin' like it."
"Listen to me. Whatever you think is in that truck doesn't matter. I know it's White. If that stuff gets into town, you're all going to have a very bad day."
This time, there was no snappy comeback for a few seconds.
"Give me your gun," he said.
"What?"
"Your gun. Give it to me."
"I can't..."
"Or I could knock you out and take it, but I'd really prefer not to."
"...shoulder holster, right side."
His hand came back around, reached across her chest and slowly drew the Glock from its holster. He was right behind her now, and the idea of elbowing him in the stomach was a strong temptation. When he moved still closer, she felt something hard behind her - a strike plate. The man was armored, and just as quickly as it had come, the elbow plan removed itself from her options. She heard another click - this time, decocking the hammer - and turned around, catching the man in the process of holstering his weapon, a Colt 1911. The man was tall, decked out with body armor and a large, dark grey trenchcoat that made him look even bigger. From a look at his unshaven face, she placed him at 35 or thereabouts, with a broad and angular face.
"Don't leave," he said as he stuffed the Glock into a pocket on his coat. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
"What?"
"Now, remember, don't do anything stupid, I have your badge and gun."
"Where are you going?"
"Checking the truck."
She gave him a searching look; he looked at her, and his small smile seemed to grow more serious.
"You're right, you know. If it's White, this'll be a bad day."
And with that, he took off, leaving Collins cold and confused.
---
It wasn't every day that Mark Simmons had a run-in with the law, which he put down to being very good at his job. As a professional assassin and underworld enforcer, having a criminal record was frowned upon. Mark liked to keep things low-key: as long as his employers weren't doing anything too outrageous, the cops were perfectly happy letting the crooks operate on their own set of rules. Of course, people occasionally ended up dead, but things were a far cry from the loud street wars of times gone by, back when Mark had just started out and honed his skills.
He moved effortlessly, the rhythm of his footsteps in the snow a soothing melody for an insomniac city as he followed the truck's tracks into the warehouse and came face to face with the two heavies and one driver, all packing the customary amounts of heat.
"Hey guys!" he called out by way of greeting, addressing the guards. He kept his game face even as he saw them flinch. His instincts told him that these men were expecting trouble, but they didn't draw their weapons. Mark didn't know whether that was an inadvertent admission of innocence or merely an attempt to fool him.
"Well, look who came in from the cold," the first thug - Ben - said.
"Our favorite cocksucker in the whole tri-state," the second thug - Roger - said. "'sup, Simmons?"
"Freezing my ass off, that's what's up," Mark replied. "Call came down from the boss, says I gotta watch you boys."
"Waste of time, ain't it?" Roger said. "Four of us for a couple of AKs."
"Man, that reminds me, I need to get me one of those. You think Silvestro will mind if you lose one?"
"You wanna buy it right here?" Ben asked.
"My car's just outside," Mark said. "Come on, man. You can lose one of those."
"I don't know, Simmons..."
"Yeah, I don't know, either, he was like..."
"...real specific."
"Yeah, don't lose those, he said."
"And we're not gonna."
"Hell, I want one of those, too. But we're not gonna lose them."
"No, we ain't."
Mark's look rapidly alternated between the two, but he spotted the driver reaching for his gun.
"Come on, guys. Seriously? I'll pay ya, cash..." he said, opening his coat - and sliding the Glock out of the pocket with his left arm, out of sight from the guards. "Let me just get a look at them."
"Sorry, Simmons," Ben said. "No deal."
"Yeah, sorry," Roger repeated.
The driver grabbed his gun.
"Don't be," Mark quipped.
He snapped the Glock up and fired - five shots in two seconds, killing all three without so much as a single shot against him. By the time he had his right hand on the gun and swept the truck's cargo area for threats, they were all on the ground and as dead as could be. Mark released his breath, then walked up to one of the crates and kicked it open. Bags of white powder stared back at him.
"Shit."
"Oh...my God!" came Collins's cry - she stood in the door and took in the scene, while Mark still held her smoking gun.
"Looks like you were right," Mark said nonchalantly, then reached into his coat, shifted a small messenger bag to the front and drew from it a bulky electronic brick - a cell phone. "I need to make a call," he said. "And this time, stay where you are, okay?"
Collins didn't feel like arguing.
---
"Well, this is a fine mess, Marcus," Alfredo Ingues said as he surveyed the scene; Vincent Ratioli, his bodyguard, gave Mark that "Beer later?" look, and Mark managed to break his somber expression for a second to reply with his "Oh, fuck yeah, beer later!" face. "Did you check all the crates?" Ingues asked.
"Cocaine," Mark said, "about 200 kilos."
"A fine haul by any standard," Lt. Whitton said, inspecting the crime scene with two more police officers. Detective Collins emphatically kept her distance from them. "And all thanks to you, Detective. The problem is that your man killed our suspects,Ingues."
"Self-defense," Mark replied tersely. The old Ingues Cartel matriarch nodded. "If Marcus says that they were going to shoot first," the old man said, "it must have been that way."
"It's not that complicated, really," Mark added. "They knew I'd made them the minute they saw me. They were just trying to get me to leave before I had a chance to check the crates. When they realized that I wasn't going to back down, they lost their nerves."
Whitton reached into his coat and grabbed a handkerchief; despite the cold, he was sweating.
"I got that," he said. "But the fact remains that we have the coke, the Detective and three bodies with cartel bullets in them..."
"Actually, Sir," Mark said, "I borrowed the Detective's gun for that."
Whitton shot him a glare at first, but his expression lightened after a few seconds.
"Now that's good thinkin', son. Come here, Detective. The man's trying to get you promoted."
"What!?" Collins said, perhaps a bit louder than she'd planned on.
"The scenario is this, Detective Collins," Mark said. "You get a tip. You come here, weapon drawn, you're all professional and in control, you give them the whole 'Freeze!' thing. The asshole over here tries to reach, you see him, you shoot him, the others pull their heat, you shoot them too. They're a clear danger, you don't have the time to disable, so it's straight center mass, double-tap."
"But...that'll never work!"
"Really," Whitton said. "Officer Berkovitz, what does this look like?"
"Looks like a damn fine police officer doing a textbook raid all by herself, trying to keep the bad guys from escaping. Bit sloppy that she didn't call for backup, but it all happened pretty fast."
"But he shot them!" she shouted, pointing at Mark.
"I've got gloves, you handled the weapon when you holstered it in the morning, your prints. Which reminds me...you missed."
"Huh?"
"Powder residue," Whitton explained. "Give her the gun."
Mark held out the Glock for her to take.
"That'll never work," she repeated. "You're...you're...you're bigger than me! He's bigger than me!"
"Different stance," Mark said without having to think about it. "You've got it up on your eye level, I shot from the hip. Close enough for government work."
She took the Glock, reluctantly; Mark looked over to Alfredo Ingues, who gave him a nod. "Help her," the old man said, then walked back to his car.
Mark walked up behind Collins, subtly pointing her in the right direction as she raised the gun to fire.
"Don't panic," he whispered. "Just one shot, hit the broad side of the truck."
"I can't do this," she said.
"It's just one shot. Nobody's getting hurt. The worst part is already over. Just one shot."
"They'll know."
"Nobody wants to know anything," he said. "We make it plausible enough, they file it."
"...you've done this before, haven't you?"
"Coached a cop? Eh, not really. The killing part - too often." He paused for a breath. "Look, I know this sucks, but believe me, it'll suck much more if you don't do it. Just aim, pull the trigger and we can all go home."
"I can't."
"...they're not getting any deader. Come on. Do it."
The Glock went *bang*. Collins lowered the gun, dumbstruck.
"All set," Mark said. "Time to go home." In the background, one of the officers was radioing in his response to a "Shots fired" incident. Just another drug bust gone mostly right.
And Sharon Collins couldn't cry.
The snowflakes seemed to be the only ones enjoying themselves, dancing on the wind and making the most of their life before being stomped into the sludge over the sidewalk. The wind was the worst part of it; it found the smallest pieces of exposed skin and chilled people to the bone. Well, not all of them - Detective Collins sat in her car (a cheap Mazda with a busted radio) and scanned the area with reddened eyes. The docks were closing down for the day; the few people that still hung around there were all headed home. She took a sip from her coffee and had to fight it all the way. It was lukewarm and too strong for her own good, and taking nervous gulps from it whenever she actually wanted to have a smoke didn't help. Neither did the nicotine gum, for that matter; she seriously reconsidered that investment and felt cheated - a familiar feeling.
Another sip emptied the plastic cup; Collins tipped her head back to drink the last few drops of coffee, then nearly spewed the beverage back out when she saw a delivery truck pull up to the warehouse ahead; the sectional door slid upward, and two men in heavy coats got out, then walked alongside the truck as it crawled into the warehouse.
Paydirt.
Collins opened the door; the cold air was like a hammer punch to the face, and her eyes snapped shut out of reflex for a few seconds. Still mostly blind, she pushed the door closed, locked it and folded her arms before her chest, pulling her own coat tighter together. With the initial shock gone, she headed for a side alley and observed the deal going down. She reached into her coat and retrieved a camera, then set to snapping pictures of the men with coats.
"I'll have that film," he said, and then there was a click.
Collins recognised the sound - a hammer being cocked. The Glock 17 in her shoulder holster felt like it was a thousand miles away for all the good it was doing her there.
"You don't want to do that. I'm a cop," she said, and thought she sounded fairly confident. She slowly raised her hands, opening her coat up further. Brr, cold, she thought.
"Let's see a badge."
"Clipped to my belt."
"Take three steps back."
Collins realised that this would take her out of sight from the main road, but there was no arguing with a gun aimed at her back. When she stopped, she felt the man breathing behind her. His gloved left hand pulled her coat back, found her badge and grabbed it.
"Hmm," he said. "Collins...Detective-Investigator Third Grade? Doesn't sound like much of a career."
"Can I have my badge back now?"
"When we're done talking. Now, there's so many beautiful things in the city to take pictures of. Why this?"
"I'm...I'm following up on a tip. About a drug deal."
"Well, DT, you should know that there's none of that in this part of town. Precisely so overworked people like you don't have to wait in the cold and take photos, photos that are just gonna disappear anyway..."
"I'm telling you, it's a drug deal!"
"I suspect I'd know."
"You think I'm stupid, is that it? You think I'm suicidal?"
"Sure lookin' like it."
"Listen to me. Whatever you think is in that truck doesn't matter. I know it's White. If that stuff gets into town, you're all going to have a very bad day."
This time, there was no snappy comeback for a few seconds.
"Give me your gun," he said.
"What?"
"Your gun. Give it to me."
"I can't..."
"Or I could knock you out and take it, but I'd really prefer not to."
"...shoulder holster, right side."
His hand came back around, reached across her chest and slowly drew the Glock from its holster. He was right behind her now, and the idea of elbowing him in the stomach was a strong temptation. When he moved still closer, she felt something hard behind her - a strike plate. The man was armored, and just as quickly as it had come, the elbow plan removed itself from her options. She heard another click - this time, decocking the hammer - and turned around, catching the man in the process of holstering his weapon, a Colt 1911. The man was tall, decked out with body armor and a large, dark grey trenchcoat that made him look even bigger. From a look at his unshaven face, she placed him at 35 or thereabouts, with a broad and angular face.
"Don't leave," he said as he stuffed the Glock into a pocket on his coat. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
"What?"
"Now, remember, don't do anything stupid, I have your badge and gun."
"Where are you going?"
"Checking the truck."
She gave him a searching look; he looked at her, and his small smile seemed to grow more serious.
"You're right, you know. If it's White, this'll be a bad day."
And with that, he took off, leaving Collins cold and confused.
---
It wasn't every day that Mark Simmons had a run-in with the law, which he put down to being very good at his job. As a professional assassin and underworld enforcer, having a criminal record was frowned upon. Mark liked to keep things low-key: as long as his employers weren't doing anything too outrageous, the cops were perfectly happy letting the crooks operate on their own set of rules. Of course, people occasionally ended up dead, but things were a far cry from the loud street wars of times gone by, back when Mark had just started out and honed his skills.
He moved effortlessly, the rhythm of his footsteps in the snow a soothing melody for an insomniac city as he followed the truck's tracks into the warehouse and came face to face with the two heavies and one driver, all packing the customary amounts of heat.
"Hey guys!" he called out by way of greeting, addressing the guards. He kept his game face even as he saw them flinch. His instincts told him that these men were expecting trouble, but they didn't draw their weapons. Mark didn't know whether that was an inadvertent admission of innocence or merely an attempt to fool him.
"Well, look who came in from the cold," the first thug - Ben - said.
"Our favorite cocksucker in the whole tri-state," the second thug - Roger - said. "'sup, Simmons?"
"Freezing my ass off, that's what's up," Mark replied. "Call came down from the boss, says I gotta watch you boys."
"Waste of time, ain't it?" Roger said. "Four of us for a couple of AKs."
"Man, that reminds me, I need to get me one of those. You think Silvestro will mind if you lose one?"
"You wanna buy it right here?" Ben asked.
"My car's just outside," Mark said. "Come on, man. You can lose one of those."
"I don't know, Simmons..."
"Yeah, I don't know, either, he was like..."
"...real specific."
"Yeah, don't lose those, he said."
"And we're not gonna."
"Hell, I want one of those, too. But we're not gonna lose them."
"No, we ain't."
Mark's look rapidly alternated between the two, but he spotted the driver reaching for his gun.
"Come on, guys. Seriously? I'll pay ya, cash..." he said, opening his coat - and sliding the Glock out of the pocket with his left arm, out of sight from the guards. "Let me just get a look at them."
"Sorry, Simmons," Ben said. "No deal."
"Yeah, sorry," Roger repeated.
The driver grabbed his gun.
"Don't be," Mark quipped.
He snapped the Glock up and fired - five shots in two seconds, killing all three without so much as a single shot against him. By the time he had his right hand on the gun and swept the truck's cargo area for threats, they were all on the ground and as dead as could be. Mark released his breath, then walked up to one of the crates and kicked it open. Bags of white powder stared back at him.
"Shit."
"Oh...my God!" came Collins's cry - she stood in the door and took in the scene, while Mark still held her smoking gun.
"Looks like you were right," Mark said nonchalantly, then reached into his coat, shifted a small messenger bag to the front and drew from it a bulky electronic brick - a cell phone. "I need to make a call," he said. "And this time, stay where you are, okay?"
Collins didn't feel like arguing.
---
"Well, this is a fine mess, Marcus," Alfredo Ingues said as he surveyed the scene; Vincent Ratioli, his bodyguard, gave Mark that "Beer later?" look, and Mark managed to break his somber expression for a second to reply with his "Oh, fuck yeah, beer later!" face. "Did you check all the crates?" Ingues asked.
"Cocaine," Mark said, "about 200 kilos."
"A fine haul by any standard," Lt. Whitton said, inspecting the crime scene with two more police officers. Detective Collins emphatically kept her distance from them. "And all thanks to you, Detective. The problem is that your man killed our suspects,Ingues."
"Self-defense," Mark replied tersely. The old Ingues Cartel matriarch nodded. "If Marcus says that they were going to shoot first," the old man said, "it must have been that way."
"It's not that complicated, really," Mark added. "They knew I'd made them the minute they saw me. They were just trying to get me to leave before I had a chance to check the crates. When they realized that I wasn't going to back down, they lost their nerves."
Whitton reached into his coat and grabbed a handkerchief; despite the cold, he was sweating.
"I got that," he said. "But the fact remains that we have the coke, the Detective and three bodies with cartel bullets in them..."
"Actually, Sir," Mark said, "I borrowed the Detective's gun for that."
Whitton shot him a glare at first, but his expression lightened after a few seconds.
"Now that's good thinkin', son. Come here, Detective. The man's trying to get you promoted."
"What!?" Collins said, perhaps a bit louder than she'd planned on.
"The scenario is this, Detective Collins," Mark said. "You get a tip. You come here, weapon drawn, you're all professional and in control, you give them the whole 'Freeze!' thing. The asshole over here tries to reach, you see him, you shoot him, the others pull their heat, you shoot them too. They're a clear danger, you don't have the time to disable, so it's straight center mass, double-tap."
"But...that'll never work!"
"Really," Whitton said. "Officer Berkovitz, what does this look like?"
"Looks like a damn fine police officer doing a textbook raid all by herself, trying to keep the bad guys from escaping. Bit sloppy that she didn't call for backup, but it all happened pretty fast."
"But he shot them!" she shouted, pointing at Mark.
"I've got gloves, you handled the weapon when you holstered it in the morning, your prints. Which reminds me...you missed."
"Huh?"
"Powder residue," Whitton explained. "Give her the gun."
Mark held out the Glock for her to take.
"That'll never work," she repeated. "You're...you're...you're bigger than me! He's bigger than me!"
"Different stance," Mark said without having to think about it. "You've got it up on your eye level, I shot from the hip. Close enough for government work."
She took the Glock, reluctantly; Mark looked over to Alfredo Ingues, who gave him a nod. "Help her," the old man said, then walked back to his car.
Mark walked up behind Collins, subtly pointing her in the right direction as she raised the gun to fire.
"Don't panic," he whispered. "Just one shot, hit the broad side of the truck."
"I can't do this," she said.
"It's just one shot. Nobody's getting hurt. The worst part is already over. Just one shot."
"They'll know."
"Nobody wants to know anything," he said. "We make it plausible enough, they file it."
"...you've done this before, haven't you?"
"Coached a cop? Eh, not really. The killing part - too often." He paused for a breath. "Look, I know this sucks, but believe me, it'll suck much more if you don't do it. Just aim, pull the trigger and we can all go home."
"I can't."
"...they're not getting any deader. Come on. Do it."
The Glock went *bang*. Collins lowered the gun, dumbstruck.
"All set," Mark said. "Time to go home." In the background, one of the officers was radioing in his response to a "Shots fired" incident. Just another drug bust gone mostly right.
And Sharon Collins couldn't cry.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Just 'cause - Chapter 23 - High Speed Dirt
For the briefest of moments, Rowena wondered whether Algernon had gone totally nuts - after all, he took a running start and jumped out of the plane, far too low for any parachute to save him. It was only after weathering that shock that Rowena spotted the heavy duty cable he was attached to. Actually, on a second look, he wasn't directly hanging off the winch cable - rather, he seemed to be wearing a climbing harness attached to a grappling gun, rigged to a motorized crab running along the main cable. In that moment of perfect clarity, she also noted three more of these contraptions attached to the winch cable.
She wondered whether common sense had, at any point, touched this plan.
With the car holding steady at 150, Done registered a pleasant absence of half-tracks behind them, then spotted Algernon's stunt and switched his implant to hands-free mode.
"What the fuck..."
"Be with you in a second," Algernon replied, still dropping as fast as the heavy-duty cargo winch would allow; finally, there was a *thunk* from the car's roof as the fringewalker made his touchdown. Uneager to test Vector's precision flying skills with the biggest aircraft on this continent, he pressed his trench knife against the metal below, then engaged the electromagnet, securing his footing. The cable gave further, lowering down to the point where Algernon could grab the gear riding on it.
"Done, reach out through the back window!" he shouted, instinctively trying to drown out the rushing wind and engine noise around him. The mercenary obliged, finally got his hand on the harness and quickly slipped into it. After a final gulp, he climbed out through the window and got caught in the airstream at once - it almost plucked him from the vehicle right there, but he held on for his dear life. He shared a glance with Algernon, wondering why the old man wasn't being torn from the roof with quite the same force, but the fringewalker just shouted.
"Let go!"
Done recalled his Skyhook training from simpler times and did so; the crab and grappling gun both sprung to life, snatching him upwards. There was the tendency, he noted, to pull in your limbs, trying to protect yourself, but that just makes things worse. After a few trial moves with his arms, Done had his ascent stabilized - and it felt rather pleasantly like a HA/LO jump in reverse at that point. One might almost say that it felt good, a nice rush of adrenaline with decent payoff.
With Done taken care of, Algernon scrambled to the right side of the car, yanked another harness downward and bowed down as far as he could.
"Open the door!" he howled, missing the much easier communication via implant. Mark didn't understand what was being shouted, only that there was shouting.
Then Rowena shouted. It seemed to be the thing to do in that situation. Mark joined in, shouting a "What?" back at her. She merely pointed to the rear mirror.
The half-track. Not just going 150, but closing in. What's more, with fire lipping out of its back. Oh, and with Freyr riding on top, holding on with his cybernetic arm while his mangled left arm fluttered in the wind like a meaty wind cone.
Just when Mark was about to ask himself how this could get worse, the half-track raised its cannon and opened fire, making the Antonov swerve precariously. Algernon literally saw the slack travel down the cable and disengaged the magnet just in time before he was flung off the car; swinging off to the side, he released a volley of blades from his coat, aiming at the street lamps before him in a desperate attempt to evade a full-speed collision. Empowered by the master of the fringe, the blades curved into the wind, effortlessly felling the posts ahead. With a final twist of his body, Algernon altered the cable's trajectory enough to miss the last lamp before hitting the car again, this time planting his magnet-enhanced trench knife on Mark's side of the car.
Behind them, half a dozen lamp posts crashed into the sea below the bridge - as if Rio needed more property damage.
"Kill the tank!" Algernon yelled.
---
Done had just slipped out of the harness when he heard the shots from the 20mm pass by the aircraft's fuselage; he hit the deck as the Antonov swayed. A few seconds later, he heard Algernon's voice shouting over the cargo bay's loudspeakers and got up. There were two Division Nihil fringewalkers in the bay: a swarthy man who just had to be from New Zealand (Done's prior experiences told him that calling him an Aussie would be ill-advised) and a Filipino woman, seemingly crafted from the Earth itself to bring forth God's terrible vengeance. The man seemed one with his suit, but he couldn't imagine the Filipina even coming near one.
"We're knackered!" the man bellowed, holding on to the handrails for his dear life - probably a better idea than what the girl was doing, which was hauling a weapons crate across the floor toward the rear. Done caught sight of the letters on it.
AT-4 CS
"Always take care of things myself," she nearly sang, in that melodic voice that sounded like sailors and sweaty nights.
"You need any help?" Done asked, righting himself. At that, she dropped the crate, opened it, then handed him a launcher.
"Two guns, better than one," she said.
---
As such things went, "armored truck" - not "tank" - was as reasonable a description of the Hand vehicle as could be offered; as part of its acceleration, it had shed its tracks at the beginning of the bridge, then engaged solid-fuel rockets to pick up further speed. It wasn't made safer by the fact that all of its functions were controlled by Freyr through his arm. If any of the Archer agents had suspected, they might have been less worried - balancing his body on the vehicle, keeping said vehicle moving straight and aiming the 20mm cannon all took their toll on the young soldier's concentration. Still, he had some to spare - seeing two rockets launch from the Antonov engaged the lower functions of his brain, telling him to jump the wreck-to-be. With the power of the physical adept formula laced into his genes, he lunged forward, off the vehicle's front armor. He locked his feet together as he had been trained, hoping to stop some of the shrapnel with the heavy soles of his combat boots. The explosion carried him forward; with a desperate stab, he attached his arm to the trunk of the Mercedes.
---
"Bugger!" Algernon hollered; with the passenger's door cracked open a bit, he'd slipped the next harness through to Mark. The enforcer was now strapped in, but with his prior wounds and the lack of Done's training, the whole plan struck him as decidedly suboptimal.
The fringewalker reached into his coat again, producing his Colt; he fired twice at Freyr, who rolled over his arm before hooking his legs into the rear window frame. With his arm free, he stabbed it into the paneling of the car and sent an electric shock through it, shorting out Algernon's magnet. This, combined with Rowena's reflexive swerve, plucked the Englishman off the car again; this time, Algernon quickly engaged the winch on his harness, pulling himself out of harm's way. For Mark, who hadn't thought to give his cable similar slack, the swerve meant that he was pulled free of the car; his crab was built to go upwards as soon as loaded, and so it yanked him up, past Algernon and toward the Antonov. Vague memories of Done's stunt and the HA/LO drop before took over; Mark managed a halfway decent ascent, but was rather unceremoniously flung into the aircraft's cargo bay.
The pained moan he emitted at this point was, therefore, completely justified.
To his credit, the Kiwi was at his side the next second, unhooking the harness and pulling Mark to safety. As dedicated medic, Oliver "Threads" Townsend felt more at home solving that kind of problem. Mark was so far beyond caring at this point that he had trouble remembering what it was like.
---
Rowena had two problems. Well, three, if you counted her heart idling at 180 beats per minute, but that was a rather healthy and normal response to the levels of stress on exhibition here, and anyway, 100 years ago they expected a proper lady to faint from even a tenth of the shit down there...so that wouldn't, couldn't be a problem.
Ignore that. Start over.
Problem Number 1: Freyr.
Problem Number 2: Five seconds to the bridge's apex.
With no time to spare, Rowena clicked the car's cruise control on (Ah, technology!), cracked the door open and swung out. In this split second - as the additional drag and lack of user input left the car to spin out - she landed on the roof, bailed again and snatched the last harness, twisting in the wind.
It was, admittedly, not the best possible solution, but at least she was still alive.
Then there was a tug on the cable below, and she saw Freyr hanging onto the cargo hook at the very end, looking like the ordeal had drained the absolutely last remains of sanity from him.
Rowena's aliveness was suddenly under review, again.
---
The two wonder teens struggled to right their respective positions; using all of her strength, Rowena pulled herself up into the harness, but couldn't reach the fasteners. Below her, the Mercedes finally crashed through the guide rails and sunk to its final resting place beneath the waves. After her best effort, she had her arms hooked in, but couldn't spare the power to secure them. Beneath her, Freyr's synthetic arm worked overtime, hauling his body upwards until he had his feet resting on the hook.
In the meantime, Algernon had stabilized his whirling about; spotting Freyr in reach, he altered his trajectory, swinging in for an attack run - he whooshed past Freyr and slashed his back with the trench knife, eliciting a scream of pain that got lost in the airstream.
"We have to pull up!" Vector's voice came through the implant; Algernon's eyes shot to the cityscape ahead, and even he had to gulp as he saw the buildings close in. Then, his eyes jumped to Rowena, and he saw that the jerking around on the cable was just about throwing her out of the harness.
He couldn't hear her, but he knew she was screaming for help.
It was enough to distract him for his next pass past Freyr, and this time, the Child of Eve was ready; with another electric jolt, he fried Algernon's winch controls, leading it to retract the cable at top speed. Algernon and Rowena shared a glance as he shot past her - and dropped his 1911.
---
You can do this.
---
It was a perfect moment, its majesty not diminished by the lack of photographic proof: Rowena rode the swing of the cable just right, defying death as she reached for the falling pistol. For a delicious nanosecond, she was neither here nor there, no pistol in hand and no harness to hold her. Free at last.
---
I can do this.
---
Her hand reached out for the weapon...
---
Do it.
---
...and snatched it by the slide. Faster than a speeding bullet, the information shot through her nervous system, triggering her other arm to grab - and it did, just catching the last slipping strap of the harness. Physics quickly asserted itself - it took all of her strength not to let go when the forces involved threatened to rip her apart right there, but she held on even when the stitches in her shoulder tore open, accepted the pain, worked with the pain. On the next rotation, she managed to get her legs onto the cable and hook them just as she couldn't hold on to the harness anymore. Now hanging upside-down from the main steel cable, Rowena took a second to steady her breath and drink the fear in Freyr's eyes as she spun the pistol into firing position.
There were tears in his eyes, and in hers, too - but if it was the wind or the effort or just raw emotion, she couldn't say. He mouthed one last word.
Schwester...
It rang in her head, as if it should mean something to her.
Then she shot him. She shot him, and shot him, and shot him, and shot him again when he wasn't even there anymore, already plummeting from a rapidly rising aircraft. She actually saw him fall, then smash into the roof of a small skyscraper and a few more floors after that.
In the distance, a concrete & soapstone Jesus wept. Another sinner redeemed.
After hanging like that for what seemed like minutes, common sense suddenly reasserted itself; Rowena pulled herself up, still leaving a trail of blood as her reopened wound shed more of herself over Rio. For the briefest of moments, she felt awe.
Ichor, she thought. The blood of Gods. And I'm still alive.
She felt the cable shudder and move; the winch was reeling her in, and it was more than welcome.
---
Mark, Done, Oliver, Carla - the Filipina - and Algernon were all there to help her off the cable. She was laid down on a blanket; Oliver went to taking care of her wound right there. She motioned for Algernon to come closer, then handed him the Colt.
"Thanks for the gun," she said with a weak smile.
"Thanks for returning it," he said, casting a sidelong glance at Mark. The Enforcer flinched a bit, and Rowena laughed.
"You see that, old man?" she hollered. "That's how you do it."
Mark made a face, but finally rolled his eyes and grinned.
---
If there was something a big cockpit was good for, it was enjoying a flight into the sunrise. With the ocean below, the fiery disc at the horizon leaped at them, bathing the cold metal and plastic in a warm glow. As if by magic, the cockpit windows automatically tinted to reduce the glare; Vector reached for his sunglasses and put them on.
They still had a long way to go.
FIN
She wondered whether common sense had, at any point, touched this plan.
With the car holding steady at 150, Done registered a pleasant absence of half-tracks behind them, then spotted Algernon's stunt and switched his implant to hands-free mode.
"What the fuck..."
"Be with you in a second," Algernon replied, still dropping as fast as the heavy-duty cargo winch would allow; finally, there was a *thunk* from the car's roof as the fringewalker made his touchdown. Uneager to test Vector's precision flying skills with the biggest aircraft on this continent, he pressed his trench knife against the metal below, then engaged the electromagnet, securing his footing. The cable gave further, lowering down to the point where Algernon could grab the gear riding on it.
"Done, reach out through the back window!" he shouted, instinctively trying to drown out the rushing wind and engine noise around him. The mercenary obliged, finally got his hand on the harness and quickly slipped into it. After a final gulp, he climbed out through the window and got caught in the airstream at once - it almost plucked him from the vehicle right there, but he held on for his dear life. He shared a glance with Algernon, wondering why the old man wasn't being torn from the roof with quite the same force, but the fringewalker just shouted.
"Let go!"
Done recalled his Skyhook training from simpler times and did so; the crab and grappling gun both sprung to life, snatching him upwards. There was the tendency, he noted, to pull in your limbs, trying to protect yourself, but that just makes things worse. After a few trial moves with his arms, Done had his ascent stabilized - and it felt rather pleasantly like a HA/LO jump in reverse at that point. One might almost say that it felt good, a nice rush of adrenaline with decent payoff.
With Done taken care of, Algernon scrambled to the right side of the car, yanked another harness downward and bowed down as far as he could.
"Open the door!" he howled, missing the much easier communication via implant. Mark didn't understand what was being shouted, only that there was shouting.
Then Rowena shouted. It seemed to be the thing to do in that situation. Mark joined in, shouting a "What?" back at her. She merely pointed to the rear mirror.
The half-track. Not just going 150, but closing in. What's more, with fire lipping out of its back. Oh, and with Freyr riding on top, holding on with his cybernetic arm while his mangled left arm fluttered in the wind like a meaty wind cone.
Just when Mark was about to ask himself how this could get worse, the half-track raised its cannon and opened fire, making the Antonov swerve precariously. Algernon literally saw the slack travel down the cable and disengaged the magnet just in time before he was flung off the car; swinging off to the side, he released a volley of blades from his coat, aiming at the street lamps before him in a desperate attempt to evade a full-speed collision. Empowered by the master of the fringe, the blades curved into the wind, effortlessly felling the posts ahead. With a final twist of his body, Algernon altered the cable's trajectory enough to miss the last lamp before hitting the car again, this time planting his magnet-enhanced trench knife on Mark's side of the car.
Behind them, half a dozen lamp posts crashed into the sea below the bridge - as if Rio needed more property damage.
"Kill the tank!" Algernon yelled.
---
Done had just slipped out of the harness when he heard the shots from the 20mm pass by the aircraft's fuselage; he hit the deck as the Antonov swayed. A few seconds later, he heard Algernon's voice shouting over the cargo bay's loudspeakers and got up. There were two Division Nihil fringewalkers in the bay: a swarthy man who just had to be from New Zealand (Done's prior experiences told him that calling him an Aussie would be ill-advised) and a Filipino woman, seemingly crafted from the Earth itself to bring forth God's terrible vengeance. The man seemed one with his suit, but he couldn't imagine the Filipina even coming near one.
"We're knackered!" the man bellowed, holding on to the handrails for his dear life - probably a better idea than what the girl was doing, which was hauling a weapons crate across the floor toward the rear. Done caught sight of the letters on it.
AT-4 CS
"Always take care of things myself," she nearly sang, in that melodic voice that sounded like sailors and sweaty nights.
"You need any help?" Done asked, righting himself. At that, she dropped the crate, opened it, then handed him a launcher.
"Two guns, better than one," she said.
---
As such things went, "armored truck" - not "tank" - was as reasonable a description of the Hand vehicle as could be offered; as part of its acceleration, it had shed its tracks at the beginning of the bridge, then engaged solid-fuel rockets to pick up further speed. It wasn't made safer by the fact that all of its functions were controlled by Freyr through his arm. If any of the Archer agents had suspected, they might have been less worried - balancing his body on the vehicle, keeping said vehicle moving straight and aiming the 20mm cannon all took their toll on the young soldier's concentration. Still, he had some to spare - seeing two rockets launch from the Antonov engaged the lower functions of his brain, telling him to jump the wreck-to-be. With the power of the physical adept formula laced into his genes, he lunged forward, off the vehicle's front armor. He locked his feet together as he had been trained, hoping to stop some of the shrapnel with the heavy soles of his combat boots. The explosion carried him forward; with a desperate stab, he attached his arm to the trunk of the Mercedes.
---
"Bugger!" Algernon hollered; with the passenger's door cracked open a bit, he'd slipped the next harness through to Mark. The enforcer was now strapped in, but with his prior wounds and the lack of Done's training, the whole plan struck him as decidedly suboptimal.
The fringewalker reached into his coat again, producing his Colt; he fired twice at Freyr, who rolled over his arm before hooking his legs into the rear window frame. With his arm free, he stabbed it into the paneling of the car and sent an electric shock through it, shorting out Algernon's magnet. This, combined with Rowena's reflexive swerve, plucked the Englishman off the car again; this time, Algernon quickly engaged the winch on his harness, pulling himself out of harm's way. For Mark, who hadn't thought to give his cable similar slack, the swerve meant that he was pulled free of the car; his crab was built to go upwards as soon as loaded, and so it yanked him up, past Algernon and toward the Antonov. Vague memories of Done's stunt and the HA/LO drop before took over; Mark managed a halfway decent ascent, but was rather unceremoniously flung into the aircraft's cargo bay.
The pained moan he emitted at this point was, therefore, completely justified.
To his credit, the Kiwi was at his side the next second, unhooking the harness and pulling Mark to safety. As dedicated medic, Oliver "Threads" Townsend felt more at home solving that kind of problem. Mark was so far beyond caring at this point that he had trouble remembering what it was like.
---
Rowena had two problems. Well, three, if you counted her heart idling at 180 beats per minute, but that was a rather healthy and normal response to the levels of stress on exhibition here, and anyway, 100 years ago they expected a proper lady to faint from even a tenth of the shit down there...so that wouldn't, couldn't be a problem.
Ignore that. Start over.
Problem Number 1: Freyr.
Problem Number 2: Five seconds to the bridge's apex.
With no time to spare, Rowena clicked the car's cruise control on (Ah, technology!), cracked the door open and swung out. In this split second - as the additional drag and lack of user input left the car to spin out - she landed on the roof, bailed again and snatched the last harness, twisting in the wind.
It was, admittedly, not the best possible solution, but at least she was still alive.
Then there was a tug on the cable below, and she saw Freyr hanging onto the cargo hook at the very end, looking like the ordeal had drained the absolutely last remains of sanity from him.
Rowena's aliveness was suddenly under review, again.
---
The two wonder teens struggled to right their respective positions; using all of her strength, Rowena pulled herself up into the harness, but couldn't reach the fasteners. Below her, the Mercedes finally crashed through the guide rails and sunk to its final resting place beneath the waves. After her best effort, she had her arms hooked in, but couldn't spare the power to secure them. Beneath her, Freyr's synthetic arm worked overtime, hauling his body upwards until he had his feet resting on the hook.
In the meantime, Algernon had stabilized his whirling about; spotting Freyr in reach, he altered his trajectory, swinging in for an attack run - he whooshed past Freyr and slashed his back with the trench knife, eliciting a scream of pain that got lost in the airstream.
"We have to pull up!" Vector's voice came through the implant; Algernon's eyes shot to the cityscape ahead, and even he had to gulp as he saw the buildings close in. Then, his eyes jumped to Rowena, and he saw that the jerking around on the cable was just about throwing her out of the harness.
He couldn't hear her, but he knew she was screaming for help.
It was enough to distract him for his next pass past Freyr, and this time, the Child of Eve was ready; with another electric jolt, he fried Algernon's winch controls, leading it to retract the cable at top speed. Algernon and Rowena shared a glance as he shot past her - and dropped his 1911.
---
You can do this.
---
It was a perfect moment, its majesty not diminished by the lack of photographic proof: Rowena rode the swing of the cable just right, defying death as she reached for the falling pistol. For a delicious nanosecond, she was neither here nor there, no pistol in hand and no harness to hold her. Free at last.
---
I can do this.
---
Her hand reached out for the weapon...
---
Do it.
---
...and snatched it by the slide. Faster than a speeding bullet, the information shot through her nervous system, triggering her other arm to grab - and it did, just catching the last slipping strap of the harness. Physics quickly asserted itself - it took all of her strength not to let go when the forces involved threatened to rip her apart right there, but she held on even when the stitches in her shoulder tore open, accepted the pain, worked with the pain. On the next rotation, she managed to get her legs onto the cable and hook them just as she couldn't hold on to the harness anymore. Now hanging upside-down from the main steel cable, Rowena took a second to steady her breath and drink the fear in Freyr's eyes as she spun the pistol into firing position.
There were tears in his eyes, and in hers, too - but if it was the wind or the effort or just raw emotion, she couldn't say. He mouthed one last word.
Schwester...
It rang in her head, as if it should mean something to her.
Then she shot him. She shot him, and shot him, and shot him, and shot him again when he wasn't even there anymore, already plummeting from a rapidly rising aircraft. She actually saw him fall, then smash into the roof of a small skyscraper and a few more floors after that.
In the distance, a concrete & soapstone Jesus wept. Another sinner redeemed.
After hanging like that for what seemed like minutes, common sense suddenly reasserted itself; Rowena pulled herself up, still leaving a trail of blood as her reopened wound shed more of herself over Rio. For the briefest of moments, she felt awe.
Ichor, she thought. The blood of Gods. And I'm still alive.
She felt the cable shudder and move; the winch was reeling her in, and it was more than welcome.
---
Mark, Done, Oliver, Carla - the Filipina - and Algernon were all there to help her off the cable. She was laid down on a blanket; Oliver went to taking care of her wound right there. She motioned for Algernon to come closer, then handed him the Colt.
"Thanks for the gun," she said with a weak smile.
"Thanks for returning it," he said, casting a sidelong glance at Mark. The Enforcer flinched a bit, and Rowena laughed.
"You see that, old man?" she hollered. "That's how you do it."
Mark made a face, but finally rolled his eyes and grinned.
---
If there was something a big cockpit was good for, it was enjoying a flight into the sunrise. With the ocean below, the fiery disc at the horizon leaped at them, bathing the cold metal and plastic in a warm glow. As if by magic, the cockpit windows automatically tinted to reduce the glare; Vector reached for his sunglasses and put them on.
They still had a long way to go.
FIN
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Just 'cause - Chapter 22 - Carrera Rapida
The next thing Mark noticed was that, in implementing his suggestion, Rowena of all people was steadying him. Everything around him was swimming, though his hyperventilation seemed to help. Done was right behind them, with a suitcase in hand. Mark couldn't remember when the mercenary had grabbed it.
Fresh, cool air outside. The breeze coming in from the Atlantic was Mark's second wind.
Rowena didn't miss the Hand half-track parked nearby, nor Oberleutnant Pantoja sitting on top, having a smoke without a care in the world. He snapped off a mock salute to her; she returned it, still unsure of his motivation but also unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Rowena got her first look at the Mercedes and felt some trepidation at the shot-out driver's window. It didn't help that she found herself in the driver's seat, with Mark beside her and Done in the back. The Enforcer handed her the keys; Rowena started the car, briefly allowed herself to feel the roar of the engine, then unlocked the parking brake. Whether by choice or by chance, she smoked the treads off the tires, launching the automobile from a spectacular burnout. The smoke cloud in the rear mirror faded as she took the first corner with a powerslide, then zoomed off in a straight line.
"Did we have to stop for the suitcase?" Mark asked; his face was a sneer, half from the stuff fighting through the painkillers and half from the painkillers themselves.
"Archer comm-package," Done replied, terse and in control. "Mustn't fall into enemy hands. Also, we can use this to call for help - as soon as we've got a satellite link..."
Having opened the case, Done briefly thanked R&D for the idiot-proof design. After a brief wireless handshake with Done's cochlear implant, the package confirmed his identity and dialed in.
"We should have someone on the line in..."
The half-track crashed onto the street behind them, shedding the interior decoration of a demolished house while straightening its course.
"Rowena, dear," Mark began - Rowena knew this meant trouble, what with the 'dear' - "could you please keep the car steady?"
"For what?"
Raising the half-forgotten AR-15, Mark yanked the bolt, ejecting the dud and re-cocking the rifle.
"Yeah, real smart," Done said, setting the package down on the seat beside him. "How the fuck" - BOOM!, the cannon went, and a car beside them shot up in a brilliant fireball amidst the tell-tale chatter of the half-track's 20mm - "how are you gonna shoot him from there?"
"That's a," Mark stammered, the streetlights before him swimming into a sea of stars. "That's a good point, John."
"Give me that" - BOOM! - "rifle. Rovy, you just keep her on the road."
"Can do," Rowena replied, shifting into fourth.
"Mark, I need you to put your seat" - BOOM! - "all the way back."
With a click, Mark found the controls and unlocked the seat, then shoved it as far back as possible. Done, by now briefly reconsidering his choice of career, turned around, put his back against Mark's seat and set his feet against the rear window. Retracting his left foot, he hammered the glass a few times, cracking the window and ruining its structural integrity. With a final push, the window took flight, enjoying a few brief seconds of liberation before being crushed beneath the half-track. Done watched the scene and couldn't help but think of it as a metaphor for South America.
Then he realised he was comparing a continent to a car part and trained his brain back on the reason for that little stunt.
BOOM! the cannon thundered once more, taking out a lamppost ahead; Rowena yanked the wheel to the side, barely avoiding a serious bump.
"What Mark said!" Done shouted; Rowena wondered how to keep the car steady against the evasive maneuvers necessary to dodge cannon fire and other cars. As if to top it all, Done's cochlear implant went off; apparently the package was done with the satellite uplink. He yanked the rifle upward, using the rear headrest as a sort of primitive bench, then tapped the sweet spot behind his ear.
"Bloody hell," Algernon's voice came. "If you leave a cell phone number, could you maybe pick up next time?"
"We're kinda in the middle of something," Done replied, scanning the half-track for any obvious weak points. The autocannon thundered again - BOOM! - and this time there was a glancing hit by proxy from the guide rail, spiderwebbing the passenger side windows.
"Where do you want the damn plane?"
"The what!?"
"The plane, Done! Big damn metal bird. We got it, we're launching now, where do you want it?"
BOOM!
"I'll call you back!" Done shouted, then steadied his aim and fired a few exploratory shots at the half-track. As expected, the bullets harmless pinged off the thick armored hull.
"I could stop at the hotel!" Rowena screamed over the rushing wind; Done sighed at the thought of his heavy gear.
"Keep it going!" he finally replied; Rowena served past a semi, leading it to jackknife behind her.
For a few seconds, there was silence behind them; Rowena even eased off the gas a bit and relaxed the painfully tight grip on the wheel. The sense of triumph was profound, if brief: the box car trailer exploded into a mass of twisted aluminum panels and crossbeams, then spat out the half-track, slightly worse for wear but still holding its speed. Mark got one look at it, leaned back into his seat and said what the whole car was thinking.
"We're screwed."
---
"Done! Done?" Algernon shouted, though he knew that it was neither necessary nor helpful. The connection was dead - not cut out, but closed, and hearing a running gun fight in the background didn't bolster his confidence. He grabbed a discarded headset from his position in the cockpit and switched the connection from stand-by to talk.
"Krueger? You there?"
Algernon's voicebox created a vibrating column of air in his throat, spawning a series of sound waves that resonated through his mouth before being picked up by the microphone and converted into electrical current. Intricate analog circuitry filtered the signal for ambient noise, producing an electronic representation of the fringewalker's voice. It passed through an ADC and piggybacked onto a data stream within the mainframe-sized central computer of the Antonov. A satellite modem beamed the data into space, passing through miles of air with only minor attenuation. Once there, a communications satellite bounced to data to another Archer asset: a low-observability airship serving as a communications relay for this part of the Southern Atlantic. After another go through that computer, the data was redirected, modulating a blue laser shining into the waves far below. Finally, Archangelsk - Admiral Orban's submarine - picked up the beam with a highly-sensitive photocell, reconstructed the digital data from the laser and used its own computer to render the stream back into sound.
"Yes, and this is fascinating," Krueger's voice shot back through the headset, though even the poor quality reflected his boredom. "Why, just the other minute, someone asked me if I wanted coffee. I tell you, this submarine thing? It's a life on the edge."
"Krueger, listen. If I give you information on a transmission, can you track it?"
"What, from here?"
"With the plane. It's got some ELINT gear, right?"
"...well, I can try."
Thirty seconds for Algernon to pull up the cochlear implant specs from secure Archer servers. Ten seconds for Krueger to gasp.
And then he started hacking it.
"Vector," Algernon shouted, "get us airborne!"
"Can do, chief," Vector replied. He was an aviator-cum-fringewalker - one of those "blink and you'll miss him" guys, but that was arguably the entire point of Division Nihil.
The Antonov roared to life much like the biblical Leviathan as its jet engines spun up from idle to full thrust; slowly, she picked up momentum, a colossal creature of aluminum and kerosene thundering down the rollfield until Mother Earth released its grip. Even the retraction of the landing gear was awe-inspiring.
"Got it," Krueger radioed. "I'm patching it into the plane's navi. Do you need any other miracles while I'm at it?"
Algernon considered that.
"Actually, yes," he said. "I need a full inventory of everything on this plane."
---
"Last one," Mark said as he handed Done another magazine for the AR-15. Done barely acknowledged the gesture; he snatched it, reloaded the rifle and resumed firing at the Hand of Glory half-track behind them.
"They stopped firing," he said. "What's going on?"
"Traffic's easing up," Rowena replied, neatly avoiding a police blockade in the process of setting up. "Aw, shit. They're boxing us in."
"Where does the road go?"
Rowena briefly lowered the speed, freeing some of her attention for a general look at the situation. They were caught on an elevated expressway right smack at the coast of Rio, overlooking the city's large bay. Road to the North, city to the West, water to the East, death to the South - things were looking rather simple.
"Best guess? That bridge!"
Mark focused his eyes on "that bridge!", finding a large, narrow strip of elevated road crossing the bay. There was some sort of a commotion on the other side - no doubt more Hand of Glory troops ready to intercept them.
"That's a dead end," he murmured. Done snapped off another shot, winging the half-track's wheel - and inflicting no noticeable damage.
"Open to suggestions!" Done shouted.
"Dammit, we should try," Rowena said. "They want to play chicken, fine, I'm sure they don't care for the idea of getting hit by a hunk of metal at 200."
Mark furrowed a brow.
"200?"
"Kilometers. Per hour."
"So, 120 miles."
"...yes," Rowena replied, somewhat confused.
"Look, I get metric, okay? I just need my intuition now. So, we're at 120, yes?"
"Well, 110, but we could be."
"How fast do you think you can go, absolute maximum?"
"On that bridge? Looks straight to me, no traffic - 150, maybe?"
"Oh, they'll be pissing their pants, alright," Mark said with a smile. "Question is, are they gonna move or are their vehicles gonna move?"
Rowena considered that for a moment, then grinned.
"At least it'll be a pretty fireball."
---
"I see 'em," Vector said; Algernon brought up the nose camera view on the screen of his seat and zoomed onto the car chase in progress.
"Silver sports car headed for the bridge, check," Algernon replied. "And they've got company. Area's crawling with Hand."
"Orders, chief?"
After the longest second in all of history, Algernon answered.
"Follow them. Low and slow."
"Wilco. Flaps to 20, sinking to 100 AGL. Nice knowin' ya, chief."
"Keep her steady, I'm in the cargo bay."
Algernon dumped the headset and scrambled off; the faint voice of Dr. Peter Krueger still crawled out from the headset.
"Um, Algernon, why is my plane in a dive? ... Algernon? Algernon? What are you doing? Algernon?!"
---
BLAM BLAM BLAM *click*
Done discarded the empty rifle and turned back around, letting his stomach catch up with the ride for the first time in minutes. The car swerved on the bridge; Rowena put the pedal to the medal and brought it up to top speed.
"Well, that does it. No more token counterattacking," Done said.
"I'm demoralized already," Mark said. "We should just stop and give up now, you know?"
Done shot him a glare.
"Too soon?" Mark offered; the mercenary just snorted in disgust and collapsed on the back seat.
"Um, guys?"
"We're dead," Mark began to sing. "Ohhh, weeeee aaaaaare dead, we're dead, we're stin-kin' dead! With no place left to ruuuu-uuun! We're dead, we're dead, we're fuc-kin' dead! It's been a lot of fuuu-uuun! Come on, people, you know how it goes!"
"Simmons can sing," Done said. "And that's the mental picture I leave this world with. Figures."
"Guys!" Rowena shouted.
She didn't need to. At this altitude, the Antonov's engines did a more than adequate job of announcing themselves.
"Holy fucking shit!" Mark said and sounded like he meant it. Before them, the Antonov hung in the air with all its strength; against the night sky, it looked like a UFO with its flaming jet exhaust and the bright illumination cast from the interior. Its rear cargo ramp lowered, revealing a single silhouette hooked into the safety rails. Done felt the buzzing in his head and activated his cochlear implant.
"Hold that speed," Algernon said, calm like a bomb.
Fresh, cool air outside. The breeze coming in from the Atlantic was Mark's second wind.
Rowena didn't miss the Hand half-track parked nearby, nor Oberleutnant Pantoja sitting on top, having a smoke without a care in the world. He snapped off a mock salute to her; she returned it, still unsure of his motivation but also unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Rowena got her first look at the Mercedes and felt some trepidation at the shot-out driver's window. It didn't help that she found herself in the driver's seat, with Mark beside her and Done in the back. The Enforcer handed her the keys; Rowena started the car, briefly allowed herself to feel the roar of the engine, then unlocked the parking brake. Whether by choice or by chance, she smoked the treads off the tires, launching the automobile from a spectacular burnout. The smoke cloud in the rear mirror faded as she took the first corner with a powerslide, then zoomed off in a straight line.
"Did we have to stop for the suitcase?" Mark asked; his face was a sneer, half from the stuff fighting through the painkillers and half from the painkillers themselves.
"Archer comm-package," Done replied, terse and in control. "Mustn't fall into enemy hands. Also, we can use this to call for help - as soon as we've got a satellite link..."
Having opened the case, Done briefly thanked R&D for the idiot-proof design. After a brief wireless handshake with Done's cochlear implant, the package confirmed his identity and dialed in.
"We should have someone on the line in..."
The half-track crashed onto the street behind them, shedding the interior decoration of a demolished house while straightening its course.
"Rowena, dear," Mark began - Rowena knew this meant trouble, what with the 'dear' - "could you please keep the car steady?"
"For what?"
Raising the half-forgotten AR-15, Mark yanked the bolt, ejecting the dud and re-cocking the rifle.
"Yeah, real smart," Done said, setting the package down on the seat beside him. "How the fuck" - BOOM!, the cannon went, and a car beside them shot up in a brilliant fireball amidst the tell-tale chatter of the half-track's 20mm - "how are you gonna shoot him from there?"
"That's a," Mark stammered, the streetlights before him swimming into a sea of stars. "That's a good point, John."
"Give me that" - BOOM! - "rifle. Rovy, you just keep her on the road."
"Can do," Rowena replied, shifting into fourth.
"Mark, I need you to put your seat" - BOOM! - "all the way back."
With a click, Mark found the controls and unlocked the seat, then shoved it as far back as possible. Done, by now briefly reconsidering his choice of career, turned around, put his back against Mark's seat and set his feet against the rear window. Retracting his left foot, he hammered the glass a few times, cracking the window and ruining its structural integrity. With a final push, the window took flight, enjoying a few brief seconds of liberation before being crushed beneath the half-track. Done watched the scene and couldn't help but think of it as a metaphor for South America.
Then he realised he was comparing a continent to a car part and trained his brain back on the reason for that little stunt.
BOOM! the cannon thundered once more, taking out a lamppost ahead; Rowena yanked the wheel to the side, barely avoiding a serious bump.
"What Mark said!" Done shouted; Rowena wondered how to keep the car steady against the evasive maneuvers necessary to dodge cannon fire and other cars. As if to top it all, Done's cochlear implant went off; apparently the package was done with the satellite uplink. He yanked the rifle upward, using the rear headrest as a sort of primitive bench, then tapped the sweet spot behind his ear.
"Bloody hell," Algernon's voice came. "If you leave a cell phone number, could you maybe pick up next time?"
"We're kinda in the middle of something," Done replied, scanning the half-track for any obvious weak points. The autocannon thundered again - BOOM! - and this time there was a glancing hit by proxy from the guide rail, spiderwebbing the passenger side windows.
"Where do you want the damn plane?"
"The what!?"
"The plane, Done! Big damn metal bird. We got it, we're launching now, where do you want it?"
BOOM!
"I'll call you back!" Done shouted, then steadied his aim and fired a few exploratory shots at the half-track. As expected, the bullets harmless pinged off the thick armored hull.
"I could stop at the hotel!" Rowena screamed over the rushing wind; Done sighed at the thought of his heavy gear.
"Keep it going!" he finally replied; Rowena served past a semi, leading it to jackknife behind her.
For a few seconds, there was silence behind them; Rowena even eased off the gas a bit and relaxed the painfully tight grip on the wheel. The sense of triumph was profound, if brief: the box car trailer exploded into a mass of twisted aluminum panels and crossbeams, then spat out the half-track, slightly worse for wear but still holding its speed. Mark got one look at it, leaned back into his seat and said what the whole car was thinking.
"We're screwed."
---
"Done! Done?" Algernon shouted, though he knew that it was neither necessary nor helpful. The connection was dead - not cut out, but closed, and hearing a running gun fight in the background didn't bolster his confidence. He grabbed a discarded headset from his position in the cockpit and switched the connection from stand-by to talk.
"Krueger? You there?"
Algernon's voicebox created a vibrating column of air in his throat, spawning a series of sound waves that resonated through his mouth before being picked up by the microphone and converted into electrical current. Intricate analog circuitry filtered the signal for ambient noise, producing an electronic representation of the fringewalker's voice. It passed through an ADC and piggybacked onto a data stream within the mainframe-sized central computer of the Antonov. A satellite modem beamed the data into space, passing through miles of air with only minor attenuation. Once there, a communications satellite bounced to data to another Archer asset: a low-observability airship serving as a communications relay for this part of the Southern Atlantic. After another go through that computer, the data was redirected, modulating a blue laser shining into the waves far below. Finally, Archangelsk - Admiral Orban's submarine - picked up the beam with a highly-sensitive photocell, reconstructed the digital data from the laser and used its own computer to render the stream back into sound.
"Yes, and this is fascinating," Krueger's voice shot back through the headset, though even the poor quality reflected his boredom. "Why, just the other minute, someone asked me if I wanted coffee. I tell you, this submarine thing? It's a life on the edge."
"Krueger, listen. If I give you information on a transmission, can you track it?"
"What, from here?"
"With the plane. It's got some ELINT gear, right?"
"...well, I can try."
Thirty seconds for Algernon to pull up the cochlear implant specs from secure Archer servers. Ten seconds for Krueger to gasp.
And then he started hacking it.
"Vector," Algernon shouted, "get us airborne!"
"Can do, chief," Vector replied. He was an aviator-cum-fringewalker - one of those "blink and you'll miss him" guys, but that was arguably the entire point of Division Nihil.
The Antonov roared to life much like the biblical Leviathan as its jet engines spun up from idle to full thrust; slowly, she picked up momentum, a colossal creature of aluminum and kerosene thundering down the rollfield until Mother Earth released its grip. Even the retraction of the landing gear was awe-inspiring.
"Got it," Krueger radioed. "I'm patching it into the plane's navi. Do you need any other miracles while I'm at it?"
Algernon considered that.
"Actually, yes," he said. "I need a full inventory of everything on this plane."
---
"Last one," Mark said as he handed Done another magazine for the AR-15. Done barely acknowledged the gesture; he snatched it, reloaded the rifle and resumed firing at the Hand of Glory half-track behind them.
"They stopped firing," he said. "What's going on?"
"Traffic's easing up," Rowena replied, neatly avoiding a police blockade in the process of setting up. "Aw, shit. They're boxing us in."
"Where does the road go?"
Rowena briefly lowered the speed, freeing some of her attention for a general look at the situation. They were caught on an elevated expressway right smack at the coast of Rio, overlooking the city's large bay. Road to the North, city to the West, water to the East, death to the South - things were looking rather simple.
"Best guess? That bridge!"
Mark focused his eyes on "that bridge!", finding a large, narrow strip of elevated road crossing the bay. There was some sort of a commotion on the other side - no doubt more Hand of Glory troops ready to intercept them.
"That's a dead end," he murmured. Done snapped off another shot, winging the half-track's wheel - and inflicting no noticeable damage.
"Open to suggestions!" Done shouted.
"Dammit, we should try," Rowena said. "They want to play chicken, fine, I'm sure they don't care for the idea of getting hit by a hunk of metal at 200."
Mark furrowed a brow.
"200?"
"Kilometers. Per hour."
"So, 120 miles."
"...yes," Rowena replied, somewhat confused.
"Look, I get metric, okay? I just need my intuition now. So, we're at 120, yes?"
"Well, 110, but we could be."
"How fast do you think you can go, absolute maximum?"
"On that bridge? Looks straight to me, no traffic - 150, maybe?"
"Oh, they'll be pissing their pants, alright," Mark said with a smile. "Question is, are they gonna move or are their vehicles gonna move?"
Rowena considered that for a moment, then grinned.
"At least it'll be a pretty fireball."
---
"I see 'em," Vector said; Algernon brought up the nose camera view on the screen of his seat and zoomed onto the car chase in progress.
"Silver sports car headed for the bridge, check," Algernon replied. "And they've got company. Area's crawling with Hand."
"Orders, chief?"
After the longest second in all of history, Algernon answered.
"Follow them. Low and slow."
"Wilco. Flaps to 20, sinking to 100 AGL. Nice knowin' ya, chief."
"Keep her steady, I'm in the cargo bay."
Algernon dumped the headset and scrambled off; the faint voice of Dr. Peter Krueger still crawled out from the headset.
"Um, Algernon, why is my plane in a dive? ... Algernon? Algernon? What are you doing? Algernon?!"
---
BLAM BLAM BLAM *click*
Done discarded the empty rifle and turned back around, letting his stomach catch up with the ride for the first time in minutes. The car swerved on the bridge; Rowena put the pedal to the medal and brought it up to top speed.
"Well, that does it. No more token counterattacking," Done said.
"I'm demoralized already," Mark said. "We should just stop and give up now, you know?"
Done shot him a glare.
"Too soon?" Mark offered; the mercenary just snorted in disgust and collapsed on the back seat.
"Um, guys?"
"We're dead," Mark began to sing. "Ohhh, weeeee aaaaaare dead, we're dead, we're stin-kin' dead! With no place left to ruuuu-uuun! We're dead, we're dead, we're fuc-kin' dead! It's been a lot of fuuu-uuun! Come on, people, you know how it goes!"
"Simmons can sing," Done said. "And that's the mental picture I leave this world with. Figures."
"Guys!" Rowena shouted.
She didn't need to. At this altitude, the Antonov's engines did a more than adequate job of announcing themselves.
"Holy fucking shit!" Mark said and sounded like he meant it. Before them, the Antonov hung in the air with all its strength; against the night sky, it looked like a UFO with its flaming jet exhaust and the bright illumination cast from the interior. Its rear cargo ramp lowered, revealing a single silhouette hooked into the safety rails. Done felt the buzzing in his head and activated his cochlear implant.
"Hold that speed," Algernon said, calm like a bomb.
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