The Animus Gate (Book One of The Animus Trilogy) Read online

  Despite the ansoline doing its work, a cold sweat trickled. Where was the fucking cavalry?

  “...Two,” yelled a goon. Another crash. “One.” Crash. How much juice did that sledge have?

  “All right, Bakari, time’s up.” Footsteps approached. “Whadda we got here?” said a voice on the other side of the door. The goon was clearly still relishing every bit of this. “Well...he ain’t in the shitter.”

  Another crash. This one sounded like shattered plasteramics. “And now neither is the shitter.”

  More cackling. Now there was a metallic knocking sound on the storage room door. “This’s the only door left, boys. Think he’s curled up in a ball like a lil’ sissy? Not such a big man without ‘is van to run peoples over, is he.” The sudden whine of the sledge heralded another swing, and the goon smashed the doorknob off in one hit.

  “Aye, the lad’s gotta be back here, gents. Let’s have a peep.”

  The goon kicked the door open. His smile was jagged and full of metal. “Ahh, not the right brother...but ye’ll do fer now.”

  The goon walked over to nab Darius, but distant sirens finally rang out. The man’s face soured immediately. He spat a string of colorful profanity. “Guess we’ll have to accelerate the game plan, then, won’t we...”

  He struck Darius in the face with the butt of his sledge, knocking him down. They were simply going to drag him out and flee before the cops arrived, apparently. But as the goon dragged him along the floor, the man’s eyes were on the front door, not Darius. Darius used this window of opportunity to send the bots out of the restroom.

  As the bots came rolling out, the man dragging him mumbled, “What’s these fuckin’ things, now? —Wait, they ain’t bombs or somethin’, is they?”

  Of a kind, Darius thought.

  On command, the bots began blanketing the front of the gift shop with intensely bright flashing. The goons cursed and reeled, swinging their weapons wildly. One of them grunted and fell, a victim of friendly fire. They clearly weren’t used to this kind of countermeasure.

  The police sirens were almost on top of them, and the goon had lost his grip on Darius. He wheeled around and kicked the goon in the kidneys as hard as he could, and the man fell to his knees.

  Darius made a few quick swipes on his wristpad, and the delivery van in the rear rolled back from the door in response. He grabbed the rucksack from the storage room and made a dash for the only way out. By default, the van’s rear doors would open automatically as he approached.

  Just as he was about to head through the exit, he heard the sledge wind up behind him again.

  “Not so fast, cobber,” came a voice from behind him. “You’re coming wif us.”

  “This is the police,” squawked a megaphone outside. “Put your weapons down and come out with your hands up.”

  The goon smiled grimly at Darius. “Hold that thought, now.” He looked over his shoulder.

  “I repeat, put your weapons down and come out with your hands up. You have ten seconds to comply, or we will be authorized to use any and all necessary force to ensure compliance.”

  Darius peeked down at his wristpad. Two bots were still operational. They were probably hidden under debris. With the goon still facing away from him, Darius prepared one of the bots to home in on his wristpad. All he needed to do now was get the goon to look at him so that the bot could sneak up from behind.

  Darius decided that a taunt was in order. “Look,” he told the man, “we both know that you’re not gonna shoot me.”

  The goon snorted and turned to face him.

  “If you were,” Darius continued, “You would have already. You’ve got orders.”

  The goon was not amused. “Now you listen here, you grotty lil—” He paused to look down at the bot that was now rolling between his legs.

  Say cheese, asshole.

  Before the goon could shield his eyes, the corridor was full of brilliant flashes.

  Darius did a 180 to the rear door. He slapped the handle with one hand and pushed through with the other. Gunfire rang out, but he didn’t look back. Instead, he jumped and rolled right into the open doors of the van. Wasting no time, he gave it a voice command, and it began pulling away and proceeding towards its default destination: the Bakari house.

  With the van now on the move, its doors closed automatically as a safety measure. But despite the smoothness of his escape, he knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet. For one, he was still bleeding. And there was another problem: a parked police cruiser in the alley. Through his van’s rear camera, Darius saw two officers scrambling to get back inside their squad car and give chase.

  I should have expected this, he thought ruefully.

  More fast thinking was required, and after that leap into the back of the van, the ansoline he’d choked down only minutes before was the only thing keeping his mind above the churning waters of the pain in his side. As the van made its way from the alley to the street, he had mere seconds to rack his brain for answers.

  The most obvious path was to keep driving. In theory, he could do that with his wristpad. Would that be enough, though?

  Darius rubbed his eyes and stared at the forward camera feed on his wristpad. It automatically highlighted every potential road obstruction—and as usual, this alley was littered with them. Since he still had manual control, he could use this to his advantage.

  The vehicle’s AI complained as he forced it to swerve into recycler bins and drifts of trash, but if he angled the van properly, he could send those bins careening off the walls of the buildings that lined the alley and intothe path of the cruiser in hot pursuit.

  Darius had been in the back of a cruiser often enough to know how its evasive maneuvers would respond: It would slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. Safety first, right? Plowing through obstacles would require a manual override.

  It took six bins until one of them got in the cruiser’s path. This would only buy him a few seconds before the driver took over, but it would give him some distance to work with. It would give him enough time to think of the next move.

  The van had reached the end of the alley. It burst onto the main thoroughfare, leaving a trail of garbage in its wake, and he cranked his virtual steering wheel to the right. The vehicle went skidding across several lanes, and it was a good thing that it was still early morning. There were fewer cars on the road, so their AIs would have more space to auto-evade.

  The van’s tires found their grip, and Darius slammed the accelerator with his wristpad.

  The city traffic AI would take over any moment now. But he could still guide the system by setting destinations in increments of one block. He bought some extra acceleration and path clearance by signaling a medical emergency. Which was actually kind of true.

  Since Darius knew the layout of the neighborhood, he could guide the van right to the manhole he’d come out of. He checked the rear-facing camera on the back of the van. From that vantage point, the cruiser was just coming into view as Darius made his next turn.

  He rubbed his eyes again and tried to imagine the path in his mind—a version of the path with as many turns as he could throw in. But he could only do this dance for so long before the city police AI came in to shut his vehicle down altogether. That would also make every civilian vehicle in between him and the cruiser clear a path. Darius wouldn’t even be able to open the rear door.

  He figured that he had about two more blocks before the police AI brought the hammer down. He ordered another hard right turn. This time the cruiser did not come into view before the van had finished its maneuver. Maybe that would be enough space. It would have to be.

  He opened the rear door and thanked the gods that he had not ditched his rucksack.

  With the van moving at speed, Darius steeled himself for what had to come next. He leaped out the back, using the rucksack to cushion his landing. He rolled what felt like the length of a football field. Then, with great effort that would not have been possible without the double-dos
e of ansoline, he pushed onto his feet. He stumble-dived off the street and into the alcove of a shoe repair shop. Moments later, the cruiser went flying past him. That was good, because he had no more fight left in him.

  He used the last of his willpower to switch his wristpad off. Then he simply lay there in the shadows and fought to remain conscious as new points of pain radiated across his body.

  He hoped this Nadira lady paid well.

  -3-

  Darius rapped his knuckles on the manhole cover that he’d come out of earlier. He hadn’t checked how much time he’d spent curled up in the alcove of that repair shop. But the sun was just starting to peek above the distant treeline of the jungle. Enough time might have past for Rali to decide to make a run for it.

  He could always check the clock on his wristpad. Network connection or no, it could at least do basic things like tell the time, temperature, and humidity. In fact, wristpads were so common that there were no clocks in public. No church bell would toll on the hour. But at this point, there was no point in checking. He was either late or on time.

  He looked down mournfully at the manhole cover. Even with the glove, he didn’t feel like he had the strength to pry it off. He knocked again. Hope was waning. Police sirens were still wailing. Their search grid would find him if he couldn’t literally go to ground.

  He kneeled down to the manhole cover. “Rali,” he croaked, “it’s me. Can you hear me? I need you to help me slide the cover off.”

  He knocked on the cover again. Silence.

  Darius pulled a baton out of his rucksack and was about to begin using it to leverage the cover off when he saw it finally budge.

  “Hells,” said Darius. “I hope that’s you, Rali.”

  Rali’s muffled voice came through from below. “D, did you get a spare glove at the shop?”

  “Yeah, but I’m fucking gassed. I need you to push while I pull. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  Darius sighed. “All right, here goes. On three, okay? One...two...three!”

  The cover was as heavy as a lead coffin, but it was moving. It took three tries before they could push it aside enough for Darius to get back down.

  Rali looked up at him from the gloom of the sewer. “Devil’s teeth, you look even worse than I do.”

  “I feel worse, if that’s even possible. Here, I got a rucksack with some supplies. Get ready to catch it.”

  “I’m ready. But seriously, are you OK?”

  “I’m okay enough to get down this ladder. Dropping the sack down now. It’s fairly heavy.”

  Rali grunted as he caught it. “Man, you weren’t kidding. How did you get this all the way back here? You look like you couldn’t carry a glass of water.”

  Darius chuckled bitterly as he climbed down. “Let’s deal with this bullet first, then I can fill you in.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Darius got off the ladder, then Rali climbed back up to get the manhole cover back on. It took a long minute and a lot of shoving. He looked back down the ladder and gave Darius another once-over. “Come on, let’s get you back to that gurney so that I can work on you.” He hopped off the ladder with an ease that Darius envied.

  “Throw an arm over my shoulder,” said Rali.

  Darius snorted. “Looking forward to this operation, doctor.”

  “Sarcasm,” his brother said dryly. “I’m picking up on that, even in my own fevered condition.” Rali grabbed the sack, and they started making their way back to the abandoned clinic. “You know, maybe I shouldn’t be working on you. Maybe my hands will slip and your guts will just spill out like—”

  “Gods above, you’re an asshole.”

  They found the abandoned office again, and Darius lay down on the gurney with a sigh of relief. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was nice to be able to stop moving. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his brother rummaging around in the rucksack.

  “So,” said Rali, “We’ve got the medkit in here. And a portable light. This other thing looks like a water purifier. And a fishing kit...What would we need that for, D? Ain’t no fish down here. None you’d want to eat, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” said Darius. “About that...”

  Rali popped the portable light on. “I guess it’s your turn to deliver the bad news.”

  “Well, it’s not all bad,” said Darius. “Just mostly bad.”

  He spent the next several minutes explaining what happened as Rali fished through the first aid kit for the necessary supplies.

  “I guess we’re both in the shit now,” said Ral.

  “Those goons were in the shop because of you, Ral, so don’t put this on me. I just did what I had to do to survive.”

  “I’m sure Mom will see it that way.”

  “God’s teeth,” said Darius. “I’ve got a nanite bullet in me, and you want to play a game of ‘Who’s the Better Son.’ Now is not the time.”

  “Fine,” said Rali flatly. “What about Mom and Uncle Omar? Are they all right?”

  Darius thought about the threat the goon had made at the shop. “I’m sure the cops have gone to check on them. They should be safe. Whether or not they stay safe is another matter.”

  They contemplated that in silence. Darius listened to the steady trickle of water flowing through the sewer and tried to use it to take his mind off the pain.

  “I’ve never even heard of Baloneth,” said Rali. “Have you?”

  “Only once or twice. It’s pretty isolated. This lady doesn’t want the usual tour.”

  Rali brought his makeshift surgery tools over to the gurney. “Okay, so the medkit had some decent stuff. There’s a pouch of ansoline, a pair of multi-pliers, a couple squeeze bottles of disinfectant, a skin patching kit, and a head-mounted flashlight.” He paused. “You know, if even a single officer died, we’re done. You don’t walk away from police in body bags. Do you think they got a good look at you?”

  A chill went through Darius. “I wish I could say. They definitely saw someone jump into the back of the van. I’d like to think they assumed it was a member of the gang trying to make a run for it. We’ll just have to wait and see if their suit and car cameras got a good shot of me.”

  “Well, if the cops go digging, D, the trail is gonna lead back to me. Which means it’s gonna lead back to you. Which means they’ll probably finger you as the one getting away in the van.”

  “Hell,” said D, “they’ll trace the trip I took in the van to your apartment before that. I made no attempt to cover that up. Didn’t think of it.”

  “So it sounds like we need to get to this Markosian lady before the news headlines do.”

  “Or,” said Darius, “we need to have one hell of a good explanation for the trail of wreckage we’re leaving in our wake.”

  Rali ground two ansoline pills into a fine powder and mixed that into the water bowl. Then he gave the bowl a squirt of disinfectant. In liquid form, the ansoline was basically a crude local anesthetic. Rali liked to say that it was cheaper than a visit to a medibot. He retrieved a sterile towel from the medkit and dabbed it into the bowl. “First we have to numb the wound” he said, “then I dig around for the nanite cluster.” He wiped carefully around the cut.

  “Are you sure there’s no biogel in that kit?” asked Darius. “I’d prefer other nanites to dig out the nanites.”

  “Dad never sprung for that kind of kit, D. No need for such precision out in the jungle.”

  “Then can’t you just put me out altogether?” asked Darius. “Can’t I just wake up with a properly dressed wound?”

  Rali smiled. “If this kit had a full anesthetic, I probably would have run off with it by now.”

  “Very encouraging.”

  “I try. Now just relax for a few minutes while we wait for the numbness to set in. Then I gotta open you up, dribble some more of this juice in, and basically try to penetrate it into the wound as far as I can. I probably won’t be able to numb the whole area. There may be a lot of pain. Again
, I’m sorry. This is...”

  Darius grunted. “Let’s worry about who’s to blame later. I just have no appetite for another entry in that ledger.”

  Rali shook his head. “Speaking of ledgers. I owe them more credits than you would have been able to hand over. A lot more.”

  Darius snickered despite himself. “Yeah, I suspected as much. No wonder they came after me so hard at the shop. Looks like they got a pound of flesh either way.”

  “Yeah...I guess so.” Rali squirted his hands with some disinfectant and began the operation.

  It didn’t hurt at first, thanks to the ansoline prep. There was just a sensation of pressure. But as Rali kept digging down, the pressure turned to pain. And pain turned to agony. Then someone started screaming, and everything went black.

  When Darius awoke, his brother was sitting in the office chair and eating out of a food pouch from the rucksack.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” Rali observed with a tinge of boredom.

  That was a little less enthusiasm than Darius thought he’d earned. He sat up with a wince and smacked his lips. He still felt some pain in his hip, but it was blessedly dull compared to before.

  “You blacked out,” Rali said in between bites.

  “I gathered that. Were you able to fix me up?”

  “Yeah, I found a cluster. About the size of a peppercorn. If they weren’t shiny and metallic, I probably would have missed it. According to the bio-scanner in the first aid kit, the thing is transmitting a signal.”

  “When did it start?” asked Darius. “Do you think someone could track us back to that manhole?”

  “Maybe,” said Rali. “We need to keep moving so that we never find out. You hungry?”

  “My appetite hasn’t quite come back yet.” Darius leaned over to the surgery tray next to the gurney. “Is this the bowl with the ansoline and disinfectant in it?”

  “Yeah, hold on. Let me replace that with something you can drink. Just lie down, man. Your body’s been through a lot. I think you got a couple fractures from that dive out of the van.”

  “Gods. The more this goes on, Rali, the more I wonder if it would have been better for them to just snip off one of your digits. At the rate we’re going, the medical industry won’t be able to keep up with either of us.”