‘Get shot,’ Simmons growled, the ends of his splintered fingers bleeding.
I could have questioned him right here. It would have been the Harmony way. But I was sick of running with whatever scraps others had seen fit to feed me. You’ve got to do things your own way. In my case, that means grabbing the bull by the horns. ‘Let’s try again. You’ll walk slowly ahead of me. If you try anything, if you warn anyone, or try that spitting trick again …’ I shoved him a little further, as if I was really going to let him fall.
He frantically nodded.
For the first time since all this started, I was in charge.
My hand felt fused to the handcannon grip by the time we spiralled up to a high-floor called Ruskin. Townhouses, local hotels, small concert halls and multicultural bistros stood along the wide cobblestone streets. Shavings of dawn light were prickling over the artificial horizon, a smattering of people visible through the glass of dimly lit coffeehouses. Everything had the soft, gunmetal sheen of recent rain. Beyond the buildings, you could just see a rolling grassland, dotted with life-sized pieces of bio-organic artwork and sculptures carved from condensed cosmic dust. This was the sort of place that fostered creativity, community living. Even the air was tuned to simulate a fresh spring morning, scented with lime and saffron.
So what the hell were we doing here?
I stuck the handcannon into the small of Simmons’ back. ‘If you’re screwing around with me …’
‘It’s around the next corner,’ he said, almost begrudgingly.
It was. And it smacked the words out of my mouth. I started laughing. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
It was the Tipei Corporation facility. The heart of the Jackal’s operation. Was this just his revenge? Nothing to do with the stormtech? No, he wouldn’t be that sloppy. If it was personal, he’d be doing the hunting himself. Me and Grim had stolen his tech. He wouldn’t send a goon to stalk me over Compass. Something stank.
Just as well I was in the mood for answers today.
The facility was a bizarre fusion of chainglass, solid steel and dark wood, the edges deliberately slanted so the entire building appeared to be tilting to the side. The back was one of those buildings built into the asteroid’s rockface. Perfect if they didn’t want someone sniffing out a back door. I weighed up patching Kowalski into my discovery. I wanted her input, wanted her to know I was making progress. But she could just as easily tell me to stand down and turn Simmons in. Get a search warrant approved. Launch a proper investigation. There was no evidence of anything dodgy going on in this place, only the word of a would-be assassin. I was still riding out the fog of rage I’d felt at Artyom’s behaviour and I wasn’t in the mood to bail out now.
I dragged Simmons up a side stairwell to a employee-entrance, where a scanner pad surfaced out of the wall. Once Simmons had keyed in the code and the door cracked open I sank a neurotoxin needle deep into his neck, letting him fold to the grillwork floor. It wouldn’t kill him, but he’d wake up with a hell of a headache.
I stole inside.
I stared down the barrel of my handcannon into a carpeted hallway with clinical white walls. I walked across, almost silent in my armour. The peace unsettled me. Stairwells crisscrossed above and below me, forking into separate branches of the building. I descended the nearest one. I was about halfway down when the stormtech kicked furiously against my torso. I pressed a hand to my chest. What was wrong? My heartrate was steady, my adrenaline levels weren’t up, but it was reacting to something. I scanned the area again. Nothing to see. Yet, the stormtech continued strumming along my nervous system. Something in the facility had to be triggering it.
I heard a pair of voices approaching. I stooped down, peering through the staircase. A figure walked by, deep in conversation with a blue-haired woman in a utilitarian grey suit. I snatched a glimpse of the man. Grey eyes, hard face like ocean-weathered rocks. A familiar accent as he spoke.
No. It couldn’t be Sokolav.
Kindosh had said he’d been MIA for two years and counting. And what would my former instructor possibly be doing here, anyway? Even if he was alive, he’d been too smart, too loyal to Harmony to consider working for them like Artyom. Hadn’t he?
Nothing I could do about it now.
I filed it away for later, waited until they passed before continuing down the stairs, sweeping past corridors with the stormtech maintaining its frantic beat inside me. I followed its intensity until it jolted in my chest on the second last door. I slid inside and found a long line of stormtech canisters, each marked with Harmony’s symbol, locked in place. Above them were racks of little stormtech flasks, blue swirling inside like trapped smoke. Just waiting to be opened and inhaled. I had to tear my eyes away before I made a decision I couldn’t undo.
The canisters were just the start. A long smear of workstations were cluttered with flexiscreens, printers, databanks and stacks of servers, all tethered together with a web of snaking cables. My HUD detonated with detections of synthsilver, bluesmoke, grimwire and even cloudhead, chemical compositions rising out of the stained desks and glassware. The stormtech continued tying frantic knots inside my chest. Arytom said their operations had moved, but this couldn’t be their
