16 – Intelligence

Tony spoke into the comms, watching his name blink on the little HUD that Glitch had set up for the team. The text of his words scrolled out beside it and would be sent to the operation log as soon as he said something else. “We good to approach?”

Glitch’s name flashed as she replied, “I’ve got the comms and the security array. Should be good.”

Addie’s voice came through right behind Glitch’s. “All clear in the sky. Traffic’s light and no drones flying close… Other than Humpty, I mean.”

Tony looked at Beef. “Ready?” The big enforcer grunted, nodding, and Tony started across the street. They’d been standing behind a big, rolling dumpster that the sanitation crew had left right in the middle of the sidewalk after dumping it.

Beef walked with a noticeable limp, but it seemed better than the last time Tony had seen him. He wondered if he’d numbed up the joints prior to the job or if he was really getting better. He didn’t mention it, in any case. He knew a guy like Beef wouldn’t like having something he perceived as a weakness brought up all the time. As they crossed the street toward the two plastiglass doors under the bright, orange-yellow glow of a high-pressure sodium floodlight, the two corpo-sec goons standing watch straightened up and grabbed for their shoulder-slung SMGs.

“That’s close enough. We’re closed for business,” the one on the left barked.

Tony chuckled, reaching up to clap his cybernetic hand on Beef’s shoulder. “I get it; my partner here makes people jumpy. Relax, fellas, we’re on the same team.” He reached up to tap the badge Addie had pressed onto the bullet-resistant fabric of his jacket.

A flicker of doubt entered the guard’s eyes. His partner was harder to read; he wore a riot helmet with a mirrored visor. The first guy said, “What do you need?”

“Prisoner transport.” He moved his finger in a circle. “The old shackle wagon’s circling the block. Protocol to keep it moving.” He shrugged. “You know how it goes.” All the while he spoke, he and Beef moved closer, and by the time he finished, they were standing in comfortable conversation range.

“You got orders?” The guy looked Tony up and down, then moved his gaze to Beef. “Don’t think I’ve seen you two before.”

Tony shrugged again, smiling broadly. “Transferred over from THN Dynamics last month.” THN was a sister corporation to Boxer, one of the dozens under the Oldfellow-Ryburn umbrella. “Anyway, yeah, we’ve got papers.” At that verbal prompt, Nora sent the doctored prisoner transport request that Glitch had prepared to the guard’s open port. “Got it?”

“Gimme a sec.” The man’s eyes focused on nothing, and little flickering lights danced in his enhanced retinas. “My PAI says this format’s out of date. Let me call this in to get verification.”

Tony nodded, watching the man, but keeping the helmeted guy in his peripheral vision. That second, silent guard was making him nervous. He had a certain posture—a readiness about him—that said he’d seen plenty of action. He had his finger beside the trigger of his SMG, and every now and then, Tony could see it twitch. More than that, the guy’s visor kept moving, left to right, as he studied Tony and Beef.

Glitch’s name flashed on their comms. “I caught his request for verification. Sending a spoofed approval.”

Tony could feel Beef looming to his right. He could sense the tension in the big man and hoped he wouldn’t do something stupid. Things seemed to be going better than he’d expected. The two corpo-sec hadn’t given them any grief about their unorthodox gear. The guy talking to Tony had completely lowered his gun, and he could see his microscopic nod as he read through something on his AUI. Trying to move things along, he said, “We good, then?”

“Put the brakes on, chum,” the helmeted guard said, shifting his SMG upward. He was probably just planning to act intimidating, but Beef must have taken it for a threat. He shrugged his big shoulders, and his left hand stretched out almost lazily to crunch his metallic, electrically-charged knuckledusters into the guy’s chin, snapping his helmeted head back to impact the plasti-glass door. He fell, motionless, like Beef had hit his off switch, and the other guy’s eyes bulged out in surprise.

“What the fu—” His words were cut short as Tony’s jab connected with his larynx. He gasped, clutching his throat, and Tony pulled the autoinjector he’d bought off Doc Peters from his pocket.

He nudged Beef. “Grab him, you meat brain.” The big enforcer lumbered forward and grabbed the choking man’s wrists, heading off the possibility that he might get his wits about him and start shooting. Tony jabbed the injector against his neck as he kicked and writhed and pulled the trigger. The thing clicked and hissed, and then the corpo-sec guard fell still, hanging limply in Beef’s grasp. Tony bent to inject the other guard, just for good measure, then said, “Why’d you do that? This guy was buying it.”

Beef shrugged, letting the guard flop to the concrete. “Not my fault you can’t read a guy.”

Tony scowled at him. Was he right? “I knew the other guy was suspicious, but we still had a shot.”

“Well, I saw a shot, and I took it. You hire me to be dumb or to think on my feet?”

Tony’s scowl deepened, but not because he was angry at Beef. He had a good point. If he was going to work with the man, he had to be able to trust his judgment. If he’d seen something Tony missed, then his decisive action might have been the right call. He thought about another merc he used to work with, Cho. Would he have second-guessed him

? Would Cho have second-guessed Tony? He nodded. “Okay. If you thought he was about to snap, I’m glad you took him out.”

Addie’s name lit up on the comms HUD. “You two okay?” Of course, she’d seen everything—Glitch, too, if she had control of the cams.

“We’re good. Glitch, any alerts?”

Glitch’s name lit up. “I intercepted distress calls from their PAIs. You should pull those.”

“Won’t that hurt them?” Addie asked. She was absolutely right that, typically, if you pulled a PAI without prompting it to decouple itself, it could damage a person’s brain. A PAI’s synth nerves were tied directly into a person’s motor cortex and short-term memory loops. Yanking one could cause nerve lacerations, trigger involuntary convulsions, or even induce permanent brain fog or neural misfires. Tony had seen a guy slip into a coma after having his PAI snatched while he was awake.

The good news was that he’d been ready for this particular objection. “Not much risk when they’re sedated with this stuff. It’s Neuroquel—a neural decoupler and tranq.” He nudged Beef. “Go ahead, get that guy’s.”

Addie didn’t reply, but a simple text message from her came through his comms: Thanks, Tony.

He smiled, pleased with himself for thinking to pay Peters an extra three hundred bits for the more expensive drug. He leaned over to lift his victim’s chin, ensuring he was breathing. Faint, wispy breaths came through his nose, so Tony figured he’d live. He tilted his head forward and pulled his PAI, tucking the chip and its fibrous strands of synth-nerve into a pocket. “How’s the door look?” he asked in comms.

“Be easier if you put that guy’s eye up to the lens,” Glitch replied.

Tony grasped the corpo-sec guard by the collar of his ballistic vest and hoisted him up, pressing his face toward the security panel beside the door. With his other hand, he peeled his eyelids open. “Good?” he asked.

“Got it,” Glitch replied as the doors beeped and slid open.

Tony dragged the guard into the little vestibule between the outer and inner doors. It was a small space—only a couple of meters wide, but plenty of room to lay out the two guards. Beef followed him in, and Tony watched as the big man reached into his capacious duster and pulled out a folded-up nylon duffel. He shook it out, revealing a bag Tony felt confident he could put his entire body in.

“Came prepared,” the big man said when he caught Tony staring, then he bent to start stripping the gear off his guards.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Tony shrugged. It wasn’t a bad idea. “All right, looting as we go,” he muttered, unbuckling the vest from the guy at his feet. They had five and a half hours until the shift changed, and with Glitch in control of the cams, he didn’t think there was any reason to rush things. “Slow and steady wins the race, am I right?”

“Sure,” Beef grunted. “I’m just making sure my cut of the loot is worthwhile. These SMGs aren’t half bad, but we’ll need that white-haired chick to hack ’em.”

Glitch’s voice came through the comms, “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t remember my name, big boy.”

“It’s on my AUI, ain’t it?” Beef grunted, making her point for her.

“No flirting over comms, you two.” Tony pulled the vest off the guard, then scooped up his SMG and three extra mags, stuffing them into Beef’s duffle.

Beef glared at him but didn’t complain. “How long will they be out?”

“Uh, the way you hit that guy? Probably next week. If we’re counting on the tranq, though, that dose should keep ’em down for an hour unless they’ve got good nanites.”

“You got—” Beef cut himself off, nodding, as Tony produced a couple of shrink-cords, passing one to him.

“Hands behind their backs and leave ’em on their sides.” He bound his guy while Beef handled his, and then he moved to the inner door, peering into the dark lobby. Only a single LED bulb out of twelve was illuminated after hours. “If we meet others, don’t start shooting until I get a chance to try to bluff.”

Beef snorted but didn’t say anything. Tony knew what he was thinking: fat chance of a good bluff now that they were in the building without the front-door guards notifying the rest of their team. Even so, Tony hoped for at least a chance to get close and keep bullets from flying. “Give us the situation, Glitch,” he prompted in comms.

“I’ve got eyes on every corridor on the first floor. I don’t see a single soul. There’s an elevator, but if it goes up, there aren’t any cameras on the second floor. Updating your mini-maps.”

Tony motioned for Beef to follow, and, assuming things weren’t going to go as smooth as a dream, he drew his pistol. True, he’d promised to try to avoid fatalities, but he wasn’t willing to die for the ideal. He and Beef made quick progress through the building to the elevator bank in the back. He contemplated that—how many buildings didn’t have the elevators up front? Beef paused to look into the offices they passed, but, apparently, nothing looked worth looting.

When they stood before the elevators, Tony frowned at the security panel. “Do I need to go drag that guy over here?”

“No, no,” Glitch replied in comms. “Once was enough; I’m in the system.” The elevator chimed and slid open to illustrate.

Beef, holding his sawed-off, pump-action twelve-gauge, swept the elevator with the barrel, but it was empty. Tony stepped aboard and touched the control screen. It lit up with a single option—Floor 2.

“Guess there’s not a creepy basement full of squints,” Beef grunted.

Tony chuckled. “Nah, but we’re going to be flying blind. Stand on the other side of the door.”

Beef moved to comply, but his girth was too much for the narrow gap between the door and the elevator wall. He shrugged, squeezing his back against the wall. “Best I can do.”

Tony nodded and touched the controls. The elevator surged upward and, a few seconds later, came to a halt. Tony hurried into the opposite corner from Beef as the doors chimed and began to open. “Could’ve used Addie and her drone,” he muttered.

“Yep,” Beef grunted.

Tony stole a quick peek out the doors and saw a long, dim hallway that ran for about twenty meters to a four-way junction. Two corpo-sec sat there at a station, staring at the elevator. “Shit,” Tony said as he pulled his head back. The doors chimed and started to close. “Well, there goes our chance to bluff.”

“Kinda weird for legit corpo-creeps to be hiding in the corners of an elevator?” Beef asked. Tony could feel his sarcasm, and an old part of him rankled, wanting to fight over the veiled insult.

He told that old voice to shut up as he pressed the button to open the doors. “Just follow my lead.” He moved out of the corner, and as the doors slid open, he stepped out, waving a hand. “Hey, gentlemen. Nice work there! Glad I didn’t catch you napping. That’s going in my report!”

The two security officers leaped to their feet, leveling SMGs at him. “Stop right there!”

Tony froze, looking over his shoulder to see Beef lurking behind him in the hallway, also frozen mid-step. He looked back at the guards. “Gentlemen, you can put those guns down. We’re on the same team, here.”

“Hold your position! Drop your weapons and forward your credentials!”

From behind him, Beef muttered, “This going about how you wanted?” It was a valid question. Tony had been sloppy about this part of the job, that was certain. If one of these guys was trigger-happy, even with his bullet-resistant coat, all it would take was one lucky shot in the dome, and then he’d be lights-out, game over. Was he being sloppy on purpose? If so, was it hubris or a death wish? That was another valid question, and Tony didn’t have time to answer it.

“I said drop it!” the guard screamed.

Tony nodded, slowly lowering the gun to the floor. “Go on, partner, put your gun down,” he said under his breath. More loudly, he said, “Good security practices, gentlemen. This is excellent adherence to corporate protocol.” Beef’s gun clattering on the plastic tiles was impossible to miss.

“Forward your credentials!” the guard screamed. Neither he nor his partner had helmets, so Tony could see the wide, panicked look in his eyes. Suddenly, his hypothetical about a trigger-happy guard getting in a lucky shot didn’t seem so hypothetical.

“On their way!”

“Sent,” Nora said, her voice dialed down low, probably to avoid disturbing him in the heated situation.

“Verifying!” the guard shouted, his voice high with stress.

“I’ve got you, boys,” Glitch said through comms.

“Didn’t your compatriots at the front door already clear us?” Tony called, risking the guard’s adrenaline-laced muscles spasming and pulling the trigger.

“They’re good,” he heard the other guard say. Apparently, Nora sent the credentials to both of them. Slowly, but surely, the panicking corpo-sec officer lowered his weapon’s muzzle.

Tony lowered his hands and chuckled, trying to diffuse the situation further. “Okay if we pick up our guns?”

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead,” the second guard said.

Tony bent to pick up his pistol and heard Beef grunt as he recovered his gun. As they started forward, he said, “No word from the guys at the door? They delayed us nearly ten minutes clearing our credentials!” By the time he finished the question, he was only a meter from the guard station.

The first guard, the jumpy one, replied, “Not a word. What’s going on with those guys? They’re not responding to my comm request.”

“Ah,” Tony nodded, chuckling. “Probably still speaking to our commander. He wasn’t happy with what he saw.”

“Your, uh, commander?”

“Yeah, John Tungsten? Third commander of the Black Talons?” Tony smiled, impressing himself with his improv. The Black Talons were the special forces of Boxer corpo-sec, and he doubted some regular grunts at a satellite lab would know the names of their commanders.

“Black Talons? Shit!” the second guard said, eyeing Beef from a new perspective.

“Where’re your skulls?” the first guard asked.

Tony tapped his head. “You see a helmet on my head, soldier?” Tony had seen Black Talons in operation, snatching bangers off the streets of the Blast. Their helmets bore skulls denoting their special status. He gestured to the scanner array hanging from the ceiling between the guards’ two small desks. “That thing gonna go nuts when it senses our gear?” He held his gun up in illustration.

“Hey, I was wondering why—” The guard’s words were cut short as Beef smashed his size-sixteen boot into his desk, driving it and the guard back, sliding across the corridor to smash into the wall.

The first guard, the trigger-happy, panicking one, backpedaled and started to pull his gun up, his finger stretching toward the trigger, and Tony shot him four times in the chest. The bullets smashed into his armor plate, driving him back with each impact. Each bullet was like a prizefighter’s punch—each thunderous discharge of noise and hot gas disoriented the man further. Tony followed him as he stumbled back and snatched his gun, yanking it out of his hand.

It was an SMG, just like the two they’d already collected. Tony tossed it to the side and pounced on the gasping, groaning man as he stumbled into the wall behind him. He swept his legs and yanked on his vest, throwing him to the hard floor, and then he fell on him, pressing a knee into his chest as he dug in his pocket for his autoinjector.

As he pressed the nozzle to the guard’s neck, pumping him full of drugs, he looked at Beef to see he’d already pummeled the other guard into submission. “What the fuck is your problem, man? We had them totally bluffed this time!”

Beef shrugged, holding out a hand, gesturing for Tony to toss him the injector. When Tony threw it to him, he said, “I didn’t like being in that hallway—a rat in a hole—with these corpo-shitheads pointing guns at me. I didn’t sign up for that kind of bullshit plan. I saw a chance to surprise ’em, and I took it.” He jammed the injector into the guard’s neck, then he stood and walked back to the station to collect his duffel bag.

Tony was pissed, but he also knew Beef had a point. The “plan” past getting through the door had been pretty much nonexistent. Sure, they had Addie flying overwatch, and Glitch had the comms and cams, but was he relying on those facts too much? He really had put him and Beef at risk in the hallway. He was acting like his old self—the one with tier-one gear. That wasn’t him anymore. He couldn’t boost his reflexes and move faster than corpo-fodder could aim. He didn’t have a plasma forge that could block bullets and cut through titanium.

So, what was it? Was he stupid or suicidal? Because no other explanation made much sense. Couldn’t he see he wasn’t what he used to be? He could, right? He wasn’t too stupid to know his limits, so what did that say about this shitshow?

Beef saved him from further introspection by noting, “Aren’t there two more assholes in the building?”

Tony saw messages from Addie and Glitch on his comms—had he missed them? Had he totally tuned them out? Maybe they’d come through while he was shooting. He read them:

Glitch: Ember’s sending her drone in to pair with the security array on that floor.

Ember: What happened? Sending Humpty.

Tony sighed, turning back to the elevator. It was closed, but he imagined Humpty would be arriving any second. He glanced at Beef, busily looting the downed guards. He scanned the three other hallways—all empty. Finally, he said into comms, “You can talk now. Fight’s over.”

“Are you okay?” Addie asked immediately.

Tony noticed Beef looking at him with eyebrows arched over his visor, as if to ask, “Yeah, are you?”

“We’re all right, but good plan sending in the drone. We could use a little more…intelligence.” He lowered his visor and winked at Beef, and the big bruiser snorted.