Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (81 page)

As if compelled by her seduction, every worry and concern melted away like a snowball in summer, to be replaced with the heat of wanting. Step after step he moved forward, approaching the foot of the bed. Fuentes leaned forward and curled a finger towards herself, beckoning him on.

“I’ve been waiting,” she whispered, low and sultry. “We’ve got a lot of issues to deal with.”

“Oh?”

She patted the space next to her on the bed. “But before business, how about a little pleasure?”

James removed his tie and jacket and approached Rosario Fuentes with a greedy smile on his face.

Chapter 13

Sasha opened her eyes. They felt heavy, stuck with glue. Light poured in, blinding her with a blanket of white like a blizzard, making her squint against the brightness. She tasted a bitter film on her tongue, and she smelled a musk of spices and oil. Her head pulsed with an insistent and throbbing ache.
 

A touch on her bare right forearm made her jump. Three fingers glided across her skin so very faintly she imagined moths flittering against her, attracted by the light. Close to her ear she felt the touch of warm breath. The combined sensations made her shiver. She recognised the scent now that her head was clearing.
 

“Wake up, Snow White.” The voice lulled to her, rich and deep. She had a flashback to the first time Jimmy had awoken her from stasis. Only this wasn’t Jimmy.
 

Restraints around her ankles and wrists prevented her from sitting up from the flat surface.
 

“You have a function to perform. A small but vital one.” The voice was overhead now.
 

Opening her eyes wider, she saw a shadow creep over her. A man’s head blocked the glaring light. Upside down, he smiled at her. He was standing behind her and leaning over.
 

It was the man from the bunker, the man with the fine suit and the dark eyes.
 

“Who are you?” Sasha said.

“They call me the Engineer,” he said. “It’s a little pretentious, but a title like that helps focus people’s attention. Don’t you agree?”

“Depends, really.”

“Oh? On what?”
 

“On whether you can live up to the title. What is it that you’re engineering exactly?” So this was the guy the ronin workers were taking her to see before. She took some level of satisfaction knowing he had to come to her. She hated making things easy for assholes.

Her vision adapted now. The glare dissipated, and she could make out details. Above her a bank of white OLED panels shone. Towards the foot of the table she saw a holoscreen. A shape moved on it. Was that...?

“My name is Katsuo Ono,” he said as he took up a position beside her. He, too, was looking at the holoscreen. “And I will make you a very simple offer. You’ll have a choice. I’m not a barbarian, but I do have goals I’d like to attain. I’m sure you understand. It’s the way of this world now, after all, is it not?”

The form on the holoscreen grew sharper as her sight focussed. A man was sitting in a chair. Beside him were two ronin women in green medical shifts. They wore facemasks and white gloves.
 

One of the women lifted the man’s head.

“Malik!” Sasha strained against her straps, arching her back off the table for leverage. She thrashed her arms and legs, banging her calves and elbows against the surface. Spittle flew from her mouth as she screamed with rage.
 

Katsuo placed a hand on her arm. “There, there. No need to panic. He’s in good hands.”

She recoiled at his touch, lizardlike with his dry, raspy skin and tentative exploration of her flesh. She turned her head to him and saw the glee in his eyes, wide and dark like voids. No emotion beyond a dispassionate curiosity.
 

“What is it you want?” Sasha said, wanting it over with, whatever it was he had planned.
 

“I want you to make the right decision.” He crossed his arms across his slight chest and leaned back against the white wall. To his left, stacks of servers were arranged in a vertical rack: Family-made Quantum-core units.
 

“Well? I’m waiting,” Sasha said.
 

“Your friend has a potentially fatal wound. He’s lost a lot of blood and doesn’t have much time to live unless he receives emergency medical attention. Which, of course, we’re prepared to give.”

“If?”

“Yes, if you make the right decision. If you willingly accept a ronin-chip and give yourself to your real father, Elliot Robertson, your friend will be saved. However, if you choose not to, you both die. I trust it’s a trivial decision. I’d hate to waste such a wonderful creation such as you. You would be a fine companion, not to mention a fine addition to our cause. It’d be like coming home to your family.”

“What cause is that exactly? All I’ve seen you and your group do is murder innocent people.”

“Every cause requires a sacrifice. Didn’t you and your allies sacrifice a great deal in order to prevent the Red Widows from taking the Dome?”

“That’s different,” Sasha said, squirming against the straps. “That was war.”

“And you think what we’re doing is different? Let me tell you something. You would not have won that war if it weren’t for him diverting the nuclear missiles from the Family’s station. You would not have the freedom from their tyranny now if it wasn’t for Elliot providing this city with a protective shield—the Family cannot send or receive data with us. They are adrift and no longer a threat. Elliot and the ronin who ally with him have done more to free this city than you or anyone else.”

“You want to enslave the population! For fuck’s sake, you and Elliot just want to replace the Family. You just want to be the new gods. You’re no different.”

Katsuo shook his head and sighed, dropping his shoulders. “You’re blind, my dear. For all of your advancements and altered upgrades, you still can’t see.”

“Then explain to me what I’m missing.”

“We want this city; that is correct. But not to rule with tyranny. But to guide humankind.”

Sasha smiled and laughed. “You sound just like them. Both the Family and the Red Widows. You’re as delusional as they were. Elliot’s nothing more than a cult leader and you his lieutenant. You’re spouting the same old shit. You are the same shit. You just have nicer clothes.”

Katsuo ran his fingers from her wrist and slowly, lightly traced a path up her arm and to her neck. He gripped her throat and squeezed while bringing his face just inches from hers.
 

“Shit with power,” he said, low and slow, full of threat. “You have a choice to make. The chip, or Malik’s death.”

He stood then and turned to face the holoscreen. His face went blank for a moment—sending a message across his network to those in the medical room. The two women reached out of view and returned holding a pair of chromed, surgical blades: long and curved with a row of small, serrated teeth. They were clearly designed for limb removal.
 

The women stood on either side of Malik. Panic grew in his eyes when he saw what they were holding. He thrashed to no avail within his chair. He opened his mouth, and his face pulled taut, screaming a silent scream.

“They’re really good,” Katsuo said. “He will die, but not for a while. With the application of localised ’Stem use, it’s surprising just how much meat the human body can lose before expiring.”

Sasha squeezed her eyes shut. A phantom scream entered her head as she imagined Malik’s fear and pain. Ever since she arrived in his life, he’d experienced nothing but pain. First on the battlefield, where she thought he was dead, to losing his leg chasing after her, and now this.
 

Guilt welled up inside like a tidal wave. Rushing up from the depths of her stomach to her throat, it came rushing out in a torrent of words.
 

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it. Just don’t hurt him anymore. Please, help him. He’s a good man. I’ll do it.”

She let her head fall back to the surface of the table and choked back the tears. Tears for putting Malik and herself in this position, and for having to give in, to give them and Elliot what they wanted. She was betraying her friends, the city she helped liberate, and her very core of what made her who she was. But behind it she had a flicker of hope, a growing seed of an idea.
 

If they were going to hook her up to Elliot and the ronin network, perhaps she could fight them from within. Use her relationship with Elliot to seek an advantage if possible.

Katsuo nodded before his face had that same brief, blank expression as he sent a message to the women. They stood back and placed the blades out of view. Katsuo turned to Sasha then. Stroked her hair back from her head and face.
 

“You did the right thing,” he said, smiling with the countenance of a predator who had cornered his prey. “It won’t be as bad as you think. Your father is—magnificent.”

Sasha swallowed back her earlier outburst, breathed deeply, and composed herself. “What exactly will he do with me? What’s my role in all this?”

“I’ll let him explain that to you once you’re on the network. But let’s just say you and your real father will be real close.”

With that, he approached the door. “Your procedure will start in the morning.”

“Wait, you’re gonna keep me strapped here overnight?”

He ignored her and closed the door behind him. The holoscreens remained on as she watched Malik sitting, strapped to the chair, his face taut with pain and fear. Somehow she would get him out... somehow.

Chapter 14

Gabe slowed his quad-bike as the headlights cut through the late evening darkness to illuminate the edges of a ruined town. He brought the bike to a crawl and swept the lights slower over the ruined town, looking for signs of life. Bandits would often infest these places, waiting for the few survivors left to stumble upon them.
 

Nothing moved. He heard nothing beyond the low whine of the two bikes’ H-core engines.
 

He sent Petal a message across their private network.
 

–
I think we should camp here overnight. We’ve got at least another day’s trek to get to Xian’s.

– Agreed. We should split up, take the flanks, and check for any potential scumbags. Oh, and there’s another thing. I’m detecting a wider network out here. I say I, but I think it’s Gerry inside my head, doing what he does, but there’s definitely something around.
 

– Maybe someone brought Omega online? Could it be the Meshwork?
He knew it wasn’t as soon as he said it; otherwise he would have picked up on it too. Since they’d left Bachia, there was no sign of an online network anywhere. Must be suppressed by Elliot.

–
No, it’s not that. There’s no initial nod. It’s far-reaching. There’s traffic there. I can see Gerry doing his magic inside my nut analysing it, sorting it. It’s weird, man, it’s like I’ve got two brains or something. But I still ‘feel’ him at work, you know?

Of course, Gabe had no idea. How she was still operating as normal, in fact, better than normal, with Gerry’s mind inside her was something he couldn’t understand. She never ceased to amaze him at what she was capable of—far more than James could have ever known. How much was his design and how much was down to her own evolution, Gabe could never know.
 

But he wasn’t counting his chickens just yet. Just because Gerry’s code hadn’t appeared to mutate to a detrimental effect yet, didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen. Elliot, James’ other two clones, and people like Seca were proof that it wasn’t trivial, and it never went well. Even Sakura and Hajime within Alpha and Omega hadn’t uploaded intact.
 

He put the thought of Gerry’s code breaking down out of his mind and concentrated on finding some shelter. He also wondered if this is where the Red Widows had spotted his family. Were they here, hiding somewhere, worried that he and Petal were looters or worse?

–
I’ll scout the interior,
Gabe sent.
You take the perimeter.
He’d look for signs of life as he went.

– Righto, Gabe.
 

They split off, with Gabe accelerating into the town.
 

Craters littered the outskirts, and he rode around them before finding a road. The surface was split and cracked, any tarmac long since melted off or salvaged for other uses.

He stuck to the narrow gaps between half-crumbled concrete buildings and fallen towers overtaken with moss and soy plants. He shined the swivelling lamp on the front of the quad into the buildings; his heart paused as he anticipated seeing the reflection of someone’s eyes, or spotting movement within the shadows. He strained his ears, listening for a voice, a scrape, anything.

Nothing moved. Everywhere was empty, dry, crumbling. Even the weeds seemed reluctant.

These kinds of towns were never fully reclaimed by nature. Most things couldn’t grow in the soil. The lack of rain didn’t help matters much either.
 

As he passed each building, a growing disappointment fell away like the decaying buildings of the town. There was nothing but rusted machinery, too old to determine their function.