“
On my word I
want you to run for the clinic,” Dan said, raising the barrel of
his pistol. The automatic doors were a tantalising seven metres
away, but it was across open ground so he wanted to wait until
someone came out. That way they wouldn’t have to wait for the
slow-action motors to open the sheets of glass.
She nodded,
mutely.
Dan scouted
the crowd, willing the Raven to show himself so he could to fire a
shot. He was a good shot and he blessed the weekly firearm practice
that
’
d permitted
him to retain his sharpshooter status. He felt confident he could
hit a human head at 20 metres. Of course, that didn’t mean he
actually could, he just felt confident. One of Zyclone’s side
effects was to elevate the patient’s confidence in his or her
abilities. He’d read the documentation that came
with
the packet but felt
sure he was compensating for the medicine-induced error in his
judgement.
That’s what they all
think
, he reminded himself.
A pregnant woman waddled
out of the clinic and Dan tensed. He didn’t want to risk harming
her if the Raven fired. As soon as she’d cleared the probable line
of fire, he shoved Jen roughly in the back and shouted, “Go,
go!”
She
staggered,
her legs
obeying slowly at first. But after a few unsteady paces, she was
sprinting for the already-closing doors. She risked a flirting look
over her shoulder but couldn’t see anything atypical. The
adrenaline flowing through her arteries helped, it made her fast
and
allowed her to
ignore
the otherwise incapacitating ringing
in her ears.
Dan followed,
urging her on and keeping his pistol in on offensive position,
ready to fire the instant he spotted the Raven. He stopped briefly
at the glass-littered bench and inwardly swore.
Somebody
might
sit there.
He hated the Raven’s
reckless disregard for public safety.
What
if that pregnant woman hadn’t been wearing shoes
?
He looked down
;
the sticky shards were burying into
the rubber soles of his new boots.
Oh
shit.
He knew he’d have to dispose of them,
if a shard wove its way into his carpet and he placed a heel on it
a year later, he’d die in a gooey pile of puss wondering how
it
’d
happened.
Titanium poles
fixed the bench to the ground and he held no illusions that he was
capable of uprooting them. But the cushions were loose and he
risked precious seconds in the open by tearing
them from the
bench and flipping them
upside-down on the ground. Then all he could do was hope the
cleaners were careful. He darted into the medical centre where the
receptionist was prompting
Jen
for her name and appointment
time.
Dan commanded all
attention in the room when he said, “We’re not here for a
check-up.” He cast an anxious glance over his shoulder to ensure
the Raven wasn’t creeping up on his blind spot.
“
What can I do
for you then?” the receptionist asked, doing well to keep her voice
calm. She was tall, at least six feet tall, and she’d wound her
blond hair into a neat bun at the back of her head. Her rich red
lipstick
and overdone eye-shadow
looked wrong against her pale skin but
Dan only gave
her a
perfunctory look.
Elustra had
built the medical centre to giga-mall specifications. Every surface
shined,
scoured
with
a hospital-grade cleanser that made
Drano
look like a toy solvent. The
mandatory theme was blue and white and even the receptionist wore a
uniform.
She looks like an evil
nurse
, Dan thought. But he also knew
Elustra’s giga-mall specifications meant there had to be a backdoor
to guard against
the
loss of human life
– and
therefore an expensive lawsuit
–
in the unlikely event that any of
the metallic surfaces caught fire.
“
Have you got
an exit out back?” Dan asked, his voice returning to its original
rusty-chainsaw timbre.
She looked defiant. “Only
employees are allowed back there.” She frowned in annoyance. “If
you don’t intend to make an appointment then can you please leave.”
It wasn’t a question.
Dan shook his head. “No,
sadly.” When he’d entered the clinic, he’d hid his 1911 pistol
inside the folds of his coat where it wouldn’t cause undue alarm
but was easy to access if needed. He chose that moment to pull it
free and added, “And I don’t have time to argue.”
“
Security’s on
its way,” she replied defensively while backing away from
him.
“
Good for
them.” Dan smiled, genuinely amused. “You can tell them we escaped
out back if you like.” He felt the building pressure of lost time.
Soon the Raven would arrive and the conversation would grind to an
abrupt halt.
“
Come on.” He
gripped Jen by the forearm; she was wide-eyed and dazed. “We’ll
find it ourselves.”
He led her down the
sterile corridor, past doors that read ‘radiology’, ‘pharmacology’,
‘blood work’ and ‘staffroom’. Private offices and consultation
rooms were next, all with doctors’ names stencilled on the doors.
Dan took an educated guess and burst rudely into the office at the
end of the hall.
“
What is
this?” The doctor peered over the rim of his heavy-framed glasses,
outraged by the intrusion.
T
he old man
Jen had seen
shuffle inside
not
ten minutes
earlier lay
on a white
sheeted bed
, naked from the waist
up.
T
he doctor
was
feeding data from dozens of the man’s
organs into his diagnosis computer. It seemed incongruous that he
was also listening
to
the man’s
wheezy breath
with
a cold
stethoscope.
He couldn’t get anything from
the stethoscope that the computer wouldn’t tell him, but old habits
died hard in the medical community.
A
nother
clump
of monitors displayed the elderly man’s vitals and Jen saw the
glitch
their interruption had
caused
. They had affected his heart the
most
.
The green
tracer sped up, blipping at an alarming
pace
for such an old man.
“
Do you have a
portal we can use?” Jen asked gently, afraid her un-named companion
might shock the patient to death if he spoke.
The doctor,
spying Dan’s gun and deciding not to argue, pointed. Jen took two
steps before Dan held her back and shook his head. “No, no
portals.
It doesn’t matter where you go. If
you use a portal
the bounty hunter
will
find you.”
Jen looked
sceptical and thought,
I doubt it – I’m
unchipped.
But she didn’t want to tell him
that. It was easy for her; she could press a button and
g
e
t a new identity.
Dan, perceptive as usual, understood what she was thinking by the
look in her eyes. He rebuffed her unspoken protest, saying, “I know
you’re unchipped and it doesn’t matter a damn. He can track
you, he has ways
.”
She frowned. “How
did-”
Dan silenced her with a
curt flick of his fingers and turned back to the doctor, who hadn’t
moved. “Elustra builds service shafts into every mall. There should
be an entrance here somewhere. Where is it?”
The doctor was a short,
stout man. He looked like a human potato regardless of how many
degrees he’d earned. All he could muster was a brief point to one
wall.
Dan didn’t
hesitate
.
H
e strode to it and ripped away the
covering plate, exposing the entrance to a dark metallic shaft that
spanned the height of the 125-storey structure. Aside from escaping
fires, the shafts were useful for accessing the maintenance spaces
between floors. An out
-
rush of stale air hissed from the shaft, engulfing them in a
cold squall that swirled around the room, snatching loose papers
and jostling the laminated charts of human anatomy.
He peered
inside, unsure what to expect. It was long and dark and he had no
clue where the lights would be. He slapped a hand pessimistically
around the shaft’s metallic innards, groping for a switch but not
really expecting to find one. There was
nothing
. Looking up he saw a dim halo
of light filtering from the roof. Below he could see only darkness.
He shivered at the thought of falling in the shaft, but
realistically knew their choices were slim – too slim to argue with
the hand of fate.
“
Ladies
first.” He waved Jen toward the shaft.
She peeked inside before
taking several rapid steps back, shaking her head. “You must be
joking.”
Dan
tensed.
I don’t have time for
this.
“No joke, no
w
get in.” He waved again, this time
with his pistol. “Jennifer, he’s coming.”
She froze. “How do you
know my name?”
“
How do you
think I know anything about you?” Dan countered, unwilling to tell
her the truth. “Hey, look… I’m here trying to save your life. Do
you want to live or do you want to wait for that bounty hunter to
shoot you with nanotoxin?”
Jen eyed him
distrustfully. “At this point I think I’m willing to take my
chances. Perhaps with the portal.”
Dan’s anger
rose unbidden. He honestly wanted to save this girl’s life but she
was making
that
excruciatingly
difficult.
Damn it, i
f she wants to
get herself killed it’s not my fault.
Still,
he had to admit he hadn’t given her much
reason
to trust him. It was time to
consider how far he was willing to go to protect
her
. He could
’
ve placed her under arrest, except he
knew the Raven would
use the
opportunity to close in for the kill. He swallowed
hard, disgusted by his options.
She has to
live.
For the sake of his conscience, he
knew he had to do everything in his power to keep her alive. It was
a selfish act. It had more to do with him than an overbearing
goodwill toward humanity.
So what’re you
gonna do, Danny-boy?
“
Wait.” He
hesitated for a hundredth of a second before dismantling the last
of his inhibitions. “Here.” He used the trigger guard to twirl the
pistol around his finger, reversing it so the handle jutted toward
her. “If you don’t trust me, take this.”
Hesitantly she
obeyed, reaching out to lace her fingers around the chequered grip
of the Colt automatic. It was heavy, much heavier than she’d
thought.
And cold
.
She frowned at it in her hands, both alarmed and pacified in the
same heartbeat.
“
The safety’s
on.” Dan pointed to the catch on the side of the weapon. “If you
push it this way,” – he showed her – “that red dot means it’ll
fir
e
live
rounds
when you pull the
trigger
.” He flicked the safety back on and
nodded at her once, urging her to accept his token of
trust.
“
Okay,” she
said and looked again at the maintenance shaft.
“
You’ll need
both hands
for the shaft
.” Dan
took it upon himself to
help
. “
Here,
l
ike this.” He tugged her jeans away from
her body and thrust the 1911 deep into
the
fabric
so that only the handle was
visible.
She half
squealed, half gasped. The feeling of
icy
metal on the other side of her
underpants sent a shiver down her spine, but that was secondary to
the fear of
having
the firearm discharg
e
.
“
Well you
don’t want to drop it, do you?” Dan asked, secretly calculating how
long it would take to grab the pistol if the Raven chose that
moment to kick down the door.
Jen looked
pale but bravely faced the dark precipice. She swung one leg
over
, then the other, finding
secure footholds for both of them on the cold
metallic ladder. Dan offered a helping hand but she shook him
roughly away, preferring to do it alone.
He felt ridiculous
standing in the room with no weapon, especially since the hairs on
his neck were standing on end, warning him the Raven was close. Jen
lowered herself on the ladder, one steady rung at a time. She was
trying not to think how far below the ground might be. The fact
that she couldn’t see anything when she looked down didn’t have a
calming effect.