armpits and dragged me toward the front door.
We made it halfway before an explosion tore through the shielding. The armor did not completely give way, but it was close. Fire rolled across the apartment, the force of the blast threw us backward.
Koorong was up again in a moment, dragging me, though not nearly as quickly as he had moments ago. Still, we made it out into the corridor as the second blast came in. Skittles followed us, flames and smoke licking at her heels. The door slammed shut with an almighty boom and bowed outward, but it held. It'd better hold, I thought in a moment of insensate humor, or I'd be asking for my money back.
The heat of the wound in my side had ebbed, replaced by a cold, tingling sensation in my fingers and cheeks and nose. When we made it to the lift, Koorong pressed the button marked 150 instead of the one that would take us to the lobby.
'Where are we going?' I asked.
Ignoring my question, he pulled up his pant leg. Underneath was a simsilk leg sheath with a myriad of small pockets. From one of these he took a yellow wad of sticks and mud, which he squeezed tightly in one hand. The thing cracked and popped like miniature fireworks. He pulled my shirt up and placed the balled up wad onto the wound, and like a spider unfolding its legs, the thing expanded until it covered the wound completely.
Skittles, surprisingly, only watched.
The wound began to burn white, blazing hot. I stifled a scream as he repeated the process on the other side, where the bullet had exited-or was that where it had entered?
I passed out momentarily.
When I woke, he was dragging me up the stairs that led to the roof's access door. Normally it would be secured, but for some reason it opened for him.
Skittles launched herself past him.
'Come back, girl.' My voice was weak, and Skittles paid me no mind.
Outside, it was dusk. The sun seemed to have broken into a galaxy of lights that lay golden against the landscape of the sprawl.
'Where are we going?' I asked again, unable to form a more coherent thought.
Koorong pulled me to the edge of the building, mumbling words under his breath as the immensity of the sprawl came into full display beneath us. I grew dizzy.
The whine of the jets intensified. They knew we'd escaped to the top and were coming after us. Skittles was barking so fiercely I thought she might damage her voice box. Koorong pulled me up to the lip of the building as the jet's roar increased sharply.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw, cresting the edge of the building, a four-engine tilt-wing with a cluster of serious looking weapons fixed to the belly. Within the partially mirrored surface of the cockpit's windshield were two pilots, one sitting higher than the other.
Then they were lost from view, for Koorong had taken a step forward, pulling me with him. We fell, slowly it seemed to me. I looked up and saw Skittles, looking down, barking madly, the transparent blue concrete at the edge of the building ablating from a hail of bullets.
'Skittles!'
No sooner had I said her name than she was whisked off the building and into the air. She followed us down as the wind began to roar. In my terror I thought the sound was due to the speed of our descent, but it soon became clear that the airstream was rushing upward so quickly that it was slowing us down. Then it was carrying us.
We began slipping sideways, at a slightly downward angle, through the byways of the sprawl, passing building after building as the people inside them stopped and stared. We went two klicks in less than a minute, Skittles floating close behind us, silent for once.
We came down near a small park. The pain in my abdomen returned as we fell to the ground. Koorong lay next to me, panting heavily in between hard coughs. Despite the wind, he was sweating profusely. Skittles hobbled over-she'd picked up a severe limp, though whether it was from a stray bullet or the landing I didn't know-and began licking his forehead until he defended himself.
And then I passed out for good. • • •
I awoke in a Spartan room with strips of lights running along the ceiling. I was lying on a gurney. Every part of me ached-the bullet wounds especially, but they were less painful than I would have guessed. I tried to access the net, but failed. Already my skin was beginning to crawl at the realization that I could not feel the Resonance. I tried to reassure myself, reasoning that we were in an insulated bunker of some kind, but this did nothing to calm my growing sense of anxiety.
I turned my head and saw a cage in the corner of the room. Skittles was inside, but for some reason I couldn't sense her through my normal connections.
'Skittles?' I said, hoping she would wake.
She didn't move, and my heart sank.
'Skittles, dear?'
Then she did move, though it was slowly, as if she'd been sorely wounded. As she stared through the wires of the cage, a great sense of relief washed over me.
'There, there, girl-'
I stopped as the sound of an opening door echoed dimly into the room. The click of footsteps came softly at first, growing louder. I turned my head, that simple motion painful. Against the far wall was a hallway that took a shallow angle up and into the darkness. Koorong stepped into the light with an unreadable expression on his face. I wished Skittles' sensors were working. I felt naked without them.
'How long has it been?' I asked.
'Nearly a day, but the sedatives I gave you should have kept you under for at least another twelve hours.'
'Where are we?'
He paused. 'We're safe.'
'That's not what I asked.'
He pursed his lips, and the chocolate skin over his eyebrows furrowed. 'For now that's the best I can offer.'
'Then tell me this, or I'm getting up and hobbling out of here. How did Cylestra know I was investigating them? I hadn't so much as touched the tunnel or the packet you sent me. I was only searching for information about them, about you, passively.'
He glanced toward Skittles. I followed suit, my eyes thinning, an uncomfortable feeling forming in my gut. 'What did you do to my dog?'
'She'll be fine.'
'Tell me!'
'It's a virus, low level, innocuous. It gathers information and transmits it to my wife, in the Matrix.'
I thought back to the kafe, when Skittles had bit him. He had done that on purpose, and I'd completely missed it. 'Why?' I asked. 'Why monitor me?'
'It's well known what you can do.'
I shook my head. 'I gather data, for the right people, for the right price. How's that going to get your daughter back?'
His face screwed up in anger. 'I'm not trying to get her back, I'm trying to make them pay!'
'What's that got to do with me?'
'Allora needs to know how you do the things you do.'
'There are dozens of technomancers around Sydney.'
'You're more than a simple technomancer, and you know it.'
'You think she can learn what I know in a few hours?'
'No.' Koorong began pacing across the cold concrete floor. 'We've been studying you for months. We learned much by simply watching, and even more during the hours Skittles was feeding her data. She only needs the last few pieces of the puzzle.'
'What can she possibly hope to do with it? I read data.'
'It is by knowing how data is read that data can be planted.' His face grew angrier as he talked. 'Allora will take Cylestra down, bit by bit, brick by brick, until there's nothing left.'
