Turn About

Chase 02

Like any corp, EmergiCare has its own security force. Naturally the more important and wealthy corps have a more impressive force, but EmergiCare was solid enough to be trouble. It only made sense, people pay high premiums to have a medical service that would go into firefights to pull out a wounded client. Their ambulances are built more like tanks, only whiter, and the paramedics wear body armor and carry automatic rifles. Their hospitals are even worse. If somehow a client were killed under their roof, business would take a significant dip.

I know my work, I love my work. The problem is that my work needs to be quiet. No one can sneak past the security in buildings anymore, between passive wall scanners every ten feet and robotic drone patrols, it would be suicide.

So I wait. Once Alex is discharged, he's on his own.

A bribe gets results. No one who works at EmergiCare is going to risk the backlash of getting a client killed on the premises, but he's more than willing to call me when that client is being discharged. They let Alex go sooner than I anticipate.

He steps onto the street, and walks away at a relaxed pace. Something feels off about him. I move ahead in the crowd and covertly snap a few holovids shots of his face. Even before the computer returns the analysis, I know the answer. No indications of surgery on his face, there is a 99.3% match between his company picture and him now. Considering that we all look a little different from day to day, there is usually a 2.8% margin of accepted variation.

I check my equipment as I follow him. My gun is in the holster this time, I had counted on intimidation last time, and it didn't work. So this time I'm packing a nonlethal sidearm as well. That will help me disable Alex if he runs, and let me go to work on him until he reveals where he hid the datafiles. Finally, the most important piece of my arsenal, my monofilament edged ceramic knife. I love my guns, but I love using my knife even more.

Alex leads me to a building in the slums. It looks like a low-rent warehouse, probably used to store bulk items that are too big and too common to steal. Graffiti decorates the grey plastic walls, and the thick layer of dirt on the doors makes me think it's rarely visited. Before he goes inside, he looks around amateurishly, and then seems satisfied enough to go inside.

I look around for another entrance, first rule of tailing somebody, never use the same entrance as them if possible. Luckily it's a warehouse, so I find tons of entrances, and the security here is nonexistent. How fortunate for me that Alex chose such a remote place to die.

The warehouse is even more desolate on the inside than I thought. It looks like the place has been abandoned, and that makes me start to wonder why Alex would go there.

I walk as silently as possible, but the few sounds I do make echo in the silence. Old-fashioned metal catwalks creak under my weight, and the wind blows through broken windows high overhead. The light from the setting sun casts a hazy blanket over the entire place, especially when contrasted with the old yellow lights that streak piercingly across the space.

Now that I'm off the street, my gas-powered dart gun appears in my hand. The darts are diamond tipped, able to pierce most types of body armor, and the toxin should cause paralysis in seconds. It feels a little unusual in my hand, the weight is different from my gun. The form fitted body armor underneath my suit flexes with me as I kneel behind a stack of old crates.

Where is he? I close my eyes, but my ears fail me. There is not a sound in the warehouse, and again I am wondering things.

My confusion makes me more cautious than usual, and I move from cover to cover, not wanting to be caught in the open. Did Alex hire someone to ambush me? Otherwise, why did he go to a remote warehouse in the slums?

A tactical retreat is the right move. Back off, get some back up of my own, and take him out. I start retracing my steps when the lights go out. The light from outside is growing dimmer by the second, and with high narrow windows, it does little to reveal the area around me.

I freeze and put my back against one of the crates.