Chương 88: 2.29 Baiting a Predator

Hector had thought about it quite a lot on his way back to the cave—how he could expose Simo or whoever else might be working against them. When Paige had told him about the missing footage, it had gotten him thinking. Of course, his first impulse when she'd given him the news was to suspect her, too. The thing was, she'd been standing next to him when the drone came through. She'd run with him, and he knew with perfect certainty that she hadn't taken a shot at Matthews.

Bobby had claimed he'd found footage of the shot. He'd said the techs were in the vicinity. Hector couldn't recall if anyone had confirmed what he saw. It all could have been fabricated. He'd stopped the investigation, though; he'd taken suspicion away from Freddy and put it squarely on the techs, on Red—on the sizeable group of people who'd been in the area of the blast. In other words, he'd muddied the waters enough to hide in them.

So, with all things pointing toward Bobby, it seemed the easiest thing to do would be to confront him. Of course, if he had an accomplice—if there'd been more than one traitor in the rift—it wouldn't solve everything. That's when Hector had gotten the idea to hide and observe. He was still suspicious of Simo; the man's expression when he'd been stealing looks his way had been too off-putting to ignore.

With all of that in mind, Hector spoke softly into his comm channel with Paige, "I want you to tell Mathews what you told me about the footage." He watched Paige react. She glanced at Mathews, lying on her back, eyes covered with moist bandages. Then she glanced around the room. First she looked toward the techs, two of whom were sleeping, though Simo was awake, lying on his side, staring at Kristy. Paige seemed to follow his gaze, looking at Kristy, watching her sleep.

Then she looked at Freddy, who was lying not a meter past Kristy, also sound asleep. Finally, she looked at Bobby, watching him dig away inside his fissure.

"Are you sure that's smart?" she asked, her voice a whisper. Hector had expected the question and responded quickly, "Yeah. Share your helmet feed with me. I want to see how Mathews reacts."

"Should I be quiet about it?"

"Nope, I want the others to hear."

"Hector…"

"Just trust me, Paige." Hector hoped he wasn't wrong. He hoped people would react the way he was imagining. A new window appeared on his AUI; static danced across a black field, and then Paige's helmet cam feed stabilized. She was looking at Mathews. Hector minimized the view; he'd only told her to share it so she wouldn't suspect him of being in the cave. In his experience, people performed better if they didn't know they were playing a part. Paige leaned forward and gently jostled the commander's shoulder.

In the quiet cave, the only sounds were the methodical scrapes of Bobby's tools and the background hum of the air processor. Paige lifted her visor, exposing her face to the air, and when she leaned over to speak to Mathews, her voice was clear to Hector, even ten meters away.

"Um, Commander? I have to tell you something." Mathews grunted, pulling the bandages that covered her eyes up onto her forehead. Her skin was red and swollen, but she seemed to focus her gaze on Paige with no difficulty.

"What?"

"Well, um, it's about the drone footage…" She hastily looked around the cave, glancing toward Bobby. Hector had already been watching the other man, and, sure enough, he'd stiffened at the mention of the footage, but he didn't look up from his work.

"What? You found something good? Please tell me you found something that'll save this damn operation. Similite?" Hector grinned, his suspicions that Mathews was a rift fiend slipping down a few notches. Similite was the best of the aura-conducting minerals that could be found in the rift; weapons and cybernetics created from the stuff could channel aura abilities just as easily as human flesh, and some said they even improved ambient aura regeneration.

If they could find a vein of similite, it would more than pay for their losses—assuming the team could gather it.

"N-no, Commander, not that footage. I'm talking about during the attack, the bomb." Hector watched Bobby, watched his hands stop moving as he listened, still refusing to look. Meanwhile, Simo pushed himself onto one elbow. The man was small. Maybe lithe is the right word. He wasn't armed, at least not with anything overt, but that look was in his eyes again, as he gazed at Paige and the commander—predatory, hungry.

"What about it?" Mathews asked, grunting as she tried to sit up, pushing with her right hand. The nanites and grafts had worked wonders on that limb; it hardly looked burned.

"The footage of the bomb is gone—before, during, and after. About three minutes got wiped."

"The hell do you mean wiped?" Mathews's face grew red as she strained to push herself onto her knees and held out a shaky hand.

"Help me up, dammit!"

"Commander, you should—"" Now," Mathews growled. Hector continued to watch Bobby and the techs, occasionally glancing at Freddy and Kristy, too. Bobby set down his tools and extracted himself from the fissure. He'd widened it considerably, though it still wasn't much of a hole. Simo sat up, but then he hugged his knees to his chest, leaning back against the cavern wall as he closed his eyes. The hell is his game? //Are you—// Just thinking, Evie.

Paige had helped the commander to her feet; Mathews wasn't a large woman. She was about Paige's size, but where the biologist had rounded curves and a soft face, the commander was all hard angles. Even wounded, she carried herself with authority. She held out her good hand and said, "Show me." Paige handed over her tablet and touched the screen.

"See. You can read the analysis made by the AI."

"I'll, um—" Bobby cleared his throat as he approached. He appeared to be empty-handed, and the man wasn't moving threateningly.

"I'll save you some time, Commander. I erased it." Mathews lowered the tablet, elbowing past Paige, sending the other woman scrambling toward the wall.

"What the hell do you mean you erased it?" Bobby shrugged. He looked utterly defeated. He looked down and reached up with one hand to rub the back of his head, drawing his palm over his bald head with a raspy sound as he shook his head.

"I had to, Melanie. If I left it in, someone—Paige, probably—would have figured out it was me who shot you." Mathews dropped the tablet and took a step toward him. Adrenaline or force of will kept her steady on her injured legs as she grabbed his lightly armored vest and hauled him close so she could put her bandaged forehead about a centimeter from his.

"The hell do you mean you shot me?" Hector couldn't help the half smile that twisted up the corner of his mouth as she continued to repeat the same phrasing. He imagined it would make a funny story later, if they all survived. Not likely. He glanced at Simo, saw the man still sitting there, eyes closed—too calm. Meanwhile, the other techs and even Kristy were stirring, opening their eyes to see what the yelling was about. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere.

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"I had to, Commander." When Mathews shook him again, he hastily added, "They have Rebecca and Paul! They said they'd do horrible things to them if… if"—he turned his face toward the bedrolls—"the Royal made it out of here. The drone sent me an encrypted message when it came through. It was short and sweet: Don't let them stop this bomb. It was attached to an image of Paul. He's only five, Commander!" Hector looked at Freddy, saw that Kristy had shaken him awake and was pointing toward Bobby, whispering.

Turning his head further, he saw Simo was still sitting there, eyes closed, perfectly still." Who, Bobby?" Mathews asked through clenched teeth, still holding the slight scientist by his vest, lifting him onto his tiptoes.

"Who wanted—" The unmistakable rush of aura gave Hector a fraction of a second to understand something was wrong, but by the time he turned back to Simo, a black aura was crackling around him like a midnight cloak, and it was too late for Bobby. Simo held out his palm, and a lance of darkness stretched the distance between them in an instant. It pierced Bobby's skull with a crack and a squelch, and then it was gone.

Bobby hung limply from Mathews's grip, and she dropped him, not strong enough to manage the dead weight. Hector was already moving. As soon as he'd seen the aura, as soon as he'd felt it, he'd summoned his Aura Blade. It parted the polymer barrier like it wasn't there, and he charged, pouring five aura into his Speed Boost. His mind was spinning, trying to figure out how he'd missed Simo's aura abilities.

The only plausible answer would have been enough to make Hector think twice about charging him if he weren't operating on pure instinct. To conceal an aura like that, Simo had to be strong, and he had to be skilled. Hector could mask his aura signature; in fact, he was doing it most of the time, but it had taken long, hard years of practice to get to the point where it was automatic. He closed the gap in a second, and his blade lashed out like a flicker of crimson light.

It would have cut Simo in half if the other man hadn't thrown up his arm, deflecting it with a glassy black barrier. It was an Aura Shield, about thirty centimeters in diameter, and the man didn't even have to hold it; it hugged his arm like it was part of the appendage. Hector hacked again and again, and each time Simo blocked. The shield flashed with each blow, hissing with black, oily-looking steam.

More frustrating than Simo's ability to match his speed, blocking every perfect slash and stab, was the way the man smiled. Hector was aware that he was burning through his aura pool; his Speed Boost was nearly gone, and he could probably fire one more, but he was risking aura overload. Up to that point, the fight had taken a handful of seconds. To unboosted observers, it probably looked like alley cats going at it—a flurry of movement, flashes of aura, and the crackle-hiss of blocked attacks.

Luckily, at least one other person in that cave had a speed boost, and she started shooting. Kristy's gun made a staccato rumble that echoed through the cave, and though Hector and Simo were moving fast, and the first few rounds zwanged off the cavern walls, one of them eventually connected with Simo's hip, throwing him off balance enough for Hector to finally get past his guard. His Aura Blade sizzled as it sliced into his shoulder. Hot blood spattered the stone floor, Simo hissed, and he flared with aura.

Lacking a defensive ability of his own, Hector's gut told him to take cover, and he did, leaping back and dropping into a sprawl. Simo screamed, and a black wave of aura, like an expanding shell dotted with a million needle-sharp spines, swelled around him. Just then, Perry burst through the tattered polymer sheet that hung over the exit tunnel.

He was blazing with a deep grayish blue aura—maybe channeling a Strength Boost or something similar—and he barreled into Simo, wrapping him in a bear hug and driving him to the ground. Hector saw it happen, saw the crazy, brave, stupid move, and his heart stopped for just a second as he froze, unable to do anything about what he knew was about to happen: Simo's ability finished firing and all those needles of hardened, sharpened aura erupted.

The cave echoed with the concussion of displaced air and the cracking report of needles hitting stone. Rock dust and pink mist filled the air, and Hector's helmet switched to infrared. Perry was everywhere; his body torn to shreds, but Simo was still largely in one piece, lying on the ground where Perry had carried him. He was rapidly cooling, though, his heat spreading in a pool away from him, carried there by the liters of blood he'd lost.

Perry had killed himself, but he'd taken Simo with him—his needles had hit the stone floor, pulverized it, and then ricocheted into his flesh. Of course, those were just the needles that had been aimed at the ground. Most of the rest of them had hit Perry. Hector stood, looking around the cave. He saw the colorful outlines of everyone else, more or less where he'd last seen them. Even Bobby's corpse was there, already more green than yellow in his heat vision.

"What the fuck," Kristy cried, and he looked to see her crawling on hands and knees toward the center of the cave.

"Anyone see my helmet? Is he dead?" Freddy replied with a coughing fit, but Mathews—on the ground by then—said, "If he's not, we are."

"He's dead," Hector said, already having moved over to inspect Simo's remains. He knew it was bad form, but the person who deserved to do the scraping was already dead, so he put his hand out and triggered the draw. //45 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 302. // He squatted there, eyes squeezed shut, letting the rush wash over him and then fade. Forty-five was a lot of aura potentia for a person to be holding. Bastard must have been scraping while we've been in here.

"He was an assassin." His voice wasn't the only sound in the cave; people were coughing, cussing, moving around, and looking for helmets or breathers. Still, Hector's helmet amplified his voice, and everyone heard him. Mathews replied, "Son of a bitch. He didn't want Bobby to talk."" Why?" Kristy cried.

"Why? I mean, if he was going to kill us all, anyway…" It was Freddy who had the answer: "He didn't know if he could win against Hector. He just wanted me dead, and he was biding his time, waiting."

"True," Mathews said. Her voice was almost frail sounding—defeated.

"Probably would have killed him when we were dealing with…with fucking rift problems." A sudden thought occurred to Hector, and he spun, looking for the other two techs; they were there, huddled together near the wall, and now that he was focused on them, he could hear their whispered attempts to comfort each other. At least they seem normal. Just then, the background hum of the air processor became a high-pitched whine, and it stopped.

"Too dirty," Paige muttered. Her words seemed slurred, and Hector looked to see her slumped not far from Mathews.

"Paige? You okay?" he asked.

"S-some of those things hit me, I think."

"I'll check on her." Kristy said, but Hector was already moving.

"Just find your helmet. You too, Freddy," he said.

"Anyone else hit?" Mathews chuckled, her voice wet and hoarse.

"I think a dozen needles hit me. Nothing vital, though." The dust was settling, and Hector glanced over toward the corpse again, wincing at the mess poor Perry had left behind. His shredded remains were piled in a ring around Simo, and the cave's ceiling was painted with his blood. Turning back to Paige, he knelt beside her and saw she was pressing her palm to the left side of her chest. That side of her body was peppered with red spots where the needle-like fragments of hardened aura had pierced her.

She didn't look like she'd be conscious much longer, so he ripped the tab off the safety on her vest's autoinjector and pressed the orange button. It hissed, and she jerked upright, sucking air through her teeth." Dammit!" She grabbed Hector's wrist.

"I was saving that!"

"Won't do you any good if you're dead."

"Damn," Freddy said, his voice amplified by his helmet.

"Perry saved our asses."

"Some of us for sure," Hector agreed, standing.

"You'll be all right, Paige. Nanites can fix those little puncture wounds easily enough. They'll help with the blood loss too."

"I know that!" She sounded angry, and Hector tilted his head, looking at her face, still exposed by her open visor. He knelt down again and asked, his voice softer, "You got something to say?"

"Yeah, I do! Why'd you make me do that? Bobby's dead, and…and…" She shook her head, waving a hand toward the mess that used to be Perry. The others had stopped talking, listening to the exchange, and Kristy, her voice hoarse with emotion, said, "You told her to do that? To expose Bobby in front of everyone? You were using her as bait?"

"Stow it," Mathews said, her voice carrying a little of its old mettle.

"Better we deal with them like this than when we're fighting a reaper or something."

"Perry's dead!" Kristy said, stomping across the cavern. Hector stood and turned to face her.

"Yeah, I screwed up. I didn't bank on something like that." He pointed toward Simo's corpse.

"I…I guess I've been out of it too long."

"Lay off him, Kristy," Frederick said.

"At least he could stand against that guy. If he hadn't been here, we'd all have been cooked on day one." Mathews spoke again, her voice weary but firm, "Just stow it for now, would you all? We gotta clean this mess up before we draw some scavengers." Kristy stared at Hector through her evil-rabbit helmet eyes for several seconds, and then she turned and stomped over to the mules.

"I think we have a canister of bio-denaturing foam left."

"What's your plan, Hector?" Mathews asked.

"Paige said you found the rift. Shouldn't we just wait for the rescue party?" Hector shook his head, pointing at Simo's corpse.

"If they have someone like that on call, ready to insert into your raid team, then I wouldn't trust anyone who comes through that rift to help."