Voices

The problem with that was every system designer knew it could be done. The main security node was protected by the strongest countermeasures that the company could lay hands on. And usually a decker would be there, jacked in from inside the building. Just waiting for any intruder to defeat the ICE.

Carrie measured her chances. Her intrusion software was top notch. Her screening only a bit less. But her combat systems were woefully weak for that kind of maneuver. She couldn't just dump a decker in the main building. He would manually key the alarms as soon as he was out. Those were hardwired. Nothing she could do to stop that. Not even if she had already mastered the security system.

She looked at the Soulscramble icon glowing a baleful blue on her active icons list. Could she do that?

Nelson was worried. The waste flow continued for several seconds. She should have killed it by now. He was just checking his watch when the flow stopped. At the far end of the pipe he heard the sound of the valves unlocking. The team scrambled up the slanting pipe and emerged in the basement. A jumble of wires, pipes and conduits surrounded them. Nelson moved carefully through the maze. He reached the sealed doors that would allow entrance to the first floor. The door remained closed. Five seconds passed, then ten.

"Lady?" he whispered into the throat mike. The quiet hum of static was his only answer.

Carrie stood outside the main security node. The data screen running around it was dark and ominous. She wanted desperately to key the abort signal and jack out. She wanted to be back in her little room and far from the potential death that screen held. She wanted to be almost anywhere else, doing almost anything. She wanted to live.

Instead she fought back every impulse and keyed up her Data Hammer. It had barely begun to smash through the wall when an alarm was tripped. Her mind flew, sending out an abort command in a data bullet. It caught the alarm command a hair's breadth from its destination and stopped it.

She had no time to see if it had successfully aborted; a trace program shot off down the electronic trail that lead to her deck. She keyed up a Gryphon and sent it off after the trace. Her only hope in that direction was that her screens would hold up until the Gryphon could destroy the trace.

Her data hammer was still pounding through the screen. A black wall suddenly reared up before her. Her watch dogs had missed it. It crashed into her armor III and she screamed a world away. Her armor held as she keyed a second Gryphon. The pain receded as the two programs tore at each other.

She felt a strange sensation and knew instinctively that the trace had defeated her screens. She was open now. It was a situation where she had to do or die. If she failed, she could count on a hunter killer team at her hideout. Even if the ICE didn't get her, they would.

Instead of the fear she expected she found that it actually liberated her. Death was death. A bullet would kill her just as dead as having her brain destroyed by the ICE. The fact that she no longer had the option to run made her curiously serene.

The Gryphon ripped the last of the ICE to shreds before disappearing itself. The prog was dead. She would not have it to use again this run. And her Gryphon she sent after the trace had not returned yet. Somehow she knew that the trace had had a protection program and that Gryphon was gone now as well.

As the hammer tore through the wall, she knew she was seriously underpowered for what she feared was there. She killed the hammer and keyed a bridge. It molded itself to the hole in the data wall and began to reroute the flow around itself. She stepped into the node.

He was standing there, his avatar a great troll. Somehow she could see the smile on his face. Like a dog held too long in a cage and suddenly given a piece of meat. A huge back club appeared in his hand. And he attacked.

Her armor deflected the first blow, but burned out. She knew what that meant. His next blow would fly down the lines and smash her meat brain. Her Gryphons were gone. She keyed a bottleneck that flooded his CPU with useless information. He moved in slow motion and she was able to dodge his blow. But his own countermeasures ripped the bottleneck to shreds and he moved quickly again.

She looked at her active index. One prog left in her attack queue. She keyed it without thinking. It was kill or be killed now. And she wanted to live.

Like a flood of water released from a crumbling dike, waves of black code poured from her avatar's fingers and washed over the troll. He screamed, his club dissolving as he dropped the prog and tried to jack out. She watched, fascinated, as he fought for his life. It was killing him, she could tell. His meat self was hitting the now useless dump key. With a final scream his avatar disappeared.

She stared. He had been dumped from the net. But this wasn't a dump like she had ever seen. He had been dumped because there was no more activity in his brain. She had killed her first human being. She felt sick to her stomach.

"Lady?" the question came through from Nelson.

There was no time to dwell on it. She keyed her decrypter and let it start on the main security grid. She killed several alarms, all keyed by the hammer and her Gryphons. By the time the decrypt was done she had killed all the alarms, and canceled the calls to security stations.

She quickly keyed her integrate program and in nanoseconds she was linked to the whole building's security grid. She could "see" through its cameras, and act on any system it controlled. Best of all, her commands to subsystems would trigger no alarms as they would appear as legitimate commands from the security center.

Her first commands sealed the security room. From one of the cameras she could see the body of her victim. He was young. A pimply faced teenage kid with green hair and a large tattoo on his leg. His head was slumped over the console, a red ooze of blood came from his ears, eyes and nose. A small flame smoldered in his hair around the charred ceramic jack. No one else was in the room.

She activated a scan and pulled up the schedules for rotating personnel. It took her several seconds to find the one she wanted. Forty-five minutes. His relief was due in just under forty-five minutes. She saved the file to her deck. At this point she could not bring herself to look at his name.

"Falcon, there has been a complication. You have forty-five minutes before this place explodes," she said into her transmitter. She hoped her voice sounded calm, but even as she sent it she could detect the quavering note in her voice.

"You OK, Lady?" was his reply.

"Affirm," she said, not trusting herself to say more.

Nelson moved into the hallway as the door slid open. A single security guard was seated at a console in the main lobby. Nelson kept him covered with the silenced S&W Mk. 89 assault rifle. The rest of his team moved out behind him to the elevators.

Nelson retreated back to the elevator, the door slid open with a slight hiss of hydraulics and his team entered. The lift moved smoothly upwards.

"Twenty-second floor. Two guards. Twenty-five feet from doors. Both watching a game on the portable, backs to you," came the rasping voice in his ear.

Nelson didn't reply. He looked back quickly to see if the rest of the team got it. Short nods let him know they were all tuned in.

"Affirmative," he whispered into the throat mike.

The doors opened soundlessly. Nelson smiled to himself when he realized she had killed the bell that announced the elevator's arrival. A real pro. Irish and Dutch were ready. A quick spray of copper jacketed shells put the two guards down. They moved quickly to hide the bodies under the console as the Kid covered them.

The doors closed again. Nelson's last impression was the Kid giving him the thumbs up sign.

"Status?" he inquired, his voice tight.

There was a pause. He was sure she was switching cameras. The elevator came to a stop suddenly, between floors.

"He knows," she said. "He is standing in the hallway. Right in front of the elevator."

"How?" was all Nelson said.

"Damnit! He is jacked into the security cameras."

"Doesn't matter," Nelson said heavily. "I wouldn't have been able to surprise him anyway. How is he armed?"

"Two pistols, gunfighter style" she said as the elevator began to rise again.

Nelson suppressed a smile. A pro in the net, but no idea of what killing was all about. To her any pistol on a web belt was the same as the gunfighters in the movies.

Nelson sat the assault rifle on the floor. He loosened the tabs on his Martells. So this was it.

The elevator slid to a stop. And the doors opened. There he stood, in a business suit, but the pistols ruined the effect. This was a killer. And his next contract was the Major's lady. Nelson stepped off the elevator and faced Marcel Duvet. The man's face was bland. Not a whisper of an expression.

"Good evening," he said in a cultured voice. Trace of a continental accent. He looked Nelson over and then smiled. Nelson decided he liked the man expressionless better.

"Pardon my surprise, I was expecting someone else," he finally said.

"The Major sends his regrets, I hope I won't disappoint you," Nelson replied evenly. His eyes watched the man, looking for any sign he was about to draw. His own hands hovered close to the butts of the Martells.

"Not at all. My compliments. It takes a good team to get this far. May I ask your name?"

Same easy voice. No sign of strain. Was he stalling or merely that confident?

"Jack Nelson," he finally replied.

Marcel's face took on a strange look. Nelson could almost see the wheels spinning. Then he realized the man must have a Neuroprocessor.

"Ah yes. Jack Nelson. Elite. I was under the impression you had retired?"

"I did. But you know how it is. You only leave this game feet first," Nelson said.

"Indeed," Marcel replied.

This was becoming surreal to Nelson. Here he was, talking to this man like they were at a cocktail party. He was beginning to doubt himself. He wondered idly if this was part of Marcel's normal way of dealing with a target.

"Hmm, that's interesting. Martell model 9s. That's an unusual weapon. I see you still carry them," Marcel said, same conversational tone.

"Thirty minutes and falling," her voice rasped in his ear.

"I see your team is getting worried. It's just as well. I will not detain you any longer. If I do not kill you," Marcel said in the same conversational voice. But as the final syllable passed his lips his hands moved towards his guns.

Nelson's moved for his own faster than thought. From that moment the whole world seemed to be moving in slow motion. He saw Marcel's guns clear their holsters and begin to level off. A tactical error. Nelson's Martell was barely out of the holster before Nelson dropped his shoulder. This had the effect of bringing the barrel up to firing position much faster. And in this game nanoseconds counted.

Nelson heard the soft sigh of the Martell eclipsed by the loud bark of Marcel's automatics. His sound dampers kicked in immediately and he had that odd sensation he always got when they did. Like having your ears stuffed with cotton. Or more like the way sound seemed muffled after his ears popped on a stratojet flight.

He saw the two mushrooms of flame stab from the bores of the stout automatics. Even as they erupted he saw the spray of blood and armor fragments erupt from Marcel's hip. He felt the heavy slugs hit him, one tearing through his shoulder. The other smashing into his body armor at about sternum level.

"Move!" his instincts screamed as he staggered from the hammer blows.

His fingers caressed the trigger on the Martell again. With the dampers on he couldn't hear it, nor did he feel the slight recoil. Marcel's guns roared again and he felt a slug smash into his own hip. He saw another font of blood blast out of the Belgian's back, about kidney level.

The range was too close, neither of them could miss. Nelson sank to his knee as his finger touched the trigger again. Marcel's guns boomed and Nelson felt another solid hit in his chest. He could only hope the body armor would hold. His own shot entered Marcel's body through his shoulder, just below the collar bone. The Belgian killer was flung backwards against the wall. He bounced off of it and fired again. Nelson threw himself forward. He felt the air of the slug pass his head.

The Martell sighed again and Marcel's knee disappeared in a spray of blood and metal. The loss of his knee sent the hired gun crashing to the ground. Both men were prone now. Both covered in their own blood. Both looked eye to eye from the floor. Both tried to bring their guns to play. Marcel was dying. Nelson was sure of that. Of his own wounds he could not say. But now he was in a bind. He had no idea how much power remained in the cell. He could have enough to splatter Marcel's insides all over the floor, or the titanium shard might land 10 feet from him.

He could go for the other Martell, but he would never get to it before Marcel fired. As he took aim at the Belgian's unprotected throat he heard a voice. A soft southern drawl. From the edge of his fading consciousness. "The eyes," it said. "The most dangerous man is always the one with the best eyes."

The Martell sighed again, the sound ending in a dry rattle as the magnets tried to pull from a powersource gone dry. Nelson heard the sharp retort of Marcel's guns and the world faded to black.

A rasping voice in his ear. Soft, but urgent. Nelson tried to move. The black fog that shrouded him became thicker. It would be so easy to give in to it. Just close his eyes and give up. If only that voice would leave him alone.

"Damnit, Nelson," the tone even more urgent.

Sharp spikes of pain ripped through the dark as he tried to move again. He heard a groan, like a wounded animal. After a heartbeat he realized he had made it. His eyes flared open. A pattern of red and green swirled before him. It was another interminable stretch of time before his conscious mind realized it was the pattern of the carpet.

With a concentrated effort of will, he pulled himself up. The Belgian lay face down in a puddle of blood at the end of the hall. The once white wall was a grotesque painting. A Dega, gone mad. Red upon white. Bits of shiny metal and white shards of bone.

Still not working on a conscious level, he was vaguely aware of himself slotting a new power clip into the Martell. Lessons drilled into him by instructors and long experience taking over for rational thought. He had holstered the pistol and placed the spent cell in his butt pouch before he regained enough consciousness to try and make his muscles respond to his will.

Nelson fumbled in a cargo pouch for the first aid kit. His left arm was useless, a dead weight hanging from a shoulder that was nothing but raw pain and blood. His right hand wasn't doing much better. He fumbled with the simple safety catch, his vision swimming from even this effort. Finally it popped open, vials of drugs and neatly packaged compresses spilling out onto the expensive carpet.

Nelson managed to capture the dark blue vial. Pointing it towards his dead arm he pressed it against the skin. The self applicating needle fired. Almost instantly his vision cleared and his conscious mind began to focus, the stim dose pumping up his autonomic nervous system.

With the heightened awareness came screaming pain. The dull throbs and aches shot into sharp focus as stabbing, red hot points of pain. Nelson bit his lip until it bled to keep from screaming. He captured the green vial and hit himself with the powerful painkillers.

In seconds the warnings of damage his body was sending to his brain were thrust into the background. Returning to dull aches that pulled at his consciousness like a cat worrying a mouse it had caught.

"Nelson?" Still urgent, still rasping, but now with a sense of relief that was palpable.

"What's left of him," Nelson slurred into the throat mike.

"Thank God!" An exclamation. Not very professional, but infinitely comforting.

"Time?" Nelson managed. The slur gone. His voice sounded strange in his ears. Weak and tremulous.

"Five," she replied. All business again.

"Status," Nelson said as he applied a self-congealing compress to his wrecked shoulder.

"Target secured. Extraction team is E and E. ETA, three minutes." Curt. Professional. All the essentials with no wasted breath. No wonder he loved her.

"Roger," he responded.

The world came into sharp focus finally. Five jagged holes in his body armor. He only remembered three hits. A furrow on one arm, and a stinging laceration above his left ear. He could not remember when either of those were scored. Besides his shoulder the worst was his hip. A slug had smashed into his demo bag. Only the metal casings that protected the det caps had kept it from tearing through his skin. As it was there was a huge, ugly bruise and he was stiff.

Ten seconds. Maybe less and the Belgian had scored 9 hits. Nelson looked down the hall at the body. Something inside him felt for the man. In different circumstances Nelson knew he would have enjoyed working with him. But that was how Biz went. You couldn't choose your friends. The corporate dollars decided who was on what side.

Nelson dragged the combat knife from its harness and staggered toward the body. One thing left. The back of the Belgian's head was blown out. Nelson noted with curiosity that his final shot had passed through the man's left eye. He didn't remember aiming for the head, his last memory was going for the throat.

Nelson used the knife and dug into the man's brain case, his hand emerging finally with the matchbox sized piece of electronics he wanted. The NAC, or neural activity controller. It seemed undamaged, but Nelson had no time to examine it closely.

"Three minutes."

"Affirm," he mumbled as he stumbled back into the open elevator. Its steel jaws closed upon him and he felt the smooth acceleration as it dropped. By the time he was nearing the bottom floor, his head was swimming again. He hit himself with a second stim dose. He wanted the painkillers again, but he knew the two cancelled each other to an extent and this was going to be too close for him to be foggy.

"Reception committee on the bottom floor," her voce rasped. "Five in standard riot gear. No alarms. One minute."

"Jack out. I'll take it from here."

"Affirm," Came her reply. A note of concern. So much said by a word. So much unsaid between them. No time for sentimentality.

Nelson grasped the S&W Mrk89 and planted his feet widely apart. He braced himself. His left arm was still useless. The S&W was a great weapon, but it wasn't made to be fired one handed. Still he had no real option. The Martell was a fine weapon, but this was not its thing. He wished fleetingly that he had his shotgun. The doors slid open and he squeezed the trigger.

The S&W bucked wildly in his hand. The spray of steel jacked death was uneven. Hitting guards in the knees, thighs, crotch and riding up. There were cries of alarm turned to screams of pain. A sloppy job. Nelson tossed the assault rifle and instantly a Martell appeared in his good hand. His first shot was across the long lobby. The security guard there took it in the head. A spray of blood and brains covering his console before he could hit the alarm.

His next two shots dispatched wounded guards. The alarms were ringing now. His actions? Or had his minute run out? No time to worry about it.

Nelson ran as best he could, dodging into the maintenance door and falling flat on his face. His left shoulder pulsed with a pain so severe he nearly passed out. He struggled to his feet and worked his way through the jumble of pipes and conduits. He had barely made it to the outflow valve when the doors to the maintenance hatch began to cycle shut. Yellow caution lights flashed as the opening became less and less.