A Break in the Sunlight

26. Down the Rabbit Hole

She wasn't sure what woke her up.

The room was dark, and there were no sounds, but somewhere outside she could sense a presence. Bodies. Whispered commands.

The curtain pulled aside, and Biddle's faced was framed in the blue half-light from his computer screens. She started to speak, but he motioned her to silence. Whatever it was, he sensed it too.

"Cops", he mouthed, and she nodded understanding. The PWN, or maybe even the CIP, had tracked them down.

It wouldn't take them long to find Biddle's bunker. It was fairly well hidden, opening onto the back alley as it did, but once inside the building, it would be apparent there was another level. Besides, the PWN had a dossier on Biddle a foot thick. They knew he worked out of this building, and they wouldn't stop until they located him.

Biddle motioned for Jaren to follow him, and let the curtain fall back. She slipped from the sleeping bag and rolled to her feet, pulling her jeans on over her t-shirt and padding after him.

He was standing over the bank of consoles, awash in a blue light that made him look almost corpselike in his paleness. Sweat stood out on his brow as he wordlessly handed her a patchcord. She frowned.

A thumping noise erupted on the stairs above them. It had begun. Heavy boots thundered across the ceiling. Biddle pressed the cord into her hand.

"Take it," he whispered intensely. "I've gotta get these codes out of here. Upload. Now."

"What makes you think I want to get caught with that shit?" she hissed back. Did he think she was an idiot? If he uploaded his codes into her hardware and she were caught by the CIP, it would be worse than... worse than if she had illegal Gennwrugh codes locked into her hardware.... shit.

Biddle was watching her intensely. "It's no worse than what you've got. Just take them. Hurry." He glanced upward, where a muffled scream was broken in half by the sound of a laser blast. Jaren grabbed the cord and jacked it into place, swearing at him under her breath.

The upload seemed to take hours, but in reality it was only moments before she was pulling out the cord and Biddle was pressing a flat package into her hands. "ID," he whispered. "And a ticket on the Cambrian shuttle. Just play it cool. Meet me on the ship. I'll have the seat next to yours. I'll get the codes back then."

"All of them?" she asked, meaningfully.

"All of them," he nodded, already jacked back into the system. Cleaning out the evidence, no doubt. "I'll call Voltore. They won't find anything here. Just stay cool and meet me on the shuttle. We'll have a little vacation and by next week we'll be back in business."

"What about them?" Jaren looked up, and then back at Biddle, whose eyes were hooded as he shrugged.

"This isn't the first time the CIP's come calling, Jaren. The smart ones know what to do. The dumb ones..." He shrugged again, and a louder scream tore out from the building above them. Jaren grabbed the package.

"Which way out?" she asked, in a voice only slightly betrayed by hoarseness.

Minutes later she tearing through the night alleys of Sona, making for the Durbin quarter, where a friend of Biddle's called Raddeb would provide a corner of his basement and no questions for 1000 cashcreds.

She was pretty sure that last scream had been Suz.

-----

Getting to Raddeb's proved trickier than it seemed, and it was a full day and a half before she got a good look at the stuff Biddle had uploaded. It was encrypted, naturally. It didn't look like anything she couldn't break, given enough time, but she wasn't about to start trying. No telling what kind of shit he could've wound in there, even given the rush. After all, these codes were his livelihood--he wasn't about to go passing them out like Christmas candy. No, thanks all the same, but she'd wait until tomorrow, and hand them back to him like a good little girl. It was only twelve hours until the shuttle, anyhow, and if all went as planned, Biddle would have the codes for this Gennwrugh shit, as well. She'd been carrying it way too long now, and it was beginning to make her antsy.

She stood under the filtered light in the rented cellar. She wished she knew what was going on, back at Biddle's. His friend, Raddeb, had proven a dry creek, as far as information went. In fact, he didn't look too bright in general. Jaren had given him as little information as possible. Raddeb seemed to think Biddle was some kind of pimp for runaways, and Jaren felt no need to disabuse him of that notion. He'd spent some time trying to paw her, sure, but she could fight that off, and there was no sense in tempting him to sell her out.

As soon as she made the drop with Biddle, she'd find someplace new to stay, until he returned. She'd already decided not to go to Cambria. Sona suited her just fine, thanks very much. She wasn't taking any risks elsewhere. She'd meet Biddle on the shuttle, make the drop, and then leave before it departed. Then maybe she'd head to the North End. She'd have done so already, but she didn't want to leave in case Biddle tried to contact her.

He didn't, and after a second restless night and morning, she found herself in Terminal D of the Sona spaceport, reading a "StarFlight" magazine and sipping a soy latte.

"PASSENGER DJIN TANSIN TO GATE 237A PLEASE. PASSENGER DJIN TANSIN, GATE 237A. THANK YOU," the loudspeaker toned cheerfully.

Jaren slouched further into the molded plastic seat. She hadn't been in this spaceport since she'd left Balqis more than a year ago. And the memories weren't exactly welcome.

"SHUTTLE FLIGHT 7213 TO CAMBRIA, GOTHIN, AND THE GHANT SECTOR, NOW BOARDING. PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO GATE 420." the loudspeaker announced. And a few minutes later: "NOW BOARDING ALL SECTIONS. SHUTTLE FLIGHT 7213. GATE 420. FINAL BOARDING CALL"

Jaren scoured the dwindling crowds for Biddle, but there was no sign of him. Perhaps he was disguised, and had boarded already. Or sent someone in his place. After all, he had said he would meet her, not in the terminal, but at her seat, right? And he had given her a ticket. She decided she'd better go ahead and board.

She handed her ticket and the ID card Biddle had provided, to the bot at the gate, and lowered her sunglasses for the optical scan.

"Thank you, Miss Gellen" the bot said cheerfully. "Seat 37A. Continue down the causeway to the left."

Jaren took her ID card back, and turned to follow in the direction indicated. And he was there. Biddle. Coming up the concourse with a stride so long it was almost a run. He saw her, she knew. She could see the recognition in his eyes, and she raised a hand to wave.

Then she saw them. Two CIP agents, at a half-run, behind Biddle. Gaining on him.

The world seemed to drop into slow motion. Biddle followed her gaze and turned, just as the agents called out for him to stop. But he didn't stop--for some reason he darted into a sprint. Later, when she played it over in her mind she realized, he must have been carrying the Gennwrugh release codes. If he'd been caught with them, they'd have fried him anyhow. But at the time she could only stare in disbelief.

The agents didn't stare at all. One called for Biddle to halt, the other drew his laser. Biddle looked Jaren in the eye, just as the laser dart hit him in the throat. His neck exploded in blood and when he hit the ground, he bounced. She remembered that especially. He bounced. His eyes still on her. The CIP officer with the laser knelt over him, and the other began to scan the crowd, systematically, while calling for backup on his comm.

Without thinking beyond the moment, Jaren turned, pocketed her ID, and boarded the shuttle.

All rights reserved. Copyright Jae Darcy 2016.