Molehunt (33 page)

An urgent banging made Maximus jump. He ordered the doors open. A flunky burst in, breathless.

‘Sir. RIM agents. They're coming up!'

Maximus leapt to his feet. ‘I left orders that nobody was to get into this building!'

The flunky cowered beneath Maximus's fury, averting his gaze. ‘Sir, they had search warrants.'

‘Warrants?'

His brain whirled. Warrants! Unheard of that an agency could secure warrants against the Five Companies. What did this mean? Did RIM have evidence or had they paid an almost defunct Trade and Securities Commission to obtain a warrant?

Or had Myoto done the unconscionable? Had they deeded RIM temporary auditing rights on a fellow Company? Compulsive auditing rights came with an automatic right to search and seize relevant documents.

Damn Myoto to hell! By the Galactic gods, he would see them ruined and in penury, if it was the last thing he did!

‘How long?' he snapped at the sweating flunky.

‘How long w-w-what, sir?'

Maximus controlled his temper. The man had barely enough brain cells to be human.

‘How long till they get here? Into this office?'

‘Um … two minutes, maybe three.' The man swallowed.

‘Thank you. Now get out.'

The flunky propelled himself out of Maximus's office. Maximus ordered the doors shut and locked. He needed every precious second he could get, and he needed vital information. He contacted the Envoy, using their private and secure link.

‘Have you got the e-pad?'

‘Negative,' came the flat response.

Damn the alien creature. Could it not at least
pretend
to be remorseful?

‘Call me as soon as you have it.'

He cut the connection. It was a pity he had had General Constantine's neutronium document defaced with a molecular. It meant the e-pad Anneke had stolen contained the only known copy of the first set of lost coordinates. Otherwise, he would have remotely destroyed it, hopefully along with Anneke Longshadow.

So for now he would have to bluff the RIM agents. Not an easy thing to do, especially if Arvakur was in charge. A real by-the-numbers agent, that one.

Knowing he had less than ninety seconds left, Maximus hurried to his computer console to run a file deletion program, at the same time he activated a special virus designed to remove data from the hard drive. Then he scoured the room for evidence that would allow the agents to connect him to his other activities.

In a way, Anneke had done him a favour by stealing the e-pad. With it safely out of the building, the most incriminating piece of evidence was beyond the reach of his visitors.

He almost wished he could thank her personally, but expected that by now she was dead. He hoped so. A pounding on the doors told him the RIM agents had arrived.

He left them standing outside for a minute while he set up a neuron disruptor field from which he made himself immune. He would detonate it as a last resort – these things could go horribly wrong. He then told the super-tefloned diamandoid doors to open. Arvakur marched in, followed by three RIM agents and a Myotan Auditor General.

Maximus was outraged. He pointed a quivering finger at the Myotan. ‘What is
he
doing here?'

Arvakur shrugged, sitting down in a plush chair across from Maximus. He glanced down at the ruined desk, but didn't comment on it. ‘It seems your books are not in order. I believe Cartel members have auditing rights?'

‘If the fee is paid,' Maximus said cautiously.

The Myotan held out a document. Maximus glanced at it, realising it was an official auditing warrant. He glared at Arvakur. ‘That must have set you back a pretty penny.'

Arvakur nodded good-naturedly. ‘Money well spent. And if nothing comes of this then I will be looking for employment elsewhere soon.'

Maximus snorted. He almost liked the engaging young captain. Not that that would stop him from doing what he had to.

‘You will see, if you care to peruse the document, that we have full access rights to current and recent accounts.'

‘How recent?'

‘Two weeks.'

‘This is an outrage.'

‘Nevertheless,' said Arvakur, sitting forward, ‘legalities must be observed.'

Maximus slumped back in his chair. Let them think he had bowed to the inevitable. He gestured his consent to Arvakur. The captain nodded to his team and they went to work, tapping into a Quesadan control panel set flush in one wall.

‘Does this search have anything to do with the sudden arrival of the Sentinels?'

Arvakur smiled. ‘Who can tell? The Sentinels move in mysterious ways, or so they say.'

One of the RIM agents was standing back. With a start Maximus realised he was conducting scans of the office. He suddenly came forward, whispering in Arvakur's ear.

Frowning, Arvakur turned a flinty eye on Maximus. ‘You've been renovated in the last two weeks.'

‘Is that a crime?'

‘It might be an indication of one,' said Arvakur, staring hard at Maximus, as if trying to divine Maximus's original appearance.

And who knew? Maybe he could. Some people had built-in facial recognition wetware. Maximus shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

‘You remind me of somebody. Somebody on Lykis Integer.'

‘Never been there,' said Maximus, hoping he was not sweating.

‘Are you aware that renovation is considered sufficient prima facie evidence for temporary detention?'

‘Surely that ruling is out of date by at least two centuries?'

‘I believe it is still on the statute books.'

The scanning agent continued his passes on Maximus. RIM's detection technology was second to none. By now he would have his height, build, dental workup and a rudimentary map of his neuro profile. There was no way Maximus could allow that sort of information to leave the building.

‘Would you be kind enough to supply me with some DNA? There are hairs and skin flakes on this beautiful carpet – Exorian, by the look of it – but the analysis will be more precise if we get it directly from the source.'

Maximus waved his hand casually. ‘As you wish. I have nothing to hide.'

‘Commendable attitude, Mr Brown.'

He motioned the scanning agent forward to collect a sample. The man reached into his tunic and brought out a small device that would take a microscopic drop of Maximus's blood, by forced osmosis, without breaking the skin.

Time for desperate measures,
thought Maximus as he braced himself.

He detonated the neuron disruptor. Arvakur sensed something. He screamed ‘Down!' and threw himself to the floor, but the energy field was already fuzzing the room. Even though Maximus was ready, the wave sent him flying, too. Being prepared however meant that he recovered first.

His five visitors were lying on the floor, dead or dying. The scanning device, along with its memory, was slag. He wasted no time on his victims. He had come up with an escape plan, a way to elude the Sentinels' spatial interdiction of Arcadia. A daring plan always meant danger, but danger was his lifestyle statement.

All he needed was the e-pad, and molecular solvent.

His private comm link, buried in the flesh behind his left ear, buzzed, and the Envoy's hissing voice came on line. ‘I have it.'

Maximus felt a wave of relief flood through him. He did not bother to ask for details of Anneke's long overdue demise. He would save that till he was off world and safe.

‘Meet me at Code Location fourteen.'

He switched off the connection. Only now did he survey his handiwork. Maximus felt no remorse, just a faint misgiving about the repercussions of killing RIM agents. If anyone wanted to stir up a hornet's nest, this was the way to do it. He might come to regret this action, but history was full of regrettable actions, by those strong and daring enough to grab the reins of history and drive.
Well I, Maximus Black, am one such person.

He stepped over the bodies of the RIM agents on his way out, closing the door behind him.

A
NNEKE voice-activated the shackle field on the mole and opened up with her spray gun weapon as soon as she spotted the Envoy. Unbelievably, the creature slewed off the spray. Aliens!

As her captive hit the floor she heard shouts and running footsteps behind her. Time to cut and run. On pure instinct, she vaulted over the spiked railing, noting that the explosive pendant was now attached to one of the spikes.
Pity about that
.

She triggered it anyway, still mid-air when it exploded.

The spiralling ramp encircled her, blurring as she fell. She had fifteen storeys to drop, seven-tenths of Earth-standard gravity – half the strength of her home. Unfortunately, it was still too much for her to survive a fall from that height.

She dumped the Envoy persona and activated the sticky fields, forcing them into the side of each ramp she fell past, dragging her hand and foot fields through the denser static fields that constituted solid matter.

Meanwhile, Quesadan troopers dotted around the great spiral ramp took shots at her. Anneke couldn't return fire – she needed as much frictional interference as possible. Pity she didn't have an inertial dampening field; then she could have dropped
and
fired a few return shots!

At least the speed of her fall made her a difficult target. It also made the floor rushing towards her look pretty deadly.

Anneke braced herself for impact, relaxing her legs muscles and preparing to tense at the same time. Then – BAM! – she hit, slumping straight into a falling roll. She was on her feet in seconds, though the impact jarred every bone in her body. But she was still breathing – a bonus.

Not pausing to congratulate herself, she continued on using the translated momentum from the fall and roll to launch herself into a high velocity sprint towards the main entrance. She sent off several pulse shots as she ran, scattering mystified guards. Orders to seal the building hadn't arrived as yet. All the guards knew was a crazy woman like a missile on legs was bearing down on them, shooting as she approached.

Moments later Anneke shot through the entrance to the outside. Soon she was a block away, then two blocks, hugging shadows, activating her cloak's background camouflage, piling on more distance. Whatever else happened she needed to download the contents of the e-pad. After that, she was, technically, expendable.

Only it was not going to be easy.

A stinging sensation on her leg told her she was being followed. Glancing down, she saw a scorch mark, melted jumpsuit material and an ugly red burn on her flesh. An instant later the pain hit but by then she had snap-rolled aside, narrowly avoiding a second silent pulse of invisible energy.

Spiffle
, she thought.
A bit rough when you can't see it coming!

She scrambled away on all fours, and then dodged into a laneway packed with market stalls and busy marketeers. Still keeping low she threaded between the stalls, slipped into a quiet alleyway, flicked on her sticky fields and swarmed up the side of a building, and onto its rooftop in a manouevre that kept her profile flat.

Momentarily safe, she yanked a wirescope out of her belt and pushed it over the edge of the building like a questing worm, flipping a vid screen over her left eye. Its tiny camera picked up activity in the street below, projecting it onto the vid screen.

In a few seconds she identified her attacker – the alien Envoy. Still cowled, he scanned the market stalls. She had an eerie feeling he was picking up more than just visible light; maybe scanning for individual heat signatures, or other telltale signs she could not imagine: pheromones or skin cells, she assumed he could sense them all.

Then he looked up – straight at her. His hand movement that followed blurred, but as her screen went dead Anneke felt the heat of the shot that burned off her wirescope. Panicky screams erupted below. Perhaps his hood had fallen off? Anneke didn't care. By the time the screams had died down she was half a rooftop away.

The chase that followed reminded her of a similar one a long, long time ago. On that occasion she had been tracked by a horde of inept hunkies. This time it was a frighteningly lethal non-human. Only one, but much worse.

She wondered briefly about the connection between the alien and the mole, but decided to leave that for another day. She wanted to be sure there would be another day.

Ssszt! Ssszt! Ssszt!

Invisible energy beams stitched into the wall beside her, vaporising fist-sized holes and blasting out fragments towards her. Dropping onto her stomach, Anneke belly-crawled under rows of ventilation tubes, leaped to her feet, and broke into a run. So far, she had not returned fire. She was sure if she stopped long enough to scan for a target and take aim, she would be dead.

Anneke was aware of being scared, but it was an academic awareness rather than a feeling. Her Normanskian musculature evened one aspect of the scenario: the alien did not seem able to run any faster than she could. On the other hand, it did not run any slower. Her reserves were finite. She knew nothing of the alien's.