She paused, breathing heavy. She was in good shape, thankfully, but she was still pushing the limits of a no-longer youthful endurance. Gulping air, Olly said, “Maybe we should show them our badges again…?”
Liz waved him to silence. “Shut up. Bagley, how far…?”
Another few metres, and then you’ll have street access. It’s getting crowded out there however. And while I’m scrambling their communications, I can’t do it forever.
“Understood.” She looked at Olly. “Ideas?”
Olly looked at her. “We’re near the motor pool – if we can get to a car–”
He was interrupted by a sudden banging behind them. The Albion goons would be through the fire-doors in a few minutes, if they gave it some welly. That didn’t give them much time. Liz glanced at him. “No time to get to the garage. We’re heading for the street.” If they could make it into the open, their camouflage system might allow them to slip away.
“What if they call in drones?” Olly asked.
“Drones can’t see us, if we’ve got our camo up and running. The problem is, once they triangulate on us, it won’t matter if they can see us or not. They’ll just hose the area down indiscriminately. Being invisible doesn’t mean we’re invulnerable.” Liz picked up the pace. “I’m more worried about Albion’s flesh and blood goon squad. If they figure out what we’re up to, they’ll turn off their displays and that’ll be the end of it – unless we can put some distance between us and them.”
“Be easier to do that in a motor.”
Liz ignored him. The door was just ahead. She hit it at a run and vaulted over the rail outside. She landed in a crouch and looked around. A car park, all but empty. The entrance to the garage was to her right, and she could hear the rattle-clank of its security gate opening. They were out of time. Olly hurried down the ramp, behind her. “Should we nick one?” he asked, indicating a car.
“No. Better idea.” Every car in London was required to include a self-driving mode, networked to the new Smart City traffic grid. Government sponsored retrofit initiatives and buy-back schemes had ensured that almost every vehicle in the city now used cTOS programming. Which meant almost every vehicle could be hacked, if you had the right backdoor app installed.
Liz flicked her Optik, and engines turned over. Olly looked at her. “What’s the plan?”
“Confusion and chaos.” Another flick, and the cars started reversing out of their parking spaces. The only real issue with the autonomous car initiative was that vehicles lacked sensors and on-board programming. They weren’t smart cars – just puppets on digital tethers. If you bypassed the central traffic control AI, you had a multi-ton battering ram that went wherever you aimed it.
Liz aimed them all in different directions, and let them go. Except for one – that one she aimed at the garage gate. It struck with a crash of abused metal, and she looked at Olly in satisfaction. “Now we go. Come on.”
They raced across the lot, heading for the gates. Behind them, the doors busted open, and an Albion trooper stepped out – and stopped, confused by the vehicles racing in all directions, crashing into one another and the walls that surrounded the car park.
With the cars running interference, Liz and Olly made it to the other side of the lot. They went over the brick wall with a modicum of difficulty, and into a second lot, this one belonging to the building next to the police station. Olly slumped, panting. “Do we keep going, or…?”
“There’s a street entrance. We’ll hit that and make for the park. Think you can keep up?” She swatted him on the chest with the back of her hand. “On your feet. Bagley – give me a sit-rep!”
Patching you in to the garage’s CCTV system now.
A moment later, the lot spread out across her display as if she were looking down on it from above. She experienced a brief moment of vertigo, but quickly recovered. She could see three Albion operatives moving carefully across the tarmac, avoiding the weaving cars.
“Three of them. Fuck.” Liz checked her pistol. She wasn’t a bad shot, but Albion employed hardened killers. She didn’t rate their odds in a straight up fight. Olly pulled out his stun gun and she looked at him. “No. Put it back.”
“But–”
“No. Ideas?”
Olly stuffed the stun gun back into his hoodie. Brow furrowed, he looked around. “We won’t make it. Not unless we can… fly…” He looked up. “That’s it. That’s our way out!”
“What?”
“Drone,” he said. He tapped his Optik, activating a cracker app and aiming the signal upwards. A large Parcel Fox cargo drone wavered and then descended with a whirr of its fans. Olly forced it to release its cargo, to lighten its load.
“It can’t carry both of us,” Liz protested. She could hear shouts. The approaching operatives had seen the drone and were hurrying towards the wall.
“It can, just not far.” Olly said. “Hurry!”
As they sprinted for the drone, two Albion goons climbed over the wall. Their rifles came up even as they dropped into the lot. Shots puckered the pavement and brickwork as Olly and Liz clambered onto the drone, and it rose on straining motors. “Jesus! They’re actually bloody shooting at us!”
“What do you think they carry those guns for? Decoration?” Liz twisted around and returned fire. It was awkward, but effective – both men went flat, seeking cover instinctively. By the time they’d recovered, the drone was on the move. “Fuckers were just waiting until we were clear of the station. Wouldn’t want to damage relations with the plods, after all.”
Olly tried to keep the
