"The box?" I glanced down at it. "You mean this cube? It's nothing. Boring stuff. Raw, unprocessed data, that's all. Nothing you or Selene would be interested in."
She lifted an eyebrow. "Really? You give me your word?"
"Oh, definitely — cross my heart and all that."
She scowled. "Damn your word, Mick. You're not going anywhere."
"You might not wanna mess with this one, Kelly. Could be dangerous."
Her lips curled in a sneer. "Dangerous for who?"
In the background, Selene slowly sat up and blinked as if waking from a dream. Her eyes slid in my direction and focused. A frown marred her features.
I glanced back at Kelly. "Say, are those sweet catsuits armored by any chance?"
"Do you think we're dressed like this for just the sex appeal? Of course they're armored: STF coating for maximum protection." Her eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"So I won't suffer from guilty feelings later."
Using my exodermis-enhanced speed, I armed my HFM gauntlet and blasted, dashing for the door as they all collapsed.
Selene snapped from her stupor a lot faster than I did. Leaping from the chair, she pulled her sidearm and rushed after me nearly as quickly as I hit the CLOSE button and punched the panel with the HFM, activating the trigger on the fist-gun. The board exploded in a shower of sparks as the door hissed shut.
Thumping sounds immediately followed. Selene's voice was barely audible through the reinforced steel.
"Mick. What did Faraday tell you? Where is he? We had a deal, goddammit. If you hurt my girls, I swear—"
I used a few precious seconds to recharge the HFM. "If their armor is good as advertised, they'll be fine, Selene. A few bruises and sore egos will be the only damage. Look — I'd love for us to gab like civilized people, but you knew this was gonna happen sooner or later. Alliances are fragile things, ya know. Gotta run."
I'm sure she had more to say, but by that time I'd already burst out of the room and into the hallway. A squad of four more Wildcats stormed in my direction, yelling at the top of their lungs. Before they could throw lead, I hefted the storage case and hurled it at them. Predictably, they dodged the possible explosive, giving me a couple of seconds to target and fire. Good thing I'm a pretty good shot even on a bad day, and it wasn't a bad day.
Not yet.
The stun rounds put them on their backs, allowing me to keep running. I slowed only to snatch the cube back up by the handle, not too worried about the cargo. I figured Faraday knew what he was doing and had it padded and secured enough to handle a few jolts. If not, that was his problem. I'd just put myself in the crosshairs of the entire Gutter Girls organization, which was my problem. I planned on solving it by putting as much distance between myself and Selene's people as possible. I figured I had around thirty seconds for them to recover and pursue. Most people couldn't do much in that little time.
I wasn't most people.
Out the open window, into the floater, hit thrusters, and nosedived into the depths of the city. I couldn't go too far down because the flooding had increased in the short amount of time I'd been out. The floater skimmed over the dark water, weaving between half-submerged buildings as I stared in at the damage, dull shock the only emotion available. The sheer amount of water was impossible for any disaster scenario except for one. The briny scent of the floodwaters should have been enough to cue anyone smart enough to make the connection.
I stayed low for a few more minutes before shooting up the side of a massive tenement building in a cloud of dust and chipped paint, pushing the floater as hard as I could without attracting attention until I found a nearby parking deck to pull into. I figured Selene probably put a tracker on the vehicle as a precaution because that's what I would have done.
When I exited the confines of the vehicle, the roar of the city slapped me in the face. Angry voices, screams of pain and terror, shouts of alarm, the continuous thunder of gunfire. The scent of smoke and char was heavy in the air. A screaming body fell outside the parking deck window, followed by another, and another. I paused to check the Mean Ol' Broad while the sounds of violence rang in my ears. The unleashed chaos meant only one thing: Kilgore delivered his revelations to the public. All the lies, all the unanswered questions that flickered through people's minds: exposed. The veil of deceit that New Haven required to operate independently had been removed, and nothing would ever be the same.
I tapped my holoband. "Kessler — you got that anti-aberrant device installed or what?"
His face appeared on the screen. "It's done. I took your advice and put a gun to someone's head. In legal terms, I'm holding the Chief of Environmental hostage, but we're outside of legalities now. Especially you, Mike. Kilgore spilled everything, and now there's a target on your back that everyone wants a shot at. Flask has been too busy to check up on me, but I'm pretty sure he'll be coming with handcuffs whenever he returns."
"I'm sure a resourceful agent like yourself can dodge a measly Chief of Police. How soon can you activate the anti-aberrant field?"
"Whenever you're ready. It will be dispersed in the rain but will cover a small area and only last a few minutes. You'll have to keep Kilgore engaged and hopefully take him out in a short window of time."
"Won't be a problem."
"How do you know?"
"Because I have what he's looking for."
"You found Faraday?"
"In a manner of speaking. Be ready to fire up the failsafe, Kessler. I'll be in touch."
With a heavy sigh, I reached into my flogger and pulled a red scarf from the inner pocket. Made from smart fabric, it emitted digital chaff that prevented digital eyes from recording my face and presented a fake image to any facial recognition software. I wrapped it around my nose and mouth, tucking the ends into my collar as I tapped a sequence on my holoband.
"Greco. I'm in the Uppers. Yeah, I know what's going on. Keep your cool, get the crew together, and meet me at the Dome. You got five minutes."
When I glanced at my reflection on the floater's window, the red mask left nothing visible except the coldest eyes I'd ever seen. Hunter's eyes. Tossing a grenade into the front seat of the floater, I turned away and headed for the stairwell, where the fury of the city waited to greet me like an old friend.
Kilgore's appearance replayed over and over, on every screen, digital billboard, and holographic display in the Haven. And of course, the main holo-screen in the center of Haven Square, where he projected the message from his remote location. A sea of people had surrounded the stage, thousands thick; many displaced, homeless because of the rising waters. With nowhere to go, they came to Haven Square to hear something, anything to explain why they lost everything they had.
But the disadvantaged weren't the only people in attendance. Everyone who could squeeze in was present, upturned faces hungry for just a kernel of truth, answers no one else could provide. Answers to questions they couldn't voice, but felt in the back of their consciousnesses, grainy flickers of reality that haunted their nights and faded like dreams before waking up. Even Natasha's boyfriend Matt Finn was present, standing next to the stage with a hopeful look as if he expected the heavens to open up and pour honey on his face.
Kilgore's voice boomed over every speaker, resonant and self-assured. "Residents of New Haven — take a look around. What do you see? Here in this Square, you're surrounded by the monoliths of commerce and industry, the very heart of the city. But make no mistake, this is no safe Haven." His lip curled in disgust. "It is a prison, and you are slaves."