Fire With Fire

in.

Little Guy was already far above him. Down below was nothing but blackness, except for what sounded like a distant rush of falling water, the sound one hears when nearing a waterfall. Caine looked down. Far below-was that a hint of movement? He listened for a second he couldn’t spare: only liquid susurrations. No time to check again. He aimed his eyes at the disappearing soles of Little Guy’s boots and started to climb.

CALYPSO

Just ahead, through the torrents of water, Opal could see two elevators at a T intersection, flanking a large letter “B.” So she was in the basement. Great.

And she wasn’t alone. Approaching the elevators from the opposite direction were three figures. Running. In white coats. Workers.

She was about to wave, then ducked back as far as she could into the doorway, which was her cover: one of the workers kept looking back over his shoulder, panicked. The first of the three-a woman-reached the elevators, evidently found them inoperable, jumped over to the stairway fire door, hand upon the knob-

The center of her white lab coat exploded outward into a red smear, followed quickly by another bloody eruption from where her appendix would be, and a third misty blast that shattered her right knee, almost severing the lower leg. The growling hiss of suppressed weapons-fire grew: the other two bodies tumbled, one losing an arm. Stray rounds streaked past Opal’s shallow shelter, emitting vicious cracks as they did: projectiles sharply breaking the sound barrier. What the hell kind of guns were these?

Then, silence, except for the dull thunder of the water spraying down. She waited. Through the water, she barely heard footsteps approach, then stop about fifteen, maybe twenty feet away: right about where the kill zone had been. Muttered reports, a pause, a response, then footsteps again-receding, but the sound took longer to die away. They were not returning the way they had come: they were going down the corridor that branched off from the intersection, down the leg of the T.

So she had to wait. If she went to the elevators now, and they turned around, they’d have her. So move as close to the elevators as possible, listen, maybe steal a quick peek.

Which she did, keeping her bare feet in gliding contact with the wet floor: anything else and she would sound like a kid playing in a puddle. She reached the corner of the T intersection, went low, did a quick out-and-back check: three distant figures disappearing into the artificial downpour, then pausing, preparing to make an assault entry to another room. Timing was everything now: she took the risk of looking again, saw one of the strikers fire a round into the lock, just before another shouldered the door open. Now.

Using the cover of their noise, she limp-sprinted to the elevator, wedged her arm through the partially open door, braced her legs and pushed one direction with her arms, the other direction with the shoulder-blade she had squirmed into the gap. A moment of resistance-and breath-stopping pain-and the door opened enough for her to slide through sideways.

Inside the elevator, she found what she had been hoping to find at a medical facility: handrail/bumpers lining the interior at about waist height. And at the rear left corner of the ceiling, an overhead panel.

One last agony, now. Facing into the left rear corner, she raised her shaking left leg up onto one of the handrails and wedged her left hand into the crevice between the left and rear wall panels. Trembling with the effort and pain, she hoisted herself off the floor, got her other foot up onto the rear wall handrail. Once she was steady, she pushed upward against the overhead access panel with her free hand. Stuck or locked. But flimsy. No choice. She hammered upwards with her fist, thinking: any second, they’ll hear it.

But after three blows, the panel popped up, the sheared head of a single restraining screw dropping past her. Now, both arms through the access panel, palms to either side, and lift. Slowly, she rose into the darkness of the elevator shaft, choking on the dust-and then began shaking convulsively. She couldn’t tell if it was from relief, exhaustion, pain, or noradrenal aftermath-or all of them.

Guiding the access panel back with careful fingers, she snugged it in place, thought: I just might make it-

She heard a faint metallic squeak overhead, threw herself to the side of the elevator car’s roof, almost tumbling into the gap between it and the wall. She was still, silent. So too was whatever had made the noise overhead. Where, looking up, she saw a faint hint of something other than absolute darkness. Not a light, per se: more like a reflection of twilight? And were those voices she heard? A hint of a whisper and then nothing?

Alongside her, disappearing up into the near shadows, was a ladder in a recessed channel. It was a pathway to salvation-or to death. The all-important variable was this: whose voices had she-maybe-heard up there? Was it the intruders? Had they come in that way?

She leaned back against the ladder: wondering won’t do any good. You have to think, and then you have to act. So she thought: this might be a secure facility, but she doubted it was top secret. It had the sprawling look of a complex built for, and worked by, civilians. That meant it would have high security, but was unlikely to be some remote subterranean warren that was dozens of klicks from human habitation. So the building was probably situated in a typical civilian environment. If that was the case, would the bad guys have come in through the roof?

Probably not. Aerial insertion would be risky if they were in a developed area-and aerial extraction would be suicide. Local forces would be on the way in, and the first thing they’d be able to assess and control was the surrounding airspace.

Unless this was a black op-where the “intruders” were actually the “men in black” from the government-in which case there was no hope either way. Local law enforcement would be countermanded or delayed long enough to give the hunter-killer teams plenty of time to finish their sweeps.

So it was either men in black and certain death, or honest-to-god intruders-which meant that the cavalry was probably be on the way, and they would almost certainly come by air and secure the roof first.

She turned slowly, reached out for the rungs of the ladder and hoped her legs would hold her for what looked like-judging from the distance of that little bit of grayness above her-a five story climb.

ODYSSEUS

Little Guy’s hand appeared in the shaft above him, waving sharply. All clear.

Caine yanked himself up the last five rungs, but, despite his eagerness to be outside, kept low as he came out. Little Guy, watching from a crouch, gave a nod of approval, then stared meaningfully off into the night. Caine followed his gaze.

A green and red light, blinking, about three kilometers away, and coming closer-rapidly. The roar of VTOL jets crescendoed: the approaching craft was swiveling them into more of a vertical lift attitude.

“Our ride?”

Little Guy nodded, scuttled crablike to a spot a few meters away, where he set and adjusted a black disk about the size of a hockey puck.

“What is it?”

He didn’t look up. “Multiphase UV beacon: can’t see it without special goggles, set to see the right frequencies at the right intervals.”

Meyerson burst out of the doorway, somewhat crouched, but ready to stand. Caine reached up, grabbed the front of his web-gear, tugged him down.

“Son of a-”

Little Guy interrupted. “Meyerson.”

Meyerson looked away. “Okay. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”

“You’ll get dead if you do it standing up. Stay low.”

The VTOL roared closer, looming larger and on what seemed like a collision course.

“Hey-” began Caine.

“No worries,” commented Little Guy. “Standard operating procedure for a hot extraction. They’ll keep pouring on the speed until the last second, then they’ll swivel into vertical hard and fast: can shake your teeth loose, but minimizes the amount of time that you’re a sitting duck for hostiles.”

Caine tried hard to believe Little Guy’s explanation as the twelve-meter attack sled cleared the far end of the roof-and then, like a bristly mechanical wasp, came to a sudden, shuddering midair halt, vertical thrusters slamming forward with a high-RPM scream.