Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets (21 page)

She swerved side to side, causing the shed to
almost tip a few times, making it hard to get around the small
building. One car finally did, racing up to pull alongside her. She
jerked her steering wheel again, her heavy truck crashing into the
car's side, and a bullet ricocheted off the frame of her driver's
side window. The car fell behind again as its driver recovered from
the side swipe.

A few more shots rang off her frame, throwing
up sparks and sending more glass flying. Mina could feel something
warm on her face, her chip helping make her aware she was bleeding
from one of the sprays of glass. Shoving thoughts of injuries
aside, she pushed on, reaching the hill. Once she got over the top,
gravity took over. Mina did her best to steer at first, until she
got good momentum going on the hill. When gas was no longer needed,
she turned the truck at a diagonal, heading for one of the
buildings, then opened the driver's side door. She pulled herself
up out of the cab, and managed to climb around into the pickup bed.
Balancing as best she could, she darted across and dove off the
truck in a roll just as it careened into the side of the building.
Mina rolled with the impact, ending up tumbling down the hill. She
heard shouts of alarm, looking back to see the truck skidding along
the front of the building towards one of the gunmen's secure
points. Eventually, the front of the truck snagged, spinning it
around. The shed being towed came with it, crashing into the side
of the building. Mina went racing for the cover of the nearest
vehicles as the shed hit the wall near one of the gunmen, and the
wooden building exploded in a rain of gardening tools, splinters,
fertilizer, bark, pesticides and who knew what else. The truck
continued to spin out, chains and hose whipping out behind it.
Briefly, Mina hoped it might literally explode, like in some of the
movies, but even without anything going up in flames, it was a
pretty spectacular collision.

Amidst the chaos, she caught sight of a male
figure emerging from one of the covered points some way away,
trying to figure out what was going on. Aiming as best she could
through the thick haze of dust and fertilizer in the air, Mina
fired, dropping him and clearing her path.

Someone would figure out what was happening
before too long, but for the moment, she had cover and confusion,
and anyone not wearing a mask probably wouldn't be doing so well.
Mina emerged from her cover and darted towards the Director's
hiding spot in the V of the two crashed cars. She had almost made
it, when the sound of screeching tires caught her attention. She
managed to dart out of the road enough to not get run over, but
felt an intense pain in her leg as a bullet tore into it and Mina
tumbled to the ground, landed on her back and clutched her injured
leg. The pursuing cars rushed past her down the hill. My God, she’d
been shot! The wound didn't hurt as much as she thought it should,
and somewhere in the haze starting to overwhelm her brain, the
chipped thoughts told her she was going into shock. She let the
chip help push her into auto-pilot, crawling and fighting to get to
her feet and get to cover, while she tried to clear her head.

The vehicle was starting to turn about, her
pursuers ready to take another shot when Mina saw the Director
stand and fire a shotgun from the hip. The car spun out, and the
front windshield appeared to be painted in red.

Mina pulled herself up onto one leg, and
hop-scrambled as best she could, diving onto the hood of one of the
cars in the V, where the Director caught her hand and pulled her
across.

“You really don't know the meaning of subtle,
do you, Agent Cortez?” the woman asked. From her tone, it took Mina
a moment to realize that Fiona Richter had just made a joke.

“No, Ma'am. But I know how to make an
entrance,” she said, pushing the spare respirator and goggles
towards the Director.

“Did you secure Raymond Harper, by chance?”
the Direcor, asked while pulling on the gear. “I haven't been able
to get through to anyone.”

“I did one better. The programmers are
rescued and under heavy security. I came to find you. They're
working on getting past the jamming to get help here. With all of
them working on it, it shouldn't be much longer.”

Your stunt bought some time, but I don't
think this is going to hold out much longer. How many shots do you
have left?”

“Four. How many of them are out there?”

“At least seven. Or there were. Plus however
many in the cars pursuing you. Did you learn anything else from
your rescue, by chance?”

“If we can get Scott to a secure computer, he
has an account of how many of these chips got out. He doesn't think
there's very many. We're probably seeing most of it.”

“This may be enough.”

“Maybe, but we've thinned their numbers some,
and numbers help.”

“Yes, they do. And they have them.”

“No, no ... not like that. This is ... like a
video game.”

“Explain.”

“Their chips counter everything ours are
feeding us, but they're not very sophisticated. They kind of fix on
one action at a time,” Mina explained, while doing her best to tear
the sleeve off of her jacket to wrap around her leg, simultaneously
grateful she was starting to process better, less so that the
gunshot was starting to hurt a lot more. “If you can do something
they actually don't expect and divide their attention, well, it
sort of glitches.”

“And we don't need to stop them all, we just
need to buy a little more time for your friends.”

“Precisely. I'm a little low on ideas,
though.”

“Did anything in your apparently extensive
reading tell you how I lost my arm, Agent Cortez?”

“No, Ma'am.”

“Please follow me as quickly as you can. It
went a little something like this.” Fiona Richter stood from her
hiding spot, firing at the first sign of motion, then rushed into
the cloud. Mina did her best to keep up, noticing the Director
hunching low and leading with her cybernetic arm. She could hear
more gunfire, and once felt something graze her shoulder, but
nothing solid. They reached one of the hard points, finding two men
trying to draw a line of fire through the thick haze. The Director
fired her shotgun, but by the time she brought it about on them,
they'd adjusted to her line of fire. Mina got the idea, whirling
about and putting two bullets into one of the men before he
adjusted to her as well.

She was turning on the other, but he had her
beat to the draw. She fired, but nowhere near on target. He would
have had her dead to rights, had the Director not whirled about,
using the shotgun as a club, connecting with the man's neck. There
was a strangled sound, then another as the surprised gasp caused
him to inhale a lungful of fertilizer. Mina shot him point blank,
and only then noticed the Director's arm hanging limply, with newly
exposed and sparking circuitry in a number of spots. Mina traded
her the shotgun for the pistol and used the last shell in the
shotgun to blow the lock off the nearest door. They charged into
the building, emerging from the haze.

“Up the stairs,” Mina suggested. “And hope no
one is on the cameras.”

“If we head up, there'll be no way down.”

“Which they also know,” Mina reminded her.
“It took them a while to look up last time.”

“Reasonable, under the circumstances,” The
Director agreed, as the pair headed for the fire stairs.

With Mina's injured leg and the Director's
deadweight arm, getting up even a flight proved to be a major
chore. Mina was starting to feel faint by the time they'd gotten up
four flights. The Director grabbed hold of her with her good arm,
pulling Mina along up the last flight until they emerged onto the
roof. They took what cover was available, with the Director keeping
aim on the one doorway to the rooftop. Mina tried to pull herself
into position to aim the shotgun, but the dizziness grew worse.

She wasn't sure at first if it was just
ringing in her ears, or the lights flashing in front of her eyes,
but the noise eventually grew into sirens. Mina vaguely heard the
sound of the Director's comm crackling to life.

“Miss Richter, please advise.”

“Supervisory Agent Richter to all units,
surround the area, full net. Don't let anyone escape. Most
especially Raymond Harper.”

Chapter
Twenty

Mina woke up in bed. She felt weak, and it
took a while for the haze to clear from her thoughts. At first, she
thought she might be in the hospital, given the type of bed, and
the fact she had an IV drip. As she became a bit more aware of her
surroundings, she noticed Miko and Scott sitting next to the bed,
talking quietly. “Where?” she started, quietly, trying to sit up
with mixed success.

“Hey, Sleepyhead,” Miko chirped, turning her
attention to Mina. “We were wondering how long it was going to take
you to get up on one of those rare times you get to sleep in.” She
checked her chrono, then glanced at Scott. “I win. You owe me five
bucks.”

“You couldn't have woken up five minutes
earlier?” Scott mock grumbled, though he couldn't hide the smile.
“We were worried about you.”

“So, where am I? Mina repeated. “Are my
parents around? They have to be worried sick,”

“FBI HQ basement. Your parents have been told
you're in protective custody until an investigation finishes, then
you're being released,” Scott informed her.

Miko added, “Oh, yeah—released with strict
orders for no heavy biking or anything for a couple weeks. They've
got you patched up pretty good, dermal patching, blood transfusion,
the works, but you can't aggravate it. They'll just have to let you
use the truck.” Miko grinned a bit wider. “Though based on the
state of campus, I'm not sure you should be allowed to drive. Like,
ever.”

“Ok, so when exactly am I being
released?”

“We're all stuck here for a while. Your
Director and Miss Lasko wanted to be informed when you woke up.
They need to figure out what they're doing now with the information
Scott saved.”

“Exactly what did you find?” Mina asked,
managing to sit up, forgetting all about her leg feeling numbed or
the fuzziness in her head.

“It's not good,” Scott admitted. “Almost all
of them are accounted for. They're pretty sure Harper was high up,
but suspect some black marketeer is still out there calling the
shots. Still no idea how they got to cops, FBI agents and one of
your people. Worst thing, though, is that two chips are still
missing. While there's not a lot of facilities that can make high
grade chips, if they have even one to copy, you could end up
eventually seeing a lot more of those things.”

Mina nodded. “The Director mentioned an
emergency order. Bringing more people in on this.”

“You're probably going to have to,” Scott
agreed. “Starting with just going through everything at the
University and Harper's records to try and figure out where things
fell apart.”

“His records?”

“Raymond Harper shot himself, rather than
letting himself be taken in,” Scott informed her. “They're going to
have me working on hacking his files more soon, but so far, it
doesn't look promising.”

“You've been busy.”

“You've been out for almost 24 hours.”

“Then its time I get back to work,” Mina
responded, struggling to turn.

Miko grabbed her shoulder and stopped her.
“Uhm, hospital gown,” Miko said quietly. “Let Scott go let them
know you're up so they can come remove the IV and do this right ...
the Floral Avenger should not be fighting crime without pants.”

* * * *

The Director was waiting for the three of
them when Mina, Miko and Scott showed up in her office. Her
movements suggested to Mina that she'd also spent some time being
patched up, and her artificial arm was still in bad shape, but Mina
was still pretty sure the Director was taking better to her
recovery than Mina. She did her best, despite the limp and all that
had happened the last few days to look as professional as possible,
standing in front of Fiona Richter's massive desk. “Agent Cortez,
reporting for duty, Ma'am.”

The Director fixed her with a stern gaze for
a few moments, then sighed, relaxing just a little. “We have quite
the mess here, Miss Cortez.”

“I know, and I know I didn't always help
matters. I'm sorry, Ma'am.” Mina started, wondering again if she
was going to keep her job, or if she might end up transferred
somewhere, like the Director had been before her.

“I appreciate you taking responsibility for
your actions, Miss Cortez. Learning on the job can be a tricky
experience. We'd have preferred you to have a lot more training
before putting you on an investigation. You could use more
patience, and there's going to be a lot of questions from high up
on Miss Kimura's presence in this investigation.”

Mina nodded. “I understand, Ma'am.”

“That said,” the Director continued, “You
showed some good instincts. In your own unique fashion, you did
also save my life on campus. Trying to clean and cover that up is
going to take half the department, but I'm grateful. Unfortunately,
the case isn't solved, and we seem to have hit a dead end.”

Mina relaxed just a little at the hints of
praise. “That's what I was told. Two chips still missing, and a
dead end as to who Raymond Harper was answering to, right?”

“Precisely. Meanwhile, neither you nor I are
in condition to pursue this to the best of our abilities. Besides,
with all the attention they've drawn, the black marketeers involved
are most likely to try and get very far away from here. They won't
want to give us anything to follow up on, so the danger should be
past.”

“So you're pretty sure it is black
marketeers, Ma'am?”

“We've identified most of the people captured
or killed at the University, as well the burglar at your apartment.
While there are some exceptions, almost all of them have extensive
ties with smuggling rings or other major criminal enterprises.”