A Dragon at the Gate (The New Aeneid Cycle Book 3) (6 page)

“Affirmative and acknowledged.”

“Have you contacted her at all?” Michael tried. “Do you know who she is?”

“Facial recognition and a database scan identify her as Diane Briar, an unaffiliated freelancer commonly referred to as ‘Jade.’ I have no record of any contact with her.”

Michael’s stomach knotted as his most promising theory crumbled. On the other hand, with as much time as she’d spent watching over him already, if Jade meant to cause him actual harm she had squandered plenty of opportunities. “So you or the AoA didn’t hire her to protect me? Do you know who did?”

“I have no record of such matters. My apologies.”

“Alright. Has Marc or anyone else been here since August?”

“Mister Triton has not been home. Captain Abigail Brittan of the Northgate Police Department entered these premises at seven oh-three p.m. on August thirtieth, two thousand fifty-one.”

“Picking up the things Marc needed that I couldn’t get, I’d bet.” Abigail was the AoA’s area coordinator for Northgate. “Did she do anything else?”

“Captain Brittan informed me of his current assignment, of your hospitalization, and provided Mister Triton’s authorization to receive directives from both her and from you until he indicates otherwise.”

“Sounds about right. But you haven’t heard from her since?”

“Nope.”

Michael again resisted the urge to ask about the A.I.’s use of that word. “I guess that probably means everything is going okay, or at least that there’s no new news?”

“There is a far greater likelihood that Captain Brittan’s lack of contact is directly due to the fact that she is now deceased.”

“She’s
dead?
” Michael lowered his voice from the half-shout he’d made it, glancing at the door. “How? And when?”

“A Northgate Police Department investigation reports cause of death as electrocution via a direct neural link on September twenty-eighth at roughly eleven p.m.”

Though he hadn’t known Abigal well, Michael sank into a chair as if gut-punched. “What happened?”

“Unknown.”

He nodded, thinking. Likely there was already something waiting in his AoA-secured email about it. But first . . . “Two ESA facilities were destroyed last week. Do you know anything about that? Beyond what was in public news reports, I mean.”

“Nope.”

“Alright,” he sighed and re-gathered his thoughts. “I don’t have a computer right now. Can you help me connect to my AoA email?”

“Apologies, but access to the AoA Undernet is unavailable at this time. I have no indication as to when the network will return.”

“Odd. How long has it been out?”

“Do you wish an exact time or approximation?”

“Just—” He took a breath. “Do approximations until I say otherwise.”

“The AoA Undernet has been unavailable for roughly two months.”

Another gut-punch.
Two months?
No Council sessions. No way to secure AoA communications. No reliable means of collaborating at all. “What happened? Do you have any idea?”

“Also unknown. UnderNet network access protocols are non-responsive at a software level. I have completed multiple diagnostics on my local systems and discovered no evidence of errors.”

“So the problem isn’t on this end.” He made it a question. Tech talk wasn’t his strong point.

“Affirmative.”

“Shit.”

“There is indeed sufficient cause for concern.”

So now what? He listed the unknowns in his mind: Who hired Jade? Why were ESA installations exploding? What happened to Abigail and the Undernet? How could he even find out? The questions spiraled through his mind with no answers, and then another made itself known.

“Holes, have you heard anything from Felix or Caitlin since Marc and I were last here?”

“Felix Hiatt called twice in the first week of September. The first call was to inquire after Mister Triton’s whereabouts. The second call contained a request for me to contact him with any news of Mister Triton that I am authorized to share, or for Mister Triton to contact him upon his return to Earth. Caitlin Danae has called four times in the past week with a request for Mister Triton to contact her regarding an urgent matter.”

“Did she say what?”

“She was not specific. The frequency of her calls appears to indicate an unwillingness to accept my assurances that I will relay the message to Mister Triton as soon as I am able.”

Nothing from Felix recently. When was the last time Jade said she saw them? Last week? Hell. He’d try them both shortly.

“Okay, I’ve got something for you to look into, but first, you’ve got a regular Internet link, right? I’m going to need as much encryption as you can give me.”

Holes acquiesced, and Michael pulled up his non-AoA email. The AoA wouldn’t likely include anything specific but might have sent him details on where to go for answers. Michael sorted through the messages in his inbox: Mostly spam. Some inquiries from a few non-AoA acquaintances. Emails related to medical bills. And one thing more, sent only an hour prior:

M
ICHAEL
I
AN
F
LYNN
:
D
O
NOT
PUT
YOURSELF
AT
RISK
. Y
OU
SHOULD
DISSOLVE
YOUR
ALLEGIANCE
TO
THE
A
GENTS
OF
A
ENEAS
IMMEDIATELY
,
AND
THEN
AWAIT
FURTHER
COMMUNICATION
.
R
EMAIN
UNHARMED
.
–A
N
ALLY

The sender’s email address was blocked.

“Holes?” Michael began. “I’m going to need you to do a few—”

Jade shoved the door open. “Four freelancers just crossed the street to the front entrance. Either they’re friends of yours, or we’re about to have a problem.”

“YOU’RE SURE
they’re freelancers?”

“Dead certain, and looking cranky.”

“Four men have just overridden the security lock on the front entrance,” Holes confirmed. His screen changed to show a camera image. Michael recognized none of them. Though all wore layers of dark grays, dark greens, and black, the cut and materials were dissimilar enough to not appear uniform. He saw no affiliate patches. Half wore visible armor vests. One had an orange tattoo across the left side of his face in a jagged, unfamiliar design. “At least two are armed with automatic weapons.”

“They might not be here for us.” Even as Michael said it, he knew it was foolish to hope so.

“We take that chance and we wind up cornered,” Jade said. “We’re out of here.” She grabbed Michael’s arm and tugged so hard he had to stagger to keep his balance.

“There’s too much here, I can’t just leave it!” Even if Marc kept everything related to the AoA in a secure fashion—and probably he did—he couldn’t just abandon the only ally he trusted. Ignoring Jade’s protests, he turned to Holes. “Holes, can we get you out of here somehow? Copy yourself out to another computer on the Net or something?”

“I am inhibited from self-copying by my internal protocols and the Bowman-Takashima A.I. Anti-Proliferation Act. I may enact a direct core transfer, however to do so over the Internet requires a suitably prepared destination server and sufficient time for the download, neither of which we possess.”

“See?” Jade shot. “No choice. We go!”

“A better option,” Holes offered. “Mister Triton has prepared a portable AE-35 processor platform here that I may transfer to, with your authorization, in roughly two and a half minutes.”

Michael nodded. “Do it.”

Jade growled her frustration and dashed out of the room.

“The AE-35 processor platform is in the metal cabinet by the door behind you, on the top shelf. You must link it to my existing terminal beside the desk before I can begin the transfer.”

Michael spun to open the cabinet. In the living room, Jade grunted in exertion as she shoved Marc’s couch toward the apartment door.

“We’ll have to hold them off!” she called. “You got a gun?”

On the middle cabinet shelf, beside two thick spools of heavy-duty cabling, Michael found the platform: a black, green-trimmed piece of equipment about eight inches square and half as high, with multiple connection ports on one side and a smart-screen and projection lens on top. “Just a Panther nine-millimeter!”

“An auto-pistol? That’s
all
?”

“I’ve been in a damn coma for three months!” He found the right port and connected the platform to Holes’s terminal. “How’s that? Are we good?”

“I can conclude the process from this point,” Holes answered. “Mister Triton has developed protocols to destroy all local drives that contain sensitive information. Do you wish to enact these protocols?”

“Good idea. So long as that doesn’t include you.”

“It does not.”

“Go for it.”

In the living room, Jade leaned Marc’s coffee table against the couch she’d used to barricade the apartment door. Michael began to clear off a work desk to follow suit. “So I guess we’re not going out that way.”

Jade’s only answer was a glare as she rushed to help him.

“If they’re coming, they ought to be here any—”

Three knocks pounded the door and cut him off. As one, they shoved the desk atop the couch and backpedaled into the living room. Jade waved him back further and pulled from beneath the back of her jacket what Michael recognized as a RavenTech Chimera-20 collapsible submachine gun. Michael ducked into Marc’s office. Sparks flared inside the cases of the two computer towers in the living room.

Something heavy cracked the front door.

Michael tugged open the metal cabinet in the office and grabbed the two spools of cabling he’d spotted earlier. “We’ll go out the window,” he whispered to Jade.

The freelancers slammed the door again. He heard it splinter.

“Work fast!” Jade fired a burst at the door from behind the corner of the hallway to Marc’s bathroom.

Michael’s eyes darted through the room, looking for something secure. A closet door stood closed on the left wall. He jerked it open and began to wrap one end of each cable around a hinge. From the living room came a crack of wood. It sounded like they were pulling the front door apart, and seconds later, the desk, already poorly balanced on the couch, crashed to the floor. A spray of gunfire tore in from the living room to shatter the office window behind Michael. Jade’s return fire echoed back a moment after.

“Holes, how much time’ve we got?”

“One minute, thirty seconds, approximate.”

Michael’s fingers worked the cables into a knot. He grasped both cables, tested the knots with a tug, and then began to spiral them together as best as he could. A glance over his shoulder showed only a small corner of the living room from that angle. There was no way to see the front door or Jade. “You okay out there?”

Another exchange of gunfire was the only answer. Michael left the cables and drew the Panther on a rush to the office room door. Pressed against the tiny section of wall between the door frame and the cabinet, he peeked out to see Jade crouched against the hallway corner just ahead. The front door was torn away, though their couch-and-table barricade remained.

Michael fired two shots’ suppressing fire out the door. The angle was awkward; he was on the right side of the office door and couldn’t bring his weapon to bear easily with his right hand while staying in cover. He ducked back just as two of the freelancers leaned in from either side of the main doorway and sprayed bullets into Marc’s apartment. Michael spun along the side of the cabinet to move deeper into the room as the firing continued. Covering fire, it had to be. Make him and Jade duck back, then force their way in.

He shouted it as soon as the bullets let up: “Jade, get in here!” Staying low, weapon extended, he ducked back to the office doorway, ready to cover her retreat and knowing as he did so, she’d have to cross in front of him on her way.

A freelancer wrapped in a flak jacket clambered over the couch and fired a compact assault rifle as he went. Movement soured his aim. Bullets shattered Marc’s kitchen. Michael took aim just as Jade rushed backward toward the office. She blocked his view, firing. Bullets took the freelancer in the thighs. He screamed and went down. Jade fell back into the office, took a standing position just behind Michael, and then fired another volley toward the door. Michael followed suit. The wounded freelancer writhed on Marc’s carpet, his rifle forgotten beside him. For a moment, none of his comrades followed. Michael couldn’t help but wince.

Jade struggled to take cover in a way that would still let her fire but was having the same problem he did. The left side of the door was flush to the office wall. All they had was the right. “Shit!” Jade burst. “Of all the damn times not to be left-handed! Get back!”

With a guess at what she had in mind, Michael backed off, firing two blind shots into the living room. Jade sent a burst after his and then slammed the office door. They rushed as one to shove the metal cabinet onto its side, blocking the door.

“Won’t hold them for long!” he said.

“Oh, ya think?”

Michael went for the cable spools and pitched them out the window. They dangled and then unrolled toward the ground three stories below. If they didn’t hold his and Jade’s weight, the landing would not be gentle.

Something jerked Michael’s shoulder; it was Jade, yanking him back from the window. Bullets pierced the office door and the spot by the window where he’d just stood. Michael gritted his teeth and crouched low, facing the door, weapon drawn again. “Holes?”

Jade fired through the door. Michael followed suit. A grunt of pain and another hail of bullets both shot from the living room.

“Transfer complete in forty-five seconds.”

“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Michael shouted toward the door. He gave a shrug to Jade that he hoped would communicate his intent to stall. “Can’t we talk about this?”