“Fam, that you?” Krish grabbed him by the shoulders. “Shit, man, I thought they’d wasted you!” He pulled Olly close, nearly cracking his ribs in a hug.
Olly pushed him away. “Good to see you too.” He looked up as Danny made his way back to them. “What’s going on up there?”
“Riot drones. Three of them – one up ahead is armed. Rubber bullets, but that doesn’t mean shit close as it is. Between us and the APVs. Other two are spotters. They’ll pop smoke and keep us corralled while the response team closes in.” He looked at Olly. “You do anything about that, DedSec?”
“Depends on whether this system is running on cTOS,” Olly said. He held up the Optik, squinting at the screen through the stinging smoke. He found what he was looking for soon enough. He tapped the screen and there was an echoing clang as every gate in range automatically locked. “Right, that should hold them for a bit.”
“What about the drone?” Ro asked.
Olly shook his head. “Got to be in sight of it. Hard to do anything when it’s shooting at you, though.” He looked at Krish. “Any ideas?”
Krish gestured. “Gimme.” Olly handed him the Optik, and Krish tapped at the screen. Olly blinked as his display was suddenly crowded by multiple visual feeds. “That’s the security feeds for everything in here.” He grinned at Danny. “For a military contractor, Albion don’t know shit about security.”
“Good thing for us,” Olly said. He could see armed men moving through the chain link corridors on all sides. The response team had split up to cover more ground and cut them off. “We’re about to be surrounded. They can open the gates manually. I can lock them again, but it’s not going to stop them for long.”
“Then we’ll have to fight.” Danny handed his sister a pistol.
“Now we’re talking,” she said, as she checked the weapon’s magazine.
Olly shook his head. “Maybe not. Gimme your Optik.”
Danny looked at him. “What? Why?”
“I can take out the other two drones while Krish keeps the response team pinned down. That leaves the last drone for you two. Think you can handle that?”
Danny looked at his sister. “He for real?”
“Must be if you locked him up,” she said. “Give it to him. I don’t give us good odds otherwise.” She started pushing her way towards the front. Danny handed over his Optik and followed. Olly took it and looked at Krish.
“Right. You know what to do?”
Krish nodded. “Think this will work?”
“We’ll see. Just keep them off our back.”
“Yeah, man.” With a tap, Krish activated the sprinkler systems, filling the warehouse with sheets of water. It mixed with the smoke, making a greasy haze on the air. An instant later, the alarms cut out with a strangled squawk.
Olly waited for the drones to come back for a second pass. When one got close enough, he took aim with his Optik and snagged it. A moment later, it was banking left and heading back the way it had come, popping smoke across the warehouse. He took control of the second a few moments later. Through its display, he spied Danny and Ro moving towards the third. It waited for them, hovering in the open space leading to the parked APVs like some malign wasp.
Danny drew its attention, firing short bursts that splashed across its frontal armour like droplets of water. The drone followed his movement, returning fire. Rubber bullets punched into the floor and wall around him. Ro stepped out of the corridor and fired her pistol with more enthusiasm than skill. The drone whipped around, responding to the threat, and Danny took it down, blowing out its motor and sending it hurtling to the floor.
Olly sent the remaining two riot drones back towards the Albion operatives struggling with the gates. Searching the on-board directories, he realised they were armed with tear gas canisters as well as smoke. Grinning, he gave them new orders. He looked at Krish. “Time to leave, bruv.”
“Past time,” Krish said. “I’ve locked them out, but they’re already trying to reset the whole system. More drones coming online as well.”
Between them, they got the rest of the prisoners moving. Danny was already behind the wheel of one of the APVs, and its engine roared to life. Ro had his rifle and was gesturing frantically for everyone to get aboard. Krish headed for the back, and Olly climbed into the front. “What about the doors?” he asked.
“What about them?” Danny asked.
“They’re still shut!”
Danny laughed. “That’s their fucking problem. Rosemary – get your arse in here!”
“Don’t call me that,” she snarled, squeezing in beside Olly. “Everyone is in – let’s go if we’re going to go!”
On his display, Olly saw banks of tear gas filling the makeshift corridors, and Albion operatives coughing and cursing as they shot the hinges off the gates and broke through. Then he was flung back into his seat as Danny threw the APV into motion. As they hurtled towards the doors, Olly tapped at his screen. At his direction, the remaining APVs grumbled to life. They rolled from their berths and sped towards the loading bay doors, alongside the one they’d commandeered but they got there first. Metal buckled and tore as the armoured vehicles punched through, and out.
Danny followed them a moment later. Olly heard a sound like rain and realised someone was shooting at them. “Hang on,” Danny growled, dragging the APV around and crashing it through a chain link fence and onto a side street. “Where to?” he asked, looking at Olly and Ro.
“You don’t know?” Ro asked, staring at him.
“Hey, I got us out – now pick a direction…”
28: Aftershock
Sarah Lincoln sat in her empty dining room in her Whitechapel home, watching a replay of footage from the mass of raids that had occurred yesterday evening and late into the night. Police officers and Albion operatives – it was hard to tell one from the other in
