Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets (20 page)

Mina ducked back around the door, trying to
draw a bead on the apparent monitor for the hostages, only to feel
herself being dragged back into the hallway by Miko, who
frantically pointed towards the back of the room, where another
figure was approaching. Mina couldn't doubt he had the counter
chipping, as she hadn't even registered his presence in scanning
the room, or at least didn't pick out the armed man among the
programmers.

She could hear more commotion from inside.
“Where would you normally stand to secure a doorway?” Miko
asked.

Mina started to point, even as she was
fighting the reflex to take her instinctive covering position.
“Bait,” she saw Miko whispering to her, as her friend ducked just
outside the door.

True to Miko's apparent expectations, the big
man coming out of the doorway didn't even seem to notice Miko
lurking just down the hall, instead immediately turning towards
Mina. He kept the door between himself and her, ducking around it
to take a shot. Before he could pull the trigger, Miko kicked the
back of his knee, causing it to buckle and making the shot go
wild.

Miko tried to follow it up while he was off
balance, but even with surprise, he was too fast for her,
recovering his balance and whirling about. Before he could pistol
whip Miko, Mina managed to dart forward and grab his gun arm. She
kept a death grip on his arm even as he came back about, swinging
his off hand right past Mina's guard. She felt the fist on her
nose, and the taste of blood, her vision blurring, but still she
held on so he couldn't get his gun free.

While he was occupied with Mina, Miko got a
second chance, sweeping his legs and using that momentum to drive
the man's head into the wall. He staggered back after the impact,
trying to clear his vision. This time, Mina was able to get a clear
shot without risk of hitting Miko, and managed to shoot him in the
chest while he was finding his equilibrium.

“Look out!” Miko shouted, as the second
figure emerged into the hall. It was all she was able to say before
a pistol butt caught her between the eyes.

“Miko!” Mina shouted, charging at the figure.
She managed to close the gap before he could get a shot off,
driving the man back into the room before he caught his balance,
though that was all she managed, as he managed to backpedal and
shift to one side before she could bring him down.

With Beth's warnings about video games
passing through her head, as Mina's reflexes screamed
'
left!'
and she started to shift that way, she managed to
jerk right instead. It was less the graceful dodge it should have
been than an ugly tumble due to the effort to fight her own
instinctive maneuvers, but to her surprise, it worked. The man
lunged right past her, striking thin air where her head should have
been. Unfortunately, the tumble didn't leave her in a good position
to counterattack, but it bought her time. Mina swept at his legs,
kicking him in the shin and causing his knee to hyperextend,
sending him tumbling back into one of the work stations. She was
trying to scramble to her feet when she saw him adjusting, leveling
his gun. Just before he could fire, there was a tremendous crash,
the sound of electricity and breaking glass, then screams
accompanied by burning smells.

Head still swimming a little, Mina caught
sight of Scott standing just behind where the guard had been, his
eye still jacked into the computer, now missing the monitor that
Scott had clubbed the guard with. “Mina?” he asked. “What are you
doing here?”

Chapter
Nineteen

The programmers had all been tethered to
their stations. Apparently, there were normally four guards on
duty, but two had recently left. When it was clear that Miko was
all right, Mina, Miko and Fulton started working on freeing
everyone. A double check of the cargo elevator revealed it to be in
perfect working order, despite signs stating that it should be
otherwise.

“How many of those chips did they have you
make?” Mina asked Scott as they were moving.

“Not very many. We managed to sabotage the
first batch before they caught on somehow.”

“Any idea how?”

“Testing, probably. They weren't very
good—real rush jobs.”

“Just like video games. No complete programs,
just a speed setting and specific set of counters?” Mina filled
in.

“Exactly,” he agreed. “And anyone using them
would be at high risk for eventual rejection.”

“Wonder how many of them know that?' Mina
mused. “Can you help us confirm all copies are accounted for?”

“Yeah, we couldn't get any outside data chips
or anything, but I've been storing a backup copy in my eye. Get me
to any computer with enough juice to run this, and enough security
it won't get out, and I'll be able to come up with a list for
you.”

“You said something about testing? We've been
having trouble with a couple of rogue FBI agents and ...”

“And police officers?” Scott asked.

“How did you know?”

“Because that's how they moved us all. A cop
showed up, said something to our boss about compromised security
settings, and insisted we all had to come with him and evacuate to
a secure lab. The boss confirmed it, told us all to go along. We
never saw him again, but I'm pretty sure he was in on it
anyway.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because that's what we were arguing about.
He was messing with some data transfers I was pretty sure he
shouldn't have been. Trouble was, he knew I knew. He reported me
for trying to hack the system, and blamed me for the things he'd
been doing.”

“How did you figure it out?”

Scott blushed. “I actually was hacking the
system a little. Only because Hawkins kept having trouble with my
security codes. I got locked out of the system a few times, and he
kept having to readjust things for the new guy. I was trying to
figure out why it was doing that, and ran into someone else messing
with it. I tracked a bunch of quick changes to the security
offices, but was kind of stuck, since to report anything to Hawkins
and Harper, I would have had to say how I knew. I didn't begin to
suspect it was anything like this.”

“Even if he was in on it, I don't think your
boss knew what he was getting into either,” Mina reported. “He's
dead.”

Scott paused. “Dead?”

“He's not the only one. Those rush jobs have
been wreaking havoc. If we're thinking of the right person, the cop
who evacuated you all is dead too—so is his partner. Can you tell
me what he looked like?”

“Was he hot?” Miko chimed in, from where she
followed close by, looking in good spirits despite her quickly
developing black eye.

Mina was blushing too hard to look daggers at
her again. “Will you knock it off with that?” she finally said.

“Hey, he was your evil boyfriend. Evil
boyfriends are totally not my type.”

“How would you know? You never saw him.”

“I just know these things, okay? I'm pretty
sure he didn't look like John Belushi, and if he didn't have the
eyes of doom, he was totally not my type. Besides, evil,” Miko
answered quickly, deflecting the comment like pretty much every
other time boys came up.

Mina just shook her head. “Hopeless.”

“Am not. I'm the chirpy optimist sidekick.
You're the grim floral avenger,” Miko answered back, losing none of
her good cheer.

Finally, Mina couldn't help but laugh.
“Floral Avenger, seriously?”

They were interrupted by Hawkins, racing
after them as they were about to emerge out onto the main campus.
“Uhm, agent folks ... there's a serious problem. I wouldn't go out
there. Some kind of shootout, and nothing is getting off campus. I
was trying to confirm what Agent Cortez was saying. I think Raymond
Harper, or someone, has everything all jammed up. There's some kind
of signals going around, all closed network. I'm pretty sure
there's people headed this way.”

“Then we need to get a signal out, and we
need to keep these people safe,” Mina declared, looking between the
programmers. “How quickly could you guys change the security
settings for the security system? If you sealed yourself in, and
changed the authorizations ...”

“They'd need a tank to get in after us,”
Scott said. He and Hawkins got the rest of the group turned around,
heading back for their old workstations.

“You coming, Mina?” he asked, noticing her
starting back in the original direction.

“I can't,” Mina said. “You guys have to get
people here—the cops, the FBI, anyone, everyone. Lots of
attention—not just a couple of officers either. I need to go find
my boss. I almost didn't call her in at all, and now she's pinned
down out there somewhere buying us time. I need to go help
her.”

“Then I'm coming with you,” Miko
declared.

“Not this time. You're still wobbly, probably
have a concussion. Go and keep Scott and the others safe, just in
case.”

“You need me,” Miko insisted, though she
sounded a little less sure of herself than usual. Apparently, the
comment on still being wobbly on her feet hit home.

“I need you safe, and I need the data in
Scott's eye. You need to keep an eye on them and make sure they get
locked in safely.”

“You sure you're going to be all right?”

“No,” Mina admitted. “But there's just some
things the Floral Avenger has got to do.”

* * * *

If what Scott had said was true, Mina was
pretty sure there couldn't be that many people out there with the
anti-Inquisitor chips. On the other hand, on checking her gun, she
only had seven shots left. On emerging from the building, she could
hear an exchange of gunfire from some distance away. She couldn't
initially get a good fix on it, with the echoes off the old stone
buildings, but did her best to navigate towards it while hugging
buildings and peeking around corners. As much as she was in a
hurry, she couldn't do the Director any good if she got herself
shot.

Along the way, she tried to raise her own
commotion, and to maybe draw some attention off of the Director,
smashing in windows of buildings and cars alike. Car alarms going
off diminished some of the ability to hear the occasional gunfire,
but she was sure they'd also get attention in their own right. She
didn't linger long, and whenever she identified camera
emplacements, she did her best to avoid them, though she was forced
to spend two shots taking out a pair of the wide-angle security
cameras, lest someone pinpoint her exact location. She wanted to
try and draw some attention away from the Director, but was only
willing to take so many risks. If she got herself caught, she
wouldn't do anyone any good.

A few times she considered trying to head
into one of the taller buildings to see if she could get a crow's
eye view of the goings-on elsewhere, but this time she listened to
the chip's instructions, and chose not to risk getting herself
cornered atop a building, if she got caught on any of the indoor
cameras. With only five shots left, she wasn't going to hold anyone
off for very long.

Finally, she came out on a hill where she
could see some hint of the source of the noises. There were two
cars crashed together, forming a V. From the hilltop, she could see
a figure crouched down in the crook of the V. The Director, likely.
She was surrounded by at least four people Mina could see at
different points down below. All had taken cover around the
buildings that bordered the parking area.

She didn't see any easy way to get to the
Director, or approach the people's covered points without drawing
attention to herself, and while she saw four, there could easily be
more she couldn't see. If she had had a rifle, she might be able to
provide a bit of covering fire, or catch one person by surprise,
but the pistol wasn't going to cut it. While she was confident that
Scott and the rest would figure out a way to get past whatever was
cutting them off and get help, she had to figure out a way to buy
some time. She also knew she didn't have a lot of time to figure it
out. While several ideas occurred to her, accompanied by the
now-familiar aluminum taste, she discarded those, since anything
that was going to come via her chip would have been accounted for.
She had to think as something other than an Inquisitor.

Her face broke out into a grin as a thought
occurred. If she couldn't think like an Inquisitor, she did know
how to think like a landscaper. The parking areas bordering campus
had been part of the beautification processes. The University had
fields and flower beds and lawns, all of which needed maintaining.
All of that took supplies.

She bolted out across open grass, headed for
the area where they kept the maintenance truck. She'd driven one
like it a few times—slow and ponderous, more good for hauling
irrigation equipment, sod, or whole trees than it was for any kind
of maneuvering. It would serve her purposes perfectly.

Mina broke into the shed and uncurled all of
the gardening hose in the place, tying it everywhere she could find
a secure place about the supply shed. The other ends of the hose
she ran out to the truck, tying it about the towing hitch and
anywhere else she could find to tie it off. Then all of the towing
chain and every bit of rope she could find was used as well. Before
closing the shed, she grabbed a pair of respirator masks, and two
sets of goggles, pulling one set on.

She hotwired the truck and started to pull.
At first the wheels just dug in, dirt shooting back in a rooster
tail behind her, but at last they found purchase, and the shed
broke off its foundations, towed behind the heavy truck.

Just as she was celebrating her victory over
the foundations, she saw two cars coming at her. Both jumped the
curb, coming fast across the lawns. Mina gunned the engine, heading
straight towards them. The thick windshield cracked as bullets came
at her from the oncoming cars, then splintered in at the next shot,
making her shield her eyes for a moment and duck as low as she
could. She jerked the wheel hard to the side, at first getting only
a sluggish response, but eventually, she turned, barreling right at
one of the cars. It lost its traction in the grass, skidding out of
the way as she passed the other, her passenger side window blowing
in with a shot. She could see in her side view both cars recovering
and turning to pursue. They'd catch up with her soon enough—she was
just trying to get to the top of the hill before they did.