49. From the Shadows
49 – From the Shadows
Hector had just returned to the main level of the resort, collected his earnings—25,000 bits—and was making his way toward the event halls where the celebrations were taking place when a security synth approached him. It looked familiar, and he realized it was the same one that had brought him his duffel full of RMC clothes.
“Hector, I’ve been sent by Mr. Janus to offer you a tour. He’s hoping it will encourage you to accept the position he’s offered you with RMC Security.”
It seemed Janus was really running with the whole “job prospect” excuse for Hector’s plans to wander around the property. He wondered if the synth knew most of it was bullshit. It made sense for Janus to keep even his synths in the dark, he supposed; why create more loose ends, even if the synths were under his command? Nodding to the strange, androgynous being, he said, “Sure, let’s go ahead and get that over with.”
The synth, hairless with smooth gray skin, nodded and directed Hector toward a high-ceilinged, arched hallway. “This will lead us toward the private residence grounds. Mr. Janus said he was considering you as security manager in that department.”
“Yeah.” Hector looked at the synth sideways as they walked. “What’s your name?”
“Opal. My apologies, sir.”
Hector grunted, shifting the strap of his duffel on his shoulder. He’d been tempted to leave it in the locker room, but the armored vest he’d taken from the mercs back at the gravel pit was inside, and he intended to put it on when they got away from the party.
They stepped outside through an automated doorway and were immediately confronted with a security checkpoint. A low gate, attended by two security synths, blocked off a winding lane that led further along the ridgeline. Like the path from the RMC building, this one was lined with tall fir trees bio-engineered to thrive in the Martian climate. The lights that illuminated the path were stylized, slender lamp posts, and there was quite a bit more distance between them than on the lower path.
Opal stepped up to the gate and said, “Clearance J-245.”
The synths on duty stared for a moment, then opened the gate. “Clear to proceed.”
Hector followed Opal through, and they walked into the dark, leaving behind the bright lights and noise of the resort. “Any more security checkpoints up here?”
“There’s another gate ahead, right before we reach the private estates.”
“You’ll see me through that one?”
The synth shook its head. “No, I’m sorry, but our tour ends just before that gate.”
Hector frowned, but continued in silence. He figured Janus had some kind of plan to get him closer to Tacitianus; he’d just have to wait and see how it played out. “Any security synths beyond that checkpoint?”
“No, sir. If you’re hired on as the supervisor for this department, you’ll only go into the private estates in the event of an emergency or if one of the residents requests additional security for any reason.”
“Does that happen often?”
“No, sir. Very rarely.”
“Is anyone receiving extra security tonight?”
“Not that I’m aware of, sir. Our guests feel quite secure, as this is the only approach to the private estates and it’s protected by two layers of RMC security.”
“Makes sense.” Hector put his hands in the pockets of his security coveralls, enjoying the fresh, pine-scented air as they walked. He felt relaxed, even though he was about to do something arguably foolish and certainly dangerous. His mood was probably a result of having fought so much throughout the day; his body was getting used to the high-stress environments he kept thrusting it into.
As they walked, he queried Evie for a balance on his bit-locker.
//Bit-locker (half-moon necklace) balance: 35,782.19 bits.//
Guess we’re earning pretty well, huh? Even if Grando doesn’t come through with any bet money, we’re closing in on what we’ll need for the rift.
//I didn’t mention it, but while you were speaking with Opal, you received a message from Grando. He says he “scored big” betting on your fights. He also said he hasn’t seen Lemon for two days and he’s put Orin on the job of finding her.//
Hector’s scowl returned with a vengeance. Part of him wanted to take his winnings and slip away—head down to the train station and put Redwick behind him. He knew he couldn’t do that, though; the magistrate was a loose end, and there was no doubt he wasn’t done with Hector—or more precisely, the previous owner of his body. No, he had to settle that matter, if not for himself, then for Britt and for Paul; Tacitianus deserved justice, and a few more hours to deal with him wouldn’t hurt Lemon’s cause—he hoped.
//You’re actually correct. The next passenger train to Heliopolis won’t depart until 0915.//
Settles that, then.
Over the course of the day, Hector had come to grips with his desire to see Lemon safe. The fact of the matter was that he’d grown attached to her—she’d been the first friendly face he’d seen in this new life of his, and despite his schemes toward a violent end for himself, he appreciated her good nature, and something deeper than just feelings told him he ought to help her out. Karma or whatever.
As the synth led him along, his natural paranoia reminded him of how perfectly he was being set up—if Janus wanted to double-cross him. Fishing for more information, he asked, “Does that peacekeeper come up here often? I saw him leaving Janus’s office.”
“As head of security at RMC, the largest employer in the district, Mr. Janus has dealings with the local magistrate’s office and law enforcement.”
“Uh-huh.”
After another minute or so, they came around a gentle bend and, in the distance, Hector saw another brightly illuminated security gate. Two security synths stood there, and atop their small duty office, an automated, two-barreled turret sat menacingly. Opal stopped walking near a trail-side bench and moved to sit down. When Hector stared, making no attempt to hide his confusion, the synth smiled.
“This is where I’ll wait while you conduct your survey. Mr. Janus would like to inform you that you’ll have a thirty-minute window beginning in just about one minute.”
“A window?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, but I don’t have more detail as I haven’t been made privy to the nature of your survey.” After a brief pause, during which the synth’s eyes, metallic with a soft amber glow, began to flash, Opal added, “I’m terribly sorry, but a critical update is being flashed. I must enter a standby state. This shouldn’t take l-l-loooong.” The final syllable stretched out as the synth’s eyes winked out and its head drooped.
Hector turned to the gate where he saw the other two synths standing with their chins on their chests, motionless. Janus had done something to shut down the security synths. “Thirty minutes,” he muttered, lifting the duffel off his shoulder and setting it on the bench beside Opal. He took out his armored ballistic vest and shrugged into it. Then, for good measure, he put on the respirator he’d been wearing when he first arrived in Tent Town.
He left the duffel there and jogged toward the gate, relieved to see the turret’s barrels had lifted straight up and a red LED was blinking on its little control panel. Without pause, he vaulted the waist-high fence and approached a directory on the side of the security office. It was a simple map of the estates, and though the twenty or so homes had numbers, none had a name. Which one belongs to Tacitianus?
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//A data packet just came through to your encrypted address—updating your map.//
The one you gave to Janus? Anything else?
//A brief message: Be quick. I can control the cams and comms, but don’t leave other evidence.//
Once again, Hector found his suspicions mounting. Janus just seemed too good to be true. If he wanted a scapegoat… He shook his head, dismissing the idea. Sparling had made it clear that he was interested in Hector, and Janus knew that. He wouldn’t want to aggravate his boss by throwing Hector to the wolves. If Hector got caught—worst-case scenario—he might get an audience with Sparling and tell him all about Janus’s involvement. No, the best move for Janus was to use Hector and then let him escape—or die in the attempt.
He continued jogging, following the winding lanes toward one of the estates that was set rather far apart from the others. If he’d needed to guess which one had belonged to Tacitianus, he might have chosen that one, even without Janus’s help. The pavement inclined as he went, and he realized the magistrate’s property was on a higher elevation than many of the surrounding homes. Of course.
He passed several security cams along the lane, and though they were designed to pan, none of them moved. Hector hoped that meant Janus was on the level about taking them offline, too. Regardless, he kept his head down and hurried. When he saw the gated wall around the estate, he glanced at the timer Evie had set up for him: 25:48. Mentally, he clocked twenty minutes to finish the job.
Hector slipped into the shadows, jogging through the deep, moist mulch beside the lane as he approached. When he saw two men standing near the gate, he slowly glided between tree boles until he was just twenty meters away. Neither was even watching the road. Three security personnel left, and two are here at the gate—and they’re chatting. Hector would’ve spat if he weren’t trying to be invisible. Tacitianus might be paying good money for his mercs, and some of them had been pretty damn tough, but he wasn’t impressed with these two.
“…figure it’ll be another lazy day around here tomorrow. He’s not gonna poke his head out until Blanco arrives with his team.”
“Still can’t believe those damn kids took Sowell and her team out.”
The guard on the left yawned, stretching his neck. “You know that bitch must have had that place trapped to the gills. That’s on us, though—should’ve done more recon.” He sighed and shifted his SMG, slinging it further behind his hip as he straightened up. “Anyway, open it up for a sec. I’m gonna walk the perimeter.”
Hector braced himself, tensing his legs as he watched the two men. They both wore vests similar to his, and neither wore a helmet or a breather. They both carried SMGs and wore sidearms on their belts. He saw a long, sheathed knife at the base of the left-hand guard’s back, but the other didn’t seem to be wearing a blade. Nothing he saw dissuaded him from his current plan of action.
He waited, tensed and ready, as the right-hand guard touched the gate’s panel. He watched as the gate rolled open a meter before the guard tapped the panel again, freezing it. The left-hand guard stepped through, muttering something about leftovers in the main kitchen, and the right-hand guard watched him. Both of them had their backs to Hector—he seized the opportunity.
Like a world-class sprinter, he lunged into motion, driving his powerful, long legs into an instant sprint. The soles of the lightweight shoes Janus had given him were soft, and the pavement was high-quality stuff—dense and almost springy. In other words, his charge was nearly silent. When he was four meters from the men, he took one more leaping lunge, then launched himself through the air. As he flew, his body flickered with a red glow that flowed into his right hand, producing a wicked, crimson blade.
The guard operating the control panel never knew what hit him. Hector drew his Aura Blade down and to the right as he landed, severing his spine and his carotid artery. Hector’s momentum carried him past the falling corpse, and the other guard must have sensed something. He began to turn, saying, “What did you—”
Then Hector’s Aura Blade found his neck, and he dragged it through, cleaving bone and flesh alike. Both men were dead—technically—but there were nanite packages that could repair nerves and provide oxygen to a person’s mind if they suffered sudden organ failure. Hector had no idea if either man had a high-end nanite suite—an implant that produced those clever tiny robots—but it wouldn’t matter. Not after I take my due.
Hector put his hand on the second guard’s back and triggered his aura system. He felt the warm tingles in his palm and then the rush as the free potentia in the man’s body drifted into his aura pathways. His vision brightened, his heart rate increased, and he inhaled deeply, savoring the brief rush.
//5 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 7.//
Hastily, he dragged the body back through the gate, over beside the first guard, then he repeated the process.
//4 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 11.//
Any alarms?
//Nothing, and I’ll note that there doesn’t seem to be any local relay to the net here. Sat coverage is spotty.//
There were relays back at the resort, though?
//Yes, perhaps Janus is limiting comms as he promised.//
Hector took the men’s guns, checked them for bio-locks, and found that only one pistol was of any use to him. He threw the other guns into the woods. Then, gripping his new pistol, he slipped through the gate into the shadows along the inner wall. Crouching there in the darkness beside a rosebush, he examined the weapon.
It was a seven-millimeter slug-thrower loaded with red-tipped shredder rounds—thirty-two in the single mag. It wasn’t all that different from the kinds of guns he’d used back in the Guard, though only as a sidearm. Still, like so many other things, it amazed him how little it had changed. He pulled back the slide, ensured a round was in the chamber, then moved in a crouch through the grass and mulch, inching closer and closer to the lights of the magistrate’s estate.
It was a single-story structure with two wings off a central common area. An awning over the high, double-doored front entry provided cover for a small electric vehicle. Hector was about to keep moving, to work his way around the back of the building when the front door opened, and another guard emerged.
Could I be so lucky? Hector watched as the man stepped out from under the awning and began striding down the lane toward the gate. He reached up to touch his right ear. “Gavin? Comms check. Bryce?” He was only a dozen steps from the gate, and Hector could feel his window rapidly closing. Shifting the pistol to his left hand, he stalked forward, gliding out of the landscaping, onto the soft pavement, and then rapidly toward the third guard.
He almost got to him undetected, but the guard spun at the last minute, lifting his SMG, his trigger finger depressing even before the weapon came to bear on Hector. The gun had a thick, stubby suppressor on the end of its little barrel, and the sound it made was more of a tick-tick-tick than the report of bullets being fired. Hector knew better than to underestimate the deadliness of those muted rounds, though.
An amateur might have thrown himself on the ground or tried to duck. Maybe he would have frozen or started shooting his own gun. Hector was no amateur, though. He recognized the small caliber of the SMG; he saw the height of the barrel, and he knew that if he moved his center of gravity down, he risked taking some rounds to the neck or face. He also knew that his pistol was not suppressed, and he didn’t want to alert the magistrate. All that said, he kept his steady approach, running straight into that rapidly ticking SMG’s fire.
Polymer rounds slammed into his chest—one, two…a dozen. The plates in his vest ate most of the force, but some of the shredded bullets dug into the tough material, sliding along the multiple layers. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was just good design, but none of the rounds deflected into his face.
Such thoughts flew from his mind as he weathered the storm and arrived in the shooter’s face. Crimson light flared, Hector’s fist jerked up, and then the guard’s arm—and the gun it was holding—fell to the pavement in a spray of crimson. The other man’s eyes went wide, and then his training kicked in, and he leaped back, summoning an aura of his own.
A flickering purple glow appeared around the man’s shoulders, and his eyes narrowed with determination as he inhaled and grew. His clothing ripped and popped as his limbs—his legs, arms, even his neck—swelled and stretched, rippling with expanded muscle fibers. It was truly impressive; Hector had seen a few aura users able to grow like that, but it wasn’t common. Still, rare as the talent was, it wasn’t enough.
In the time the man realized what he was up against and decided to activate his aura ability, Hector slashed his Aura Blade across his abdomen, opening his guts to the night air. As the man grunted and heaved, growing and stretching, Hector circled behind him and slashed his deadly weapon deep into the soft flesh of his inner thighs, severing more arteries. As blood fountained forth—the pressure driven high by the man’s rapid expansion—Hector backed off and let his blade flicker and fade.
The giant—three meters of torn uniform and mountainous muscle—took one step, trying to turn to face Hector, and then he toppled, falling to the pavement, splashing into a puddle of his own blood.
Careful to avoid the expanding pool, Hector reached forward and put his hand on the dead man’s ankle. Bracing himself, he activated his aura system.
//13 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 24.//
He knew it would be good, but he hadn’t expected that much. He almost fell forward into the blood, but he rocked back, catching himself on his hand as the rush went through him. The night was bright; a nightbird trilled, and the scent of jasmine hung heavy in the air—some engineered flowers from the magistrate’s garden, no doubt. Shaking his head, glancing at his timer—18:22—he pushed himself to his feet and jogged around the pool of blood, careful not to leave any footprints.
It felt almost like things had been too easy, reinforcing the paranoid thoughts that were running through the back of his mind. He knew better, though. The difference between these three mercs and the ones he and Britt had faced at the rock yard was all about levels of readiness. These men hadn’t expected an assault. At the very least, they’d thought they’d get some warning from RMC security if something was afoot. Hector had caught them all flat-footed, and that made all the difference.
Shifting the gun to his right hand, Hector approached the magistrate’s front door. He knew Tacitianus wasn’t responsible for his betrayal or for the deaths of the Contis, but he was responsible for plenty of other evil, and for the first time Hector felt like he was moving in the right direction—like he was doing something that might satisfy some small part of his blood oath. With that comforting thought, he opened the door and slipped inside the residence.