head.
“Where did he come from?” Heavener tapped the screen, indicating the dark-haired, dark-eyed young man standing in the doorway to the hotel room. He wore black windbreaker pants, tennis shoes, and a dark blue tank.
Gaspar took only a second to recognize the youth. On screen, the new arrival hollered, “Hey,” drawing the attention of the four men in the room.
“That’s Matt Hunter,” Gaspar said. “Didn’t you look at his file?”
Heavener pushed him back, almost causing him to fall. “I had other things to do.” She turned her attention back to the screen. “I thought he was in Maryland.”
“He is.” Gaspar watched as one of the men approached Matt Hunter and shoved a pistol into his face. It was a grim reminder of what was in store for him if he failed any of the tasks D’Arnot Industries placed before him. “He’s just there in holo. Tell them to get the Brainsucker set up. I wiped all the files in Madeline Green’s veeyar. They have to take out the hardware there.”
On the screen, the man fired pointblank into Matt Hunter’s face, the slide snapping back on the pistol. Matt Hunter went down.
The fall from the fifth floor balcony was much easier than Catie thought it would be. She landed in a crouched position on the fourth-floor balcony, then pushed herself up immediately.
Peering up, she spotted Maj looking down at her. “Hang down. I’ll help you.” When Maj’s feet came within reach, she snared them in an embrace. She took part of her friend’s weight and guided her safely toward the balcony. The door in Maj’s room banged against the wall, piercing the screeching fire alarms.
“There she is!” a man’s voice roared. “On the balcony! She’s getting away!”
“Matt,” Catie called out over the foilpack vidphone as she scrambled to her feet.
“I’m here.”
“We’re on a fourth-floor balcony beneath Maj’s room.” Catie glanced up at the balcony over them as they pressed back against the glass doors. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to stay here.”
Nothing happened.
“Matt,” Catie implored, feeling a little more desperate. She glanced up at the balcony hanging over the area where they were.
“If we can make that jump, they can,” Maj said.
“I know.” Catie tried the foilpack again. “Matt!”
“Easy,” Mark Gridley’s calm voice called. “Matt’s off-line. I’ve got you.”
The next instant the alarm rang from inside the room the balcony was on.
Catie helped Maj to her feet, then grabbed the balcony door and shoved it open. She led the way across the room and through the door. When they reached the hallway, it was filled with people responding to the fire alarms on the fourth and fifth floor. Catie led the way down the hall, racing toward the elevators and the fire escape.
Catie glanced at Maj. “Where to?”
Maj held herself and shook her head. “Downstairs. Maybe we can find a computer we can borrow. But definitely not back up to my room. I’ve got a feeling only bad things are going to happen up there.”
Matt’s diving roll to the carpet was instinctive — and far too late. By the time he started going down, the 9mm round had already passed through his head and buried itself in the wall.
Without pause, the man with the pistol fired two more rounds, centering them both in Matt’s chest. Both rounds penetrated Matt’s hologram form without even ruffling his shirt.
“You’re lucky, kid.” The gunman lifted his weapon, a small, mirthless smile twisting his lips. He turned and took up a position beside the door.
The two men working on the implant chair hooked up a small device to the processing and memory modules. The other man came back in from the balcony. “The girls escaped.”
“Pity,” the man beside the door said. “May have to find them later. Could have saved us some trouble if they’d fallen.”
“Who’s the kid?”
The man beside the door smirked again. “Next best thing to a ghost.”
Scared and embarrassed. Matt pulled himself together and stood. “Who are you?” He tried to make his voice as commanding as he could.
The gunman treated him to another cold smile. “Another ghost. I was never here.”
“You won’t get out of the hotel,” Matt said.
“We’ll see. We’ve gotten out of tougher jams than this.”
The two men beside the implant chair stood. “Done here,” one of the said. “Time to rock and roll.”
Frustration and anxiety filled Matt as he watched the men move toward the door.
“You do this bit?” The gunman who’d shot him waggled his weapon toward the hallway where people were still evacuating.
Matt didn’t say anything.
“Figure it must have been you,” the gunman said. “Saving your little friend. Good plan. And it’s going to work out for us, too.” He motioned the three other men forward.
“One more thing,” Matt said, accessing a piece of software from his utility menu.
The man looked at him.
“Smile,” Matt said. He traced a square in the air and a camera popped out. He shot off a roll of “film” that was actually preprogrammed memory, storing image after image.
“Waste of time,” the gunman promised. “You’ll see.” Then they were out in the hallway, mixing in with the crowd pouring out from the other rooms.
Instinctively Matt started forward, wanting desperately to keep them in sight. He yelled for Mark, hoping his friend was online and tuned in.
“Yeah?” Mark replied.
“Any luck?”
“No.”
“I’m trailing the men who broke into Maj’s room. Can you get a fix on them?”
“The hotel systems have shut down,” Mark replied. “I got to the fire alarms on the fourth floor just before the access windows disappeared. I don’t know if it was internal security or the people you’re after.”
Matt rushed out into the hallway and managed two steps before he went beyond the range of the room’s holoprojectors. Suddenly he was a whirl of light, like sand trickling through an hourglass, and the hotel faded from view.
When his vision returned, he was back in his own veeyar. Megan was waiting on him.
“Captain Winters wants to meet with us,” she said.
Matt nodded glumly, knowing Captain Winters might not be happy with the situation. But what else could they have done? “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” he said, “and hotel security or the LAPD will catch the guys responsible.”
6
LAPD Detective Third Grade John Holmes walked through the door of the second-floor conference room the Bessel Mid-Town Hotel had lent Captain Winters for the debrief. The room was large and fully equipped with holoprojectors so even the Explorers who were in other places could attend in holoform.
Maj leaned against the window looking out over the hotel’s entrance. So far the LAPD had kept everything low-key. Out in the street the last of the hook-and-ladder fire trucks that had responded to the fire alarm were clearing hoses while uniformed police officers kept the crowds on the other side of the red and white sawhorses.
John Holmes didn’t look as if he’d seen thirty yet. He was earnest and neat looking in his charcoal gray suit. His badge gleamed as it hung out of his jacket pocket. He had an easy smile, but something had left a wicked pink and gray scar on his left cheekbone that stood out against his ebony skin.
