Tails You Lose (4 page)
Rain was still pelting down all around the truck, making it unlikely that the secguard would do a visual inspection. Even if he did, he was unlikely to spot Alma. The insulated bodysuit, boots and fingerless gloves she wore were all a dull brown, mottled to match the mud-splattered underside of the truck. So was the tool bag that was velcroed to her chest.
Alma
heard the clunk of gears being shifted. The truck lurched forward again and rolled inside the razorwire-topped chainlink fence that surrounded the terminal.
"Rover here," she subvocalized into the microphone at her throat. "I'm in."
When the truck slowed to make a turn, Alma released her fingers and feet. The ground was approximately a meter below, and she timed her muscle relaxation accordingly. When she hit the ground she was as loose-limbed as a drunk and took no damage from landing on the cement. A moment later, her move-by-wire system snapped her muscles to attention, allowing her to roll out from under the truck before its rear wheels could flatten her.
As the truck disappeared behind a wall of containers, Alma crouched in the wall's shadow and uploaded the digital image she'd shot from the parking arcade earlier. She oriented herself in relation to the crosshaired container and calculated her ETA. Then she activated her retinal clock and set its timer.
"Rover to Base. Can you see me?"
"Base here," Schell answered immediately. "That's an affirmative. You're already behind smoke."
"I'm approximately eight minutes away from our target. How's the clearing going?"
"I'm two units away from our target."
Perfect. The final two containers would take approximately seven minutes to clear. Everything was going like clockwork—just the way Alma expected it to. "Good work. Prepare to start extending the smoke."
"Will do."
Reconfiguring the programming of Crane 21 so that it loaded five containers from the middle of the stack had been relatively easy for the team's Matrix specialist, but now the tricky part was about to begin. To cover Alma's movements across the terminal, Schell had to access dozens of security cameras at once and then create a one-second delay in the data that was streaming back from them. That gave her one second in which to feed an "instant replay" loop into each of the securicams just as Alma moved into its field of view. The net effect would be to render Alma invisible—all the cameras would "see" was a blank wall of containers.
"This is Rover. I'm starting my run."
Using the aerial photo of the terminal she'd snapped earlier as a map, Alma jogged between the walls of containers, winding her way through the maze. They rose up on either side of her like gigantic, multicolored building blocks, a checkerboard of greens, brick-reds, blues, yellows and grays. Every second one seemed to be bright yellow, emblazoned in meter-high red Chinese characters with the words Swift Wind Cargo.
When she was six minutes away from her target, she instructed Reynolds to start moving. He answered—but at that same moment lightning crackled overhead, filling her subdermal speaker with a burst of static. The thunder followed a second or two later. Alma's cyberears immediately compensated, damping the sudden burst of noise down to a level that didn't impede her hearing, but static continued to crackle in her implanted speaker each time a bolt of lightning flickered in the darkening sky. The rain drummed steadily down, soaking Alma's hair and chilling her bare face and fingertips.
At the seven-minute, thirty-nine-second mark, she rounded the corner of a row of containers and spotted the one that was their target. The crane—which arched over the stack like a gigantic, upside-down U on wheels—lowered and spread metal jaws and locked them onto the dark blue container next to the target with a loud clang. Hydraulics whining, the crane lifted the blue container into the air and carried it toward the waiting ship.
Squinting against the driving rain, Alma saw that the door of the Swift Wind container was clear. She sprinted the last few meters and leaped up into the air. Her fingers found the top of the container in the bottom row adjacent to the target, and she hauled herself up onto its roof in a fluid motion, swiveling her legs to the side so that she would land on her feet.
The container was a soft-top, its canvas roof already starting to pool with rainwater. Alma's wired reflexes immediately compensated for the uneven footing, keeping her steady and level on the trampoline-like surface. Moving with the grace of an acrobat, she bounced her way across it to the door of the yellow container that was her target. She couldn't see the magical ward that had stopped Reynolds from entering; it was probably painted on the inside of the container. She listened, letting her hearing amplification detect any noise that might be coming from inside. The only thing she heard was a soft, steady beeping—probably the stabilization unit.
The door of the container was sealed with a heavy padlock and a numbered squealstrip. The former was a simple mechanical lock that could easily be removed with bolt cutters—but the squealstrip would emit an ear-piercing wail if the metal strip was severed.
Alma
pulled a finger-thin spray can of quick-hardening foam from the tool bag on her chest and sprayed a healthy wad of it around the squealstrip's built-in speaker. She counted off the thirty seconds it took to dry, using the time to pull out her bolt cutters and extend their collapsible handles. When thirty seconds were up she flicked a fingernail against the bright blue foam to test its hardness and then cut through the squealstrip. The foam worked beautifully—the only sound was a muffled squeak, and even that noise was lost in the low rumble of thunder overhead. She cut through the padlock and set it aside, and then stood and pushed back the lever that would release the door.
"Rover to Observer. I'm about to access our target. What's your ETA?"
She heard Reynolds whisper a curse before he answered. "Sorry. Took a wrong turn. ETA is . . . ah . . ." She heard the rustle of his sleeve as Reynolds consulted his wristwatch.
"ETA is one minute, max."
Alma
's ears easily picked up the sound of the van's engine. Behind it, she could hear another vehicle—one that had a higher pitch similar to the Ford Americars that the
"Base to Rover and Observer. You'd better move quickly or you'll have company."
Alma
had intended to wait for Reynolds before opening the door, in case the container was magically guarded. With
The load inside the Swift Wind container had shifted during its transport to the terminal—Alma's cyberears caught the sound of cardboard sliding on cardboard, and then a wall of boxes crashed out of the open door. The canvas top of the container on which Alma stood bowed under their weight, stretching downward as it filled with tearing cardboard and clattering cans—and then the lashings that held it gave way, whipping out of their holes.
As soon as the canvas bowed enough for her feet to find purchase on the contents of the container below, Alma sprang to one side. She flipped once in midair, bringing her feet under her as her body twisted, and landed on the container's rim. As the boxes finished tumbling into the container below her, she ran lightly along the edge toward the Swift Wind container. Dangling out of its open door, its weight supported only by a shifting pile of tin cans and broken boxes, was the stabilization unit: a gigantic plastic case colored hospital green, with monitors and condition-indicator lights flashing on its sides.
The stabilization unit teetered for a moment and then fell with a crash into the container below. Alma's heart lurched as she thought of Gray Squirrel being jostled about inside, but then logic took over. The stabilization unit was designed to be shipped from hospital to hospital. A few bumps and bangs wouldn't hurt it—or the man inside.
Tires hissed to a stop on the pavement below Alma. She glanced down and saw Reynolds peering up at her through the van's windshield. His eyes searched the open end of the Swift Wind container, and his lips moved.
Alma
heard his voice in her radio: "Where's the target?"
"It fell down inside," she answered, pointing. "Get up here, where you can see it. Hurry!"
The shaman flung open the driver's door and did as instructed, scrambling up onto the roof of the van. From that vantage point, he was able to peer over the lip of the canvas-topped container and get a line of sight on the stabilization unit.
Reynolds began to chant, arms bent at his sides in a posture reminiscent of wings about to unfold. As he slowly extended his arms, fingers spread wide like feathers, the stabilization unit lifted into the air. Alma wasted no time watching it, instead shouldering the Swift Wind container's door shut to cover their tracks and then leaping lightly down to the ground to wrench open the double doors at the back of the van. As Reynolds guided the heavy stabilization unit up and out of the container and down toward the open doors, Alma gave it a shove and then slammed the doors shut.
Schell was relaying a message, but Alma's cyberears were already warning her of the same thing. The Port of Vancouver patrol car must be just around the corner—she could even pick out the voice of the driver as he radioed his superiors about the Mohawk Oil van that had strayed suspiciously off course, into the container staging area.
Alma
leaped into the driver's seat and gunned the engine as soon as Reynolds was on board. "Base—do we still have a smoke screen?"
"Affirmative."
"Right." She briefly deactivated the speaker in her throat and spoke to Reynolds. "Time for an illusion—and make it quick!"
The shaman began chanting once more—a soft, cooing noise reminiscent of a pigeon settling contentedly into its nest. He closed his eyes, oblivious to the rainwater that dripped from his face and braids onto his lap. To Alma's eyes, the van did not change, but she knew what was happening. Even as the
Alma
turned the van onto the road that led back to the gate, and in a few minutes more they were outside the terminal and back on city streets. In the back of the van, the stabilization unit continued to beep.
Reynolds had slumped in his seat. After a second or two, he sat up with a jerk. When he turned toward Alma, his eyes were wide. He glanced back at the stabilization unit and bobbed his head in a ducking motion.
"Bad news," he said. "I just did an astral scan of the stabilization unit. It's Gray Squirrel, all right—but he's got no aura. It looks like he's—"
"What?" Alma veered the van over to the side of the road and jammed on the brakes. Her pulse was pounding in her ears. "What happened? Did the stabilization unit fail? Is that why the alarm's beeping?"
Reynolds shook his head. His face was very pale. "The unit's working fine. It switched automatically into critical-care life-support mode—that's what the beeping noise and flashing light are about. But even critical care couldn't—"
Alma
clawed her seat belt open and clambered into the back of the vehicle. She found the stabilization unit's control panel and stabbed at it with a forefinger until the locking mechanism clicked. As she wrenched open the lid, cold air rushed out of the unit, carrying with it a hospital smell that was a mix of plastic, sterilizing scrub—and another, much more pungent odor that smelled like copper: blood.
Gray Squirrel lay on his back, cocooned in supercooled blue foam. Monitor patches dotted his chest, and intravenous tubes fed into his arms. A clear plastic breathing tube snaked down into his open mouth. His scalp had been shaved so that CAT-scan monitors could be attached; the skin was nicked in several places. His face was as white as paper, his dark eyes wide and staring.
Air was still hissing into the breathing tube, but it wasn't going far. Gray Squirrel's neck had been severed down to the spine, and the oxygen-rich mixture sighed out of this gaping wound, fluttering the ragged skin. A thick layer of frozen blood covered his chest and arms—the logical part of Alma's mind noted that his throat must have been slit just after he had been placed inside the containment unit, just before the lid had been closed. Unable to deal with the sudden trauma, the unit had gone into life-support mode, but too late: there was no life left to support.
Alma
touched Gray Squirrel's cheek. His skin was as cold as glass.
"It's my fault, Squirrel," she whispered. "I should have located you sooner."
A tremor began in Alma's left hand, but she didn't bother to time its duration. There didn't seem to be much point.
