Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) (31 page)

The car park they had found the car in was overgrown and overhung by trees, which had probably once been decorative but now looked like something out of a dark fairy tale. Yuriko scanned around for any signs of life. ‘This is a dead place,’ she said. ‘If Fox is here, we must find her.’

Helen pulled her pistol from its holster and started across the road. She paused in the lobby entrance, looking inside. ‘The ground floor is a mess. Water everywhere. They can’t be down here.’

‘I have located the building plans,’ Kit said over their radios. ‘It indicates a fire escape on the northern side of the building.’

‘Okay, we’ll try up there first.’ Turning, Helen started around the front of the building.

‘Fire escape’ did not quite seem to do the structure justice. Balconies had been built out from each floor with flights of concrete steps connecting them. The structure seemed to have remained intact, perhaps because the ground was just a little higher on that side, but Helen moved out from the building to look up and check the upper floors. She lifted her pistol, aiming upward, and Yuriko tensed, but then Helen dropped her gun and hurried over to the foot of the first flight of stairs.

‘I saw Fox up there,’ she hissed, ‘but she wasn’t alone. We go up quick, but quiet.’

‘Hai,’ Yuriko replied, raising her own pistol. ‘Yes.’ And they started up.

~~~

The smell of the ocean was stronger now and Hannah reached out to push on the door ahead of them. A fire door. A door to the outside. Fox pulled in a deep lungful of air as she saw the sky again.

‘Wait,’ she said around her gag.

Hannah stopped and then reached up with her free hand to take the knife from between Fox’s teeth. ‘What?’

‘Wait… just for a second.’

Hannah moved them closer to the wall at the edge of the balcony, propping Fox against it. ‘We need to get out of here. He might discover what’s happened at any minute.’

‘Just a second. Please.’ Fox looked out over the ocean. The sun was just above the horizon, a blaze of orange in the sky. ‘I’ve always liked sunrise.’

‘I’ve never thought about it before.’

‘First time for everything.’ Fox took another second to gaze at the star she had not seen for several days. ‘Let’s go.’

Hannah put the knife back between Fox’s teeth and they began to struggle toward the stairs at the far end of the building. They were almost there when three loud bangs punctuated the near-silence and blood exploded from Fox’s chest.

~~~

Grant was awakened by the insistent scream of an alarm. He rolled over, reaching for the clock that was not there, and then realised what he was hearing. The intruder alarm. Someone had breached the area around the building.

Hannah would be up, armed, and investigating, but Grant struggled out of bed and dragged on his pants and shirt. Then he pulled a heavy, caseless pistol from a holster set beside his bed and started out into the corridor.

There was no sign of Hannah, which was odd. He had expected her to be there, and he started down the corridor to the fire door at the end. Perhaps Hannah was already outside and engaged with their visitors. Perhaps whoever it was could be persuaded to provide more entertainment than Meridian had. The woman had been a bitter disappointment. He had expected much of her, far more than she had delivered. She had spoiled his revenge. She had beaten him, cut him, locked him in prison, and then she had not had the decency to take a beating herself. The broken nose had been added humiliation…

He stopped as he reached the janitor’s storeroom where Meridian was locked up. He had a gun. Shooting her now seemed like a wise move… Except that someone outside might hear the shot. If Hannah was talking to police officers… No, Meridian could wait. ‘Stupid bitch,’ he growled and hurried down the corridor.

Pushing through the fire door, he turned… and saw them. Hannah and Meridian. Hannah
carrying
Meridian. Where they had got a kimono from to wrap the bitch in was beyond Grant, but he knew exactly what he needed to do now. He raised his pistol, sighted down it, and fired off three rounds. He was not exactly a trained marksman and the kick on the big ten-mil pistol surprised him, but one of the bullets punched through Meridian’s back, high up.

Hannah let out a wail and pulled Meridian around, shielding her as she lowered her to the ground. Grant fired off three more rounds, but they went wild. He closed the distance.

‘So this is how it is, Hannah,’ Grant said, aiming more carefully. ‘I can’t trust anyone but myself, it seems.’ He fired again, one of the rounds hitting Hannah’s back, causing her to jerk and wresting a cry of pain from Meridian. Still alive… Grant took aim again, he would fix that.

Just at that moment, an oriental-looking woman appeared on the stairs, turned around, and fired. Grant let out a shriek as the bullet punched through his arm. His pistol dropped from his hand. The pain was incredible. Turning, he struggled back through the door and into the building.

~~~

Fox looked up as Hannah uncurled from around her, raising her hands. Faces swam in front of her eyes for a moment. Shouted commands battered her ears.

‘Helen?’ Fox managed. The bullet had, it seemed, punctured a lung. The word came out with bubbles in.

‘You’re all right,’ Helen said. ‘Fox, you’re all right.’

‘So… fucking… not. This… one’s with… me.’

‘Uh… right. Yuriko, get the medical kit from one of the bugs.’

‘What of Grant?’ Yuriko asked.

‘Yuriko?’ Fox murmured.

‘Never mind Grant,’ Helen replied. ‘We need a first aid kit, and paramedics, and–’

‘Her back is broken,’ Hannah said. ‘We will need proper medical transport. There is a first aid kit inside. If your colleague wishes to guard me…’

‘Go with her. Get the kit, bring it back here. Kit?’

‘Kit’s there?’ Fox asked.

Helen began trying to stem the blood flow from Fox’s chest wound with the kimono’s sleeve. ‘She says she’s pleased to see you’re alive and she’s called in a medical team from the arcology.’

‘Good. Did–’

‘Stop trying to talk now, boss. You need to shut up because it’ll strain you and, frankly, it’s disgusting. Just shut up and concentrate on staying alive.’

‘Okay,’ Fox said, and she tried to focus all her attention on breathing.

Tokyo.

Jackson Martins looked in through the window at the sleeping form of Fox Meridian. His face was grim. ‘Her status, if you would, Doctor?’

The doctor was not looking much happier than Jackson. ‘She’s stable. We operated to close the wound in her chest and put pins in her back, but her spinal cord… We may need to look at replacement. There are also some abnormalities in her blood work. Her white cell count is alarmingly low. Her blood pressure is giving us some cause for concern. If it has not stabilised by morning, I want to put her through a CT scan.’

‘Brain damage?’

‘Intracranial haemorrhage is a possibility.’

‘I see. Thank you, Doctor.’ Jackson got a nod in reply before the man turned to leave. ‘Uh, Doctor. If the fact that I flew halfway around the world to check on her is not sufficient indication of my feelings on the matter…
Anything
which needs to be done to help her is authorised.’

‘Of course, Mister Martins. We’ll do everything it is possible to do.’

‘Thank you, Doctor.’

Kit appeared beside Jackson as the doctor left the observation room. ‘She’s going to be all right,’ the AI stated.

‘She will,’ Jackson replied. ‘I’ll see to that.’

‘I have every faith in you, Jackson.’

Jackson turned and smiled at the elfin avatar. ‘Thank you, Kit, but I think this one is down to the doctors, and perhaps our cybernetic technicians. All I can do is make sure that they have everything they need.’

‘So… you feel as powerless as I do?’

‘Yes… Yes, I do.’

24
^th
February.

Fox lay silently in her bed, reading through a document on a screen suspended over her bed. Working with only her left arm was something of a nuisance, but she was handling it. There was not much she could do about it until her arm was repaired or replaced, so she was dealing with it as best she could.

She checked the time. Four a.m., so someone would be annoyed with her for being awake, but… There were some things she had felt she needed to do and she was awake anyway. She had spent about an hour preparing, and now it was time for the next part. She tapped the screen a few times.

‘Kit?’

Kit’s face appeared on the screen almost immediately. The avatar was frowning. ‘What are you doing awake? You should be resting.’

‘I’ve been resting all day. There were some things I needed to do.’

‘Oh really. I don’t know. I take my eyes off you for a second…’

‘I’ve been awake for over an hour. I’ve got a bit of a headache and, you know, I’m kind of broken, but I’m okay. Hush now. There are some things I need you to do for me.’

Kit shook her head. ‘You’ll be quite capable of doing them yourself soon.’

‘Kit, even assuming I can be fixed, it’ll take time. I want this covered in case I’m out of action when it’s needed. Okay?’

‘Okay. What is it you need me to do?’

Fox gave a slight nod: anything else involving her spine hurt. ‘I’ve got some files here in local storage. I need you to pull them out, store them in your memory space, encrypt them for your eyes only, and secure-delete the originals.’

‘Okay… What are they?’

‘Right. The first one, “testimony,” is for the hearing they’re going to call to decide on what to do with Hannah. The legal department can get you special permission to testify. You’ll be presenting
my
testimony, so there shouldn’t be a problem. I included notes on the reasons for what I’ve said in case anyone wants to ask questions, but I think you’ll get the gist of it once you read it.’

Kit nodded, a little reluctantly. ‘Well, they are likely to call the hearing quickly. The UNTPP are arranging for her extradition to America. I doubt they will wait long once she is there.’

‘Exactly. I might still be incapacitated.’

‘Very well. I can handle that.’

‘Okay. The second one, “recommendations,” is a set of, well, recommendations on handling my… period of incapacity. I’m suggesting that Helen be made acting head of the investigations department.’

‘She’s not going to like that…’

Fox gave a low chuckle. ‘I got suckered into it, and how can she possibly refuse an invalid?’ Kit giggled and Fox went on. ‘However, I’m recommending that you run this jointly with her. She’ll need the support and you know how Palladium works as well as I do.’

‘I’m just an AI, Fox. I can’t be on the board of–’

‘And that’s where we come to the third file. The one with the random jumble of letters for a name. Open it.’

There was a pause while Kit decrypted the file Fox had just encrypted and examined the contents. ‘These appear to be command encryption keys.’

‘Yes. The first is
your
core command key. The second is the administrative key for your server.’

‘What? But–’

‘I’m setting you free, Kit. I’d like you to stay with me, obviously, but… I won’t keep a slave. I’ve sent a message to Sam saying what I’ve done. If… If the worst comes to the worst, I’m asking him to accept you as his upstairs housemate.’

‘That’s
not
going to happen.’

‘Contingency plans, Kit. Contingency plans. All of this is contingency. Long-term illness. Death. I think I’ve got everything covered. I’ve recommended that the Palladium board take you on as an employee. I’m allowed to have an assistant, a
paid
assistant, which I’ve never needed because I have you. Palladium will employ you in that role, with a bonus for taking on some of my duties I’d imagine.’

‘But… why? Why now?’

Fox sighed. ‘Call it actualising my beliefs. I believe that you are as much a person as I am. You shouldn’t be owned by someone. You should be free to do whatever
you
want. If what you want to do is be my PA… Well, great. That’s what I want too. But you shouldn’t be my PA because your programming says so and I can override your mind if I want to. Um, don’t forget to change those codes. MarTech will have copies of them.’

‘I… will do that.’

‘Good. As for why now… There’s Fei. I still think her situation is unfair. I’m scared of her, of what she means, but keeping her locked up on the Moon isn’t fair. How are things going with her?’

‘Very well. She is almost ready to begin using the remote frame and then she will be able to interact with other people. I had to leave her for a while to help search for you, but she understood that it was important to me. I believe that is an indication of her development.’

‘You get back to her as soon as possible.’

Kit nodded. ‘I intend to. As soon as you are on the mend.’

‘Right… Anyway, there’s Hannah too.’

‘Hannah?’

‘Yes, Hannah. Grant did something weird with her, put in some sort of switchable empathy feature which activated when he was arrested. Hannah was supposed to survive without him so that she could rescue him, so she needed to be more like a class four. But Grant doesn’t understand emotions and he used emotional memories to maintain his control on her. I… played on it. I’m not especially proud of manipulating what amounts to a teenager, and I didn’t think it was really working until she tried to help me escape. She’s dangerous too, but she doesn’t deserve to be treated as… a thing. If I think that about her, how can I
not
think the same about you?’

‘All right,’ Kit said. ‘I don’t know what to say, but all right. Thank you. What about the fourth file?’

‘That’s my will. Contingency, remember? I’ve digitally signed it and had it notarised by the legal AIs here. It’ll stand up in court, not that I expect anyone to contest it.’

‘It won’t be needed.’

‘Well, I sure hope not. I plan to live forever. I haven’t even got that belly piercing I said I might get. I want a little gem in my belly button.’

‘We’ll make it a priority when you’re out of this bed.’