Inquisitor (7 page)

Angel rubbed her stiff neck, squeezing as hard as she could. She tilted her head left and right to loosen the muscles.

What was wrong with the light? She hadn’t requested a wake-up call, so that wasn’t it.

She shuffled over to the control panel, clad only in a long white shirt. Early morning light flooded through the window looking out onto the windows of another cheap hotel. She yawned. All environmental systems on the panel were green. She tapped the lights on then off again, then waited. The light stayed off.

Her implants told her it was just after 5:00 a.m. local time, and she knew she wouldn’t get back to sleep. A high-priority message flashed red, time-stamped six hours ago: a request for her to return to her office, with no delay. Perhaps there had been a breakthrough in the case. One urgent message, but nothing else for six hours… Strange.

Angel stripped off her shirt and headed for the shower. She turned the water on as hard as she could, and the temperature as high as it would go. Not hot enough for her liking, but hotels had inbuilt safety measures she couldn’t bypass.

Hard, hot needles of water prickled her skin and hair. Dialing the water to soap, she scrubbed her hair and skin, slowly regaining full consciousness under the pressure and heat, sleep washing away with the jasmine-scented body wash.

Abruptly, the flow of water stopped.

Angel stood, dripping and soapy, for a few moments then muttered an obscenity.

Her implants verified all systems in the room were in working order. Taking care not to slip on the tiles, she tiptoed out of the bathroom, bare feet gaining speed on the carpet until she reached the control panel. All green again.

She poked the reset button forcefully with her finger then listened for the sound of the shower to return. Nothing.

With barely a thought, she directed her implants to trigger the room’s communication systems. A section of a wall lit up as she selected the hotel’s maintenance channel.

Angel froze, dripping onto the carpet.

Charlotte-Rose stared out at her. “They are coming for you.”

Angel froze. “How long do I have?”

“A few minutes.”

“Turn the water back on. I’m no good if I’m soapy.”

Immediately, she heard the shower come on.

“Quickly, though,” Charlotte-Rose said. “There isn’t much time.”

Angel ran to the shower and rinsed off.

“Hurry up, please,” Charlotte-Rose said. “I had trouble finding you; you didn’t register in your name. After what happened yesterday, I was sure that—”

Angel flicked the shower to dry, and the blasts of warm air drowned out the sound of Charlotte-Rose’s voice. Within moments her skin was dry, and she left her hair wet. She ran to her bed and pulled on her pants and shirt, tugged on her leather jacket, and buckled up her boots.

Angel paused in the middle of strapping her hand-cannon to her thigh. She resumed, movements quicker and more urgent. “Who’s coming for me? Mercurial?”

“The local law enforcement. You’re a wanted killer. A warrant has been issued for your arrest, for the murder of the man yesterday: Xavier.”

“That can’t be right,” Angel muttered, then louder, “He tried to kill me.”

“I know that, but the people who hold me captive have decided to get you out of the way. Reports and forensics on last night’s incident all point to you killing him in cold blood.”

“No, no, no. This doesn’t make sense.” Angel’s lips pressed together, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Could she trust this girl? It actually made perfect sense. She had at least two connected murders, she knew Mercurial was hiding something, she knew Valgeir was dirty and wanted her out of the way. And somehow Genevolves were involved.

They wouldn’t take her alive, of course. Killed while resisting arrest. It was cleaner that way. Less paperwork; less to go wrong.

Angel triggered subvocal communication with her office.

“Angel Xia here. I have a request to return to the office. Could you please advise what the issue is?”

A few moments passed, then a few more. Far too long a delay to be normal.

[Inquisitor Xia, what is your location?]

This time, she didn’t recognize the voice or the ID attached to it. What had happened to Margith?

“Please advise what the issue is.”

There was another long pause. Something was wrong. This didn’t sound right.

[You are advised to return as soon as possible. What is your location?]

Angel glanced at the girl on the wall and ran a hand through her hair. She knew they would have traced her location already. The only reason to ask again would be to keep her occupied. She cut the connection.

Taking a few moments, Angel rummaged through her belongings, shoving her leather-bound book into an inside jacket pocket. She stuffed some spare clothes and odds and ends into a backpack and shrugged it on.

Charlotte-Rose tilted her head, as if listening. “Time to leave,” she said brightly. “This will be the second time I’ve saved your life.”

“Keeping score, are we?”

“Always. They are coming.”

Angel’s eyes flicked toward the door. “It’s not the first time I’ve been hunted. How long?”

“Maybe forty seconds.”

“More than one?”

Charlotte nodded. “Many more.”

The screen split in half, with the girl on one side and what looked like the view from Angel’s door camera on the other. The corridor was empty.

Above the service lift at the far end of the corridor, the light blinked on, indicating the door would open, which it did moments later, disgorging at least six Law Enforcement Proxies scuttling forward on their articulated legs. Behind the automatons were two combat-armored law enforcement officers carrying displacement cannons. All black jagged edges and sharp planes, these were not the type of proxies you saw on the streets to assist the general populace. Mostly used to combat criminal gangs, these were at the cutting edge of technology, military-grade automatons emblazoned with the logo of their manufacturer, Mercurial Logic. Lethal. And unstoppable with the weapons she had on her.

They stopped outside the door. Two peeled off and clung to the side walls, while one clambered to hang upside down from the plascrete ceiling.

Drawing her hand-cannon, Angel looked frantically around the room. “Can you lock the door, prevent them from opening it?”

“I can and have, but they will probably break it down.”

Without thinking, Angel raised her weapon and fired at the window. Glass splintered and crashed to the floor. Wind howled through the serrated opening. She shot out the window across from hers.

“Good luck!” shouted Charlotte-Rose over the wind. The wall faded to black.

Angel holstered her gun, took a few steps away from the window, then ran toward it, leaping across the gap. Wind tore at her clothes and hair, buffeting her body. She landed, slipping on broken glass. Hands outstretched, she fell. Pain erupted from her palms as they hit the floor. She grimaced, clenching her teeth, and pushed the pain to the back of her mind.

Luckily, the room was empty. Lurching to her feet, she stumbled to the control pad. She punched the door open, leaving a red smear on the panel.

There was a rasping noise, like a file on metal, then a bright flash, and the air boomed. Angel risked a glance behind her. Plasma fire cascaded around her suite as the LEPs rushed in, discharging a constant barrage without warning. Explosions scattered throughout the room and out into the gap between the buildings. Three stray bolts slammed into the wall next to her.

She leapt through the door. “Shit, shit, shit,” she breathed.

Outside the room, she ran toward the nearest emergency stairs. With any luck, they might think it was their fire that blew out the windows. Shouldering the door open, she paused on the landing. Her hands ached. Shards of glass stuck out of her palms. Blood dripped onto the floor. She must have left a trail.

She ran up to the next landing, rubbing bloody smears on the stair rail, laying a false trail. A command to her implants disabled the inbuilt positioning transponder. For good measure, she flicked her hand toward the floor, spraying drops of blood all over the steps. She held her bleeding hands above her head, and with a curse, she took a deep breath and ran as fast as she could down the stairs.

There was a clang as the door to the landing above her crashed open. Black metal legs emerged, like a spider crawling out of a hole. A proxy must have managed the jump between buildings and followed her.

Angel drew and started firing. Shrapnel tinkled inside the stairwell. Was it only one or…? It didn’t matter. One was more than enough to kill her. And with that thought, her options narrowed to one: flight.

She pelted headlong down the stairs, spiraling, swinging from the railing, her momentum enough she barely touched the steps. Ten floors down, she slammed into the wall and tumbled. Hands outstretched, she left smears of blood on another landing. She winced at the pain. An ominous scuttling of metal on plascrete sounded behind her.

Angel pulled the door open and dashed through. She dropped her arms to her sides and let her blood drip. The corridor she found herself in was clear. She sprinted for the service elevators. One was open. She raced inside and pressed the button for the lower service floor. She held her palms together, clenching her teeth against the stabbing pain, to try and stop the bleeding. The shards of glass dug in deeper, but for the moment that couldn’t be helped. Her eyes watered, and a trickle of sweat ran down her cheek. Since the door she’d come through opened inward, the proxy would have a hard time opening it. Unless…

An explosion rumbled. The door broke from the frame and clanged against the corridor wall.

Angel stabbed at the button again, and the door closed.

She rode the elevator down and took stock. Fucking hells, her hands hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut for a few moments. “Come on,” she muttered at the elevator. The proxy would follow her down using another elevator. She didn’t have much time.

On the service floor, she glanced at the indicators. One of the elevators was descending. She estimated she had twenty seconds. The floor was open and cluttered. Not many rooms, mostly columns to support the building’s weight, leaving spaces for the service automatons to roam about on their tasks. She pushed past a number of the bots and looked frantically around for the chemical storage rooms.

There. Toxic and hazardous material warning signs adorned the wall. Hands aching, she kept low and swerved across the floor just in case. At the door, she ducked inside just as she estimated the service elevator would arrive.

She hunched over the automated dispenser controls. Scrub-bots would roll in and refill their supplies here. Punching in instructions, she forced the cleaning automatons offline and tasked them to gather outside the dispensary. They should delay the proxy long enough. She hoped.

A list of chemicals scrolled down the screen as Angel searched her mind for the right ingredients. It had been a long time ago, but she’d seen Pemenee make explosives out of the bare basics back in her mercenary days. The waiflike woman had had a genius for it. What was it she’d used on the Hydra system job they’d taken? A disinfectant? Potassium… chlorate? Yes. There it was.

A scrub-bot entered through the door, and she barely glanced at it. If it had been the proxy, she would be dead already. Sweat dripped from her nose onto the floor. She directed it to connect to the dispenser and continued looking for what she needed. Ingredient number two: a plasticizer. Unfamiliar names blurred in front of her. Angel shook her head to clear it.

“Keep it together,” she admonished herself.

What did she have to choose from? She set a filter and narrowed the list. Another liquid—they’d laughed about the name and joked about “explosions”… something phthalate.

A crash and the sound of tortured metal came from outside the dispensary.

“Oh sh…”

She punched in instructions to mix the two compounds and fill the scrub-bot. As it stood there gurgling, Angel cycled through her ammo and squeezed a few grenades onto it. They stuck fast, tiny red lights winking at her.

“One,” she breathed. “Please let there only be one.”

The dispenser gave a cheerful chirp to indicate its job was complete. The scrub-bot rolled from under it and stopped by the door. Angel tasked it to move toward the military-grade proxy outside and “clean it”. She ducked out of sight behind a crate.

The door opened, and the scrub-bot rolled out. There was a shattering crash of scrub-bots disintegrating as the proxy churned through them in an effort to reach the dispensary. Her implants still connected to the dispensary system, Angel monitored her bot, her savior. Its signs were green, fully functional. Its spray nozzle and wipers activated as it tried to complete her order: clean the proxy. Which meant it had to be close.

Another shriek of metal and its life signs went red.

Angel remote-triggered her grenades—igniting the makeshift explosive composition she’d created.

The floor shook. A hundred claps of thunder cracked in the air. Angel felt herself start to scream as the doors blew inward. Roiling flames and a hot wind whooshed through. She curled herself into a ball on the floor.

Sprinklers came on, and water sprayed around and over her. She could smell burning. Orange emergency evacuation lights lit the room. She didn’t need to be told twice.

Outside on the service floor, the LEP was a twisted mass of smoking, jagged metal. One of its eyes still functioned, a violet light following her as she scurried past. She shot it and, with gritted teeth, slipped out through a disused exit.

Chapter 5

Angel kept her head down, covering her face with her hair as best she could. She pushed her bloodied hands deep into her jacket pockets. She’d already pulled out the shards of glass and made makeshift bandages from strips of a passing tablecloth, but she needed stitches. Probably a lot of them.

As calmly as she could, Angel walked down the back street to the nearest metro station. One stop later, she got off and swapped to a different line. Another stop, and she repeated the procedure.