“Yes, sir.” A strange look ghosted over Bay’s emotionless face and was gone as soon as it surfaced.
Caldwell had already turned away, too busy to notice.
* * *
She woke in the long, stuffy time of midafternoon, when anyone with any sense would be taking a siesta. The ceiling fan spun lazily, its dust and cobweb-grimed motor strong and patient even under years of neglect. Anemic puffs of oven-hot air brushed Trinity’s bare skin—white cotton panties and a silk camisole worn not for modesty’s sake, but because if she had to move, she would be at least half-dressed. It was simply too hot to follow protocol and sleep fully clothed.
Any moving air was better than none. These apartments did not boast air-conditioning, and consequently, only the desperate gathered under their patched roofs that leaked when the gullywashers came through. However, the manager took cash and asked no questions, and the steady stream of those who didn’t wish much scrutiny provided a certain protective cover.
For a few moments she lay very still, facedown on the narrow, stinking bed. The light was wrong—she had set her internal clock to wake her at dusk, and it was far too bright. Heavy gold painted the shades, the sun fingering persistently, wearing its way in photon by bleach-scouring photon. Everything faded under its steady assault, and then there was the dusty wind, not moving fast enough to cool but just quick enough to sand down every surface with apathetic dust.
Not like the forest, giant trees hung with sheets of green, moisture sinking into every crack and surface, mold and mildew filling every crevice while she ran, the backpack on her shoulders and her mouth dry with terror...
For a moment she could almost, almost remember something important from before the induction. Just out of mental reach, flickering and taunting the way dreams inevitably did upon waking. A name, perhaps, or an image from her former life. Then it was gone, a chill running up her lightly sweating back on tiny, icy insect legs.
Danger.
She slid swiftly off the bed and reached for her faded, broken-in jeans, folded and placed within easy reach of her carefully calculated landing spot. A thin white cotton button-down over the camisole, her fingers flying as she knotted the two sides of the shirt above her midriff—that would provide her with more carrying space should she need it, and trim her silhouette. No gun, because she had removed it to the cache since she didn’t want to wear it to work and had calculated that leaving it until just before she ran her final penetration of the military base was the safest and most efficient option.
She was still unaware of what, precisely, had roused her.
Paranoia? Perhaps. Not enough data to arrive at solid percentages. Her body was already moving, the cold, logical part of her watching, simply bemused, as she often was, by the impotent scurrying of a biological unit that would perish in a relatively brief span of time anyway.
That was the downfall of pure analysis. With a wide enough focus, any event seemed insignificant.
Even a human life.
She grabbed the black nylon backpack, ran a critical glance over the inside of the tiny room with its tiny, hideous attached bathroom—the smell from the drains alone was enough to give anyone unpleasant dreams—and its yellowing, naked walls. Shrugging into the pack, making sure her pockets were loaded and tugging her bootlaces, listening intently.
Run through it.
First, what she could see. Just the inside of the dingy little room, its filthy blinds, the ceiling fan turning lazily. There had been flypaper festooning the ceiling when she first entered this room, but she’d taken it down. Let the little disease-spreading nuisances come in, if they wanted to. The sound of their scratching and struggling as they starved to death high above was a distraction. Simply an irritant, nothing more.
Then why did you—
She shook the thought away. Nothing against her skin but soft, perfectly worn cloth, different than her work outfit and much more comfortable. She gapped her mouth, tasting the air—bitterness, her body reminding her she was metabolizing whatever fat reserves she’d managed to accumulate two towns ago. She would need to begin a gorge pattern soon, unless she wanted to start burning muscle instead. The trouble was, consuming food took too much time that could be allocated to other purposes. Elimination was similarly troublesome, but much more urgent.
Focus, Trinity. A deep inhale, then several short chuffing ones to acquire the maximum amount of airborne data. The baking scent of open air, dust, feces both human and animal—this particular place housed dogs as well as humans, even the poverty-stricken needed something to care for—and cheap, burned food that could be prepared on a hot plate or in a tiny microwave. Something else, too.
There.
A single thread of sweat, determination, gun oil, exhaust—not from any of the ugly jalopies managing to wheeze out one more trip around the block but from heavy, well-maintained engines. If not for the indifferent weather stripping, she wouldn’t have smelled it.
Last but certainly not least, wrong notes in the sleepy stasis of afternoon. A baby cried—there were even children in this forsaken place, but this particular tiny biological unit was off its schedule by a good half hour, even accounting for the variables of a small digestive system and heat-induced fussiness. Doors closed softly, a scurrying hustle on the backside of the building, and Trinity thought for a moment of sliding out through the small window in the bathroom. She had spent some time making certain it would open, for just this occasion. The idea that perhaps someone would use it to enter mildly interested her at best. She was confident in her ability to dissuade a normal criminal from any attempted assault or theft.
She was already moving. The locks slid back—she had oiled them not too long ago. The doorknob, grease-sweating metal, turned softly and quietly, and she was outside in the blistering heat. Her ears perked again—soft engines, idling a few blocks away.
Preparing for engagement or starting their sweep? She turned to her left and set off down the row of doors—they were all closed. On most afternoons, even in the searing heat, they would stand open to allow some air circulation, as long as at least four people clustered in the doorway to protect whatever faintly valuable items lay inside.
Not today, though. Some collective unease had withdrawn them, anemones retreating into shelter.
Around the corner of the building, into uncertain, simmering shade. More engines that didn’t belong, some even in the empty lot to her three o’clock. Stealthy creaks riding odd currents to her straining ears. How much of it was her, simply suspecting, and her senses, sharp as they were, obeying a psychological instead of objective directive?
The normals know it, too, Trinity. Stop second-guessing.
There. The rickety ladder, its bottom half rusted away but the rest of it solid enough, hanging off the side of the building like a scab. It was too high to be reached even with a Dumpster dragged underneath—if you were normal, and your genetic information hadn’t been modified by an experimental virus that had, in the end, turned out to be dangerous and unstable.
Trinity picked up the pace, her hiking boots providing just enough grip, and leaped. Calculations over, it was time to perform, and for a blessed moment the whirl of prediction, counterprediction, data, analysis and static ceased. Feet kissing cracked pavement, coiling, exploding into a leap, not for the ladder but for the Dumpster opposite it. Landing, the metal lid flexing just enough, and taking off again, back across the narrow space but with significantly more height and velocity. Catching the rungs, pushing herself up, and she was over the top before the Dumpster lid stopped quivering. The chain-link fence behind the Dumpster rattled slightly, but that couldn’t be helped. A hammerblow of sunshine, her pupils contracting, and she heard booted feet stamping in unison.
She cut across the roof, much more data pouring in now from every sense, collated swiftly. Basic surveillance ring. Drug bust? I didn’t thin
k there was enough traffic here to warrant this level of resource expenditure. Is it a random sweep, perhaps?
Sirens blared. Flash grenades banged, and screams began below.
The casualty percentage was likely to be low. Still, she was aware of a tightening in her chest that was not the body’s response to sudden activity. She couldn’t hear the baby’s plaintive cry or any of the other children who grew like weeds in barely hospitable cracks around here. How often had she wondered what their lives would be like, cut short by violence or backbreaking work, or survived until a frail old age spent in the same grinding poverty—
Too many variables, and the fragility of such beings lodged in her throat during long, bleak midnight hours while she paced the bedroom and planned.
Focus, Trinity.
She realized it wasn’t a drug raid or a random enforcement sweep just as the other agent blurred up over the edge of the roof behind her—he had used the same ladder. Trinity snapped a glance over her shoulder, and her mouth filled with copper. She couldn’t see much, just a shadow moving with the spooky blurring speed of a virus-soaked male, and for a moment blackness closed over her vision as all analysis left her and the naked calculus of survival took its place.
It’s him. It’s Eight.
Only his name was no longer Eight, and he was no longer working for the government or the military. He’d gone off the rez, he called himself Cal, and Trinity was absolutely certain of one thing.
He wanted to kill her. With an agent’s strength and speed, he no doubt could—if she let him get close enough.
* * *
The scanner under the dash squawked and burbled—they were coming in hot, and there was all sorts of chatter Cal didn’t like, call signs that were out of place in a town this size. Someone was calling for eyes, which meant a chopper, and Dispatch had split into three to handle the sudden spike of traffic. He was too far away, parked in the shade of a Coca-Cola billboard, focusing through the modified binoculars—he’d managed to get to a cache after finding Reese and Holly in Sinaloa, and it was good to have some real kit again. Nothing they could trace, nothing they could leave little telltales in, just clean professional hardware.
All the hardware in the world wouldn’t help if you were too late, though. He’d been well on his way to the supermarket out on the highway and Saltarello when the scanner began telling him something else was going down.
She went up the side of the squat crumbling faux adobe like a lynx up a tree, all power and grace. A mop of flowing honey hair, not scraped back in a ponytail—Holly said she’d dyed it, but it looked like the natural color had won out. He remembered that, the threads of gold in her mane under pitiless fluorescents, as she saved not just Holly but all of them from Bronson, blurring across distance with an agent’s speed, the roar of gunfire as she neutralized the man who would have shot them all in the back.
Jeans, a backpack, hiking boots, a button-down that clung to her as if it was poured on. She was fast, dammit—less muscle bulk to move around meant more speed, and women generally had better reaction times anyway. He watched her cut across the rooftop, swearing under his breath, and a second blur slipped across his field of vision.
It was the other agent, the black-haired sonofabitch from the station.
“Goddamn it,” Cal breathed softly. Even in the shade, with all the windows down, it was a dry sauna in here. Alternatives began clicking over inside his brain; he kept visual on her as long as he could. The scanner erupted—target acquired, hold positions, do not engage, all telling him that it was up to the other agent to bag her. Why?
Doesn’t matter. Think fast, Cal.
He dropped the car into gear, stuffing the nocs into the backpack on the passenger seat. A sharp right turn, bouncing briefly up onto pavement, and he heard through the scanner that she’d broken to the north, down the back of the building and aiming probably for a tangle of jam-packed poverty-stricken streets to lose herself in. If she’d been in place, she’d have reconned thoroughly; homeground advantage might be effective versus the agent but not so much against the cops. They had numbers on their side.
Cal mashed the accelerator and the car leaped forward, smoking the wheels into a left-hand turn. He’d had time to study the layout from the high ground; this particular avenue should bring him around to the north, just outside the police ring.
Christ, they’ve got SWAT vans. Maybe from the base or imported from County? Feathering the brake, everything inside him turning cool and calm now that it was time to do instead of think and fret. He ignored the short, surprised burp of a siren behind him, houses flickering past in a blur of washed-out dusty colors, the only bright spot a new trampoline in one weed-choked yard. Part of him listening to the scanner, decoding its awkward static.
“Shots fired, shots fired!” someone yelled, and more noise poured out. No chopper just yet—why not? Had she moved before they were ready? She was a slippery one, fine instincts or maybe paranoid; Cal had needed every ounce of training to keep up with her. So close, he was so damn close, and if he could cut across her path he could tangle pursuit and maybe, just maybe, scoop her up himself and get to know her—
The scanner screeched again as a flicker of motion darted from his left. She nipped between two police cruisers, bouncing between them to get height, and leaped, the chain-link fence rattling as she monkeyed for the top. On the other side, she dropped with lithe grace and kept running, and if not for Cal’s own reaction speed, he might have pasted her with the hood of his nice blue Chevy. As it was, he laid on the brakes and didn’t even see the other agent dropping down behind her before the impact.
SMASH.
Windshield starred with breakage, the body tumbling away to the side as Cal whipped the wheel, physics deciding according to her own jealous laws that the tires wouldn’t blow just yet, Cal caught a flash of white that was the other agent’s shirt. The car righted itself with a shake, the agent’s body tumbling away in the slipstream. The scanner was full of more chatter he didn’t like, now—more resources scrambled in, and it looked as if someone over at County had got their panties in a wad over “jurisdiction,” that perennial stumbling block.
Enough confusion that she could slip free, maybe, unless she was unlucky or just stopped running.
“Suspect in custody!” the scanner blared. “This is Dakota one-five-one, we’ve got her, she’s down, I repeat, we have her cuffed!”
Cal did the math, came up blank. What the hell? Did someone really collar her, or was that—
D-151 sounded very young and very excited. “We’ve got her! She ran right into me! Uh, ah, we’re gonna need an ambulance, and—”
This wasn’t in character for her at all. Either she was slipping, which was interesting...
Or she’d deliberately allowed herself to be caught. Why?
Who knows? Get out of here and ditch this car before that chopper arrives. There was one good thing about this mess, though.
At least now he knew where to go to collect her. He’d have to move even more quickly now, and he needed a fresh set of wheels.
Dammit. I hate stealing cars. Tools to get the job done, sure, but he often thought about insurance hassles and missing work for the owners when he grabbed one. It didn’t stop him—that moral flexibility Division liked so much in him made sure of that—but he still sometimes felt a little bad over it.
Of course, there was an alternative in this particular situation.
Cal sighed heavily and cut the wheel, bouncing to a halt behind an abandoned Popeyes. I hate getting arrested, too.
Choices, choices. But then the scanner started to crackle with some very interesting news, and Cal’s eyes narrowed as he listened, the sedan’s battered hood ticking a little.
Looked as if he wasn’t going to steal a car after all. At least, not yet.
* * *
Agent Bay—short for Beta, you’re our new version—lay on hot concrete under an unforgiving glare just like the lights shining in his eyes when he woke up without a name. The blue sedan had come out of nowhere, Bay’s concentration narrowed to pursuit of the target’s mop of honey-colored hair, and the first stunning impact was dreamlike. He tumbled, rolling loosely, arms protectively curling around his head, hitting concrete with stunning force. For the first few moments nothing hurt, shock and adrenaline sealing away the nerve impulses that meant something is very wrong.
Internal injuries? Cranial swelling? Perhaps. He tried to move, to shake the stunning noise of concussion away. Get up. Target acquired, target fleeing.
He made it to hands and knees, vaguely aware of blood filling his mouth. Spat to clear his throat. A great rolling breaker of pain came; he realized ribs were broken and froze. More muscular contractions would pull the breaks apart or cause more agonizing feedback. He had to remain still, to let the virus work at accelerating natural healing processes.
Attention turning inward. Lungs and cardiac muscle uninjured, lung function impaired because of rib breaks but no punctures or scraping. Spleen damaged, other internal traumas, the emergency responses of cells clustering and blood clotting swiftly. The worst would be getting the rib breaks smoothly sealed. Did he have a concussion, too? He couldn’t tell yet.
His legs twitched. Hairline fracture: left femur. Pelvis unharmed. Tibial fracture, too, hematomas everywhere.
Sirens. Voices. He ignored them. Something else occurred to him.
Who had he been chasing? Not the chestnut-haired girl who smelled so enticing.
Why was he thinking about her? She wasn’t part of the mission. All that mattered was the mission. Fidelity, they called it. Semper Fi.