Inescapable (33 page)

~~~

Fox opened her eyes
and, for a second, wondered where she was. Then she realised that
the arms around her waist were Marie’s, as was the slim body
pressed against her back. Hot, wet sex had segued into steamy
lovemaking, become sleepy, fumbling groping before intertwined
unconsciousness. Marie had little experience, it seemed, but she
learned fast and she was flexible. It had been an enjoyable
night.

Slipping free,
Fox padded lightly around the bed as the shower started running.
Wash away the aftermath of the night’s athletics and… Maybe some
breakfast to fuel up
before
the repeat performance. That was
assuming Marie did not wake up with a blazing hangover, but there
had been no sign of that when they finally phased out. It was late
morning, but not especially late, and spending the rest of it
testing the limits of Marie’s flexibility seemed like a good way to
spend a Saturday morning. Maybe a fair amount of Saturday afternoon
too.

Marie, it
seemed, had alternative plans, though they seemed to be based
around skipping breakfast. Fox ignored the sound of the shower
screen opening, and the hands on her hips, but the trail of fingers
sliding over her stomach sent a flutter through the taut muscles
there.

‘Your body is
so strong,’ Marie said, her voice husky.

‘Military
grade,’ Fox replied. ‘Viral mods and tissue grafts. They strengthen
the tendons and add a few extra layers to the muscles.’

‘You can’t
tell. It looks, feels, natural. It’s so…’ Marie’s hands drifted up
to cup Fox’s breasts. ‘These aren’t enhanced.’

‘All mine.’

‘They’re
gorgeous, and so responsive. I never thought they’d be such fun to
play with.’

Fox gave a moan
as Marie’s fingers began to circle her nipples. ‘You’ve not been
with a woman before?’

‘You’re my
first. Not really had that much to do with boys either, but girls…
Thought I’d miss the penetration. Learn something new every
day.’

Turning, Fox
planted her hands on Marie’s butt and lifted, pulling her in,
covering mouth with mouth and keeping the kiss going until the
younger girl was forced to break it for lack of breath. ‘I have
something we didn’t get around to last night that can provide the
penetration,’ Fox said. ‘We’ll try it out after breakfast.’

‘Want you for
breakfast.’

‘Oh no,’ Fox
purred. ‘You’re going to need your strength.’

~~~

‘Fox, something is
wrong.’

Fox opened her
eyes and looked up at the rather worried expression on Kit’s face,
and decided that the AI probably meant it. ‘What’ve you got?’

‘It is what I
do not have. All communications outside the building have gone
down. The public access camera feeds from inside the building have
been disabled. I am blind outside this apartment.’

‘Internal
network?’

‘Still seems to
be functioning, but with some limitations. I can connect to Javen,
but the building administration system is responding with
unauthorised access messages.’

‘That sounds
alarmingly like a police lockdown. Drop Sam a message and ask him
to meet me in the corridor in five minutes. Make sure he’s armed.’
Fox turned, giving the unconscious redhead beside her a shake.
‘Come on, Marie, time to get dressed.’ There was a grumble which
Fox ignored as she rolled out of bed and grabbed a new bodysuit
from a drawer.

‘What’s the
hurry?’ Marie asked as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. ‘I was
thinking we might just spend the day in bed.’

‘I had the same
idea, but someone else may have had a different one.’

‘Sam is ready,’
Kit said. ‘He’ll meet us outside as soon as we are.’

‘Sam?’ Marie
asked. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m not
totally sure, which is why you’re going to get dressed and then
we’re going to head up to the administration level and ask security
what they’re doing.’

The only thing
Marie had to wear was her clubbing dress and there was no time to
fabricate something new for her. Plus, with the administrative
systems being less than responsive, there was no way to order
something from the building’s fabricator and have it delivered. So
Marie felt like a bit of an idiot as she followed Fox and Sam, both
dressed in far more casual attire, down the corridor to the
elevators.

‘You think
these will still be functioning?’ Sam asked.

‘Probably. As
far down as the entrance level anyway. Standard lockdown procedure
leaves the main elevators operational for evacuation and police
movement. Access to administration might be restricted though.’

‘We’ll handle
that issue when we need to.’ The elevators were working, sure
enough, and they accepted a manual request to go to the
administrative level which was mid-level in the building, not far
above the one they were on. ‘So far, so good,’ Sam commented. His
lips twitched. ‘You two had a good night then.’

‘Quite
enjoyable,’ Fox agreed.

‘How can you
tell?’ Marie asked, her cheeks reddening.

‘You need a
shower,’ Sam replied, grinning now.

‘
Another
shower,’ Fox said and then stepped forward as the elevator stopped.
She stopped almost immediately, drawing her pistol from behind her
back. ‘Sam, stay with Marie beside the elevator.’

Sam slipped his
own pistol free and pushed Marie away from the doors. The
elevators, a bank of three, opened onto a reception area which was
designed to handle personal problems the residents decided to deal
with in person rather than by telepresence. There was seating there
for people to wait on and a desk for a receptionist. From the way
the body was sprawled over the desk and the three small wounds in
its back, the receptionist had been shot from behind, presumably as
the killer walked out of the administration area beyond. Just from
the amount of blood pooling on the desk, Fox knew the man was dead,
but she checked his pulse before moving down the corridor behind
him.

There were a
few offices back there and she checked them, finding no one. They
were purely admin and it was Saturday afternoon: anyone who needed
to handle work then was doing it from their home, or wondering why
they could not.

At the back of
the offices was a heavier door, sealed. ‘There is no response from
the locking system or the security post,’ Kit said, appearing for
form’s sake. She still looked worried.

‘Tell Sam to
come up here with Marie,’ Fox replied and slipped a small toolkit
from her jacket. By the time Sam had arrived, Fox was undoing the
last screw over the door’s security panel. ‘Keep a look out,
please, Sam.’

‘You sure about
this? They’re going to be pissed off if you hack their door
controls without good reason.’

‘Fairly sure. A
control lockdown like this should have been notified to all
residents. There should be NAPA uniforms all over this level.
Instead, we’ve got a corpse on reception and no one around.’

‘And you can do
that?’ Marie asked. ‘Just break in to their security like
that?’

‘I’ll let you
know in a minute if you both shut up.’

It actually
took her just under a minute before there was a click, followed by
several thunks, and the door slid aside. Marie clamped a hand over
her mouth almost immediately to stifle the scream which was
threatening to rush out. The main admin hub of the building was
manned by two people who took care of security and everything else,
and they were both dead. Fox did not need to check their pulses:
the bodies were riddled with small-calibre projectile wounds, as
were several of the control panels and screens around the room. The
two main consoles had been hit by something explosive, from their
appearance. Someone had wanted to be sure no one was going to
countermand the control order.

‘Fox,’ Sam
said, pointing at an undamaged monitor high up on the far wall.

Fox walked in,
among the carnage, and peered up. The screen seemed to be a
security monitoring feed and the automated systems were still
working to some extent. They were showing camera feeds from the
lowest mall level where a man in NAPA uniform was visible walking
among almost empty thoroughfares. There was a large weapons pod on
his right arm and he seemed to be busy using it.

‘Shit,’ Fox
said. ‘He’s in riot gear. He’s got an automatic rifle and a
micromissile launcher, plenty of ammo in that backpack.’ She
glanced at Sam. ‘That pistol of yours is not going to get through
his armour. Lucky hit to his faceplate might get through. It’s a
little thinner there.’

‘If you go up
against him, you’ll get hurt,’ Sam replied. ‘That jacket of yours
might be lined, but it’s not designed to stop that kind of
armament.’

‘Are you both
crazy?!’ Marie squeaked. ‘You can’t go out there after him. What
the fuck’s he doing it for anyway?’

‘Good
question,’ Fox replied. ‘I’m not going to find out unless I ask
him.’

‘There is one
possibility,’ Kit said. ‘The evidence is extremely circumstantial
currently, and the pattern regressive, but he has ensured that no
one can escape him and is on a killing spree.’

Fox frowned.
‘Isn’t it a bit soon? We only put Deedle away–’

‘It has had
twenty-two days to find and convert another victim. It might be
reasonable if that victim was already predisposed to this kind of
behaviour. If it is that entity, then I find the choice of venue
too coincidental.’

‘What are we
talking about?’ Marie asked.

‘Something a
little complicated to explain,’ Fox told her, ‘but there might be a
reason for him going off the reservation beyond deciding New York
has become too decadent or something. Okay, let’s think this
through…’

‘How long
before NAPA notice something’s up and start trying to get in?’ Sam
asked.

‘That should be
happening already, but it may take them time to override his
lockout. We need to get him away from people. Maybe if he’s here
for me… Okay. Sam, you’re going to head down to the lobby. The
doors’ll be sealed, but I need you to get everyone out of there or
under cover. Then you find somewhere with good cover yourself.
We’ll lock Marie in here–’

‘Hey! I don’t
want you locking me up to keep me out of the way.’

Fox turned to
her. ‘One, you’re not armed. Two, you’re not trained. Three, you’re
going to be watching that screen up there and relaying where he is
to me over the network. I can’t get into the camera network, that’s
locked out, so I need you to stay here and tell me where he’s
going.’

Marie glanced
at the pair of corpses and swallowed hard, but she said,
‘Okay.’

‘Right. I need
to stop off at my apartment and get some different ammo. The
objective is to get him into the lobby and, hopefully, pin him
down. I’d prefer not to kill him.’

‘You might not
have another option,’ Sam pointed out.

‘And that’s why
I’m going to get the heavy munitions magazine.’

~~~

‘I am Nemesis.
Adrasteia. There is no escape.’

Fox could hear
the words before she saw the man: amplified and blasted out from
the speakers on the riot harness, they echoed through the wide
corridors of the mall. He was hunting, walking the halls in search
of people to shoot, and he had found too many as it was. Fox had
come across more than twenty bodies coming from the elevator. There
had been a few still alive, but she doubted they were going to last
unless they could be treated soon.

‘Do you see
him?’ Marie’s voice asked. ‘He’s still in that square, but he looks
like… Yeah, he just picked an exit going, uh, north, I think.’

In retrospect,
Marie was not the best person to have keeping watch. She did not
know the mall areas as well as Fox or Sam did and had to work off
the camera identity tag at the bottom of the screen as the system
followed what it considered a primary threat. ‘I can hear him. He’s
not far ahead. Sam, status?’

‘Lobby area is
clear, or clearing,’ Sam reported. ‘I checked outside through a
window and it looks like half of NAPA is out there trying to get
through the security barriers.’

The lockdown
would have closed the riot shutters on the building. They were
designed
to stop anyone outside getting in. Of course, the
idea was that they could be opened by NAPA from outside via remote
command, but the network was cut off. They would be cutting their
way in, which would take time. Too much time. No sense in worrying
over that right now. She heard gunfire up ahead and figured her
target had found another victim. ‘I’m going in. You might lose
contact with me in a few seconds, but if the cameras are still
chasing him, you can assume I’m still moving. Marie, you let Sam
know when the guy’s about to arrive. Sam, don’t engage unless you
have to, and aim for the face.’

Not waiting for
replies, Fox hurried ahead, rounded a corner, and saw him walking
away from her down a corridor. She raised her pistol, waited for
the lock indicator from the targeting system, saw the range
indicator show twelve metres, and pulled the trigger. There was a
crack, sharp, but not loud, as the chambered round was smashed
through the sound barrier by high-powered, electromagnetic
accelerators. She saw the three streams of propellant gas burst out
as the bullet made the three-metre mark. There was no course
correction, no need for it: he was half-turning at the sound of the
shot as the bullet smacked into his side and the payload
activated.

‘What?’ He
twisted, trying to work out, Fox imagined, why all his networked
comms had suddenly died on him. ‘What the Hell?’ He was just far
enough away that the jammer was not affecting Fox yet, but he was
probably going to get closer. He lifted his right arm and a
missile, larger than the round Fox had fired, but still very small,
blasted out from the pod on his arm. Expecting it, Fox fired back,
but this time her own round waited a fraction of a second after
leaving the barrel and then detonated, throwing a cone of
flechettes into the path of the micromissile. It exploded, throwing
shrapnel about, but Fox was already running.