The Grid Runner

Chapter Eight

Zan landed them near the far eastern edge of the Pipelands, in the district of the old shops. The one place his da warned him never to go. Directly below them, far, far down, was the Mayor's Fortress. Most of it was covered by platforms and sections of the mid-level, but below that his grand tower awaited.

"How exactly do we get there?" Edrund asked as they made their way down the street, along the abandoned buildings.

Zan tried to get the image of Priya out of his mind and focus. "We fly down."

"How's that?" Edrund asked.

"Zan," Marcin said. "We're not all Grid Runner's like you. We can't just fly around everywhere."

They stopped outside an old electronics store. Its windows were broken and the door lay on the ground, showing a dark cob-webbed room inside.

"In here," Zan said, stepping to the doorway. "They have carrier drones stashed in the back. I found one once, and saw there were loads more."

"That'll be great if we had any parcels or deliveries for the Mayor," Marcin said.

"We're the deliveries," Zan said, searching through the knocked over isles. He brought out a large case and handed one to Marcin, and then found a case for each of them.

"It's not that hard," he went on, unloading the cases. The drones were roughly oval shaped with hard edges, a small display panel on the side and two tracks running underneath it, like the landing skids of a helicopter. "All we have to do is hang on the bottom. You can direct them by pulling in different directions. So pull down on the right side to tilt right, and vice versa."

Zan set them up and laid them out, wiping the dust off his hands and clothes.

"Ah, Zan," Edrund said. "I don't think I have the upper body strength for this."

Ryker turned to him. "You'd be surprised what you can do, if you have to do it."

Zan noticed the tense lines around his eyes. "You okay?"

Ryker shook his head. "I wasn't expecting to go back there, any time soon."

"To the Mayor's Fortress," Zan said. "You never did tell us why you don't like him."

Ryker eyed them for a moment before dropping down onto a crate, sighing. "I worked for him most of my life. My mother and father worked for him, and I grew up around his offices and people. I was blinded by his ideals, but I knew nothing else." He grimaced and swallowed. "But the first time I go against his orders, the only time I think and act for myself during a mission, he punishes me. He said I had become too misguided by other influences, and so he took those influences away from me."

Ryker looked away, his voice lowering. "He had my wife and son murdered. He thought to break me down and wield me as an empty weapon. But I knew I couldn't go back to him."

In the silence that followed, Edrund stepped forward and said, "We'll make sure he pays. For everything he's done."

Zan watched the sorrow distort Ryker's face, and realised he wasn't the threat he'd feared he was.

Marcin powered his drone on and gave them all a defiant look. "Let's do it."

Zan led the way to an opening behind the shops.

"So they'll take us down, with only some lateral movement," Zan said. "We can't go up. They just lower us. So we have to make sure we don't pass the roof."

"Great," Edrund muttered.

Ryker unclipped a small device from his belt. "This is a disrupter bomb. It emits a pulse that can stun and disable enemies. Just throw it at them, if you need to." He handed one to each of them, and then pulled out a thin cylindrical object. "Smoke emitters. Use them to hide and limit their visibility." Again he handed them one each. They nodded and thanked him, although each looked unsure about using them.