Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (65 page)

They nodded, choked up by the only display of real affection Gabe had ever shown.

“Right, I’ll see y’all shortly.”

With that, he approached the compound. He stopped at the door, remembering her demands to enter unarmed, and took out the stun-sickle and his pair of parrying daggers from inside his long duster jacket. He dropped them to the floor in full view, knowing she was likely watching, and walked inside.

***

The first room within the compound was shrouded in complete darkness. Natalya obviously used that to her advantage, given her OLED eye implants afforded her a level of dark-vision Gabe did not possess. But what he did have over her was familiarity. He’d spent many a day in this building, working with Enna. He knew it better than he remembered the shelter he grew up in.

As he stepped forward, he noticed an unusual scent. Normally the place smelled of various chemicals, NanoStem solution, and the stale aridity of computer coolant.
 

This was something entirely different.
 

Gabe never thought fear had an actual smell, but an acrid stench hung in the air that he knew wasn’t regular sweat. It had a greasy, pungent quality to it.
 

As he approached the next door, his arms outstretched, feeling his way through the series of furniture and work surfaces, he heard a series of muffled voices coming from the next room beyond, the room that Enna had used as a laboratory for her transcendent experiments. He guessed it was probably the kids. They must have been frightened out of their minds. He blocked it out, trying to remain calm and professional. Hoped that she hadn’t hurt any of them yet.
 

Natalya couldn’t be far away, he thought. Her silence offered an invitation to keep moving through the building. Being deliberate in case of traps, he walked into the laboratory.

The only illumination came from the cold, electric blue of Enna’s tanks that held her transcendent bodies. Like glass tubular tombs, five of them hung from the low ceiling in a row. Each one contained a body grown from stem cells, ready to receive a transcendent AI download. Gabe recognised the third one as the Cheska model.
 

The body inside faced him, the expression on its face completely neutral. He expected her eyes to open any minute, or perhaps that was just wishful thinking. He could really do with some help in here. This was beyond his comfort zone. He preferred the bustle of people, the low hum of computers, the challenge of battling AIs.
 

To a certain degree they were predictable, but people like Natalya—psychopathic, schizophrenic, and above all, a woman in a permanent state of grief, were an entirely different challenge. He, of course, knew this better than most, being so very similar to Natalya.
 

Perhaps because of that similarity, she had accepted him into the fold of the Widows and asked for him now. As though she were listening to his thoughts, she called out to him, her voice shattering the tense silence like an explosion, her strong Russian vowels and sharp consonants splitting the air.

“I see you, Gabriel. Creeping around like a thief.”

Across the room, some ten metres away, two red orbs seemed to hover: her OLED implants. He dropped into a defensive crouch, made to move his arms to the inside of his jacket, but then remembered he’d left his weapons outside.

“Relax,” she ordered. “Come close so that we can—negotiate.”

Five long strides and he made it halfway across the room.
 

She brought up the lights.
 

Four children huddled close together. They sat on the white-tiled floor of the lab, their backs against the grey cupboards. Natalya, a picture of calm, sat on a stool, resting her elbows on the flat chrome surface of Enna’s operating table.
 

She had plaited her dark hair into a single braid. A section of white hair striped through the plait. She wore traditional Mongolian robes: dark black with a red sash, the colours of Bachia. As brutal as Bachian justice might be, they still had the courtesy to give her their clothes.
 

“It’s difficult to negotiate when ya’ve got all the power on your side,” Gabe said.

She smiled. “Not quite, but you’re right to a degree. I do have power. But more importantly, I have information. Unfortunately for me, I found it too late. Maybe you wouldn’t have betrayed me had I known sooner.”

The children were whimpering. Their wrists and ankles were lashed with rope, and graphene tape wrapped around their mouths. Aged between five and ten, they struck a pitying sight.
 

“I saw the files on ya computer system,” Gabe said. “Ya found them, didn’t ya? I bet ya Sisters slaughtered them—those you called nomads.”

“Save your judgement. You think you’re so innocent with your stupid hat and name? You may believe you’re some kind of preacher, but you’re savage! You kill like the rest of us. You’re no better than anyone on this God-forsaken planet.”

Gabe stepped forward and slammed his fist down on the other end of the table. “What is it ya want? Why bring me here? Why not just kill the damned kids, blow up this building? Why the fuck should I care about any of this if ya think I’m a savage, huh?”

“Now, there’s my Gabriel. I like you when you have fire in belly. It’s the real you, not this simpering, pseudo-religious lie.” She laughed, reached a hand beneath the table, and brought out a palm-sized rectangle of metal with a small, square holoscreen.
 

“Shall we just end this now?” she asked, hovering a thumb over the display. “One press and it’s all over. No more struggle, lies, or guilt.”

Gabe’s heart thudded against his chest. Her words stung with the truth. His insides were blackened, ugly with guilt and self-hatred. There was a certain appeal about ending it, but the carrot she dangled in front of him was too much.
 

“No,” he said. “Ya wanted to negotiate. Let’s get to it. What do ya want from me?”

“Ah, now we get to the meat of the meal. It is simple. I exchange my life and freedom for your father’s.”

“How do I know ya’re not lying? I want proof first.”

Natalya reached into her robes, pulled out a slate, and slid it across the table to him.

Gabe picked it up, watched the video playing, and noticed the timestamp.
 

“Okay,” Gabe said, breathing in slowly, trying to remain calm about what he saw. “I believe you. What exactly is it you want me to do?”

Natalya smiled the smile of a victor, full of self-satisfaction.
 

He hated her for the manipulation, hated her for the confirmation that his suspicions were true. Back when he was working at the Red Widows’ home in Russia, he had glimpsed mentions of the ‘nomads’ and guessed from the terrible banter what had befallen them. To see the evidence on the slate only proved both what he had hoped for and what he had hoped against: that his family were alive, and that many of the group were slaughtered by the callous Red Widows.
 

“You will get me out of here, travel with me back to Russia. If I get back alive, you get access to everything you want to know. You might even get access to your family—what’s left of them.”

Despite the rage that built within him, he kept himself calm and tried to assess the situation.
 

He turned away from her, unable to see her smug face without wanting to punch a great hole in it. The fact she was offering this bargain meant she had insurance in regards to his family. Somehow the Red Widows in Russia would know of her death and enact her revenge. Which also meant that beyond the Meshwork, now offline for good after they had disabled Alpha & Omega because of the Elliot Robertson incident, she had some means of communication.

Additionally, it meant that because of the Red Widows’ terrible loss in the battle for the Dome and their subsequent defeat in Darkhan, their numbers only now existed beyond the mountains, and she had no one to help her in the vicinity.
 

He considered that this all might be a bluff and that the situation with the nomads and his family was fabricated in order to secure her freedom, but what he saw on the video could not possibly be faked.
 

And so, here he was again, like he was back in the Quarter: tied between doing the right thing for his family and doing the right thing for himself. Only this time, it wasn’t just himself; it was his friends, his new family, the ones he had grown to love in the absence of his own people.

If he did as Natalya demanded, went with her to Russia, he’d likely be killed, along with his family if the video was accurate, and he wouldn’t be able to help Enna and Petal successfully deal with the Gerry situation.
 

There were no guarantees that Petal could hold Gerry indefinitely.
 

And with James and Sasha working with the interim government in Libertas, they needed all the programming and hacking help they could get, given the threat of Elliot Robertson and the spread of the hot-chips through the city.
 

If he refused to go and took Natalya out right now, he risked the bitch blowing up the building and killing the kids.
 

“Why can’t ya sisters come and get ya? Bring my family here in exchange for ya freedom?” Gabe asked, trying to buy some time to think. While he continued the negotiations, he sent a message across his VPN to Petal, explaining the situation.
 

Within a few seconds, her cognition now obviously enhanced because of Gerry’s presence, she sent back a reply.

–
Don’t worry about us. We’ll find a way. You’ve got to do what you need to find your family. Just like you gave me the opportunity to find mine. Just like you sacrificed your safety in order to give me the opportunity, you now have to take this one. I’m okay. I can hold Gerry for a while longer, at least for now. If you find your family, perhaps you can return in time to help. If not... it’s not your responsibility. You have to go, Gabe. And we’ll find a way to help.
 

Damn her,
he thought. Her message threatened to bring tears to his eyes. It made it even harder to make the decision. For five long years since he found her in the desert he’d looked out for her, and she him. Together, they had survived through more fatal scenarios than he could remember. She was as much a part of him as Gerry was now a part of her. And to leave her behind while she needed him...
 

“I wish I killed ya when I had the chance,” Gabe said. “I counted at least three opportunities when I could have slit ya throat and let ya miserable life bleed out.”

“And I believe all of those were when we shared a bed.”
 

“You think any of that meant anything?” Gabe sneered in disgust. “I did what I had to do to stop ya.”

“So fucking me was taking one for team?” She stood then, knocking the stool to the floor, making the kids squeal in fright. She dropped the bomb trigger to the table surface in order to point at him. “You can say what you want, but I saw lust in your eyes, the hunger for me. You wanted me like the filthy animalistic man you are. You couldn’t control yourself. That’s the truth of it. You have morals of snake.”

He saw the opportunity, dashed to the side of the table, rushed forward, and threw a lightning-fast jab that caught her on the collarbone, knocking her to the side. Her momentum crashed her body into the table. She fell to the ground with a thud.
 

Gabe was on her in a split second.
 

He punched her as hard as he could in the head, knocking her unconscious. He grabbed the slate from the table and pocketed it in his jacket. He moved to the screaming, panicked kids, lifted them up onto his arms and shoulders, and moved out of the room.
 

He heard a crash behind him.

Natalya let out a slurred scream, “Gabriel!”
 

Ignoring her, he continued to move through the darkness of the front room of the compound, kicked open the door, and stumbled into the bright light, nearly dropping the kids.

Petal and Enna rushed forward and took the children from him. Petal unsheathed one of her forearm spikes and cut the ropes from the children’s wrists and ankles.
 

Behind Gabe came another shout. Natalya stood by the door, screaming his name again. Two green laser dots flickered around her body before settling on her forehead.

Gabe turned to the snipers, screaming, “No!”
 

Two shots and Natalya flew backwards into the darkness of the compound.
 

Gabe stared in shock. Blinked.
 

He couldn’t believe it. How could they have lied to him? He needed her alive. His soul seemed to die as the thought of the one person with information on his family had been so cruelly snatched from him.

The Bachian citizens who had been waiting around, watching, stood like statues, staring at him. He, in turn, stared at the door. He walked slowly back towards it, his chest thudding and his guts turning over with anguish. There, just beyond the doorway, lay Natalya’s body. Half her head was missing. A ten-centimetre-hole penetrated her chest, taking her heart with it. The gore stretched out behind her, glistening in the solitary beam of light via the open door.