World War 97 Part 4 (World War 97 Serial) Page 2

  I stopped and took several deep breaths, realizing I was beginning to babble again. It was good to tell someone, though—someone normal, someone like me, who wasn’t already hip deep in the web of lies that made up present-day American society. Present-day world society.

  I glanced up at Will, and I could see he still didn’t know how to handle everything I was telling him. I didn’t blame him. From his point of view, the most likely explanation still had to be that I’d gone off my rocker.

  “You should have let me put on clothes before telling me all this. It’s easier to take your world being turned upside down with pants on.”

  “Believe me, it’s not.”

  “And I wouldn’t have been able to sit still without some eye candy.” Arianne came back over to stand beside me. “Nice back muscles.”

  “What’s her story?” Will asked.

  “An ex-girlfriend, and well…” I hesitated. There was no point lying after everything I had told him. “A member of Celeste.”

  Will shot to his feet. “You’re shitting me.” His towel started to slip, and he grabbed it and retied it. He went to the back wall and pressed a panel. “To think I was considering helping you.”

  “I’m not with her.” I glanced across at her. “Well, she helped me escape from Burnett, but I’m not with Celeste.”

  “You two are coming with me,” Will said. “We can sort out the rest of your accusations once you are in custody.” He reached in to grab something from the opening behind the panel and came out empty. He began frantically patting the bottom and the sides of the panel, searching.

  “Mislaid something?” Arianne asked. She raised a gun and pointed it at him.

  Will turned. “How did you get that?”

  “While you two were distracted in deep conversation, I may have explored, and something may have gotten stuck to my sticky fingers.” She waved her hand, feigning an attempt to shake the gun free. “Look, it seems to like me. Sorry.”

  “You don’t need to point the gun at him. Will is on our side.”

  “Our side? Which side is that, Jordi?”

  “My side. Will is on my side.”

  Arianne frowned in an exaggerated manner. “So I’m on my own. Just me and this AR-781 laser pistol with stun.” She pressed the trigger.

  Will jerked and fell to the floor.

  “What did you do?” I shouted at her. “You can’t just shoot him.”

  “At least I know how to set the gun to stun.” She walked over to Will, bent down, and squeezed a biceps. She nodded approvingly. “He’ll be okay. I’ll give you one thing, though. You were right. Coming here was an inspired idea. A gun is exactly what we need to escape. And you distracted him so well.” She patted me on the shoulder and opened the door. “Good job.”

  Chapter 3

  Arianne walked down the corridor with a determined stride, holding the gun out in front of her. A businessman walking the other way started then flattened himself against the opposite wall, a terrified expression on his face.

  “Shouldn’t you put the gun in your pocket or something?” I asked.

  She turned to face me. “No point in hiding. Now is the time for action.” She pinched my cheek and jiggled the skin as though I were a five-year-old. “Let’s do this.”

  She upped her pace, and I followed in her wake. A frisson of excitement ran through me. Hellfire, she’s crazy. I turned the corner behind her. Two mibs were guarding the conveyor station. The nearest of them convulsed and fell to the ground before I’d fully processed the situation. His partner drew his gun, but fumbled with it. When he fired, the shot went way over our heads. Arianne shot again, and the second mib fell beside his partner. She pushed the button to summon a pod, and I bent to pick up the fallen gun.

  “Leave it.” She threw Will’s gun against one of the mibs’ chests. It bounced onto the ground.

  I straightened. “Why?”

  “They can track all guns that travel via the pods. In times of emergency, anyone with a gun has to radio in before they travel, and if any of their guns are spotted moving without authorization, the pod will be shut down.” The doors opened, and Arianne got in.

  “Wait.” I opened a nearby maintenance panel and dragged first one then the other mib inside, remembering how Larsen had gained control of the pod once she’d discovered which one I was in. I threw the guns after them, closed the panel, then checked to make sure the corridor was empty. That should buy us some time.

  I joined Arianne inside the pod. “I never knew that guns could be tracked like that.”

  Arianne keyed in the location of a station near the JFK landing platform, and the pod whizzed to life. “The pods aren’t usually monitored, but it’s different now, with the threat of a possible attack from the Territories, plus, of course, a city-wide manhunt for a terrorist.”

  “Couldn’t you just hack into the system? That’s Celeste’s specialty, right? That’s how you managed to open my cell and all those control doors.”

  “I would have had to set that up in advance.”

  “So your plan was?”

  “I didn’t realize we’d need guns to get into a pod. My plan was one part get-you-the-fuck-out-of-prison and ten parts improvisation.”

  “And Celeste sent you out without any more of a plan than that?” Even when I’d been certain that they were evil, I hadn’t doubted the organization’s efficiency and competency.

  “This is a one-woman operation. Called in a few favors, that sort of thing.”

  I shook my head. “You didn’t have to rescue me. What were you thinking?”

  “Maybe that I still owed Darius and he asked me to mind you. Maybe that you might still prove useful to us. Maybe just because I thrive on danger and love doing crazy things. Maybe because I feel bad that I ended up walking out on you without a word. Perhaps all four.” She glanced across at me then punched me on the shoulder and started laughing. “If you believe the last, you’re still a fool, despite all you’ve learned. There might be something in the other three. Or not. I’m not a creature of logic.”

  “A fire elemental,” I said, recalling a snippet of our bed talk from a year ago.

  She grinned. “Fiery and unpredictable.”

  “We are heading to JFK landing platform, right?” Knowing that Arianne had virtually no plan, I was even more worried. Getting to the surface made sense—at least that was one place beyond Mari Larsen’s power, and I was guessing that Celeste was at least partially based there. “From there, what? We wouldn’t have a chance of flying a plane out without being blown to smithereens by either our own side or the Territories fighters.”

  “Of course not. That would be suicide.”

  “So you want to get one of the lifts to the surface? The lifts used by those who chose to go rogue? They’ll be guarded. Plus we’d arrive into the middle of a swarm of enemy fighters.”

  “The Territories fighters won’t expect individuals to appear. We’d just need to get lucky.”

  “Very lucky.” I knew what fighter pilots were like. They loved targets. The Bolivar’s fighter pilots would undoubtedly be thrilled to shoot down anyone walking through the rubble up above.

  “Do you have a better plan?”

  “We’ll have a place to hide if we get to the surface and aren’t immediately blown to smithereens?”

  Arianne nodded.

  “I know of another way to the surface.” I keyed in a new destination. Without slowing down, the pod recalculated a new destination in the background. Instead of heading to JFK, it was taking us back toward one of the places where my present journey had begun—the ancient tunnels where Darius had left a holographic message for me.

  “You aren’t going to object?” I asked Arianne.

  “No, this is part of the improvising I was telling you about—choosing better alternatives when they present themselves. The way isn’t guarded, is it?”

  I remembered the two mibs who had stopped Christina and me. Will they still be there? Could there b
e more than two? “Not heavily guarded,” I said. “We could do with those guns we left behind, though.”

  We rode in silence. I watched the names of districts flash by on the console as the pod passed through them. I was worried that the Bureau would take control of the pod before we reached our destination. But we slowed and came to a stop at the correct place.

  After the doors opened, a head wearing dark sunglasses twisted around to look at us. Shit. For a moment, we looked at each other in shock. Arianne was the first to recover. She charged at the mib. He reached down to pull out his gun, but she tackled him to the ground, knocking the gun away from him.

  “Halt!” a second mib shouted from the other side of the doors. He took a step forward, his gun raised. He pointed it first at Arianne, then at me, then back again. “Get off my partner.”

  “Okay, we don’t want any trouble.” Arianne rolled off the other mib. As she did so, she twisted her head toward me and covered her mouth with her hand. Then she mouthed: “He can’t shoot us both,” so only I could see it.

  I gave a slight shake of my head. It was too dangerous.

  She didn’t pay any attention to me, though. As she rose to her feet, she curled down her little finger of her left hand, showing three fingers pressed against her cheek, then two fingers.

  Hell, we don’t even know if their guns are set to stun.

  An instant after she showed one finger, she dove for the gun. At the same moment, I did the same from the other side. I thought Arianne would reach the weapon first, but there was a crackle—and my fingers wrapped around the handle of the gun. I sensed Arianne falling close by. I lifted the gun and steadied my hand, making sure of my aim. Stun guns took about a second to recharge, so I was likely to get only one chance before the mib shot me.

  I fired. A stream of electricity hit the mib on the chest, and he fell. I turned around to see the second mib scramble to his feet. As he ran, I took aim, waited for the gun to recharge, then shot. He slumped against the wall then slid down to the floor.

  My mouth felt dry. I knelt in front of Arianne and turned her onto her back. Once I was sure that she was still alive, I was able to breathe again. She was unconscious, though. I wasn’t sure how long she would be out, but she wouldn’t be walking around any time soon, and we had left a trail of unconscious mibs behind us. Once they failed to check in, the Bureau would know exactly where we were going. We had to get out of Under Nyork as quickly as possible.

  Arianne wore a survival backpack similar to the ones I’d found in the rusted train. I took the backpack off Arianne, put one of the mibs’ guns in in, then put it on my back. I pocketed the other gun then dragged the bodies of the two mibs inside another maintenance panel. Then I bent down and lifted Arianne onto my shoulder. She wasn’t petite, but she was thin, and she weighed less than I’d expected. Though, undoubtedly, part of the ease with which I could lift her was due to adrenaline still coursing through me.

  We met nobody as we headed deeper into the disused corridors of the upper levels. I cursed myself for not anticipating the previous battle. I’d known there were mibs guarding the conveyor stations to stop us from getting on the pods—it should have been obvious that they would be waiting when we exited the pod, too. But it had never occurred to me. So stupid.

  “And now we are paying for it,” I whispered over my shoulder at Arianne. Stupid, stupid. When I started to ascend the stairs, I really felt Arianne’s weight on my back. I tried to keep a watch out for mibs, but after a while, I couldn’t concentrate on anything other than putting one foot in front on the other. Every now and again, I paused to lean against a wall so I could catch my breath. I didn’t want to put Arianne down because I dreaded the effort of having to lift her again.

  The condition of the corridors continued to deteriorate. Ceiling panels hung by electrical wires, and large splotches of green mold decorated the walls. The last time I’d been here, happy memories of my times with Darius had dominated my reflections. After everything I’d learned since, those memories were tainted. Almost everything I’d thought I knew had been a lie. Darius had known, but he’d said nothing.

  We couldn’t get to the very top level without passing the Bureau security desk that had stopped Christina and me. A passageway and a half before I reached that, I knelt and eased Arianne off my shoulder and into a sitting position. I massaged my neck, savoring the feeling of being free of her weight. Arianne’s head drooped onto her chest. I lifted her chin to make sure she was still okay. She was still breathing, but her lifeless and cold expression was disturbing, so unlike her. I tucked a lock of hair behind her ear before lowering her head.

  I took the backpack from my back and took a quick look through it, noting the headlamp, water, and nutrition bars. The headlamp would be essential. I took the gun out, left the bag beside Arianne, and grabbed the other gun from my pocket. Walking as softly as I could, I approached the security desk, a gun in each hand. I winced as I stepped on a cluster of loose stones, which grated against the floor, but I doubted the sound was loud enough to carry.

  I continued forward, keeping alert for any sounds of movement. If I was lucky, there would be no mibs manning the desk. If there were more than two—well, that didn’t bear thinking about. Two guns, two shots, two mibs.

  I turned the corner. Two mibs sat at the desk, playing some sort of card game. I moved closer, keeping my guns trained on them. I wanted to get as close as possible before firing. When one looked up and saw me, I fired both guns at once. Both mibs collapsed over the desk. I stood there for a moment, staring, surprised that I had hit both of them. Then I pocketed the guns and returned for Arianne and the backpack.

  This time, I put Arianne on my left shoulder. I paused for a moment to get accustomed to the weight then trudged past the unconscious mibs. There was no point hiding these two—no one would randomly pass by this checkpoint. When I reached the vent that led into the tunnels, I lowered Arianne to the ground again. When I had been here with Christina, I’d had to take off the grate first; this time, it was leaning against the wall to the side. I took the headlamp from the backpack, put it on my head, and shone its light through the vent. Everything seemed the same as last time I was there. After a moment’s thought, I hid the guns under a fallen ceiling panel. I wasn’t sure if the Bureau could track them once they found out which guns we had stolen, but I didn’t want to risk it.

  I zipped the backpack and threw it into the vent. Then I turned around, got on all fours, and stuck my feet into the vent. I used my hands to push myself farther in, and my feet slid along the bottom panel of the vent. Once most of my body was inside, I pulled Arianne’s arms into the vent behind me. I used my elbows and knees to crawl backward, stopping at every pace to pull Arianne after me. Once my legs emerged out the other side, progress became easier; I was able to brace my legs on the floor and pull my shoulders through the narrow section. It turned out that going through backward was easier than forward.

  I slung the backpack over my shoulders then pulled Arianne the rest of the way through. I immediately lifted her onto my shoulders. The really difficult part was coming next, and I didn’t want to think too much about it. That wouldn’t make it any easier, and I had no choice other than to carry Arianne up the ladder in the maintenance shaft.

  She lay across my left shoulder, and I curled my left hand around her back to hold her steady. My shoulders and head tilted to the right. I took a firm grip on the highest rung I could reach with my right hand, and I began to climb. I lifted my left foot onto the lowest rung then lifted my right foot to join it. Most of the weight came when the second foot joined the first, so I alternated which foot to raise first. The hardest part was climbing one handed. I leaned my right shoulder against the wall so that my weight was forward and on my legs, then I quickly snapped my right hand up a rung, taking a leap of faith each time. The third time I snapped my hand forward, I misjudged the distance, and my fingers snatched only air. I began to tip backward, my heart leaping into my mouth. My han
d fell, and I grabbed again, snagging the original rung. I pulled myself vertical again.

  From then on, I was even more careful, making sure that catching the next rung had my total concentration, despite the ever-growing weariness in my body. The only sounds were the scraping of my right shoulder against the wall, the panting of my breath, and the slap of the soles of my shoes hitting the metal rungs. By the time I reached halfway, I needed to take a break after every step; and the length of each break increased the higher I went. When I was three rungs from the top, I managed to speed up again, encouraged by how close I was and the knowledge that I needed to get up before my muscles failed me.

  Once my shoulders breached the top, I ducked my head and let Arianne’s body topple forward over my neck. I used my left hand to ease her fall, but she still hit the ground hard. I didn’t have the energy to feel bad about it. I dragged my body up the last few rungs and fell down beside her. I turned off the light and held her body to mine. My muscles ached with exhaustion.

  I rested, but I didn’t let too much time drag by. I couldn’t stop here. The mibs would be after me before long. “Could we hide somewhere, do you think?” I asked Arianne.

  I took a deep breath, channeling the meager remnants of my energy, then switched the light back on and stood up. “Yes, you are right. We’d be found. We have to keep moving.”

  The light of the headlamp patrolled from side to side as I looked around, reacquainting myself with the layout. Having spent plenty of time in the conveyor tubes recently, I noticed plenty of similarities, especially the central groove down the middle, where the train could travel. The walls were made of rock and cement rather than metal up here. One side of the tunnel was blocked with rubble, so there was only one direction to go—toward the rusted-up train and beyond.