CHAPTER 3

The sun beamed lazily through the waving branches of the tree and in through the windows of the loft, directly into Adelaide Sayers’s eyes.

Oh come on. What goddamn time is it?

After the events of the past day – space walks, zero-g combat, bomb disposal – she could have slept for a million years, a fact her body was quick to remind her as she rolled over in bed and all her muscles issued a unified chorus of complaints.

At least Kovalic had put them all on leave for the week. She was lucky that none of her injuries were worse than a few bruises and pulled muscles. Nothing that some stretching, a hot shower, and some breakfast wouldn’t cure.

Even as the thought of the last percolated through her mind she caught a whiff of something cooking downstairs, accompanied by the sizzle of fat on a skillet.

One arm flailed out, patting the spot in the bed where there should have been a warm body but finding only a molehill of rumpled covers. Not that long ago, that would have spiked her pulse, spun her out: abandoned, on her own again.

But she was pleasantly surprised to find something else in her chest that wasn’t a knot of icy fear. Instead, it was… peaceful contentment? Maybe it was because she could hear – and smell – him puttering downstairs in the kitchen, sense that he hadn’t left her. Instead, he’d let her sleep in while he made breakfast.

Wait… does he know how to make breakfast?

Addy stifled a laugh and rolled over to plant her face in the pillow, enjoying the brief smothering of warmth. A toasty bed, breakfast cooking, the luxurious anticipation of a day with nothing to do; it shouldn’t be this mind-blowing, but it kind of was. What more could she ask–

A sharp buzz rattled her bedside table and she sighed and rolled over, hand grasping for the spot where she’d shed her sleeve last night. Her hand hit the pile of smart fabric but it slithered from her grasp onto the floor.

With a roll of her eyes, she leaned over the edge of the bed. The sleeve was puddled on the carpet, an alert splashed across it in large letters, unreadable in its crumpled-up state. She smoothed it out, not quite ready to face the intrusion of the real world yet.

The light glinting from outside caught her in the eyes again and she put up a hand to block it, frowning. Geez, how sunny is it today? She peered through the window. It was almost like it was reflecting off something, but there shouldn’t be anything out there…

Deep within her, some animal instinct flared and she was already rolling off the bed as the window on the other side shattered into a million fragments.

It was followed almost immediately by an individual in black tactical gear, swinging in through the now gaping opening.

What the fuck?!

Her brain was still processing exactly what it was seeing, but that didn’t matter, because her body had gone into autopilot.

There was a knockout gun in the nightstand, but it would take too much time to open the drawer and pull it out, and the trooper who had burst in was already detaching their repelling line and reaching for a lancer carbine hanging from a strap across their shoulders.

So instead, Addy picked herself up off the floor and launched herself across the bed, using the mattress’s bounce to propel her straight into the torso of the figure, who didn’t seem to be expecting much resistance from someone in pajamas.

The loft was narrow – there were only a couple of feet of clearance around the bed – so the two of them slammed into the wall with some force, knocking them both into a heap on the floor.

Close quarters. Minimize the advantage of body armor and neutralize an unwieldy weapon. Addy’s combat training had fully taken over and, as the trooper struggled against her, she dug a forearm into their unarmored throat, pressing their own helmet strap back against their windpipe. She couldn’t see their face, hidden behind a black balaclava and goggles, but she recognized the gear well enough – it was the same worn by the security officers she’d tangled with on two separate rooftops in the past few days.

CID’s joint task force goons? I thought we were done with this!

There wasn’t time to worry about that, though, as a second crash came from behind her and another trooper swung through the window on the side of the bed she’d recently vacated.

Shit shit shit.

She wrestled the carbine from the grasp of the trooper she had pinned, who was flailing at her with the urgency of someone who couldn’t breathe, and drove the butt of the gun into their face. There was a thud as their head rebounded inside their helmet, and if they weren’t unconscious they were at least reeling from the hit.

Addy rolled to one side, trying to bring the carbine to bear on the new assailant, but it was still attached to the trooper on the floor and the strap snapped taut before she could aim it in the right direction.

Which wasn’t great, because the second goon had skipped their bigger weapon in favor of going for a KO gun at their waist, clearly opting to incapacitate both her and their colleague and let god sort it out later.

Addy flopped onto her back and kicked out with both legs at the bed frame, knocking it into the other trooper’s legs. They issued a muffle curse of pain and Addy, who had banged her own shins on it more times than she could count, spared all of a nanosecond of sympathy before pressing her advantage, vaulting back over the bed and trying to kick them in the stomach.

Unfortunately for her, the body armor over the abdomen meant it was much better protected. It took the force of her kick in stride and, honestly, hurt her foot a bit. The trooper took a step backward, slightly off balance, but seemed otherwise no worse for wear.

Guess I should have slept in my boots.

Scrambling backwards on the bed, Addy pushed the blankets aside, looking for something harder than a pillow to chuck at the trooper.

Finding nothing, she went for the pillow.

It bought her a second, just enough time to see the first trooper getting to their feet, coughing and wheezing from her ministrations as they stumbled towards the foot of the bed.

And right at the top of the stairs.

Sorry about this – well, not really. Even as the trooper she’d thrown the pillow at batted it aside, she was leaping off the bed, knees pointed right at the chest of the first trooper, who probably looked pretty surprised under their balaclava.

She hit them with a solid thud, tipping them backwards onto the floor and sliding them to the top of the stairs. They flailed for a fraction of a moment, and then they were going backwards down the stairs, Addy atop their chest like they were a sled careening down a snowy hill.

The trooper’s helmet thump thump thumped against the wooden stairs, and Addy leaned backwards, shifting her center of balance to prevent herself from flying off, head over heels. They rattled downward at a surprisingly speedy pace, jarring Addy’s teeth so hard that she thought she might have bitten her tongue, but the pain didn’t register through the adrenaline haze.

Hitting the bottom with a muted groan from the trooper, Addy pitched out across their full length. She lay still for a second, catching her breath.

I could stay here. This would be fine.

No such luck. Behind her she heard the telltale whine of a KO gun charging – the trooper’s partner was still at the top of the stairs, and they were already in position, lining up a shot at Addy’s back.

Never a dull moment. With a grunt, she rolled over, using all of her leverage to put her trooper/makeshift sled between her and the incoming shot.

The other goon had already pulled the trigger, and a stun field washed over the two of them, mostly absorbed by the mass of the trooper atop her – she could tell because she was suddenly trapped under two-hundred-some pounds of dead weight that was slowly compressing the air out of her lungs. The edge of the field nicked her too, her vision swimming slightly as though she’d had too much to drink.

Oh, fuck. Good plan, Addy.

Her breath wheezed as she pawed at the trooper, trying to shove him off. She could deadlift two hundred pounds, but she generally didn’t try it after several bourbons. Gasping for air, she tried to stave off the black creeping in around the edges of her vision.

Where the fuck is Brody? The thought suddenly popped into her head just as the smell of bacon reached her nostrils.

But she had more pressing concerns. Through the haze she could see the second trooper coming down the stairs, weapon still leveled at her.

The carbine from the goon atop her was jammed in between them, the strap snug around the trooper’s chest. Addy fought with it, but there was no way she’d be able to get it loose, much less aimed anywhere useful.

As she wrestled with it, her hand brushed something else on the trooper’s belt: a small, squat cylinder.

A feral grin crossed Addy’s face as she unclipped it from the belt. She knew the shape well enough by feel, her thumb sliding across the ridges to find the activation stud, which she held for the requisite three seconds as a muffled beep sounded.

The other trooper, seeing her already trapped beneath their unconscious colleague, had apparently decided not to try stunning her again. She had to time this just right or she’d probably be waking up in a cell somewhere, and once this week had been enough for her.

When the trooper was about halfway down the stairs, she moved. Using all her strength, she rolled the goon off far enough to free her right arm and lobbed the cylinder towards their partner.

They seemed startled to see the projectile describing a pleasant arc toward them, and some weird innate response kicked in as they caught it in their free hand, then stared at it blankly for a second before realizing that holding a live concussion grenade was not recommended procedure.

Addy, for her part, curled up beneath the goon, who’d already proved an adequate shield once. At least if they were already unconscious, the grenade probably wouldn’t do them any more damage.

The whump of the explosion was loud, even from beneath the body, and what little air she had left in her lungs was squeezed out as the concussion wave pressed the dead weight down on her even further.

But it was all over a moment later, except for the slow bumping of the trooper on the stairs, sliding down the rest of the flight to puddle in a heap next to their colleague.

Addy rocked back and forth and pushed with all her might, rolling the body off of her. Blessed air rushed into her lungs. Dragging herself to her feet, she was still gathering her wits when, behind her, the front door splintered with the loud bang of a battering ram.

Come the fuck on.

She spun around even as a third black-suited trooper stormed in the door, carbine pointed in her direction. They had her dead to rights. Her hands went up, even as her mind raced, looking for some way out.

“Get on the fucking grou – urgh.” A sound like a gong cut their command short as they crumpled to the floor atop the blue-and-white throw rug that she hated.

Where they’d been standing a moment earlier was a bizarre, but Addy had to admit, oddly attractive, sight: Eli Brody, clad only in boxer shorts and a grungy shirt, stood holding a frying pan. He was looking at the floor, his expression surprisingly forlorn.

“Aw, man. My bacon!”

Addy’s breath heaved and she stared at him. “Where the fuck have you been?”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the kitchenette. “I was cooking breakfast.”

“Did you not hear the pitched combat going on above your head?”

Abashed, he raised his other hand, which held a small white pebble. “Uh, so, it turns out these noise-canceling earbuds work way better than I thought.” He nudged the unconscious trooper in front of him with a bare foot. “Who the hell are these guys?”

Addy reached down and unclipped the carbine from their chest, checked its loadout: shock gel rounds. So at least they hadn’t been aiming to kill them. “I don’t know, but they sure look like Kester’s task force goons.”

“Again? I thought that all got cleared up.”

“Apparently not,” said Addy. As the blood rushing in her ears subsided, she suddenly heard an insistent buzzing from the direction of the kitchen counter. “What’s that?”

“Huh? Oh, I think it’s my sleeve,” said Brody. “I don’t wear it when I’m cooking – you know how hard it is to get bacon grease out of smart fabric?”

Addy rolled her eyes and walked over to the counter, grabbing the pile of cloth that, despite Brody’s protestations, was still a bit slick. Unease settled in her gut as she spread it out on the countertop, remembering the message she hadn’t had time to read on her own sleeve upstairs, right before everything had gone to shit.

“Eschaton,” said Addy, her mouth dry. “Fuck.”

“Eska–wha?” Brody repeated before his eyes widened in recognition. “Come on, that’s got to be a mistake, right?”

Addy jutted her chin at the unconscious trio of goons. “Sure feels like the end of the fucking world.” She balled up the smart fabric in one hand. “We need to go.”

“Go? Right now? I mean… I did cook breakfast… ”

But Addy was already moving, tearing the pilot’s sleeve into shreds over his protestations. She jogged over to the stairs, ignoring the pile of unconscious troopers, and grabbed the third step from the bottom, then yanked upwards.

“What are you –” Brody blinked as the stair came up in her hands. “Well, so much for my security deposit.”

Addy ignored him, pulling out two small duffel bags. Unzipping one, she removed a KO gun and checked the charge. Eighty percent. It’ll have to do. She slung it over her shoulder and then tossed the other duffel to Brody, who caught it with a confused expression.

“What’s this?”

“It’s your go bag.”

“Uhh… my what? And how long has it been in my stairs?”

Crossing to the troopers, Addy pulled a pair of quick cuffs off one of their belts and looped one around each of their wrists. Then she thought for a second and, with a shrug, took the pair off the other’s belt and attached their other wrists. That’ll keep them busy.

“Kovalic asked me to prep it for you – he didn’t want to worry you.”

“Worry me? About what?”

Addy stared him and then gestured around her at the trio of unconscious figures.

“Fair point,” said Brody.

“Now, come on, flyboy – we don’t have all day. There’s no way these guys don’t have backup.”

Brody looked down at his skinny, pale legs. “I don’t suppose there’s pants in here?” he asked hopefully, raising the go bag. “Or, I dunno, maybe that guy’s my size…” He eyed the trooper Addy had just cuffed.

Collecting the carbines and KO guns from the trio of troopers, Addy tested the triggers, but they all appeared to be biometrically locked to their owners. She slid them across the floor into the kitchenette. Won’t stop them, but it’ll slow them down.

“Never mind the pants,” said Addy, regretting it immediately. “Does your skimmer have a full charge?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Then get your butt to the garage and let’s get moving. Unless you want to end up in another windowless room?”

“Right,” said Brody. He started towards the garage, still holding the duffel bag between his hands. “Uh, where are we going?”

“There’s a rendezvous point,” said Addy. “We’ll meet the rest of the team there and figure out what the fuck is happening.”

Brody’s eyes darted to the heap of troopers and Addy found, to her mild dismay, she could tell exactly what he was thinking. “Don’t worry, Brody. Kovalic, Taylor, Tapper… they know what they’re doing. They’ll be fine.”

I hope.