13 Degrees of Separation (18 page)

She
stumbled, and the hood behind her poked her. “Pay attention lady,” the one
called two grumbled.

Thornby
glanced longingly to the warehouse district. They weren't that far away.

“Don't
worry lady,” she heard. They paused at a corner. The bald male called 'One'
smirked at her. “We'll head over there and pick up what we want later. Everyone
cooperates and you'll be home by breakfast. They give us any shit and they'll
be picking you out of the recyclers for months,” he said, smiling a nasty smile
behind the clear mask he had on to distort his face. He had gold incisors, and
a battered face under the mask. He stared at her coldly with his red eyes,
making sure she knew he meant business before he brusquely waved them onward.

After
about a hundred meters they paused when 'Three' touched his ear. He swore. “Boss,”
he said, holding a fist up. Two bumped the girls then yanked them back against
his chest.

“What?”
One demanded angrily.

“We've
got trouble. Cops. They are around us, cutting us off.”

“Shit!
Four!” One snarled, turning away and pulling out a microphone.

...*...*...*...*...

Jethro
was on shift and heard the distress signal and responded, leaving his post
first at a trot, then a run as Lieutenant Myers reported she wouldn't get to
the Commander for another twenty minutes. As he ran the panther watched the
feed from the good doctor in a window on his HUD. Station security had cut off
their planned egress and they were now trapped in a blind corridor. One of the
men was picking at a vent cover, trying to get the thing off. He angrily yanked
off the clear mask he'd had on so he could see and breathe better.

“I
thought you said this was a sure thing Richy, I mean...”

“Shut
your pie hole! And what'd I say about names duffus?”

“Sorry
Richy,” the big brute holding the two women said.

His
leader looked up to him and sighed, shaking his head in disgust. “Amateurs,” he
muttered, thoroughly disgusted. “Surrounded by nitwits and buffoons.”

Jethro
winced, the doctor was rolling her eyes, disorienting him. He missed a step and
slowed his stride to compensate.

“What I
don't get is why the camera trick didn't work. You said it was a sure thing.
Mae had it all done right?” The big guy asked, with a growing whine in his
voice. He jerked the ladies around and pushed them to their knees.

“Apparently
something else happened or the damn AI saw through it,” Richy replied, not
looking up as he used a multitool to patiently unscrew the bolts holding the
vent on. “I just need to get three bolts off and we're out of here. How is it
going Three?”

“Three?”
Duffus asked stupidly, then looked around. He looked at the guy leaning against
the corner with a pulser in his hands. “Um...”

“Yes he
means me. Damn I don't know where you were picked up from or why. Dumb muscle
indeed,” the thin human said, shaking his head. “We're cool. They are sending a
bot in to negotiate from what I can hear and see. Mae's feeding me the camera
feed from their line.”

“Oh.”

Suddenly
the man stopped. “Can they hear us?”

“Why?”

“Cause
all the cops just stopped what they were doing and all looked at the damn
cameras. Spooky.”

“I'd
say something's up. They know we're tinkering with their feed. Four's about out
of time.”

“She
knows,” Three said, shaking his head. He was a cold one, cold blue eyes, bald,
with tribal tattoos on his lean frame. He had a ripped blue tank top on, and
parachute pants. The pockets were stuffed with gear. Thornby noted a pair of
hand grenades. Those worried her.

As
Jethro got to the line he nodded to the cops and robot cordoning it off. But as
one put out his hands to stop him Jethro ripped off his uniform and handed it
to the Neobear. The polar bear stood their stunned as the panther kicked off
his boots, handed him his pulser and then began to cloak. “Hold this. I'll be
back for it in a minute,” Jethro growled as he disappeared.

A cop
behind the polar bear turned just as the cloak finished. He gaped like a fish,
mouth open in stunned disbelief.

Jethro
danced through security, turning sideways when necessary, but quickly moving
through the line of armed people and robots to get to the front.

He'd been
careful to cloak outside the feed the hoods were monitoring. Hopefully this Mae
wasn't monitoring it directly. He watched on his HUD as the hood named Three
looked down at a tablet in his free hand to keep an eye on things. His
distraction nearly got him squished by a moving explosives robot. He slid past
the thing and then crept up to the line.

Men and
women, some human, some Veraxin, a few Neo's were there in police uniforms. A
few had SWAT armor. It was just the hood's bad luck to have abducted the doctors
on the same deck as an earlier SWAT call. Jethro snorted and froze as the men
looked around. Slowly he got around them and cut the corner wide.

The
hood named Three looked right at him, but kept turning his head scanning the
area. Slowly Jethro crept up on all fours, stealthily stalking the enemy. He
noted the leader Richy had finished his second bolt and was tearing at the
vent. He was bending it, but he was wasting his time trying to bend it instead
of just removing the last bolt and swiveling the thing out of the way.

Jethro
made a quick assessment and then acted, using his enhanced strength he slammed
the leader Richy into the wall head first when no one was looking. As he
slumped the other two turned to him in confusion. Jethro felt his concentration
slip as he moved faster, slicing his claws into Three's gun hand, making the
man gasp and drop the weapon in shock and pain.

Just as
the man clutched at his bleeding hand and started to scream Jethro rabbit
punched him in the gut. He folded, gasping and falling to the deck in clear
view of the cops around the corner.

By this
time the dumb hood Duffus twigged that something was up and grabbed the doctor.
He turned and the doctor's feet were thrown into the air, clipping Jethro. The
panther grunted at the impact but didn't slow, he moved into the man's personal
space and gripped his throat with his right hand and then uncloaked.

The big
human male froze at the grip at his throat, then wet himself as an apparition
decloaked in front of him. Jethro was snarling, panting slightly, ears flat,
eyes narrowed. “Give me an excuse,” he growled dangerously, throwing subsonics
from his implants into that growl.

Slowly
the man's grip loosened and he let the doctor go. She stomped on his foot and
he winced but didn't move as she ducked under Jethro's arm and called out an
all clear to the officers. She kicked Three in the head for good measure,
making him groan.

“Wha...
what the hell are you?” The man asked, eyes wide. He was sweating bullets,
hands open at his sides as security forces rounded the corner cautiously and
took down Three, forcing him onto his stomach and his hands behind his back to
cuff him.

“You're
worst nightmare. A Marine,” Jethro snarled as the cops got to him. He let go as
they snarled for everyone to get on the floor.

“You
okay Commander?” Jethro asked, nodding to the doctor. “Doctor?” he asked,
looking down to doctor Martel, noting the leader Richy was being cuffed.
Roughly the cops jerked the hood to his feet and hustled him out of the area.

“Doctor
Martel?” Jethro asked as Doctor Thornby knelt by her side.

“She's
okay, we're both okay, thanks to you. Thanks to all of you. Thank you,” Doctor
Thornby said. She was a little worse for wear, with a black eye and torn lip,
but she seemed okay. Jethro let out a deep breath as the human smiled to him
and mouthed the words thank you to him.

...*...*...*...*...

Jethro
stood to one side a few minutes later as medics cleaned the doctors up. He'd
gotten his gear from the bemused polar bear and was now dressed once more.
“They say doctors make the worst patients,” Doctor Martel murmured as Thornby
tried to see the tablet the medics were using to view her test results.

Jethro
snorted. The amusement however died as Lieutenant JG Teague and first
Lieutenant Myers arrived on the scene. Teague seemed interested in the goings
on, but Myers seemed pissed. The panther gulped as the Marine officer looked
around and then put her hands on her hips.

“I
suppose you're proud of yourself?” she demanded, eyeing the panther.

Jethro
just stood there at attention.

“If he
isn't I am. Good work Corporal,” Commander Thornby said. Myers glanced her way.
Thornby turned to her. “The lad saved my wrinkled ass. I'm grateful,” she said.

“Commander
Thornby...” Myers sighed.

Thornby
held up her hands. “Yeah yeah, your domain. I get it. He's a Marine, you're a
Marine,” Thornby said, half out loud, half through their shared implant chat.

“Right.
He also left his post,” Myers said, glaring at Jethro. “Give me your report,”
she said with a sigh. Jethro dumped the report to her through the channel, and
then the Commander fumbled with her implants before she did too. Lieutenant
Teague looked up as both individuals CC'd a copy to her. She nodded her thanks
and then went back to talking with the big brute who was blubbering like a baby
about not wanting to go to jail.

Lieutenant
Myers stood their silently, watching the video feed at three times normal speed
before she turned an eye on Jethro. The corporal gulped. He was reprimanded by
Lieutenant Myers who warned him it could have been a trap.

“They
could have drawn you off, then ambushed your partner. That was stupid and
reckless corporal, you should have waited for back up. They're professionals,
just not well organized.”

Jethro
snorted softly.

“Okay, not
quite professionals. Amateurs really, stupid ones,” Myers said shaking her
head.

One of
the men, the one called Richy looked up indignantly. He spat on the deck.

She
frowned at him but ignored his disdain. “But even stupid thugs can be
dangerous. Did it ever occur to you that they could have killed a hostage?”

“But
ma'am, we're guarding an empty room. We've already moved the equipment
yesterday evening,” Jethro said loudly. The abductors looked up and groaned.

“You
mean, all this for nothing?” The one called Three demanded plaintively, kicking
the leader as he clutched at his bandaged arm. The leader hung his head and
swore.

“No we
haven't,” Thornby murmured over their shared implant chat link.

“Shush
ma'am. They don't know that,” Jethro said ingeniously. Myers hid a chuckle.

Lieutenant
JG Teague looked up and shot him an approving grin. She knew what he was doing,
it would get back to the backers and throw them off until they could get the
load moved.

Myers
cleared her throat. “You better clear out before the media gets here. We don't
want them knowing about you. Dismissed Corporal.”

He came
to attention, saluted both women, then hustled back to his post.

...*...*...*...*...

Later
that evening there was a soft knock on Doctor Thornby's door. She looked up,
frowning. She belted her kimono robe tighter and then went to the door. “Who is
it?” she asked warily. The entire incident had made her reconsider base
housing. Shit like that didn't happen in the Annex or in San Diego. Yup, a nice
posting anywhere but here... she shook herself, getting a hold of her fear.

“ADA
Winter's ma'am,” a female voice said. Smithy activated her living room LCD to
show a mousy woman standing with a briefcase in her hands in front of her. The
young brown haired human woman looked at the camera innocently. She had a brown
power suit on, complete with a knee length pencil skirt. She looked tired, but
still professional.

“Is she
legit?” Thornby asked through her implants, sending the chat request to Smithy.

“She is
indeed,” the AI responded. “Jumpy?” The AI asked.

“Just a
bit paranoid. And for good reason. Thanks,” the doctor replied, closing the
chat.

“Winters,”
Thornby said, signaling the door to open. “Aren't you out past your bedtime?”
she asked, smiling to take the age sting out of her astringent comment.

“Needs
must ma'am, It's best to get the interview over with now while it's fresh,”
Winters said, coming in. She glanced around the sparsely appointed apartment.
The walls were covered in paintings, there was a wall screen, some modern style
furniture, and a pair of doors leading to other rooms. “Quaint. I would have
thought you would have had more than this ma'am,” she said pulling a camera
drone out of her satchel and letting it loose. It bobbed and then a laser
scanned the room.

Thornby
felt the scan and sighed. “Do we have to do this now?” she demanded. “I mean
right now? Right this second?”

“It's
important ma'am.”

“Don't
you have enough from Smithy's recording and mine? Did Martel have her's on?”