“Yes.” Gutteridge pointed to a green blob. “This doesn’t appear so much as physical damage as a remapping of some of the pathways.”
“A breaking of connections.”
“Or an altering of connections. Maybe that’s why the nanobots struggled with repairs. Everything is still physically there, but some of the neurons themselves have been altered, and signals have been shut down or redirected to…”
Alisa lost the gist of the conversation as it grew more complicated. She turned toward the door, her back to the men, and commed Leonidas, wanting to update him on the official room designation in case he and Alejandro did make it into the hospital.
“You see them?” Leonidas asked by way of greeting.
“See what? We’re in a windowless room in a windowless corridor.”
“The shuttles landing,” he said grimly.
“Whose shuttles? Police?”
“The Alliance army. Seven shuttles, two on the roof, two out back, one at the front entrance, and one at each tower. They’ll have enough men to guard all of the entrances and come in and search.”
Alisa flattened her hand to the wall. “For you or for me?”
“Both? Neither?”
“Somehow I doubt neither is the answer.”
“So do I,” Leonidas said. “Where are you now? Can you get out? It might be possible to escape if you do it in the next minute, before they have people on the ground.”
“We’re way more than a minute from an exit.” Alisa watched the men gesticulating at the brain display and poking through data scrolling next to it. “And I think we need more time with Durant in this machine.”
“All right. We’ll find a way in.”
“You better not. What’s that going to do? Get us all captured? Start a firefight in a hospital full of sick people? That’ll only make things worse.”
“We’ll find a way in,” Leonidas repeated firmly.
Alisa hesitated, wanting to argue against it, but if they were limited on time, what was the point in fighting? “We’re in Observation and Scanning Room 3 on the fourteenth floor, between the west tower and the main hospital building.”
“Understood.”
The channel closed.
Alisa turned toward the men. She hated to interrupt them, but they needed to know what was happening. Since Gutteridge had been good enough to help them, she definitely should give him a chance to disappear before the military stormed in.
“It will be an interesting challenge,” Gutteridge said, stepping back from the computer and the table. “I’ll have a couple of neurosurgeon colleagues help, and we’ll come up with something.”
“That’s not necessary,” Alejandro said distractedly, his gaze still toward the data. “He’s my patient, and it’s not safe for him to stay here. I’ll copy the file and come up with a solution on my own.” He seemed to be doing just that, preparing to send the data to his personal account.
“On that ship you told me about? Better to leave him here. Besides, I’m afraid you won’t have the freedom to act for long.”
Finally, Alejandro looked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re a wanted man, Alejandro Dominguez. And so is your captain.” Gutteridge glanced at Alisa. “I hope you’ll forgive me, but I wish to keep my esteemed position here in the hospital and the community. I have a wife here, children.”
“So you set up a trap for us?” Alejandro asked in disbelief, glaring at Gutteridge through Durant’s floating brain scan. “Why didn’t you just say that you couldn’t help?”
Gutteridge lifted a shoulder. “I wanted to see your patient. His case sounded interesting.”
“Interesting.”
“I’ve heard of Starseer attacks, of course, but this seems unique, or at least like something that hasn’t been used in a long time. I scanned the medical database and found something similar mentioned from a few centuries ago, during the Order Wars.” Gutteridge tilted his head to the side. “Who attacked you, and why?”
When his attention was back on Alejandro, Alisa inched her hand toward the stun gun.
“None of your damned business,” Alejandro growled, stepping toward the door. “Captain, we need to—”
“Stay where you are,” Gutteridge said, reaching into his suit.
Alisa whipped the stun gun out. She fired as Gutteridge was pulling out a similar weapon. Her gun buzzed feebly, but nothing more happened.
“The security scanner at the door deactivated it.” Gutteridge clucked at her as he pointed his stun gun at her. “You should have gone for the low-tech firearm. But I knew you wouldn’t. After all, you fought for the Alliance. Shooting Alliance citizens now wouldn’t be seemly.”
“Lot of good that’s done for me lately,” Alisa grumbled, debating whether she could reach the Etcher and fire before he could stun her. How experienced would a doctor be with weapons?
Alejandro touched a control panel, and a series of beeps came from the scanner. Gutteridge glanced in his direction.
Alisa snatched her Etcher from her holster and dove to the side, anticipating Gutteridge firing. As she flew through the air, she aimed for him, not to kill but to shoot the stun gun out of his hand. But he fired first. Electricity crackled all around her, her hair standing on end, and her finger refused to comply with her wishes. She felt herself hit the ground and saw Gutteridge striding toward her, but her awareness disappeared after that, her muscles locked and her vision went black.
Chapter 6
Alisa woke in the same room, her head pounding. Her wrists were locked together in front of her, the cool intellicuffs molded to her skin. She sat on the floor, propped against a wall and slumped against something. Alejandro’s shoulder, she realized, as she opened her eyes to slits. Voices in the room kept her from making a more blatant announcement of her consciousness. Besides, her entire body was numb. It would take more time for feeling—and usefulness—to return to her limbs.
“You don’t know where the cyborg is?” a man asked.
“These are the only two who came.” That was Gutteridge’s voice. “Well, three technically.”
With her eyes slitted open, Alisa could see legs and boots around the exam table. A lot of them. There were at least eight people in the room. She recognized Gutteridge’s dark suit legs and sleek shoes with old-fashioned laces replete with ridiculously tufted tassels. The boots were all military.
“And you don’t know who this is?”
Alisa couldn’t see any higher without lifting her head, and she didn’t want to do that. A couple of those pairs of boots faced her. Someone was probably holding a gun on the prisoners.
“They didn’t say,” Gutteridge said. “Just that he was attacked by a Starseer.”
“Hearing too damned much about Starseers lately.”
“Is it true that someone threatened the city?” Gutteridge asked.
“That’s classified.”
“So classified that you can’t let a trusted member of society know if he should be getting his family off-world?”
Off world? What kind of threat had the Starseers made? Had it been Lady Naidoo and those who lived in the temple? Or were the rogues with the staff here on Arkadius?
“Classified,” the other speaker repeated firmly. Presumably, this was the highest-ranking man in the room, maybe the person in charge of searching for Leonidas.
Alisa wished she could see a clock. She should have been out for fifteen or twenty minutes. Had Leonidas found a way into the hospital? Would he be heading here even now? As much as she would like a rescue, she worried about how many people might be hurt—or killed—if he stormed in here. If there were eight people just in this room, how many people were in the corridor and at the various exits? Leonidas wasn’t in his armor, so he wouldn’t be impervious to blazer fire. Enhanced strength and reflexes might help him in a fight, but he would be as susceptible to a shot to the head as the next person.
A muffled voice sounded outside the door. Alisa couldn’t hear the word
s, but thought it was something about laundry. She remembered the woman dumping linens down a chute and imagined her surprise at having all these soldiers in her corridors.
A soft groan came from beside her. Alejandro.
One of the pairs of boots pointing toward them took a step closer, and Alisa wished she could tell Alejandro not to move, but it was too late. They already knew he was waking up. It wasn’t as if she could have done anything if they’d believed her unconscious, but they might have kept speaking freely.
“Not needed,” someone outside said more loudly and firmly.
“See what that is,” the leader ordered.
The door opened as a loud thud echoed from the corridor. Several more thuds followed, and all except two sets of legs stormed toward the doorway. Cracks and clacks sounded, followed by the squeal of blazer fire. A soft thwump came, representing the discharge of a stun gun. Four more thwumps followed in rapid succession.
“I hope that’s a rescue,” Alejandro muttered, lifting his wrists.
They were bound, just as Alisa’s were. She looked at the remaining soldier—a man with captain’s tabs on his collar—and wondered if he had the electronic fob that would unlock their cuffs. He had pulled out a stun gun—apparently, their weapons hadn’t been disabled by the security scanners—and had it pointed at the doorway. Gutteridge was still in the room, but he had retreated to a corner, his back to the wall. Someone had turned off the holographic brain image, but Durant remained on the table.
Several more thumps sounded, the door slammed open, and a big laundry cart careened inside, heading for the captain. He fired at it, rather uselessly. He also tried to jump out of the way, but the equipment towering to his side kept him from going far enough. The cart caught him in the hip, and he stumbled.
Alisa took advantage, bracing her back against the wall and kicking out as hard as she could from her awkward position on the floor. Both of her heels connected with the side of his shin. He slammed into the equipment, and his boots slid out from underneath him on the polished tiles. Alisa rolled away from the wall as his butt smacked to the floor. He turned his stun gun toward her, but she smashed into him first, jabbing him in the sternum with her elbow.
His breath blasted out in a pained whoosh. She twisted to get the right angle and kicked the stun gun out of his hand. It flew across the room, crashing off the leg of Durant’s table.
More concerned about getting her hands free than acquiring a weapon, Alisa scrabbled at the captain’s waist. She found the key fob in his pocket and yanked it out. Already recovering, he sat up and lunged toward her. Instead of scrambling away, she threw her weight at him, bringing her elbow to bear again. He only got his guard up part way, and she struck him in the jaw. His head snapped back, crashing against the equipment.
She thumbed the fob as she rolled away. The intellicuffs released and clacked to the floor. She pushed to her feet, turning toward the room to assess what was going on. She almost crashed into a gray-clad chest. A big hand reached out at her, and she wobbled backward, wishing she had found a way to keep the captain’s stun gun instead of knocking it away.
“Nice work,” came a familiar dry voice as the hand landed on her arm, steadying her.
“Leonidas,” she said, blinking in surprise. She should have recognized the girth of that chest without seeing his face, but those weren’t the clothes he had been wearing earlier. “Make that Janitor Leonidas,” she added, recognizing the uniform.
“I’m here to collect the laundry.” He bent and removed a soldier’s weapons, then tossed the man into the laundry cart. Two other unconscious soldiers were already in there. Mostly unconscious. The one on the bottom groaned pitifully.
“Funny.” Alisa waved the fob toward Alejandro and clicked it again as she looked around the room. None of the soldiers in sight were standing. She didn’t see Gutteridge, but a door in the back of the room stood open.
“More are on the way,” Leonidas said, tapping a stolen earstar with Alliance markings. “They’ve been spread out, looking for me, but they know there’s a threat in here now.”
Leonidas helped Alejandro, who still appeared dazed from the stun, to his feet and nodded toward the door.
“My patient,” Alejandro blurted.
“Got him.” Leonidas hauled Durant over his shoulder.
Alisa spotted her weapons on a desk in a corner. She grabbed the Etcher but left the stun gun and took the one the captain had been wielding instead.
Abelardus waited in the corridor with several more soldiers unconscious on the floor at his feet. He, too, wore the gray janitorial clothing, though the Starseer staff wasn’t exactly a part of the uniform.
“Where did you two find clothing in your size?” Alisa asked as Leonidas led the way down the corridor, Durant bouncing on his shoulder as he ran.
“There were some burly janitors working in the laundry facilities in the basement,” Abelardus said, running at her side. Her legs were numb, so she was glad Leonidas was pausing at each intersection to check for soldiers. “I wish I could say they were all men.”
“Are you saying Leonidas is wearing a woman’s clothes?” Alisa asked.
“No, I am. And she wasn’t as intrigued with the idea of me removing them as you’d expect.”
Alejandro stumbled along behind them, alternating between cursing and telling Leonidas not to jostle Durant. Alisa hoped he had gotten the information he had been collecting earlier and that he could come up with a way to treat him. Maybe it would have been better to leave him in Gutteridge’s hands, no matter where his loyalties lay.
Blazer fire streaked at Leonidas at the next intersection. He ducked back behind the corner, the procession coming to a halt. Alisa glanced uneasily behind them, aware of the open corridor. They could easily be surrounded once the Alliance had their location pinpointed.
Leonidas returned fire much more carefully than he would have done in combat armor.
“Coming behind us,” Abelardus said, shifting his position to stand behind Alisa and Alejandro.
A side door clanged open, and two armored soldiers burst out of a stairwell. Alisa cursed. Neither her Etcher nor stun gun would do anything against chest plates and helmets.
Abelardus thrust his staff outward as the men lifted their weapons to fire. The soldiers flew away, helmets striking the ceiling.
Leonidas sent a barrage of blazer fire around the corner. Something popped in that corridor, and lights went out.
“Keep going, through the intersection,” he ordered, glancing back at Alisa. Then he jumped out into the intersection, continuing to lay down fire, his rifle in one hand as he held Durant on his shoulder with the other.
Alisa worried about him exposing himself, but the two armor-clad soldiers were already jumping back to their feet, and Abelardus jerked his head, indicating she should follow Leonidas.
She grabbed Alejandro’s hand, and they sprinted across the intersection. Darkness and smoke lay in the direction that Leonidas was firing, so she couldn’t see their enemies, but return fire streaked toward them. Alisa dove for cover at the same time as Leonidas did. He jumped behind the far corner and continued to shoot.
“Abelardus,” he said. “Your turn.”
The armored soldiers were stumbling under another attack, but one of them got off several rounds. Alisa ducked, expecting them to make it through the intersection, but they bounced off Abelardus’s invisible shield. He snarled and pointed his staff again. This time, instead of the men flying backward, several ceiling tiles were ripped off and tumbled down upon them. Startled, they scrambled away from the falling debris.
Abelardus ran backward through the intersection. Even though Leonidas continued to fire around the corner, someone dared to fire back through the smoke. A crimson blazer bolt slammed into Abelardus’s staff. He yelped and dropped it before making it behind the safety of the corner.
“To that escape door down there,” Leonidas ordered, using his head to point. “Go, I’ll keep covering
.”
Abelardus was grabbing his hand and cursing, so Alisa ducked low and snatched his staff out of the intersection. Abelardus turned his cursing into a roar and thrust his arm toward the armored soldiers. They had recovered from their surprise at the ceiling attack and were advancing again. This time, their rifles were torn from their hands and flung down the corridor behind them.
Knowing they had more weapons built into their armor, Alisa ran down the corridor after Alejandro. He was already heading toward the door. Alisa hated to flee instead of helping, but Abelardus and Leonidas would move a lot faster if they didn’t feel they needed to protect her and Alejandro.
She and Alejandro charged through the door, a manual one instead of an electronic one, and out onto a landing with stairs and a service elevator. An alarm light flashed over the elevator doors. Alisa did not know if that had to do with her team or if it meant someone was coming up to their floor. There was a fire alarm button and a sprinkler access panel on the opposite side. She punched the alarm button on the chance that more confusion might help with their escape.
“Stairs,” Leonidas said, as he leaped through the doorway.
Abelardus was right behind him.
“Start down,” Leonidas ordered. “All the way to the basement.”
He whirled on the landing as Alisa started down, trailing Alejandro.
Leonidas paused to tear into a wall panel as if it were made from paper instead of cement board, and as if he didn’t have a big man slung over his shoulder. He found and yanked out a portion of the pipe attached to the sprinkler. Water sprayed everywhere, but he ripped off the pipe and jammed it against the door. He also broke the handle off and dropped it on the landing.
If he did more, Alisa did not see it. She leaped down the stairs four at a time. It was a long way to the basement. Assuming the main entrances were all blocked, she hoped Leonidas had a plan for getting out from there.
“Are you going to give me back my staff?” Abelardus asked, catching up with her somewhere around the tenth floor. “Or are you enjoying holding it that much?”
She thrust it toward him, shaking her hand as water dripped onto it from above, glad to get rid of the staff. She’d kept bumping it on the wall and railing.