Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (92 page)

“Ghanus and Liza-Marie,” Enna said. “We don’t have time for a full introduction, but they’re on our side. We’ve found a way out. We stashed Omega in a safe part of the city. We need to get you out right now.”

James held his breath against the protest of his muscles as he dashed from the cell. He picked up the rifle from the ’droid, and Enna followed likewise, taking the rifle from the security guard. Despite his situation, he felt a tinge of loss for the guard. He was just doing his job, probably under threat, another one of Fuentes’ sacrifices.
 

Enna checked her slate once more. “Fuentes is heading to her penthouse apartment. We should leave now before an alarm is raised.”

“How do you know her whereabouts? A tracking device? How did you get it on her?”

Enna gave him a sly smile. “She’s not the only one with a loyal team within the city. From the day we liberated the place, Malik and I have worked on developing our own interior squad of spies and loyal agents. I had one tag her yesterday after I heard rumours that she was fronting for the insurgents and Elliot’s ronin.”

“Why didn’t I know?”

Enna shrugged. “We didn’t know if we could trust you. No offence, but you were very... close to her. I hope you understand.”

He did. From the outside, it must have looked like he and Fuentes were in this conspiracy together. Maybe that was her plan all along? Not only to get close to him so she could fit him up for the scapegoat, but also to convince people like Enna—and Sasha—that he was apart from them, on Fuentes’ side.
 

“What now?”

Liza-Marie looked back up the corridor that led to the main cellblock of the justice department. It was a three-storey building a few hundred metres away from Fuentes’ presidential residence. “We take a maintenance tunnel out of here and head for the safe house where we have secured Omega. From there, we’ll try to establish contact with Sasha and Malik and find the location of Elliot’s data-centre.”

“What safe house?” James asked. “And we can’t just leave Sasha alone; she’s in real trouble.”

“We’ve already taken care of that,” Enna said. “I’ve had my guy in the security service send a team over there. Fuentes will think it’s her people. As soon as they’ve found them, they’ll send word. As for the safe house, Gabe and Petal had two secure places in the city. The first was found and destroyed by Jasper, but they had a second one just beyond the financial sector, in the basement of one of the towers. We can use the maintenance tunnel system and part of the metro line to get there.”

“Let’s not waste any time, then.”

Ghanus and Liza-Marie led the way, going further down the corridor, past the empty cells until they came to a door that opened onto a small cupboardlike room.
 

“Through there?” James said, wondering if they hadn’t made a mistake. “It’s just a box room.” The only things found in the room were a few shelves with various H-core cells and some maintenance tools, presumably for ensuring the smooth running of the cell doors and suchlike.
 

“Not so, my friend,” Ghanus said. From the squinting of his eyes, James could tell that he was smiling beneath the half-mask. Still, it didn’t fill him with confidence. He heard voices from the other end of the corridor and couldn’t help but sweat a little.
 

Ghanus ran his hands on the white surface of the wall below the lowest shelf. It looked utterly featureless, but as Ghanus felt with his fingers, James watched on as he found a seam in the wall. Ghanus pushed hard against it, and a door no larger than a metre square opened. The stench of dry air wafted through. A metal grate barred their entry.

The voices grew louder.
 

“Hurry,” James said. “Someone’s coming.”

Ghanus pulled a crowbar from his backpack and levered the grate open. A screech peeled out, and the voices stopped. Ghanus stood aside and pushed Enna and James in first. James coughed as he breathed in the dust and debris of things that had lain in the tunnel for God knew how long. The two Upsiders quickly followed and closed the hidden door and grate behind them, making the tunnel pitch black.

Enna took an OLED lamp from her belt and switched it on.

James blinked at the sudden change of light, but was appreciative of not having to crawl in the darkness. The tunnel was just large enough for Enna and the Upsiders to crawl on their hands and knees comfortably. James’ greater bulk, however, squeezed through, scraping along the sides, grazing his skin and the crown of his head.
 

From behind them, he heard the muffled staccato yell of someone finding two dead guards.

“We’ll need to move quickly,” Enna said. “It won’t take them long to discover the various routes out of the prison complex.”

“How long does this go on for?”

“A kilometre and a half.”

James’ heart sank. At this rate it’d take them an hour or more to reach the end. He tried not to think about getting stuck and being an easy target. Of course, not thinking about it meant it was all he could think about. I should have stayed at Criborg.

Chapter 27

Malik tried to beat away his captors, but there were too many of them. A group of ronin dragged him away from Sasha’s body. He screamed, tears streaming down his face, murderous intent rising within him like a bonfire. He would see the entire place burn if he had the chance.
 

He bit the hand of one of the guards who tried to hold his head in place. The guard yelped. Malik received a crack on the back of the head with a baton for his troubles. He choked and struggled, but they continued to drag him away.
 

Eventually, they brought him to the room from whence he had escaped. Inside was the body of the ronin who had wandered by with the box of chips. That brought a terrible vengeance from his compatriots.

They flung him to the floor and surrounded him. He tried to regain his balance, but their constant attacks sent him sprawling. His whole body grew numb to the attacks until he remembered Sasha’s still, pale face. He refused to give up; he roared like a pained animal, caught a leg as yet another kick flashed out. Malik dragged the ronin to his level, blocking the attacks from the others.
 

The ronin he’d downed was an older male, in his fifties, carrying a bit too much weight. He hit the ground hard, winding himself in the fall. Malik hurled himself onto the man’s chest and rained down vicious punches, breaking the man’s nose and jaw, knocking him out instantly.

Malik pulled back a fist, ready to deliver another strike, when one of the others grabbed his wrist and yanked him off the older ronin. He heard the sound of metal blades being unsheathed.
 

The remaining four slashed at Malik’s arms with their daggers. He yelled with each cut. They continued their attacks until he wished to join Sasha, wherever she may be.
 

“Please...” he said, “kill me... just kill me.”

The cutting stopped.
 

A ronin with optical implants kneeled over his bloodied body. “Death’s too good for you. You’re the great hero, anyway. Silverman the Undying they call you, isn’t that right? Strongest will to live in all of Libertas? Our first true hero. No, you won’t die. You’ll suffer. And then you’ll answer to Elliot. You’ll answer to all of us.”

Implant-man spat at Malik before ordering the others to prepare him for the chip installation.
 

“Make it quick,” he said to them. “No need for anaesthetic for this one; he has a high tolerance for pain, it seems.”

The group lifted him, dumped him in the chair, and reinstalled the restraints on his wrists and ankles. He didn’t have the strength or desire to resist. His entire body had begun to shut down in response to the pain. It was only their voices and movement that stopped him from falling unconscious... and that curious banging noise coming from somewhere outside of the compound.
 

It grew louder so that the ronin stopped what they were doing. Implant-man ordered one of them to check it out while the others helped the elder one, whom Malik had beaten down, to his feet.
 

“Shit, we’ve got company,” the one by the door said, looking panicked.
 

Before the ronin could react, the one by the door flew back in a spray of bullets, his body jerking violently with each shot. The four other ronin grabbed their pistols and aimed at the door, but it was futile. A smoke grenade rolled through, obscuring all vision.

Within the grey smoke, Malik saw a number of shadows enter the room, followed by a series of muzzle flashes and accompanying screams, which he assumed were from the ronin. A further blast of coordinated shots fired out, making Malik wince with the pain in his ears.
 

A hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him. A voice was saying something, but the ringing in his ears made it impossible to make out. He coughed from the smoke, and his eyes streamed, making his vision even blurrier.
 

The hand withdrew from his shoulder and untied his restraints. Someone lifted him out of the chair in a fireman’s carry and took him out of the room. The pain and discomfort eventually got to him, and he passed out just after he got a glimpse of a group of approximately ten men and women wearing old-school City Earth security uniforms and one of them injecting something into his arm.
 

***

“He’s coming around,” a familiar female voice said.

Malik coughed and cleared his throat. His head pounded. Everything sounded as though it were underwater. Thankfully, the searing agony of the cuts had dulled. He checked himself over; his uniform was in shreds, but his cuts had clotted.
 

He was in a room with comfortable decor: sofas, floor lamps, and armchairs. It was like something out of an old movie. Sitting in the various chairs and sofas were nine security officers. He recognised some of them from his old division before City Earth became Libertas. The one standing over him, scrutinising his eyes with a small OLED pen-torch, smiled at him. “Welcome back,” his old colleague said. It was Elaine.

He’d always remember her as the one who first stunned Gerry Cardle when his D-Lottery numbers came up. For months after that her colleagues would take great delight in reminding her of what she did. Gerry: the biggest hero of City Earth/Libertas that almost no one had heard of, and she had the unlikely honour of knocking him out and sending him on his adventure.
 

If it wasn’t for her, Gerry wouldn’t have found Gabe and Petal, and City Earth would have likely fallen to Jasper’s mad AI. In a way, she was the catalyst for the city’s safety. Still, it was kind of fun to rib her about that day.

“I guess they were right about your being Silverman the Undying.” She smirked at him.

“I hate that,” Malik said. “Makes people see it as a challenge.”

“But no one’s been equal to that challenge yet, old man.”

“Hey,” Malik said, sitting up and regretting it as his head spun. “Less of the old, you’re older than me.”

“By a few days. Besides, I’m prettier than you, so I look younger.”

Pretty was in the eye of the beholder, and to Malik’s eyes, he didn’t behold. There was just something about her face that always looked like it was sneering even when happy. Like now. And her blue, military-spec eye prosthetics were always unnerving. Like they could see way more than you’d want.

“You just relax,” Elaine said. “We’ll answer all the obvious and obligatory questions.” She sat in an empty armchair opposite his position. Between them lay a coffee table with a number of Red Widow shotguns and Criborg Rifles. The other eight security officers gave him nods of acknowledgement. He knew all of them apart from two teenage girls.
 

“Who are they?” Malik nodded to the girls, who were busy loading backpacks with grenades, ropes, grappling guns, and other essentials.

“My little sisters—twins,” Elaine said. “Mum wanted them to join the force to look out for me.”

“Aren’t they a bit young for all this?”

She shrugged. “They’re adults; it’s their choice. Now listen up. We don’t have much time, and things are about to escalate. You taking notes?”

“Wait... what about Sasha?”

Elaine’s face turned serious then. “We recovered her... body. She’s in the other room.” She pointed to a door.

Malik made to stand, but Elaine stood and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t. Don’t do this to yourself. She’s not... in a good way.”

His eyes welled up. “Are you sure she’s...” He knew it was a ridiculous question; he’d seen her condition before he was dragged away.
 

“I’m sorry, so sorry. But she’s... She’s not with us anymore. But you’ll get your revenge and justice; it’s why we are here. Why Enna organised us.” Elaine shuffled her feet and avoided eye contact. Malik could tell sympathy didn’t come easy to her. It never did. But it didn’t mean she didn’t care. She just wasn’t one to express it properly.

“What do you mean?” Malik slumped back into a sofa, willing himself to focus for Sasha’s sake.

“Shortly after you and the others defeated the Widows, Enna had the foresight that something like this... like Fuentes might happen. She approached me, knowing that I was loyal to you and your brother. She wanted to create a secure interior unit of security office and Cemprom engineers.”