I tapped Mensah’s feed and she dropped. I already had the tough-with-apparently-unarmed-citizen target by the arm. I fired the energy weapon in my arm into his shoulder, pulled him toward me as he slumped, then lifted him up to shield my body.
Primary Target (the other SecUnit) was already in motion and shoved two human targets aside and brought its projectile weapon up. It couldn’t fire because of my human shield and that bought me the extra second to fire three armor-piercing projectiles point-blank into the neck joint of its armor, then down into its knee joints.
(The neck joint was the kill shot, the knee joints were to make it drop, otherwise the armor might have made it freeze in place.)
I dropped my projectile weapon because I needed both hands, and tossed my human shield into the two targets on the far side of the pod hard enough to slam them into the wall. The fourth target shot me, but her weapon delivered an energy pulse that would be incapacitating but non-lethal to a human. (A healthy human, at least.) Me, it just pissed off. I grabbed her hand and pulled her in, twisted her so her weapon pointed at the other two targets still struggling to stand, and triggered it five times. They dropped, I snapped her arm (she was fast enough to be a potential future threat), and then pressed her artery to make her pass out.
As I lowered her to the floor, Mensah shoved to her feet and staggered. I think she got clipped by a flailing boot. I said, “Let’s go.”
Mensah took a sharp breath and stepped over the twitching bodies, then edged past the slumped SecUnit. I picked up my projectile weapon and followed her. (I didn’t want to risk taking the SecUnit’s projectile weapon. It might have a tracer. Mine fit better in my bag, anyway.) I rolled the SecUnit back into the pod and asked MobSys to hold it with the door shut while it ran a full diagnostic cycle.
I ushered Mensah into my pod and hit a new destination. As I reloaded my projectile weapon and tucked it back into my bag, I asked the pod to hold while I checked the transit lobby security cam again. Yes, the two GrayCris targets were still there, though they both looked worried and were speaking into their feeds. There were nine other non-target humans waiting in two loosely clustered groups.
What was that idea again? Oh, here it is, right where I filed it.
I said, “I have to take out the two targets on the transit pipe platform. When we arrive, step out of the pod, move away from the entrance, and wait for me.” I hadn’t been able to look at her face yet, not even with the pod’s camera.
She said, “Understood.”
I let our pod arrive at the platform, and as the doors opened, I had MobSys, which also controlled the hotel’s active decor, drop the holographic thunderstorm to the platform level.
I stepped out of the pod into dark purple clouds, lightning, simulated rain, and the startled yelps and laughter of the waiting passengers. Visibility was down to fifteen percent, but my scan found the two armed targets. I reached Target One, blocked her feed, and delivered an incapacitating pulse with the energy weapon in my right arm.
I caught her as she fell and turned to sling her into the pod. Target Two knew something had happened (probably when he lost feed contact with One), and I had to duck sideways and trip him. He hit the platform and I leaned down to give him just enough of a tap on the head to make resistance unlikely.
I dragged Target Two to the pod, where Target One was still twitching. When the doors of their pod closed, I directed it to the club level and told it to freeze in place and notify hotelMaint. Then I let MobSys, which was getting impatient, lift the thunderstorm back to its assigned position.
The other humans and augmented humans on the platform looked confused or relieved, with a few expressing disappointment. No one acted like they had seen a SecUnit take out two corporate security agents. I nodded to Mensah, and we stepped into the waiting area. I was already removing us from the platform’s cam, but this wouldn’t delay pursuit for very long.
I led Mensah down the platform toward where the last pipe capsule would load. The platform camera showed I was doing pretty well on looking casual. (It surprised me, too.) Mensah had her expression under control, her shoulders relaxed. Her clothes, a long caftan over pants, looked more rumpled and creased than they should, but not enough to draw attention. In our feed connection, she said, You said the others are here with a company shuttle? Is the company helping you?
I said, No, GrayCris paid off the station to keep the company out. Pin-Lee, Ratthi, and Gurathin came anyway.
The pipe slid into the station and we boarded the empty capsule at the rear. (This part was mostly luck, but while I was waiting in the lobby, I had done a quick review of the pipe activity from this platform, which wasn’t very active through day cycle. It wasn’t part of the main pipe circuit, but a side route paid for by the hotel.)
As the pipe door slid shut, the platform security cam showed a set of pod doors opening and three humans in hotelSec gear rushing out. Well, shit. There went my timeline.
I had control of the cam in the pipe capsule and now I slid into the pipe’s control feed. I told Mensah, “Change of plan, they know where we are.”
She nodded, her expression tight.
This was a direct transit to the port and I needed a stop, before GrayCris persuaded station security to stop us. The map said that the pipe was approaching a platform in an office building. A quick check on the local security camera showed the platform was empty, which made sense, as there were no pipes scheduled to stop there for another thirty-three minutes. I had to be quick because this pipe was due to merge into the main access track not far past the office building and its window was tightly scheduled. (Causing a major accident by delaying this pipe too long would not only encourage station security to act against us with all its resources but also be kind of a shitty thing to do.) I sent Mensah an alert in her feed—this was happening so fast I didn’t have time to verbalize it to myself, let alone tell her what I was doing—and wrapped an arm around her waist. She knotted her hands in my jacket and buried her head against my shoulder. I folded my free arm over her head. Then I sent the slow command.
The capsule dropped speed as it entered the station and I was already moving as I gave the doors an emergency signal to open. The pipe door made it open in time but the inner station door didn’t. Fortunately I only clipped it and it just altered my trajectory as I spun across the platform floor.
The capsule had already slid its door shut and accelerated to the speed needed to make its merge window. I deleted us out of the recordings, deleted various buffers and logs, and removed the capsule’s memory of the incident.
I’d managed to roll to a stop with Mensah on top, but that couldn’t have been comfortable. The last time we’d done this, I’d been in armor and also jumping off a steep slope, and this was a smooth synthetic stone floor and nothing was exploding at close range. So this was better, is my point, I think. I lifted her off me, shoved upright, and then pulled her to her feet.
She waved me off. “I’m all right.”
I let go of her cautiously, but she stayed up. I pulled maps from the building’s feed to look for transportation options. Aha, there was a good one.
I led us off the platform and down the ramp to the building’s pods, using my code to delete us from the security cams. At the junction we stepped into the first pod to arrive, and I told it to override its rules and take us all the way to the maintenance level, which was listed on the map as a closed floor and wasn’t an option on the pod’s normal menu.
We stepped out into a low-ceilinged space, and once the pod shut behind us it was completely dark. I could see via infrared and used my scan to create a physical map. Mensah couldn’t see at all. She grabbed my jacket and shifted behind me, letting me pull her forward.