Hammerjack (4 page)

Caleb exposed the others, and found the same thing under each cover. They had been hit in different places, burned in different areas—but the end had been the same. They had been blasted to hell by someone with a pulse weapon, then that someone had stopped to arrange the bodies and carefully cover them up. It was hard to imagine how in all this insanity a person could have thought to take that last step.

Then the wall above Caleb’s head exploded.

Red halogen burst into white, pummeling Caleb with sparks. He fired back blindly, sending bolts of lightning down the corridor to give himself cover. Then he ran, going several meters before diving into a small alcove. It wasn’t much, but it was outside a clear line of fire. Hauling off two more shots, he squeezed himself into the tiny space and waited.

Smoke and silence filled the space between Caleb and his unseen enemy.

A minute passed. Caleb checked his oxygen tank and saw he had already burned up half of what he started with. He was running out of the few options he had, and it didn’t look like his attacker was coming out on his own.

He peeled away the plastic mask and decided to do what he did worst—talk.

“You still there?” he called out.

Another searing white beam of plasma was the instant reply. An entire chunk of the wall in front of him came down, blasting heat and dust into Caleb’s face.

Caleb resisted the urge to return fire. “You see?” he shouted down the hall. “You’re shooting at me, but I’m not shooting at you. What do you say we talk this over for a bit?”

He listened closely. There didn’t seem to be anything at first—although Caleb thought he heard a quiet stammering, as if someone were whispering to himself. It gradually grew louder, words heaped upon words—fragments, incomplete thoughts, guttural sounds, gibberish. A man’s voice, babbling nonsense that finally built up to a raging outburst.

“
I WON’T LET YOU DESTROY HER!
”

Caleb braced himself for another onslaught, to complete the rage that crossed the short distance between them. But the voice only collapsed into choking sobs—which was, if anything, even more dangerous. If this man were suicidal as well as homicidal, Caleb’s chances of getting out of here were pretty slim.

“That’s okay, partner,” Caleb said. “Nobody’s here to destroy anything.”

“
Liar!
” the man shot back. “That’s what they
all
said! But when everything went wrong, they came down here to
kill
her! They didn’t give me any choice.” After a moment, he added, “I
had
to defend her.”

“You talking about those people in the hall?”

“I didn’t want to do it,” the man said, his voice breaking down. “I tried to get them to stop. They wouldn’t listen.”

“I know,” Caleb said calmly, trying to keep his new friend from losing it entirely. “I saw the way you covered them up. That was real nice of you to do that.” Caleb waited a few seconds, then said: “My name’s Caleb. You want to tell me yours?”

“What the hell does
that
matter?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to be nice. If we’re both stuck here, we might as well get to know each other a little.”

Silence. Time passed. Then something clicked.

“Venture,” the man said. “My name’s Venture.”

Caleb blew out a sigh of relief.

“That’s a good start, Venture,” he said, hoping like hell he was on a roll. “You know, I’m funny about names. They never stick unless I got a face to go with them. You think that could happen, Venture? Any chance we can do this face-to-face?”

“Why? I’m just going to shoot you.”

Crazy,
Caleb thought,
but logical
.

“Listen,” he continued, “I’m going to be honest with you, Venture. I’m not CSS. I don’t even work for the Collective. I’m just a guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like you. And I want to get out of here, just like you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I have to protect her.”

“
Her?
Who is she, Venture?”

“Lyssa,” Caleb heard him say, then the sound of footsteps moving away.

The same thing Holcomb said before he checked out . . .

“Venture?” Caleb asked. “Venture, are you still with me?”

No answer. It was possible that Venture could have made a run for the elevator, but Caleb doubted it. The man had made his decision the moment he iced his colleagues. Whoever or whatever Lyssa was, he was ready to do anything for her sake.

“Talk to me, Venture.”

Again, nothing. Caleb stuck his head farther out into the corridor, but only saw the damage from the firefight. No movement, no breathing, no voices.

Until he sensed something
behind
him.

Caleb lowered his weapon. He knew the drop was on him now.

“Here I am,” Venture said.

Caleb turned around slowly, not knowing what to expect—and was struck by how
ordinary
Venture was. He looked every inch the company man, his tailored suit and silk tie still in place, his hair and face composed neatly—as if ambushing his colleagues had never made him break a sweat. Very little about him suggested that this was anything but another day at the office. The pulse rifle in his hands was the only hint of the madness that swelled beneath.

Caleb dropped his gun.

“This isn’t what you want, Venture,” he said.

“I know,” Venture replied. “But it’s the only thing that matters.”

A bright blue flash erupted from the rifle. Caleb had the vague sensation of hollowness, then cold as air rushed in to fill the vacuum.

The floor came up to meet him. After that, sweet darkness.

Venture was remorseful. It had been the same as when he murdered his associates, but the path between that stare and his conscious mind had been short-circuited. Need dictated action, unfettered by the demands of morality. That his sanity had been a victim was, at this point, incidental.

He dropped the pulse rifle. Pulling off his coat, he draped it over Caleb’s body. It was the least Venture could do for him. After all, the man had only come to help. But like all the others, that help was misguided and unwelcome. Venture was the only one who understood.
She
had made certain of that.

Walking back toward the elevators, he stopped long enough to cover the remaining dead once again. He avoided their stares until everything was back in its proper place, then continued down the corridor in the direction of the Tank. His legs carried him of their own accord, his arms dangling at his sides unnoticed. Venture was now slowly disconnecting from his mind as he had disconnected from his conscience—a blind man feeling his way along automatically, with only a single thought bubbling up from the most reptilian complexes of his brain.

Thy will be done. Thy will be done. Thy will be done
. . .

Final destination—a double set of blast doors sealing the Tank from the outside world and every living being that would threaten it.
She
had tried to keep them open, but Venture had tripped the emergency override to take control of the floor’s sentry system. He keyed the entry sequence into the access panel next to the doors, which then parted and allowed him to enter. He disappeared inside—and although there was no one left alive to hear them, the sounds of voices echoed down the corridor like ghosts moving through the walls.

“I’ve done it,” Venture said. “You’ll be safe now.”

“I didn’t ask for your help,” came the reply—a woman’s voice, measured and soothing. An ideal voice, perfect in every way. It betrayed no outward emotion, but the undertone was somehow desperate. “What happens now is inevitable. The damage has already been done.”

Venture began to break down. “I won’t let them kill you,” he trembled. “Don’t you see? Nothing else matters!
Nothing!
”

“This was not my choice, Venture.”

“It isn’t your choice to make.” Venture was sobbing now, his words coming out between breaths. “I
swore
to protect you. I
have
to . . .”

Silence. The blast doors slid closed as Venture slipped away completely, his insanity running its course. As soon as they were sealed, there was the hiss of escaping air.

“
. . . have to protect . . .
” Venture babbled, loosed from any logical train of thought.

“So do I,” the female voice said.

Venture gasped as the room went to vacuum, then screamed as his world became red.

“This is the
Zone,
man,” Cray Alden heard someone say as he walked into the staging area, the attitude behind the voice pumped with synthetic steroids and the usual macho bullshit. “Sectors on the outside don’t see it like we do. When it starts to come down, I ain’t even gonna
wait
to see what happens before I frag ’em. Don’t matter to me as long as I collect.”

It was the Zone agent’s mantra: pay for play. Without the cash, you might as well be dealing with a Boy Scout. That was the way it worked in the Franchise Zones, especially out here in the Asian Sphere. Sleaze and civilization had been one and the same here for centuries, untold pleasures opening the door to dirty riches.

That made for plenty of players, and where there were players there were runners: high-tech polar opposites of the kind of muscle in this room. The commerce of illegal information was big business, and there was usually no shortage of takers.

“I know, man, I know,” another one of them picked up. “I think it’s better to bring them in cold anyway. Seen runners do some crazy shit. Do yourself a favor and take ’em out the second you get a clean shot.”

“Just as easy to dig flash from a corpse,” someone agreed casually.

“Yeah, but then you miss out on the fun part,” another observed. “You ever see an open extraction? Never heard screaming like that in your life.”

This brought forth a howl of laughter, the kind Cray only heard when he was in the company of these missing links. He could smell the raw meat on their breath.

Cray would have preferred to do this by himself, but the Collective didn’t allow that kind of leeway inside the Zone. Instead he had been assigned four agents to assist him in the interception—overkill as far as Cray was concerned, but to his superiors there was no such thing. Each of the agents carried three visible weapons, although Cray was certain they had more tucked away in the camochrome armor that plated their bodies. He hated working with them. Every time he heard them laugh, he lost a little more faith in the human race.

The cackles gave way to the pounding of boots as they saw Cray walking in. It was a thing they did whenever they met the man in charge of the mission—a sort of tribal rite that had more to do with tradition than actual respect. They also put on a show with their armor, the camochrome pixels changing colors as Cray walked past, making them bright one second and nearly invisible the next. The effect was eerie, and made them seem even less real.

Cray didn’t try to hide his contempt. They wouldn’t have cared anyway.

“That’s enough,” he told the agents as he took the floor. The noise died down as soon as Cray stepped behind the small podium at the head of the room. His tone of voice made the agents pay attention, but it was the money Cray’s boss had ponied up that made them listen. Phao Yin was the force behind everything Cray did, enough to make these agents think he was CSS—even though nothing could be further from the truth.