It's the start of what I planned as an off-week, and I finally have a new installment of Sidekick Carl, padded out with some material I already had. As usual, here's links for the first and previous installments, also the chapter that introduced most of the characters, and one more that would have had a good part of this if I hadn't cut it down.
As the train came to a
stop, John Carter put on his blue uniform. He then broke out a case that held
his weapons and armor. “I’d say we gave Carl enough time to break into the
site,” he said. “I’m going to go see if he’s found out anything. Want to come
along?” He turned to his wife Lauren.
John looked back
intently. “What is it?” he said. “You know you can talk to me.”
She sighed. “All right,”
she said. “Yeah… we need to talk.” As she spoke, she laid a small, slim pistol
on the end table.
* * *
Two small vehicles approached the abandoned town. The moon shone as bright as the few long-dead street lamps ever could have, clearly revealing the form of the vehicles and their riders. One was Audrey’s three-wheeled scooter, just large enough for Carl and one of her neomorph followers to ride in the flatbed at the rear. Dana followed in a motorcycle modified for her eight-foot height, mainly with a raised seat and greatly lengthened handlebars. Another of the mutants rode with her, a shaggy, seemingly faceless creature only a little shorter than herself. Dana waved to Carl as they pulled to a stop.
The town was really just a small cluster of buildings, half of them warehouses and more specialized storage buildings. The largest was a spindly outlet mall at the south end, extending the size of the development by almost half again. They had halted in a parking lot at the far end of the building. “My people already knew someone was here,” Audrey said. “It didn’t stand out. The development was never really abandoned, and the people who built it were shady to begin with. My second had ordered that it be left alone.”
“It wouldn’t have
mattered,” Carl said. “There’s hundreds of places just like this. If you had
told anyone, it would probably have bogged down in an argument over who even
had jurisdiction, if they paid attention at all.”
“I know,” Audrey said. She bared her teeth. “Humans love law, as long as it means they do nothing.”
Carl unfolded a map that he could already tell had several inaccuracies. He pointed to the largest of the warehouses on the north side of the mall. “This is probably where the Toxo Warriors are, if they were ever here at all,” he said. “We could go through the mall to keep out of sight, but we can figure they will be prepared for that. It’s better to go through here.” He pointed to a small RV park on the east side of the warehouse, still not quite as large as the mall.
10 minutes later, a
single Toxo Warrior looked at a monitor. He typed a command, then used a
joystick to zoom in with a camera. The feed showed a woman more than eight feet
tall and a man in something between motorcycle gear and a space suit
approaching the east side of the warehouse. “Huh,” he said. “They’re early…”
* * *
John Carter examined the weapon before him. It amounted to a double-barreled derringer. He touched it without picking it up. At a light touch, the grip folded inward, changing the profile to a flattened rectangle the size and shape of a cell phone or a pager. “This is polymer and ceramic,” he said. “You could take it through a metal detector. It might get through a scanner, if there’s active sensor baffles.”
“There are,” Lauren said.
“I had it with me, the day the Raven took over the office. Of course, I had it
a long time before that.”
“I’ve never had anything
like this,” John said. “I was two grades below where I am now before I saw
specs for anything like this. The only people they would give it to are
deep-cover intelligence or… field security auditors.”
“You’re quick, I give you that,” Lauren said. For what it’s worth, it wasn’t a fake-and-bake; you know how well that goes. I didn’t even lie about my age. I just had extra training.”
“We knew,” John said. “At least, we knew there was going to be an audit. Colby thought there was already an auditor in the office. He must have figured out it was you, or guessed. I suppose it was easier, when he was the one you were looking for. It doesn’t matter, now. But if you had a gun… why didn’t you use it?”
“I had my own orders, as
soon as I reported the breach,” she said. “I wasn’t to reveal my identity,
until and unless I made contact with the Raven or his infiltrator. I just
needed to be good bait. Young, pretty, spunky enough to talk back without
looking like a threat.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” John said. “It’s not the right caliber. A full clip from my 10 mm barely put a dent in the Raven’s wingsuit.”
“I’d seen the schematics
analysis, there were ways to get through,” Lauren said. “The situation evolved
before I had my chance. By the time you got to me, the best chance was to stay
behind you while you did your cowboy run and see if that was enough to draw out
the real threat.” She gazed back into his eyes. “Here’s the thing, John. I
wasn’t looking for Colby. I was there to watch you.”
* * *
Dana stifled a giggle as she and Carl reached the warehouse. It was 50 by 100 feet and 25 tall, including a shallow peaked roof. At a stern glance from Carl, she put on a gas mask. She turned to their only companion, a gray-skinned mutant just under 5 feet tall with gangling ape-like arms. Its nostrils promptly contracted shut with an audible snick.
Carl looked up at a set
of windows about 12 feet off the ground. “I need to see inside,” he said. Dana
hoisted him onto her shoulders. He climbed high enough to stand, which by then
required him to stoop slightly. The visibility was better than it would have
been in broad daylight; he could have seen enough even in pitch darkness.
“It’s empty,” he said
with finality. He felt Dana’s shoulders sag. “The floor is, anyway. In fact…
it’s really emptier than I would have expected. Usually, there’s stuff left
behind, trash, unsold goods, empty cartons. Then you get homeless people, kids,
animals…”
“Like if somebody cleaned up first and took everything when they were done,” Dana said.
“Right,” Carl said.
“Still, there could be something. Only one way to find out…” With that, he
smashed the window with his helmet and vaulted through.
* * *
John only stared as
Lauren continued. “We knew the Raven had someone inside, though we didn’t know
what he was planning,” she said. “There were people who thought it was you,
others who thought you knew something you weren’t reporting. I had instructions
to get close to you. I had approval to seduce you, if it got you to talk.”
John finally spoke, his
voice coldly neutral. “Had you ever done that before?”
“No,” she said. “That’s not even how it really works, anyway, most of the time. The things that get a guy to drop his pants aren’t the things that will get him to talk about what matters. It’s a lot harder with a bad man than a good one… Well. That’s what the trainers say.”
“What about the rest?”
John said. “Going to bed, getting married, having kids… was that their idea of
keeping tabs on me?”
Lauren shook her head. “It happens, to a lot of us,” she said. “We call it the retirement plan. We usually only get 18, maybe 24 months in the field before our training and mission intelligence are deemed obsolete. After that, we usually get left to fend for ourselves. Our training is to go to ground before it comes to that. Accept promotions, make friends, make love, get married. Go native, pretty much. When we met, I decided you were my parachute.”
“What if I had been the
infiltrator?” John said.
“You weren’t, John,” she
said. “I always knew that.”
“I need to leave,” John
said. “I won’t say I won’t come back for you, but I need more time than we’ve
had before. I suppose you were ready for that, too.”
Lauren gave him a more thoughtful look, her chin resting on her hand. “It’s not like we haven’t done it before,” she said.
John turned back to his
gear. “You realize while we’ve been doing this, Carl and Dana have been getting
into more trouble,” he said.
Lauren smiled. “I’ve been
counting on it,” she said.
* * *
Dana impatiently shifted from foot to foot. She adjusted a radio receiver they carried. She heard only a growled command from Audrey, which confirmed that she was still circling around the other side of the warehouse. She almost called out, but saw the mutant shake its head. “If he found something, he would have called us, if he could,” she said. “I’m going in.” The mutant shrugged.
She looked up, then to either side. She could see no way up to the window, nor anything that would support her weight to climb up. She considered the options for entry. There was a loading door that was clearly locked and possibly rusted beyond use. She found a conventional door, also locked but made of wood rather than metal. “I can take care of that,” she said. She backed up and prepared for a kick.
That was when an explosion
blew the roof off the warehouse.
No comments:
Post a Comment