Don't Let Go (14 page)

Loki turned the chair around and glared at him. “You think that /ALLIANCE/ was the only pot I had my finger in, kid? That’s what I did before my morning coffee.”

Peter visibly bridled at the implication that his hacktivist site had been small-time. Before he could retort, Noa interceded, asking, “So do you know how to get the password?”

As Loki tapped away, he said, “Firefly and I were tight. When she went down, she could have taken us all with her. But she kept her mouth shut. Gotta respect that.”

“Which group was that?” Peter demanded.

“We weren’t dumb enough to name it,” Loki grumbled, shooting Peter a look. “But we shared things.”

“What sort of things?” Noa asked.

“Things like this.” Loki bent low over the keyboard. Noa watched as he hammered away, editing the source code configuration. It was impressive; until now, she’d had no idea how good he really was. Potentially even better than her, which was a little unsettling.

With a flourish, Loki hit the enter key. The monitor suddenly flooded with information.

Noa gasped. “You did it!”

Peter raced over. “Dude,” he said, in a voice filled with awe. “How the hell did you figure it out?”

“I told you.” Loki looked pleased with himself. Flashing a yellowed grin, he explained, “Firefly and I were tight. We shared back doors.” Seeing Noa’s raised eyebrows, he went bright red and mumbled, “That didn’t come out right.”

Peter bent over him, eagerly scrolling through the screen. “This is it! We’re in!”

“You’re welcome,” Loki said, shoving Peter aside as he lurched back out of the chair.

Noa grabbed his arm as he passed her. Squeezing it lightly, she said, “Thank you.”

Embarrassment flickered across his features, but Loki’s eyes lit up. He bowed his head slightly, then lumbered out of the room.

Peter didn’t even seem to notice that he’d left; he plunked back in the chair, exclaiming as file after file popped open on-screen. “Medical files!” he called out. “Emails! Noa, we’ve got him!”

Noa tried to match his enthusiasm. “Yay.”

Peter didn’t seem to notice. His fingers flew across the keyboard, sifting through the enormous stack of files. Noa thought about the original documents they’d gained access to, and the insane amount of information there. This had to comprise several times that. On just one of the file structures. And there were seven more.

Peter was so completely consumed by the information filling the screen, he didn’t seem aware that she was still in the room. “All right, Pike, you bastard. You’re going down,” he muttered.

“You should destroy it,” Teo gasped, still lying at their feet. One of the guys had grabbed Daisy; he pinned her arms to her sides as she struggled against him. “It’s a bug. That’s how they track us.”

“Hear that? It’s a bug.” Shaved Head was older than the other two, maybe eighteen or nineteen. “We got ourselves James Bond here. Grab their packs.”

The kid in the ragged Suns jersey wrestled Teo to his feet. He tried to fight his way free, but the boy was stronger, his hands were iron clamps on Teo’s arms.

Watch Cap had already yanked Daisy’s backpack off and was digging through it. He drew out a stack of bills wrapped in a rubber band and let out a whoop. Teo winced. That was all the money Noa and Peter had given them, a few hundred dollars. Without it, they weren’t going anywhere.

No way I’m letting them roll us
, Teo thought, his resolve steeling at the sight of Daisy’s dismayed expression.

“Looks like we got a couple of rich kids playing at being homeless,” Shaved Head sneered. He snatched the money from the other kid and jammed it in his pocket. “Are Mommy and Daddy waiting up for you?”

“Bet they’re worried,” Watch Cap chuckled. “Especially about you, huh, princess?” He grabbed Daisy’s chin and drew it up. She pulled away from him, and he laughed cruelly.

“Nope,” Teo said, his insides hardening. The two of them had been through too much to be terrorized by a few punk street kids. The cash had distracted the guy holding him; his grip had eased. Hopefully, that would be enough. “I’m part of Persefone’s Army.”

“You’re what?” Shaved Head asked, puzzled.

“Bullshit,” Watch Cap said. “You remember those losers, Joe. Everyone was talking about them a few months back.”

“Right, the kid army.” Joe scrutinized Teo. “Thought it was a bunch of crap.”

“It wasn’t,” Teo insisted. “Your friend Angie? She probably got taken. By the same guys who put that bug in a friend of mine.”

Joe tossed the tracker in the air and palmed it one-handed. “Right,” he said skeptically. “So you and your little girlfriend here are being tracked by this thing?”

“Yes,” Teo said firmly.

“We’re just like you,” Daisy interjected. “Street kids. Only we decided to fight back.”

The boys openly guffawed. “Yeah, you two seem pretty tough,” Joe chortled. “Must be some army.”

“It was,” Teo said. “And you know what?” He grabbed his backpack. Suns Jersey was too startled to react immediately, and Teo shoved his hand through the open top. It closed automatically on the one thing he’d vowed never to leave behind. “You would’ve made shitty soldiers.”

Teo jammed the Taser into Suns Jersey’s armpit. The volts coursing through his body cut off the kid’s shriek of rage.

Unfortunately, a Taser took time to recharge, and he couldn’t get to the one in Daisy’s pack. The other two kids were momentarily paralyzed, but that wouldn’t last. Teo grabbed Daisy’s arm and gave her a shove, urging, “Run!”

Noa was starting to wonder if she needed glasses; she’d been staring at the screen for hours straight, and the words kept blurring on her.
My eyes are getting worse
, she realized.
What happens if it gets so bad I can barely see?
The thought hit her like a gut punch.

She pushed back from the desk quickly. Peter glanced over. “What?”

“Nothing,” she mumbled, closing her eyes to rest them. They still throbbed, matching the constant pulse in her chest. “Just tired.”

“Yeah, me too.” He tilted back the chair and methodically cracked the knuckles on one hand, then the other. His elation had dissipated as they pored over the files. Peter disconnected a drive, then bent to retrieve another from the backpack at his feet. Noa repressed a smile. Even though the tracking device had been removed, he still seemed loath to be more than a foot away from his pack.

Of course, hers was resting against the wall beside the door. Some habits died hard. “How’s your back feeling?”

“Like it was stabbed with a scalpel,” he said reproachfully, throwing her a look.

Noa smiled. “Been there.”

“I know.” His face grew somber. “I would have gone crazy by now.”

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered, feeling herself flush. “And here I was trying not to think about it.”

“We could both just get hooked on oxy,” he suggested. “Might make us feel better.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “Drugs would be a great solution.”

“See, you think I’m joking, but I could use some about now.” His right hand drifted toward his lower back and probed it carefully. “I really hope those antibiotics Loki shot me up with worked.”

“They did,” Noa said, adding with exaggerated solemnity, “Otherwise you’d already be dead.”

“That’s comforting. Thanks.” Peter made a face. “Man, I’m starving. You want to break for dinner?”

Before Noa could respond, the air was shattered by the high-pitched wail of a siren. Peter shot out of his chair. “What the hell is that?”

Noa could only shake her head. The siren was piercing; she pressed her hands to her ears. The tide of panic that perpetually circled her depths like a prehistoric monster leapt to the surface.

Loki raced into the room, his eyes wild.

“What’s going on?” Peter asked, shouting to be heard over the din.

“Alarms,” Loki snapped, keying up the security feeds again. Noa barely even looked at them anymore. Aside from the occasional animal wandering through, the images never seemed to change; they were almost like a screensaver.

Not this time, though.

“Oh, shit,” Peter breathed.

Noa froze. The surrounding fields and woods flitted past in a now familiar succession. But instead of a whole lot of nothing, the cameras displayed dozens of men in black, wearing familiar wasp masks and carrying rifles.

Pike’s army was here.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“H
ow did they find us?” Noa said, a familiar terror gripping her heart as she thought,
Not again
. They’d been lulled into complacency, and now they were trapped underground like a couple of rats.

On every monitor, men were moving purposefully in staggered lines.
How many did Pike send? Dozens?

Peter spun on Loki. “You sold us out!”

“I
what
?” Loki growled. “You think I would
ever
invite a bunch of jackboots here? Hell, I didn’t even want
you
here!”

“I don’t think it was him,” Noa said. “He could’ve just disabled the alarms.”

“Exactly!” Loki exploded, throwing up his arms.

Peter took a step back, doubt flickering across his features. Mingled with something else . . . Was that guilt? “It couldn’t have been the tracker,” he said weakly. “Teo and Daisy have it.”

“Maybe there are trackers in the servers?” she said.

“No way.” Loki shook his head emphatically. “Told you, this room is its own goddamn Faraday cage.” He jabbed a finger at Peter. “Did you take that pack off before we got the bug out? Anywhere outside this room?”

Peter looked panicked. “I don’t think so. Crap, I can’t remember.”

“Hell, Vallas,” Loki snarled. “We should have left the bug and pushed you into the river.”

“It doesn’t really matter how they found us.” Noa gestured to the monitors. Four commandos were outside the little shed: After a series of complicated hand signals, they disappeared inside.
Okay
, she told herself.
Stay calm
. They’d gotten away before; they’d do it again. “We don’t have much time. Loki, how do we get out of here? You said there was another way.”

Loki pulled the greasy trucker’s cap off his head and tugged anxiously at his thinning hair. His eyes darted across the room. “I’m going to have to leave it all behind.” His voice was thick with shock and disbelief. “You’ve ruined everything.”

Noa didn’t have time to feel sorry for him. She grabbed his arm and said urgently, “Loki, we have to go.”

“You know how many years it took to build this place?” he said forlornly.

“If we don’t leave, they’ll kill us.
All
of us,” she emphasized. Grasping for something that might penetrate, she said, “This is exactly the sort of disaster you’ve been planning for all along.”

Loki blinked, finally seeming to see her. Slowly, his head bobbed. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. I’ll go grab my bug-out kit.”

He charged out the door and vanished down the hall. Peter was rushing around the room, cramming server drives back into his pack. Noa followed suit, her eyes skittering across everything in the room. Thank God they’d kept the packs close by, and more or less fully stocked.

Of course, with the added drives from Teo and Daisy, they’d be twice as heavy, too.

In the distance, a series of thumps: Pike’s men were trying to break down the door at the base of the stairs.

Loki reappeared. He wore an enormous pack on his back, three times the size of theirs. A headlamp was strapped over his trucker’s cap, and the shotgun was gripped in both hands. “This way!”

Noa followed as he moved with surprising speed down the hallway. All sorts of miscellaneous things were attached to the outside of his pack: A crowbar with a shovel attachment, a coil of rope, and other random objects jounced in time to his footsteps.

Peter was following so closely, he kept tripping over her heels. She flashed him a look the third time it happened.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “But we need to go faster.”

“The blast door should hold them for a while,” Loki called out before darting down a side corridor. They were leaving the part of the bunker she’d become familiar with over the past week, and entering a section that hadn’t been fixed up. Now she understood why he was wearing a headlamp; there were no lights in this part of the complex. Loki hadn’t been kidding about the size of it, either. He guided them through a dark maze of tunnels, the concrete floors and walls caked in dirt. It looked like a world abandoned by man, pocked with dusty food wrappers and rusty machines. Her feet kicked up clouds of dust; the grit coated her throat and made her nose twitch.

They took so many turns, Noa doubted she’d be able to find her way back to the control center, never mind the surface.

Another
BOOM
, closer and louder. The entire tunnel shuddered, like a giant creature in death throes. Loki slowed the pace slightly. “Crap,” he muttered. “They must have C4.”

“Will that get them through the door?” Peter asked anxiously.

“Enough will, if they know what they’re doing.”

Noa was happy she couldn’t see Loki’s face; he sounded like he was considering turning the shotgun on them.

“I’m sorry, Loki,” she said.

He glanced back at her; there was a fine sheen of tears on his cheeks. “S’all right, kid. Hell, this gives me a chance to test the bug-out plan.”

“What is the bug-out plan?” Peter called out.

At that, Loki’s face split in an impish grin, and some of the sadness faded from his eyes. “Just you wait,” he said. “You’re gonna love it.”

As Teo and Daisy tore down the street, he was all too aware of pounding footsteps behind them. The boys were giving chase, yipping and howling like this was all some big game. He gritted his teeth and pressed on. He could go faster, but Daisy wasn’t much of a runner, and he was careful to stay behind her.

He was hoping to circle back to the bus station; there were bound to be people there. The bus they were supposed to be on was probably already boarding.

Not for the first time, Teo wished he’d been graced with a better innate sense of direction. They were running straight down the middle of a desolate street. Decrepit buildings on either side, mainly storage facilities. Not a soul in sight.