The Rise of Io (32 page)

“It's too bad we don't have a sniper rifle,” said Jax. “I could take him out from five hundred meters and we'd never even need to step foot on the site.”

“It's too bad we don't have a lot of things.” Cameron turned to Dana. “What's Nabin's ETA?”

“He told me he was fifteen behind me half an hour ago. What's up, Commander?”

Ella's chest clenched when she heard those words. Had the Genjix or the police caught him? Was he dead? She was tempted to head downstairs and search for him. She resisted the urge to pace and planted her body against the wall.

“Get him back here ASAP. We're aborting,” said Cameron.

“We're not going for the minister?” Dana asked.

“The site's too hot. I'm not risking my people on revenge.”

“It's more than that,” said Lam. “I looked this guy up. Surrett could be the linchpin to India going Genjix. They're saying he may be the next prime minister.”

“Doesn't matter,” said Cameron. “We get the hell out of here, call in the cavalry, and we do it right. Killing him isn't worth risking my team.”

A few minutes later, Nabin banged on the door and rushed into the room, gasping for air. Immediately, the rest of the team drew their sidearms, ready to fight their way out.

“No,” he huffed, in between deep breaths. “I wasn't being chased or followed. I think.”

“Then what's wrong?” asked Jax.

Nabin held up a finger, and collapsed onto a chair. He took Lam's cup of water and drained it. Then he pulled out his tablet and slid it to the middle of the table. Dana picked it up and studied it. The color drained from her face. She passed it to Cameron, who passed it to Lam, who passed it to Jax. All of them looked stone-faced.

Ella got the tablet last and looked at the dozen pictures Nabin had taken. They were images of the building on the western edge of the site tucked behind the main Bio Comm Array facility. She enlarged the picture and saw three people walking in a line. They were being escorted by people wearing black clothing that looked more like suits than uniforms.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Prisoners,” said Cameron, somberly. “That's K2. He's captain of the recon team that went missing.”

“They're still alive?” said Ella.

Lam nodded. “At least some of them.”

“His team scouted for my battalion in Finland. Good guy. Had an abnormal love for snow,” said Jax.

“What does that mean then, Commander?” Lam asked.

Cameron's knuckles were white as he pressed them onto the table. He pounded a fist and shook his head. “I can't, I can't,” he muttered over and over. “All right, this changes everything. I'm postponing your vacation again. We're getting our people back. The odds are looking impossible. Find a way to make it possible.”

“That's a lot of guys with guns to get through,” said Ella.

“Cameron doesn't leave anyone behind,” replied Dana.

“Damn straight,” added Lam. “None of us do.”

“I want some ideas,” said Cameron. “Pool the data and find a weakness. Let's get to work.”

The group huddled over the map of the site. “The problem is there's something like a thousand soldiers now,” said Nabin.

“What if we draw them away?” said Dana.

“Bomb threat?”

“Stage an attack on the docks?”

The ideas came fast and furious, and almost all of them involved destroying Crate Town in some way. Ella stood there and imagined what would happen to her slum if they collapsed a building or set a fire, or caused a power outage. All of these ideas would end with her people more hurt than the Genjix.

“What if we incited a protest?” Nabin said. “The people are pissed at the site as it is. Shouldn't be too difficult to rile them up.”

Lam shook her head. “That takes a level of organization and time we don't have.”

Ella perked up. These guys may not have the organization and time, but she knew someone who did. “Cameron, do you still have boatloads of money?”

He looked wary. “I have access to funds, but it depends on how big the boat is.”

“Actually,” Dana said. “The Keeper got wind of your recent spending spree. She sent you a very strongly worded message demanding an explanation.”

“Crap.”

“She also says you have to cut up your Black Card.”

“Over my dead body,” he muttered.

“I think she said that too.”

Ella stood up. “I'll be right back. I think I know someone who can help make some noise.”

She left the room and ran downstairs, hoping the person with the time and organization was still carousing with her people. Luckily, Mogg was. It didn't take too much work to convince her, and soon a group of tough-looking dockworkers followed her back upstairs. They took position next to the door as Mogg came inside.

“The Black Cat says you want to give me more money,” she said.

“Maybe. Depends on the price.”

“Oh, I think it will be,” she smiled. “We'll make it right.”

Ella stood in the corner and watched as Mogg negotiated circles around Cameron. In the end, he got what he wanted. Mogg was going to walk away from this a wealthy woman, but at their order, she would gather the entire union and bark loud enough to draw attention to the gates of the Bio Comm Array.

“Is that going to be enough?” asked Jax after Mogg left. “I mean, she's got a couple thousand people, but she made it perfectly clear she's only staging a riot, and won't actually fight the military. A bunch of yelling can only get us so far.”

“It's going to have to be,” said Cameron. “Unless you have another idea.”

“Actually,” said Ella thoughtfully. “I might.”

Cameron shook his head. “No, Ella, I'm tapped out. I don't have any more money to throw around.”

“You won't need to. I'll be right back again.”

Ella went back downstairs and found the Fabs where she had last seen them. They were in talks with Sodhi the textile importer. She nudged her way to their table.

“We're in a meeting,” said Fab.

“This is bigger.” Ella slapped a thousand rupees into Sodhi's hand. “Go buy yourself a drink. I just need a moment.”

The textile merchant was about to protest, then thought better of it. Ella waited until he was out of earshot before leaning in to all three scowling Fabs. “Hey, I reconsidered that offer you made me a few days ago. These people are trying to escape the slum. Setting up a meeting on the east side next to the Automart. Seventy-thirty deal?”

Little Fab smiled. “Don't they know? Nothing escapes Crate Town. Fifty-fifty.”

On pure principle and to appear realistic, Ella negotiated tough, and finally, finally got a good deal.

H
undreds of dockworkers
congregated at the Bio Comm Array construction site's four main entrances shortly before sundown. There was a group of two hundred at the south gate leading to the primary facility, a hundred at the supply line entryway, fifty or so at the Dumas corridor, and three hundred just above the road leading into the docks. They stayed calm enough at first, merely mingling on the streets and lounging about. That was important. If they got loud too early, the police would disperse them before they caused the necessary distraction. If they started too late, or didn't draw enough attention, Cameron's team would get caught before they got a hundred meters in. No, the dockworkers had to stay under the radar until the signal.

The signal came an hour later.

“Cameron, Dana here. The fish has taken the bait.”

Cameron clicked over. “How many?”

“Full line and sinker. Two hundred military. Roughly double that in police. They've surrounded the entire automart. Lots of confusion with the locals. Man, these guys are taking no chances.”

“Come on,” Cameron chuckled. “Us versus half a thousand? Sounds like even odds.”

“Maybe with Dubs. The five of us might have a hard time.”

He glanced at Ella and grinned. “We have Ella now. Evens it back up in my book.”

Ella blushed and fiddled with the communicator piece. It felt weird stuck into her ear. She wiggled her head and scowled as it fell loose. Cameron picked up the earpiece and turned her head to the side. He looped the wire around the belt holding the string of smoke grenades strapped across her chest and then wrapped it around her earlobe. He gave her a thumbs up. Ella shook her head vigorously. This time, the thing stayed in place. She returned the thumbs up signal and then tapped the button on the piece. “Hello, hello? Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Ella,” replied Dana.

“Are the Fabs there?”

“Only the youngest. Wait, the other two are there as well. Oh, damn. There's an Adonis here.”

“Is it Shura?” Cameron asked.

“No, the hot guy.”

“Too bad. Shura's the more dangerous one. Stay clear of them. Hamilton, status on our extraction?”

“Boat is moored and ready to rendezvous at your order, Commander.”

“Everyone's in place. We are a go, team.” He continued giving last minute orders. “If separated, everyone head as close to the extraction location as possible. The boat needs to avoid the coastguard patrols, so you can't depend on front door service.” He waved his hand in a circle. The rest of the team, huddled close together, moved across the cluster roof and made their way down the catwalk to the alley on the ground level, and then hurried to the fishing bridge over the road heading into the docks.

“This could be the worst insertion point ever,” Jax muttered. “Jumping on top of a moving truck is stupid beyond belief.”

“The kids here do it all the time,” said Ella.

“The kids here are stupid,” he replied.

“Or hungry.”

Jax looked sheepish. “Sorry, I didn't mean to be flippant.”

Cameron signaled for them to get down as a military truck appeared around the turn a few minutes later. To Ella's chagrin, the truck bed was covered by a canvas.

“You sure you want to come with us?” he asked her. “Last chance to back out.”

She watched the rapidly approaching truck. It was rumbling along at approximately forty kilometers an hour. Not too fast, but not exactly meandering either. At least not slow and comfortable enough to jump off a bridge onto. She nodded.

“You kids here are crazy,” Cameron muttered. He wrapped his arm around her waist, and then timed the truck's approach. He held his other hand up and ticked down from five.

I do not like this, Ella. If you fall off the truck and break your neck, there will be no nearby hosts to enter. Maybe you should just stay back.

“Maybe you should mind your own business.”

Ella tuned Io out. By now, she was tired of trying to decipher everything Io said. She decided she didn't have the energy to figure out what was advice and what was sabotage. In the end, Ella was the one who controlled her body. She was the boss. If the dumb alien couldn't say anything constructive or helpful, then Ella was ready to ignore Io for the rest of her life.

Cameron's grip around her tightened, and then he leaped off the bridge, dragging her with him. The rest of his team followed a quarter-second later. Cameron lost his hold on her as they hit the canopy. The landing was a little softer than she expected. Being so light, she took a wrong bounce and almost tumbled over the side. Fortunately, Lam grabbed her forearm as she tumbled by. A second later, Cameron managed to grab her pant leg. They hauled her back up to them.

“Good catch,” Ella said to Lam. Her calm demeanor masked the heart attack she was feeling inside.

“Sorry about that,” he replied. “That bounce was like a knuckleball.”

Ella didn't know what that meant, but she gave him a stinkeye.

Lam shook her head. “Where would you be without me, Cam?”

“Probably dead in a ditch somewhere back during the war.” He looked apologetically at Ella. “And now with one less host under my command.”

Cameron signaled to Nabin, who crept to the front and disappeared into the cab of the truck. The rest of them crawled on their bellies toward the back. Ella prayed the truck bed wasn't filled with armed soldiers or guard dogs or something. That would be catastrophic. Sprawled on top of the canopy, they would make easy pickings.

The others held onto her legs as she hung upside down over the canopy and peered in. Fortunately, there was nothing alive inside the truck bed, just several plastic bins stacked on top of each other. She swung inside and helped the others in. They made their way to the front of the bed and hid in the front corners.

A second later, someone, presumably Nabin, rapped twice and then two more times. Cameron repeated the signal. The four of them settled in and waited, feeling every bump on the road until the truck screeched to a stop.

Ella peered through a narrow gap between two stacks of bins. She heard shouting and tensed, fingering the handle of her long knife, half expecting a bunch of soldiers to jump them at any moment. The truck bed door swung open and a silhouette appeared.

“Wakey, wakey,” Nabin said. “We got some friends to breaky.”

Ella didn't realize how long she had been holding her breath until she stood and felt the room spin.

Remember to breathe.

“Dork,” Lam said, as he helped them off the truck. “Where are we?”

“I had the driver take us to a supply area north of our target. He'll wake tied up with a headache worse than a hangover, but at least he'll wake.”

“Keep your heads low. Take out anything that moves, but only shoot as a last resort,” said Cameron. “Dana, how's our decoy looking?”

“They have the automart completely surrounded. No one has moved in yet. There's some confusion with the local populace. Mood's getting ugly. The Fabs are starting to panic. Have eyes on the Adonis. The kid looks impatient. God, he has great hair.”

Cameron gestured for the others to follow. The truck was parked between a stack of cement sewer pipes and crisscrossing racks of giant steel beams. The five of them made their way south, moving from darkened space to darkened space as the setting sun grew shadows from the tall stacks of building materials.

Ella looked to the horizon. They only had a few minutes before sunset, and they still had quite a way to go. It was a delicate balance between staying hidden and hurrying. Their little ruse wouldn't fool those five hundred soldiers and police at the east side of Crate Town forever. Once they realized they'd been decoyed, they would head straight back here.

Mogg's protest at the gates was unpredictable as well. Sooner or later, it was going to either boil over or get stale and lose the guards' attention. Cameron hadn't paid Mogg enough money for them to escalate the protests to the point of actually picking a real fight with the guards.

Pay attention.

Ella was so deep in thought she missed Cameron drop to a knee and raise a fist. She would have tripped over him if it hadn't been for Lam catching her at the last moment. Red-faced, she fell in alongside Nabin next to a stack of wooden pallets.

“Coming from the east. Three, no, five guards.” Cameron signaled Nabin to the right and held up the number two, and then led the rest of them to the left. They reached a crevice and waited as the patrol, rifles slung over their shoulders and cigarettes in hand, strolled down the aisle of construction supplies. Ella slid her long knife out of its sheath and crept to the front.

Cameron held her back with a hand and whispered, “Stay here.”

“But–”

He motioned for her to stay put more emphatically. She nodded reluctantly. She wanted to help, not just tag along. It became obvious a few seconds later that her assistance was completely unnecessary.

The poor saps were halfway down the aisle when Cameron, Jax, and Lam ambushed them, taking all of them down quietly within half a second. The two soldiers who were standing further back only managed to sling their rifles around before Nabin hit them from behind. He clipped the first in the ankle when he charged in and then put a chokehold on the second. This bought Cameron enough time to pounce on the first. Within seconds, all five soldiers were incapacitated.

Now these guys are professionals.

“No kidding.” Ella's eyes had widened during the fight. Any illusions she had had that she knew how to fight were dashed when she saw the team at work.

“Tie them up,” Cameron said. “Stow them in the sewer pipes.”

In the distance, cracks of gunfire punctured the air. The team exchanged looks.

Sounds like at least three hundred meters away. Probably near the gates.

The team picked up the pace. It took them ten more minutes to reach the building where the prisoners were kept. They paused at the foot of the giant Bio Comm Array facility. Cameron and Lam were having a heated discussion.

“We may never get another chance,” Lam was saying.

“I don't know.” Cameron looked up at the dark structure. “We're pretty short-handed as it is.”

“It's a risk, and we may lose lives,” she said. “But lives will definitely be lost if we need to send a new team in later on. We need some intel on what this damn building is for.”

Cameron reluctantly agreed and summoned Jax. “Change of plans. Poke around in there and upload your findings to Command. Rendezvous at the extraction point.”

“I'm supposed to be at the lookout once you break into the building though,” said Jax.

Lam looked to her. “Ella can do it.”

“Do what?” she asked.

Cameron looked as if he was going to say no, and then, with a sigh, handed her a pair of night vision binoculars. He pointed at the husk of a half-demolished building a few hundred meters inland. “Listen, I need you to head to the top of that building and keep a lookout for us when we go in. It should give you a lay of the land. You can see what's going on outside the building where the prisoners are being kept as well as the front gates. If you see anyone coming, warn us.”

“You want to split up?” she gulped.

He nodded. “We need eyes on the protest. If it starts to disperse, you have to let us know right away. This is really important, Ella. Can you do this for us?”

Ella looked at the lookout point, then back at the team. She nodded. “You can count on me.”

“Great.” He patted her on the back and then signaled to the rest of the team.

Nabin came by and handed her the frequency visualizer. “Keep this on. If you see brown, run. Got it?”

She nodded. “You stay safe. Don't leave without me.”

He grinned. “I wouldn't dream of it, on either count.”

Their hands touched as she took the small device from him. A thrill shot up her arm. She watched him as he hustled back to the rest of the team. Jax disappeared into the big building a few seconds later while Cameron, Nabin and Lam headed in the opposite direction, leaving Ella alone. She realized how quiet it was all of a sudden, and how dark as well.

Are you going to stand there all day?

She snapped out of it and began making her way toward the lookout building. It was about two hundred meters away through a small maze of machinery and stacks of building supplies. It didn't take long for her to get turned around once she got into the heart of the site and lost sight of the top of the building. She kept going, but pretty soon realized she couldn't tell which direction she was facing anymore.

Make a left at the next turn.

“Are you trying to trick me?”

No, Ella. I have the site map memorized. I can lead you to the lookout point.

“Why are you helping me?”

No sense in wasting time staying lost in here.

“OK, fine.” There was a long pause. “Thanks, by the way.”

You should probably pay more attention when the grownups are discussing their plans.

“You just don't know when to shut up, do you? We just had a nice moment and you ruined it.”