part0033

Go stumbled back to the west door, then darted out of it. Tears rolled down his cheeks, salty on his lips. He hacked, then fought to keep his balance as he rushed toward the ugly, brown shrubs littering the lawn. The tear gas stung his throat, and it left its harsh chemical kiss on his tongue.

Through his blurry vision, he saw Jason, a black form waving wildly. “My crawler! I can catch them!”

That sounded like a plan. Certainly, the sporty vehicle could catch up to the huge hauler. And maybe even—

Over the ringing in Go’s ear that remained from the flashbang, he caught another sound: a motor.

Ash’s motorcycle sped down the street, heading after the other Lancer team.

Go wasn’t sure whether to be furious or relieved. It was Ash’s fault things had fallen apart. The idiot had refused to accept his role in the operation. Now he was going to get himself killed, one against seven—seven capable Lancers.

He didn’t stand a chance.

Unless he pulled his guns. If he did that, there would be a bloodbath. Maybe he would live, but what was the point of that? He had no justification, nothing that would stand up to legal challenge.

Prison time. The end of his career as a Lancer.

Rosario met Go at the bottom of the slope, glaring hotly. She threw an arm around him for support. “How do you expect me to be furious with Ash when you do something like that?”

Go tried to stop hacking long enough to point out that what he had done had been in reaction to Ash’s stupidity.

The tear gas had its own ideas.

She dragged Go after Jason’s retreating form. “You told me before that you would never try to take on more than one person at a time.”

“Wasn’t trying to—” Coughing overcame Go again.

“Now you’ve got Ash so worked up, he’s going after them. You two macho idiots.”

So now it was Go’s fault. “He’s…the leak.”

“What? You’re saying Ash is the leak?”

“Working…with someone.”

She groaned. “You’re crazy. Both of you. You let your jealousy—”

Go pulled against her and wiped tears from his eyes. “That’s enough.”

Jason stopped ahead of them. The crawler rumbled down the road, its tires kicking up rocks and chunks of pavement. “Hey! Hurry up. I’ve got a visual with the drone, and—”

A deafening squeal pierced the connection, and the driver clutched his hands against the sides of his head, then collapsed to his knees with the crawler speeding straight toward him.

Go’s earpiece was dead. He pushed Rosario aside and sprinted for the driver, assuming his device was also dead.

It was the other Lancers, the hackers—had to be. They’d laid a trap of some sort, left something to attack any Grid activity in the area. Whatever they’d done had hammered Jason hard enough to knock him down.

The sporty crawler raced toward the driver, and it would reach him before Go could.

Then Jason straightened a little, and his eyes fluttered open. He glanced toward the vehicle, held up a hand, and the vehicle’s brakes squealed.

But Go kept running, even though he knew it was pointless. The vehicle was faster and—

Stopping. Skidding. Braking so hard that the rear end rose.

He got to Jason as the driver pushed up to stand, calm as if the vehicle had never been careening toward him at full speed. And in fact, the vehicle veered slightly and came to a complete stop a few meters away.

Go set a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “You all right, mate?”

“That thing—the attack.” Go tapped his earpiece. “We lost our Grid connection.”

Jason winced. “I know. That payload they hit with… It was like a bomb going off in my head.”

“Your earpiece go off-line?”

“Completely.” The driver pulled the device from his ear and spun the gray thing around. “It’s not a hardware problem.”

“A software attack?” Go couldn’t get anything out of his device. He couldn’t see the Grid, couldn’t use the near-field communications capabilities, couldn’t get even the built-in functions such as a compass or video player to work.

And yet Jason had remotely stopped the crawler.

The driver looked up, amber eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Go waved Rosario to join them. “We need replacements—”

His earpiece hummed softly, then the pleasant, calming tones of a complete reboot played in his ear. The way Rosario almost stumbled and placed a hand against her ear told him what he needed to know: Her device was rebooting as well.

Jason set his own device back in place with a chuckle. “That’s better.”

Go’s device powered up its display. “Just like that? Temporary?”

“Looks like. I told you—these are hardened. For them to do what they did… Well, they’re good.”

“Any chance we can catch them?” He strolled over to the crawler, which seemed as dead as the earpiece had.

“I’m having it reboot.” The driver frowned. “Same as the drone. It’s out there, but it’s probably damaged. I can’t tell if that was an attack on the crawler, or if the systems went off-line when it was pointed in our direction. We can’t take the chance the attack infected it.”

And now a remote reboot. The earpieces hadn’t even finished their own reboot.

Go wasn’t a systems expert, and he didn’t know technology well enough to challenge even a modest tech, but he knew the limitations of systems. Remote control of a vehicle required communications. It required systems that could handle sophisticated interfaces. Someone who knew what they were doing could make it look effortless, but under the hood, they would be completely absorbed in the software of the remote system.

Rosario stopped at Jason’s side. “What happened?”

He tapped his earpiece. “Their hackers left a wicked bomb.”

“What about Ash?”

Jason’s brow furrowed. “I guess he was outside the range of it. They must have targeted what they could see.”

Go cupped a hand over his eyes and slowly circled. “Or it proves my point.”

Rosario shook her head. “He thinks Ash is our leak.”

“Our…leak? You think he’s stealing RPC’s data?”

Go squatted beside the crawler and pried a rock from the treads of a tire. “Maybe. More likely he’s sabotaging us.”

Jason shoved his hands into his pant pockets. “You think he knew these Lancers were here all along?”

“Could be. Could be he’s been working for them for a while.”

“It’s a big jump, going from moronic to malevolent.”

The throaty rumble of a powerful motorcycle caught Go’s attention. It was somewhere off to the east.

He stood. “Moronic doesn’t go far to describe what he did, mate.”

Rosario scraped the tip of her shoes over the road. “He was pissed off, Go, and you didn’t help by cutting him out of this whole stupid recon thing.”

“Now recon is stupid? Is that how it is? This is all my fault, yeah?”

“You think he’s the only one who’s jealous? And everything you’ve done has been, what, brilliant?”

“I haven’t done anything to undermine us.”

“But you’ve been so busy thinking about screwing that prostitute and that old slut from the nightclub—”

Jason held up his hands. “Guys, stop it. Look, I got into the Grid before the attack. I have the data. I have a good idea of what was going on in this area when we showed up and just before they were alerted.”

Rosario turned toward the sound of the approaching motorcycle. “He’s coming back.”

Go smirked. “Couldn’t catch them on his hotshot bike.”

“At least he tried.”

“You really think so?”

The driver bowed his head. “Let me tear the data apart. If it shows that Ash is the problem, then we deal with it. But I don’t think he’s the leak—for RPC or for us. I just think he’s an unhinged and irresponsible prick.”

That sounded reasonable enough to Go, who shrugged as the motorcycle stopped next to the crawler. “Maybe we could ask him.”

Ash pulled his helmet off. “I had them! Three kilometers on, I had them. Right up their asses.”

Go cocked an eyebrow at Rosario. “Yeah? How’d they get away?”

The bald man scowled. “They’ve got a good driver.”

“Since when has that stopped you?”

“Since they nearly drove me off the road. The fuck is eating you?”

“Oh—” Go circled the bike. “—I don’t know. Maybe it’s seeing someone give away our approach just before we head in to punch a few skulls.”

Ash set his helmet on the handlebar and unzipped his jacket. “I was just looking to see if they had any booby-traps. And—” He twisted around to jab a finger at Jason. “—if you had followed me, we would’ve been able to catch them. I found their vehicles not that far from where they drove me off the road.”

Jason sighed. “They hit us with some sort of system bomb. It took our earpieces out.”

Go leaned in toward Ash. “How is it you weren’t affected?”

Ash tugged his jacket off. “You want to start something, big man? Huh?”

“You put your hands anywhere near your guns, and you’ll be in traction for a month. Understand?”

“You come any closer, and you’ll be on life support in an hour.”

Jason held his hands up once again. “Stop it. Go, if you want to know where he went, I can look at the motorcycle’s systems. It won’t take anything to figure out if he’s lying.”

Ash tugged his right glove on tighter. “Fuck that. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Then you don’t have anything to hide.”

“And you don’t have any reason to look at my bike.” The bald man’s face and scalp were red.

Rosario crossed her arms over her chest. “If it means preventing a fight, I think checking your motorcycle makes sense.”

“No.” Ash tugged on his other glove. “Either you trust me, or you don’t.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious that you’ve worn all the trust out of some people, Ash.” Her voice cracked. “For us to keep working as a team—”

“Not much a team if people don’t trust me.”

Go caught Jason’s attention with a nod. The driver understood, and he looked into the distance. Go pointed toward the abandoned house, partially hidden behind the dissipating teargas. “We had a chance to stop them or at least disrupt them. I’m going to check that place out. If I find any evidence that you tipped them off, you’re off the team.”

The bald man slammed his leather jacket against the motorcycle’s gas tank. “Go ahead!”

Jason blinked, then turned to Rosario. “He pursued them, just like he said. He braked hard on Coastal Highway, which is consistent with being forced off the road.”

Ash punched his jacket. “I told you not to—”

Rosario twisted away, a hand on her earpiece. “Hold it! A call! Raul!”

Go followed her as she walked away from the others, listening. He could only catch one side of the conversation, but she quickly transitioned from feigned calm cordiality to excitement. After a moment of nodding, she looked over her shoulder at him. “Raul, I want to bring the rest of the team onto the call. One second.” She looked at the others, tapping her earpiece.

And then Go’s earpiece chimed. He accepted the invitation.

Rosario bit her lip. “All right, they’re all on with me. We have an offer on the table. I’m not sure I want to take it.”

Raul made a sound like a wheeze broken by a gasp. “Let’s not be hasty. Please.” His voice shook.

“You’re offering barely enough to cover our expenses.”

“We can negotiate on that. I’ll put that into play right now: all expenses covered. What matters is time. We’re losing time, and we might be losing lives.”

Rosario’s look told Go that she needed someone to back her play. He nodded. “We’ve been looking at other options, mate.”

The lawyer made the same strange noise—wheezing and gasping. “Go, you have to listen—”

“Nah. We listened earlier, and you lied to us.”

“What? We weren’t lying. The situation has been fluid, and—”

“I think we’re done talking. If you want to approach us with a serious offer—”

Raul sounded like he was hyperventilating. “There are lives at stake. Aren’t you listening? We lost contact with them!”

“Lost contact?” Go saw confusion in Rosario’s eyes; this wasn’t part of what had been discussed between her and the lawyer. “You want us to swing by their office? Their homes?”

“No. Don’t you understand? They’re not down here. They’re on the moon. We accelerated the relocation. They went up last night, and they haven’t been in contact for two hours now.”

They were on the moon? “When were they supposed to call?”

“Every hour, on the hour. Nico missed two calls, and we can’t raise them.”

Go searched the faces of the others: Even Ash was onboard. “You cover all our expenses. Rosario is going to work the details out with you, but you’re paying for this.”

“I understand.” Desperation was thick in the lawyer’s voice.

“I’m passing you back to Rosario. We need details on how to find them.”

“All of it. Everything you need. You have to hurry. They could be dying up there.”

Go disconnected. There was no doubt in his mind that Raul was sincere. He might not actually care about the lives being at risk, but without Christopher and the Chos, no one was going to make any money, and that probably terrified the lawyer.

What terrified Go was the idea of heading up to the moon. But he had no choice now. None of them did.