Tag - A Technothriller (48 page)

“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Mariko, softly whispering in her ear, my eyes flicking to the hallway. As we walked down the hall, the door to Sir Thomas’s study opened and Charles, seeing us, ran the few steps to block the door to the outside. He stood on the balls of his feet, his hands by his sides. I pulled up and Mariko stepped in front of me, smiling and holding out her hand to Charles. I thrust my thoughts into his brain; his eyes shifted and he smiled at me. Thinking in Mandarin.

The loss of focus was enough and Mariko fired the Maloo-modified Devstick, twin darts appearing in Charles’s chest. He looked down at the darts as if offended and fell to the floor. Two pools of blood marked the spot where the carbon fiber bolts had entered. His legs started shaking, twitching and then they stopped and he fell slumping against the door, his dead eyes staring at me, still offended.

Sir Thomas appeared in the study doorway as Mariko hit the button and the outer door opened. She went through.

“Take care of yourself and our child,” I urged as I shut the door on her, and locked it.

Glancing down I saw the butt of a gun sticking up from Charles’s armpit. I quickly knelt, grabbing it and pulling. But it didn’t come free. I looked up, fumbling with the catch of the holster over the hammer of the gun, as Sir Thomas advanced, his hand going into his jacket and pulling free the dagger he had used to kill Shido, which he or Charles must have retrieved.

I was too slow and Sir Thomas was on me before I could free the gun. His arm swept back for the blow, but I reached out with my mind and screamed,
“Stop!”
throwing the thought into his mind. He reeled back as if I had struck him. I held the thought and wrenched at the gun butt. It came free. But the effort caused me to lose my grip on Sir Thomas’s mind. His arm swung up and I twisted sideways. The dagger cut through my outers and blazed a trail of pain across the left side of my stomach.

Sir Thomas saw the gun as I rose from my knees. He turned, running for the door of the study. I brought the gun to bear, scrambling to my feet, but I slipped on Charles’s jacket, the cloth sliding my foot out from under me. I went down hard. Seeing Sir Thomas disappear through his study door, I scrambled up again, ignoring the searing pain from the knee I’d twisted in my fall. In three strides I was at his study door.

He wasn’t in the room. The clearfilm doors to the balcony were open, curtains, billowing in with the breeze. Gun extended, I limped, dragging my left leg behind me as fast as I could, across the room to the balcony, and edged my way around the door. The curtains blew in my face, tangling with my vision. Pushing them aside with my left hand, I stepped out onto the balcony, quickly turning left and right. He wasn’t there. He’s gone back inside, I thought, but a glance at the doors to the living room and his bedroom confirmed they were shut.

Then I saw it. A black rope tied off the railing of the balcony. I limped over to it and looked down. It ended just above the floor of Topside. I peered out and saw him, running, surprisingly fast for his age, towards the walky that lead to the golf course. He disappeared from view under the trees that shaded the walky. I looked down the rope: it was a good fifteen meters to the floor below me. With my damaged knee I wasn’t sure if I could make it and turned to go back inside and get the Lev.

I heard the savage thumping of a copter’s blades and turned as it came into view in the red glow of the SingCom sign. It flew in closer and I could make out Marty in the pilot’s seat. She gave me a thumbs-up and then made a sign with her thumb and little finger extended from a fist and held up to her ear. Devstick, I thought, and pulled the Devstick from my jacket pocket.

“Mark, where is he?”

It was Gabriel. He was in the copter – I could hear the blades in the background, Gabriel shouting over their noise.

“He’s run out onto Topside, headed for the golf course. I’m going after him. Can you track him for me?”

“Yes, but hold on for a sec. We’re going to drop Maloo off to take care of the other Hawks. Don’t worry about Mariko, she’s signaling us. She’s on the roof.”

The copter swept over my head and I could only see the tail, then Maloo, as he swung out and dropped down on a hoist. Looking at me, with a machine gun strapped over his shoulder, he grinned. He dropped but swung in and on top of the roof of the penthouse, disappearing from my view. I plugged in my earpiece and shoved the Devstick back in my pocket and the gun in my trousers. I grabbed the rope.

I held tight as I swung over the balcony. Though I had never done this before, I had watched a film of people abseiling down buildings. I stretched my legs out straight and held the rope tightly. Then my body twisted in the gust of wind blown downwards by the copter as it circled away from the roof. I banged against the wall, the pain from my knee shooting through me and almost causing me to lose my grip. But I held on. The gun slipped out of my waist and went down my bottom outer leg. I heard it clatter on the floor below. I looked up but my hands slipped on the smooth rope. And I slid. Bumping the wall, sending spikes of pain from my knee, I held on as tightly as I could despite the rope burning my hands.

I held on just enough to slow my descent and hit the ground, my good leg taking the strain. A glance at the palms of my hands to see they were marked by a solid raw red stripe of blood and burning.

I got up and stumbled over to where the gun lay, picked it up, checked it over, and though I knew nothing about guns, it looked OK – the magazine was still in place. I got my bearings. The walky was twenty meters away. I started towards it and collapsed. My leg wouldn’t take the weight.

There. Off to the right of me, less than five meters away, was a Devcaddy. Sir Thomas’s Devcaddy – I recognized it from our game. I pulled myself up onto my good leg and hopped over to it. Each hop jarred with pain and I nearly fainted before I got my hand on the handle of the Devcaddy. I stood on the platform by the wheel with my good leg. The other I swung around with my right hand and pulled onto the platform by the other wheel.

I pressed the on button and the Devcaddy said, “Good morning, Sir Thomas.” I hit silent on the Devscreen and twisted the throttle set into the handle, taking the gun in my left hand as the Devcaddy surged along the path and bumped up the ramp onto the walky.

“We’ve got him on infrared. He’s on the golf course. We’ll fly ahead and cut him off,” Gabriel’s voice came through loud into my earpiece. I had forgotten it and was surprised it had stayed in during the fall. I focused on staying on the DevCaddy, my palms burning where they grabbed the handles.

I saw the sign on the walky for the UNPOL Executive Course and swerved hard left. Fifty meters farther on the left, a sign said 'ninth hole' and the walky had a gap leading to a path. I took the gap and Gabriel’s voice came over the earpiece again.

“He’s somewhere around the first green but we’ve lost him. There’s some kind of heat flare there and we can’t see through it. We’ll track up to first tee and work our way back to you.”

We hadn’t got to play the first but I remembered the layout from the virtual game. Trees, forest really, all the way down to the green and surrounding the green as well. I turned the Devcaddy and twisted the throttle as hard as I could, the pain screeching through me fueling my anger. I flew down the path and slowed the Devcaddy to cut the noise from its tires on the surface.

I stopped. Far off I heard the Heliocopter’s turbines wind down and stop. Gabriel and Marty had landed. The night was quiet. I was panting loudly and struggled to get my breathing under control, to make less sound.

“Can you see him?” I said as quietly as possible. The mic in my earpiece muted and Gabriel came on.

“He’s in there somewhere but I don’t know where. Towards the back of the green, I think. Wait for me. I’m coming.” Gabriel was obviously running, his words were ragged breaths jolting in time with his strides.

I could hear a loud humming off to my right and saw two large circular exhaust vents, used for sucking stale air out of the roof of New Singapore. They weren’t in the virtual game, I thought. Hopping as quietly as I could, I made my way around the edge of the wood, the gun back in my right hand. I edged around to get closer to the vents.

I stopped again and listened. Nothing. No sounds except the loud whirring hum of the vents. My back against a large tree, I edged around it, gun extended and thought
“Where are you?”
reaching out with my mind, feeling for him.

My mind was noisy. The hum of the vents and the pain in my knee dominating, but I focused hard, seeking out the pulse of Sir Thomas’s mind.

Oh no, he’s behind me! I thought as I found him and he came crashing into me. The dagger flashed in the dark. I twisted and my leg gave way, the gun flying out of my hand. We both went over backwards, the top of his head butting my jaw, and we tumbled backwards into the bunker on the side of the green.

We rolled to the floor of the bunker, him on top of me, smashing his fist into my chest as he rose, kneeling on me. This is how Wigley died, flashed through my mind. Sir Thomas reached up grasping his dagger with both hands above his head. I shouted the thought
“Look out!
” into his mind. He hesitated and I twisted as hard as I could, just as he struck, and rolled away in the sand, his blade slicing into my back. I rolled over again and pulled my own dagger from behind my back where it was wedged into the waistband of my bottom outers.

He turned just as I lunged at him, his left hand thrown out as if warding me off, sand flying into my face, blinding me. I surged forward and brought the dagger up as hard as I could. It hit something solid and then it gave, sliding in as far as the hilt, a liquid warmth covering my hand. I twisted the dagger’s handle and, shaking my head, opened my eyes.

His face was cents from mine, eyes bulging. Staring at me. He sighed and went limp. Squatting down on his haunches. I followed him with my hand still on the dagger, still pushing it in. My good knee slipped in the sand but I grabbed his shirt and held on, dragging myself through the loose sand to kneel in front of him.

“You could have had it all,” he said in a whisper, shaking his head, blood welling out of the corner of his mouth.

A white hot rage surged through me, pure white hot hatred, and I yanked the dagger from his stomach.

“I had it all and you stole it.”

He smiled. I swung as hard as I could, the dagger a blur as I cut his throat, slashing through. His hand went to the gaping wound – he tried to say something, his mouth opening, but no words came. He gasped, and grunted, blood spurting between his fingers, and fell face-first past me into the sand.

Chapter 39

The Eyes of a Hawk

Vanishing Point Vineyards, Near Melbourne, South Australia Geographic

Sunday 26 October 2110 6:00pm +10 UTC

Sharon looked at the time on the Devscreen. The ceremony was at 5pm. And they needed at least an hour and a half to get there. With New Singapore time being three hours behind Melbourne, that meant they had two hours before it was due to begin. Enough, she thought. Fifteen minutes to get ready, and an hour to get over there. It was enough.

She walked to the Devcockpit stationed in the corner of the room, next to the balcony that looked out over the Bass Strait. For a moment she just sat and stared through the window. She focused her eyes and zoomed in on a yacht beating to windward. It was thirteen kiloms away. Her built-in range finder gave her the distance as a small number tucked into the top right corner of her vision.

She forced her mind to think clearly. Commanding the software to do its work, the image sharpened on the face of the man at the helm. At times fifty power, her new eyes could make out the gray in his beard. She smiled to herself, remembering Gabriel’s comment the first time she had tried her new eyes. ‘Now you have the eyes of a Hawk, but the soul of a Dove’. She turned her attention to the Dev and went through her contacts. Selecting and then calling Oche.

He answered immediately.

“Sharon, darling, how can I be of service today?”

“Have you finished and sent the gown?” Sharon didn’t have time to waste on Oche pleasantries today, but Oche missed that.

“Yes, all done, and it looks beautiful if I say so myself. But isn’t it a bit small for you, darling?”

“Oche, stick to fashion design – comedy’s not your strong point. Have you sent it?”

Oche, a hot flush spreading up from his neck to his receding hairline, nodded.

“Good.”

Sharon smiled at him, gave a little wave with the fingers of one hand at the Devscreen, and cut the connection. She walked across to the mirror, smoothed her dress over her thighs, and sat down on the cushioned seat in front of it. With her hands in her lap she looked at herself in the mirror.

Her blonde hair had grown out and was shoulder length, cut evenly, with a long curl on both sides that almost met under her chin. She reached for the soft brush on the table and began brushing her hair. Smooth steady strokes. When she was blind, Marty would do this for her, soothing her senses. When she first opened her eyes and saw again, sitting at this table and looking in this mirror, it was Marty standing behind her. The first person she saw with her new eyes.

She smiled. If Sunita could see her now. A tear escaped from one eye and she ruefully wiped it away. The pain was still there, and the anger, yes. The anger at what their relationship had been versus what it could have been. Mostly now there was just the sadness at the lonely, frantic way in which Sunita had spent her last living moments. The life ending she had listened to with Gabriel, unable to intervene or prevent and now thankful that she couldn’t.

Speaking to the dead Sunita in her head, she thought, It’s not that I wanted you to die. It’s just that since I have been away from you, I have discovered so much more of what life means. The way we were living was wrong. Too much pain and fear. All really unnecessary. I hope you understand. I hope you are at peace.