“Is the lock biometric?”
“Key code.”
“Can you crack it?”
“Fuck that. I’m cracking it.” That was Rafe, his voice a low rumble. Metal protested with a shriek, and Maya tried to conjure what was happening in her imagination. Rafe, literally weaponizing all those muscles this time, as he gave in to the rage at what had been done to Rainbow and tore the front door off the place.
“Got cameras,” Conall announced a second before video appeared on Maya’s screen. Conall slid the tablet he’d used to crack the system toward her, and Maya started to flip through the camera angles, comparing them to the shape of the building from above.
Gunfire erupted over comms as she tried to unfocus her eyes just enough to ignore the details and just absorb the shapes of hallways and the size of rooms, the angle of light falling through the rare windows and the intersections and gaps in coverage.
It was like assembling a giant puzzle of overlapping pieces, but her brain thrilled at the challenge. She felt that same giddy rush, and this time she didn’t fight it. She’d pay whatever price required when the crash came. When she flipped to a camera that showed seven kids with shaved heads staring into space with the glazed eyes of the heavily drugged, she knew she’d pay it a dozen times over.
As long as they could get the damn kids out.
“Got them,” she said, throwing the entire array of camera angles up onto the monitor with a flick of her fingers. Another flick gave her a blank screen and she started to sketch the layout she’d visualized, labeling each camera on her rough blueprint. “East side of the building, fourth floor. They’re all together in one room. You’re going to have to fight your way through.”
Another spatter of gunfire was followed by Ava’s crisp, “That won’t be an issue.”
“We’re on our way,” Knox confirmed, moments before Maya watched a guard back onto one camera, firing repeatedly at something off-screen. Ava stalked into view, swatting a bullet aside with one of her bracers like she was flicking away an annoying fly. A second later she’d turned the guard’s gun on him without even stripping it from his hand, blowing off the top of his head and letting the body fall aside without slowing her stride.
Conall snorted. “Guess this was a good mission to bring the murder clone on.”
The gunfire cut off abruptly. No cutting reply came from Ava. Maya frowned and tapped her comm, but everything had gone silent on the other end. “Conall?”
“I hear it,” he muttered, spinning to a second display. “Or rather I don’t hear it. Probably just interference…”
Dread slithered over Maya, an intense feeling that something was wrong. She skimmed the cameras again, looking for any external view, but every angle just showed the inside of the building.
That was weird.
“Con—”
“Fuck,” he hissed. “Someone’s jamming us.”
Dread coalesced into certainty. She compared the cameras to her sketched blueprints again, her eyes finding the blank spots—too many blank spots. So many places where all the people who weren’t showing up on those conveniently sporadic cameras could be hiding.
The van door creaked. Conall spun toward her, his eyes widening in shock. “Maya!”
Three bullets slammed into him before he could move. With her mind fully open, the sound of it sank into her bones. The thunder of each shot rolled forever before the terrible liquid thud of the bullet tearing through his clothing and slamming into his flesh. Conall exhaled in shock and rocked back, the velocity tipping him out of his flimsy makeshift seat.
Shock held her paralyzed for the eternity between heartbeats. Training kicked in, dragging her in two directions. Self-preservation lost to her terror for Conall. She dove for him, fingers scrambling to staunch the flow of blood.
She barely found the wounds before a fist closed around her braids and dragged her backward. She flailed instinctively, fingers closing around the handle of her stun stick.
Too late. It was all too late. Pain flared in her neck along with the familiar sound of a pressure injector. Another jerk to her hair toppled her over, and the sight of Tobias Richter’s pleased smile chased her down into terrifying oblivion.
TECHCORPS PROPRIETARY DATA, COMPANY-WIDE ANNOUNCEMENT
On the anniversary of her 25th year of service, please join us in congratulating Birgitte Skovgaard on her promotion to executive vice president of Behavior and Analysis.
January 3rd, 2067
TWENTY-TWO
Gray missed his rifle.
He missed the hurry-up-and-sit-on-your-ass quiet, the adrenaline-soaked solitude of setting up position as quickly as possible, followed by the pounding of his own pulse in his ears as he waited for his mark to show.
Being in the middle of an infiltration was different. When he was on his own, he could be still. It was tense, sure, listening to the other members of his team do their thing as he ran through the scenarios and contingencies in his head. But here, the tension pressed in on you from all sides, an external thing that had claws and teeth.
And when the firefights erupted … Those were messy. Raw chaos distilled into something so primal it almost wrapped around into looking like art. A dance. Nina pirouetting around Mace to squeeze off a succession of shots. Ava following through on a knife throw with an arabesque that dropped into a deep lunge.
Wait, where the hell had he even picked up all this dance terminology?
A laugh caught in his throat, and he narrowly avoided taking a bullet point-blank to the face. He whirled on his attacker, using his momentum to strike the butt of his pistol across the man’s face. He dropped like a rock sinking into an oily puddle, just in time for Dani to hop over him as she rushed past.
“Rafe, boost!” she yelled.
“Ready!” He held out both hands, catching her booted foot in midair. She launched herself up and grabbed hold of a light fixture. It swayed wildly with her forward momentum, and she knocked down three more men who had just run into the lobby.
The longer they stayed there, the more time the rest of these fuckers would have to fully entrench. They could be setting up ambushes already—hell, maybe even getting ready to blow the place. They had to advance, and Gray led the charge.
In the past, when he was in the thick of combat instead of set up in a sniper’s nest, he hadn’t minded taking point. There was a certain mindless inevitability in it. The only way to get past the paralyzing fear of death was to disregard it. He’d often thought that if he had to go out, all in all, it wasn’t a bad way for it to happen. It would be quick, maybe even over so fast he wouldn’t even have time to realize it, and it would be useful. A good death.
He didn’t feel that way now. His thoughts refused to be pushed down, locked away in the numb haze of adrenaline. And they kept drifting back to Maya.
If he went down here, now, it wouldn’t be good. It would hurt her like all hell on fire.
He had to risk it anyway.
He hurtled down the darkened hallway with the rest of the team hard on his heels. They cleared each recessed doorway as they passed, with guns at the ready and little more than monosyllabic communication passing between them. More often, it was silent, a look or gesture that was immediately, exquisitely understood.