The Lightcap (25 page)

Adam saw movement to his left as well and turned just in time to see a raised gun.  He lurched toward the Blue wielding the pistol.  A sudden bang assailed his ears as his stomach was pinched with a warm sting.  Before the shot, Adam had started to swing, and his swing continued despite the shock to his abdomen.  His fist connected with the jaw of the Blue, not hard enough to cause damage on its own, but the voltage discharged with a splitting snap.  The Blue dropped with a thud.  In his soreness, Adam could not help thinking he could get used to these electrified knuckles.

Adam turned to see Aria standing over the man who had attempted to beat her.  He lay partially decapitated on the floor, slumped sideways against the wall, his mouth opened in surprise.  Blood still gushed from his neck.  She wiped her sword off on the dead man’s uniform, leaving a thick red smear on his blue fabric and gold accents.  Pavel still stood in the stairwell.

“This way.  We have to find LaMont,” Aria said as she led the two men down the hall. 

The hallway reminded Adam of the hallway leading to room 4C in the Adaptech building, cold and white.  They headed to LaMont’s office, which lay at the end of the hall according to the datafile.  Aria held up her hand as a signal to the men behind her to stop, then motioned to her right with her sword. 

They pressed their backs against the wall to their right and Aria crouched down, her sword held steady in front of her.  A heartbeat later, she charged around the corner.  Pavel and Adam heard a shout of surprise, then the sound of Aria’s blade slashing through flesh, sickening and wet, followed by a gurgle.  A gunshot.  Two thuds.  The men lunged around the corner to see Aria bent over as she pulled her sword from two Blues.  She had stabbed one through the neck, then used him as a shield and drove him into the other man, stabbing him in the head.  The smell of blood mixed with gunsmoke hung in the air.

“Halt!” came a voice from behind them.  Adam turned with Aria and Pavel to see two more Blues bearing down on them in a full sprint from the other end of the hallway.  Pavel, closest to the Blues, reacted immediately.  He pulled his gun from his pocket and fired a shot.  The bullet hit the closest Blue on his upper right cheek, causing him to fall to the ground, carried forward by his momentum.  The remaining Blue dodged to the side, leveled his weapon, and fired twice at Pavel.  One of the bullets impacted against Pavel’s left arm, causing the old man to spin and fall at Adam’s feet.

The Blue advanced on Pavel, who lay motionless on the carpet, raising his gun as if to fire.  Aria still struggled to remove her sword from the neck and skull of the two Blues she’d killed.  Adam didn’t know what else to do, so he rushed forward, prompting the Blue to turn the gun on him.  Pavel swung his legs up, blurred against the dark navy of the gunman’s uniform, and kicked the gun as it fired.  Adam could have sworn he felt the bullet brush against the right side of his scalp before he tackled the Blue.  Pavel had twisted his torso while he kicked, and wrapped his arms around the Blue’s legs just as Adam’s hit sent the guard crashing on the floor.  His head bounced against the ground with a sound of cracking plastic, a disoriented look on his face.

Pavel and Adam got to their feet as Aria finally pulled her blade free.  Pavel bled from his left shoulder.  The bullet had entered just next to the ballistic vest, ricocheted off bone, and exited after traveling a straight path through the old man’s bicep.  Aria’s eyes widened when she saw the blood, and she raised her sword to strike the Blue. 

“Wait!” Adam cried.  Aria turned to look at him.  “You don’t need to kill this man.,” Adam continued.  “Look, his Lightcap is damaged.”  He motioned to the man, whose eyes rapidly blinked, focused on nothing.

Aria, incredulous, asked, “Are you fucking kidding?  Nothing wrong with having one less Blue around.  Besides, it could just be temporary.  Maybe the Lightcap will reboot, and then he’ll come up from behind and shoot us in the back of the head.  Is that what you want?  Let’s just kill him now and be done with it.”

Pavel stepped between Aria and the fallen Blue, grimacing at the pain of movement.  “Aria, we are supposed to be the good guys.  Adam is right.  There is no need to kill this man.  He’s no longer a threat to us.  If you’re that worried about it, I’ll take his weapon.”  Pavel picked up the man’s gun and stuck it into his waistband behind his back.  Aria said nothing and lowered her sword.  She remained silent while Adam tore off a piece of his shirt and tied it around Pavel’s upper arm, then turned abruptly and continued down the hall.  Adam and Pavel followed her.

They made it to LaMont’s suite without further interruption.  A monolithic slab of obsidian, shiny black with vertical handles of brushed metal, served as the door.  Aria did not pause to make sure Pavel and Adam were ready.  She pulled the door open and they stormed into the suite.  The door closed behind them with a hiss, driven back against its frame by hidden springs.

The trio was shocked to find themselves in an apparently unoccupied room.

Aria slammed her fist on the empty desk.  “Of course it would be empty! This was LaMont’s office while he was third in line.  With Montery gone, of course LaMont would take his old office.  Probably bigger, or has a better view,” she hissed.

They each went in a different direction to look for any clues.  The suite, with a main room several times bigger than LaMont’s office at Adaptech, looked as if it could have doubled as a luxury apartment. 
No wonder he spends most of his time here,
Adam thought.  A few chairs lined the wall along a bay of massive windows overlooking New Metra City far off in the distance.  Adam caught himself looking out, his ghosted reflection superimposed over the glass, speckled with the light of the buildings outside.  He heard a muffled noise from an adjacent room a few feet away and went to investigate it.  Adam was unprepared for what he found when he turned the corner. 

“Aria! Pavel! Over here,” he yelled.  Dej sat in an office chair, his arms taped down, his body slumped.  Adam could see Dej’s chest rise and fall almost imperceptibly, but could also see drops of blood falling from his chin onto his shirt.  He ran up and began trying to free Dej from the tape, but it was secure and Adam had nothing sharp with which to cut it.

Aria got to them first, followed shortly after by Pavel.  Aria cut the wraps binding Dej’s arms to the chair with her sword.  Pavel cleaned up Dej’s face as Aria worked.  Adam tried his best to stay out of their way.  Dej stirred and groaned, but he did not speak. 

“Dej,” Aria said, as she crouched in front of him and cupped his face with her hands.  “Wake up, love.”  She cried and wiped her face.

“We’ve got Dej.  We need to get out of here,” Adam said, then pointed back toward the door. 

Pavel, who had spent his time examining the few things occupying the office, turned toward the others and said, “We may have a problem.  It is clear they either expected us to come here or put Dej in this room for a reason—either as punishment or to get rid of him.”  His eyes jumped to Aria as he finished. 

Aria didn’t say a word, but she hoisted Dej by his left arm, her right arm behind his back to offer support.  His head sagged, but Dej appeared to be able to put some weight on his legs.  Adam rushed to grab Dej’s other arm.  The quartet made it back to the dark door, but it wouldn’t open.

“Are you kidding me?” Adam demanded.  “We walked right into a trap! That’s great.”  He could scarcely believe they hadn’t thought to prop the door open.

“It may not be as dire as you think,” Pavel said, walking over to a glass touchscreen mounted in the wall to the right of the door.  He touched it, and it lit up.  “I’ll take care of this, you take care of Dej,” Pavel said, his fingers quickly moving across the screen.

They carried Dej to a plush chair close by the entrance.  Aria snapped her fingers in front of his face in an attempt to wake him, but her action had little effect.  Dej’s eyelids were fluttering, but he had not opened his eyes or spoken.  Pavel called Adam over to him.

“This is worse than I thought,” Pavel said as he pulled up a file on the screen.  “Control access is completely locked out, so the door cannot be opened from here.  I was able to gain read-only system access, though, and it appears the environmental systems have been set to remove all oxygen from the room.”

“What?” asked Adam, not quite believing what Pavel said.

“That bastard LaMont is trying to suffocate us,” the doctor responded.  “This door is a hermetic seal and the windows have no seams, probably as a protection against potential biological or chemical attacks.  Based on the information I’ve been able to find, we have about ten minutes before we lose consciousness, and another ten, maybe fifteen minutes before brain damage, then death.”  He stepped aside side so Adam could see the information from the building’s environmental subsystems.  As far as Adam could tell, Pavel was right.

“Couldn’t we just use the electrodusters like before to zap the system and overload it?”

“Probably not.  Besides the fact the skin would have to come from one of us, I am not convinced it would have any effect, since control access to this panel has been revoked.” 

“Aria!” Adam shouted as he turned and looked back at her.  “We have more important things to worry about than Dej right now.  This room is slowly turning into our tomb.” 

Aria looked up at him, got to her feet, and said, “What do you mean?”

Pavel responded before Adam had a chance: “Environmental controls have been set to remove all the O
₂
from the room.  The doors and windows are sealed—no way for fresh air to get in.  We need to find a way out.”

Adam motioned to Aria to follow him and went back to the large floor-to-ceiling windows near where they had found Dej minutes before.  He walked over to the side of the chair where Dej had been seated, then looked and her and nodded toward the window.  Aria took the hint and positioned herself on the other side of the chair.  They lifted their respective armrests and turned toward the window.

“On three?” Adam asked.  Aria nodded.  They both swung back.  He counted: “One . . . two . . . three!” Their swings grew wider with each number, and they launched the chair toward their own faint reflections when the count ended.  For a second Adam thought their plan had succeeded, as the chair smashed into the window with a loud boom.  Steel and fabric met a tinted pane that bowed but did not break.  At the moment Adam was sure the chair would pass through in a hail of shards, the glass bounced back and sent the chair hurtling across the floor.  It slid with a screech and ended about a meter from their feet.

They tried again with the heaviest thing they could find, a large potted plant from the opposite corner of the office, achieving the same result.  Adam put his hands on his knees and bent over, panting.  Aria’s chest rose and fell more quickly than usual as well.  He wasn’t sure if they were just tired or if it was an effect of the diminishing air in the room.  Maybe both.  Either way, they had run out of things to throw at the window.

“Any other ideas?” Aria asked.

“No,” Adam said dejectedly.

Aria walked back over to where Dej was seated.  His chin rested against his chest, which barely moved as he breathed.  Adam went to Pavel, who still tapped furiously against the panel on the wall, attempting to find some way out of the room.  He looked up as Adam approached and asked, “No luck?  Me either.  This system is locked down pretty good.  They knew we were coming.”  Adam felt lightheaded.  The old man looked as if he was fighting for breath, his chest expanding and contracting quickly.  Pavel caught his breath and continued, “I don’t think there’s any way we’re going to get out of th—” The panel emitted an urgent sounding series of beeps.

Adam’s eyes widened as the image on the screen disappeared, replaced by two words in bold letters:

Pavel and Adam looked at each other dumbfounded, before realizing the message was likely directed at them.  Adam ducked around the corner, Pavel close behind him.  Seconds later there was a series of loud pops, followed by a low
whooshing
sound, then silence.  They spent several seconds waiting for a rescuer or an executioner until they realized no one was coming.