“And Toby?”
“Tin man is good with a Thompson … grab one from the armoury and head upstairs.”
Allen was shocked, to say the least, but had no time to react as I grabbed its metal arm and pulled it along with me. I went by the office door to get Sinclair’s attention before we made ourselves scarce. An off-the-books raid meant we needed some serious firepower for four people.
“Is the bird good to go?” I asked.
Sinclair descended the stairs after heading up to run diagnostics on the machine resting on the 5th’s helipad. Toby had also joined the gathering group, carrying a large steel case over its shoulder, fresh from the the armoury.
“It’s out for some reason or other, I can’t keep track anymore,” Sinclair said. “However, that doesn’t mean the helipad is empty.” My eyebrows went up at this. “We both know these agents didn’t drive here, right?”
“Right,” I confirmed. “But won’t that cause more issues if they go upstairs and see their own executive Rotorbird missing?”
Robins put his hands on his hips. “What’s that motto you follow again? ‘Fuck it,’ right?”
I grinned and grabbed Allen’s shoulder, gesturing to it to follow me and get ready for our little escapade. This time, Robins would get his money’s worth.
And so would she.
We soon found ourselves strapped into the back of a Rotorbird — specifically, the executive Rotorbird belonging to the FBI. I doubted the G-man down there would hear the turbines spinning from more than a dozen floors down, but we were quick to take off, regardless. To avoid being conspicuous, we’d taken the stairs, staying away from the constables and interns stuck in the building during the FBI’s inspections. Whoever was pulling the strings must be powerful and be dead set on keeping their assets from falling into the hands of the 5th’s best. Or anyone’s hands but their own.
The dark-grey aircraft we were riding in had a wide carriage that tapered at the ends, with sliding doors on either side of the front half of the compartment. Allen and I sat buckled into two of the four retractable wire seats in the centre of the craft. The seats could be folded up and stored on the ceiling to accommodate heavy equipment if necessary. The back half of the aircraft, behind a set of doors, had another eight seats for a rapid deployment of anything from a heavily armoured squad of commandos to backup police officers. Another small doorway separated our compartment from the cramped cockpit, which held a single seat for the pilot and just enough room for another person to lean on the wall behind them.
Sinclair was already in there, pulling levers and opening valves to allow the fuel cells to release their energized liquid into the beast. The oozing was audible, but was soon drowned out by the sparking and whining of the twin rotors on each side of the bird. Large rings on either side held three-bladed rotors, the engines spinning them in their sockets. Seconds later, the craft lifted off the roof, and the carriage dipped as we pivoted forward. I felt the lurch — my stomach felt it as well — of the craft dropping from the rooftop. The rotors caught us moments later, propelling the aircraft upward.
I always hated that first drop. It always aggravated my stomach, and the alcohol still stuck in me did little to help the situation. Though, compared to Allen, I must have seemed the picture of comfort.
“You okay there, bud?”
“I’m not a fan of this experience, Detective Roche.”
“You afraid of heights?”
It looked back at me with widened eyes, its shaking hands grasping for the small handles located near the butt of each seat. I couldn’t help it — I laughed my ass off. I really didn’t care if Allen hated me for laughing; a robot afraid of heights was the highlight of my month.
“Don’t sweat it, Allen,” Sinclair said over the loudspeaker. “We’ll only be in the air for a few minutes, just until we get close to the docks. Then you’re going to have to jump out. Not from high in the air — maybe a few inches from the ground.”
“How’s she doing?” I called out, hopeful my voice was being caught by the carriage microphones. “Sounds rough around the edges, though I have a lot less experience in the air than you do.”
“She’s an older model,” he responded, “but the blades spin, which is all we really need, eh? At least the Black Hat topped the fuel cell up beforehand, else we’d be in a jam.”
“Well, if we do need to find a place to refuel, we can always get the metal man to do it, right, Al?”
I gave Allen a quick knock on the shoulder, which led to a ringing hand that would probably bruise quite badly in the coming days. Allen continued to sit in a silent panic, unaware of its grip strength on the seat’s handles.
Toby was in the back of the Rotorbird setting up the Thompson from the steel case it had lugged up the stairs. It had put these weapons together so often that it was second nature, which unfortunately meant that it was going to talk to us while it prepared for the raid.
“So, boys, how goes your little ragtag partnership? Can’t be too bad, seeing as Elias hasn’t dumped you past 90th yet for ‘insubordination.’”
“Does he do that frequently, Toby?” Allen asked, momentarily forgetting about its discomfort.
“Toby, don’t you dare —”
“Shit, yeah, he does!”
There was a hint of laughter being repressed in the little wire voice box hanging where Toby’s mouth should be.
“Past three partners he’s had — human and Automatic — have been sent on a fool’s errand up there while he disappeared without a trace, leaving them to wander around. Then he wrote them up and demanded they be removed from his watch.”
“I suspect that this hasn’t occurred to me due to the high calibre of
