I would look back later, remember how she’d taken control, and wonder how I could have been so stupid. But I was stupid, and still am for that matter, and it felt good at the time. I nodded slowly. “Yeah, you’re probably right. No sense in staying here. We’ll build a fort somewhere else.”
Sasha looked grim. “No, we won’t. You were right, Max. I should’ve listened, should’ve taken your advice, but didn’t and paid the price.” Her face softened momentarily, and I saw something that might have been affection in her eyes. “You’re good at what you do, and don’t ever let people say you aren’t. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”
Something rose to fill my throat, tears brimmed in my eyes, and a feeling of warmth suffused my body. I fought for control and got it. “Thanks…a letter of recommendation would be vastly appreciated. But why not? Build a fort, I mean.”
“’Cause we’re going to hunt the bastard down,” Sasha said coldly. “And his friends too…if he has any left.”
The idea hit my brain like the dawning of a new day. Bodyguards are reactive by nature, always looking to defend rather than attack, so the concept seemed radical at first. But the more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it. Why wait for the bastard to attack when you could find the creep, put him away, and spend the rest of the trip relaxing? The plan made excellent sense.
So we lifted the android to a standing position, checked to make sure he’d stay that way, and made an adjustment to his right hand. I thought the upraised finger said it all, and hoped the popper would see it.
It didn’t take long to gather our gear, stuff it into the duffel bags, and clear out. However, things that weighed nothing in zero gee were suddenly heavy and slowed us down. Sasha carried a bag plus the pressure suits, and I toted the rest. Joy wasn’t large enough to carry anything and scouted ahead. We were headed to starboard and on high alert. A second attack seemed unlikely but not impossible.
“We can’t carry this stuff all the time,” Sasha said thoughtfully. “We’ll be dead meat if a popper comes along. No, what we need is a stash, or a number of stashes in case some are discovered.”
I may be mentally challenged, but I know a good idea when I hear one, and the stash thing sounded good. My head swiveled back and forth looking for a good location. And, much to my own amazement, I found one.
The air vent was obvious really, especially to someone who lived on Sub-Level 38 of the Sea-Tac Residential-Industrial Urboplex, where good hiding places are few and far between. Four stainless-steel screws held the screen in place, but one of the recently deceased poppers had been the proud owner of a stainless-steel all-purpose pocket knife, the kind that comes with enough tools to perform brain surgery, and weighs a pound and a half. I pulled the monster out of my pocket, selected the Phillips head screwdriver, and went to work. Sasha supervised. “Don’t leave any scratches. They could give us away.”
I didn’t think there was much chance that my scratches would show among all those left by the maintenance bots and tool heads over the years, but I kept my mouth shut. Some things are worth fighting over and some aren’t.
The screen came free with relative ease. We made an arbitrary decision to divide our supplies into three equal portions, making sure there was a weapon in each-this against the possibility that one or both of us lost our weapons but remained at liberty. And, since the heavily armed poppers had contributed a total of five guns to our arsenal, that left each of us with a backup plus enough ammo to fight a small war-something I hoped we wouldn’t have to do.
So, having placed a duffel bag and the pressure suits inside the air vent, and having reinstalled the screen, we followed the bulkhead towards the starboard side of the ship. Since we were located near the barge’s stern, and knowing there was a great deal of space between us and the bow, it seemed logical to suppose that the popper or poppers were camped towards the entry lock or beyond. I had assumed that we’d climb up through one of the access tubes, recross the sky bridge, and retrace our steps from there. I even said as much. Sasha put me straight.
“Sure, Max, it could work, but tell me this: A popper escaped, right?” Well, where did he go? If he crossed the bridge, we’d have seen him.”
I frowned. She was right. The bridge was completely exposed, so we would have seen him. “How ‘bout the forest? Maybe he’s hiding in the bushes.”
“Anything’s possible,” Sasha said patiently, “but he’s wounded, and that makes it likely that he’ll head home. Wherever that is.”
Thoughts piled into each other as they tried to find a way through my head. The popper had headed home, the popper lived up towards the bow, the popper didn’t use the sky bridge, ergo, the popper knew of another way to get there. Brilliant, huh? But Sasha was way ahead of me. “The way I figure it, we should make another stash, work our way around the forest, and find his escape route. The rest will be simple.”
The rest would be simple? Tracking a professional killer to his lair would be simple? Was Sasha out of her mind? I looked her way, half expecting a sardonic smile, a hint of irony, but no, she was completely serious. I felt confused, very confused, and my head started to hurt. I wanted Sasha to be smart, wanted her to assume control, but couldn’t quite let go. In spite of the fact that Sasha thought circles around me, and was more competent than any girl her age had a right to be, she lacked experience. A sometimes fatal flaw. I fought the headache and prepared to assert myself when and if we found the popper’s escape route. We had just dropped a duffel bag containing a gun, ammo, and a third of our food into a large junction box when Joy pointed towards the other side of the bay, and gave the alarm. “Look!”
We looked, and saw what appeared to be a black dot quartering the area where the battle had occurred. Sasha kept her voice flat and unemotional. “The bastard has a spy cam.”
“Yeah.” I said grimly. “Or took control of a maintenance cam.”
She gave me a look, the kind reserved for occasions when I’m a pain in the ass, and gestured towards the grating. “Come on, let’s get the cover on.” I hurried to help. The grating clanged as it dropped into place.
“Look!” Joy said for the second time. “It heard! And it’s coming our way!”
We looked. The spy cam had heard and was coming our way. My reaction was to hide and hope for the best. Sasha had other plans. She pointed towards the deck. “Lie down! Pretend you’re dead!”
The order went against all my instincts, all my desires, but she gave it with such certainty that I obeyed. The deck was cold and the lights were bright. I closed my eyes. Black blotches floated on an ocean of red. I heard a whirring noise, air caressed my face, and the scene grew darker.
I felt the spy cam hover over me, or thought I did, and wondered what Sasha would do. The answer came as the darts thumped into the spy eye’s metal housing, servos whined as it tried to get away, and the whole thing landed on my unprotected stomach. Air whooshed out of my lungs, my eyes flew open, and my arms wrapped themselves around the still-struggling machine.
I was eyeball to lens with the blasted thing when Sasha drove a twelve-inch commando knife into the camera’s cylindrical torso. The weapon had been liberated from one of the poppers, and the combination of the saw-toothed back edge and the high-tensile stainless-steel blade proved more than equal to the task. It passed through the housing, punctured a vital part, and ended the machine’s life. The robo-cam jerked a couple of times and lay dead in my arms.