“Open the door right now!” I ordered. “You’ve got three seconds. Two. One.”
She frantically slapped at the biometric panel with her good arm, and the heavy security door began to rumble open. I took a moment to make sure there weren’t any hidden turrets in the security checkpoint, and pushed Lilia through in front of me.
“I’m sorry, Mistress. I’ll be good. Please don’t hurt me anymore.” She babbled.
“You’re not fooling me again, Lilia. Now shut up and open the other door.”
“But Mistress, you-”
I broke one of her fingers. She screamed, and sagged in my grip.
“Now!” I barked. “Three. Two.”
She shook her head. “Promise you won’t call the Security Directorate.”
I took the broken finger in my free hand, and twisted it. That got me another ragged scream.
“No talking, no delays, I know your marines are on the way and I’m not letting you buy any time. If they catch up with us I’ll kill you before they can take me down. Now open the door, or the next one will be worse. Three. Two. One.”
She slapped the scanner.
I dragged her into the elevator, and Lilia obediently started it rumbling down the shaft. She was still crying, but I made myself ignore the tears streaming down her cheeks. No matter how pitiful she looked, she was just trying to manipulate me again.
Twenty seconds for the elevator to make it down to the parking level, and the door there had been armored too. This was taking too long. What else could I do to buy time? Their security was bound to be monitoring us by now, but maybe I could make that work for me.
“My bots will call for help if they’re attacked, or if I don’t show up in a few minutes,” I said. “So your cover is going to be blown if I don’t make it out of here. But I don’t care about your revolution. If your friends let me get to my truck I’ll let you go, and head back to my ship without calling security.”
Lilia wiped her eyes. “You broke my arm.”
“You tried to brainjack me. I’d say I still owe you a few. Are you going to cooperate now?”
“Yes, Mistress. I’ll be a good girl.”
I rolled my eyes. “Can the act, Lilia. I heard your whole conversation with the trolls.”
“I can’t help it, Mistress. I have a submission reflex, and you tripped it hard. I’m going to have nightmares for weeks.”
“Maybe you’ll remember that the next time you’re picking out victims, and leave the innocent spacer girls who don’t have anything to do with your problems alone.”
The lift reached the bottom. I pushed Lilia towards the security panel. “Open it.”
She hesitated. I sighed, and took hold of another finger. “Three seconds, Lilia. Two.”
She opened the door. Thank the goddess. Her friends must still be arguing about what to do, or maybe they were following her lead. The armored panel slid out of the way with what seemed like agonizing slowness, until I realized I’d dropped into combat time. One centimeter. Two. Three.
The instant the gap was wide enough I was diving through it, already screaming for help.
“Smoke, Ash, cover me!”
I sent a frantic com call while I sprinted for the truck. Two long strides, and the call was answered.
“Chief West, help! A bunch of crazy rebel androids tried to brainjack me. I got out of the building, but they have powered armor troops somewhere around here. What do I do?”
“Alice? Can you get to the truck?” He asked calmly.
“Yes, Chief. I’m almost there, and my dragons are laying down cover.”
Smoke swooped through the air behind me, breathing out a cloud of gray fog that blocked almost all of my sensors. Ash belched up a puff of microbots that hid in the cloud, waiting for a target to try running through it. I was halfway to the truck, and it was already starting up at my order.
“Good job. Get in the truck and haul ass out of there, girl. I’ve got security teams ready to defend the ship, so once you get here you’re safe.”
I piled into the cab, and the heavy vehicle rose a meter into the air on its lift field. Its acceleration was pretty sluggish, since I had twenty tons of bots and boxes in the back. At least that meant Smoke and Ash didn’t have any trouble catching up.
“On my way, Chief,” I said. “Should I call the cops?”
“Hell, no. Never involve the locals if you can avoid it, Alice. Any sign of pursuit?”
I took a look through the rear-view camera. Nothing but smoke.
“Not yet, Chief. There’s a smoke cloud between me and the building I was in, and my dragons aren’t picking up anything in it. I think I might have gotten away.”
“Don’t let your guard down yet, kid. Stay on the line with me, and keep your eyes peeled until you get back. I’m going to let the captain know what’s happening.”
“Yes, Chief.” Great. The last thing I wanted was to get the captain’s attention.
I’d just pulled onto the main transitway when a groundcar came flying out of an alley a few blocks back, wobbling and swerving like nothing I’d ever seen. Was it malfunctioning? No, it was under manual control. There were six trolls crammed into the little vehicle, and the one at the controls was swearing so loud I could almost make out the words over the traffic noise.
I gulped. “Oh discord, they’ve found me.”
“Keep calm, Alice. They don’t want the cops’ attention either, remember? Just stay in the truck and keep driving.”
A hatch in the top of the car slid open, and a troll stood up. She snarled at me, and raised a big tube to her shoulder. Oh, shit.
“Smoke! Cover us!”
Good thing my dragons were still riding on top of the cab. Smoke breathed out a fresh cloud that covered the truck just as the troll pulled the trigger. Her weapon vomited out a swarm of mini-missiles, and I had a momentary glimpse of them rushing towards me on jets of fire before they were hidden by the billowing smoke.
Unable to see their original target, the missiles did their best to find us anyway. I heard explosions, and a crash of heavy transports colliding with each other. But whatever they were hitting, it wasn’t us.
The cloud that surrounded the truck only lasted a few seconds. Then we left it behind. I looked back to find half the transitway blocked by a smoke-wreathed mass of wrecked vehicles.
Ouch. Guess these self-driving transports didn’t know how to handle being blinded by a military smokescreen.
Threat destroyed! Smoke sent proudly. Empty now.
Ash bounded back to the rear of the truck. Ready! Scanning for threats.
“Amateurs,” Chief West said, sounding disgusted. “What do these idiots think they’re doing? They’re going to have a hell of a time getting away now. Why are they so pissed off with you, anyway?”
“I don’t know! We got into a little fight while I was trying to get away, but what was I supposed to do? Let them capture me?”
“No, that would be worse. Shit! Watch out, girl!”
A battered groundcar emerged from the smoke cloud. Oh, great. There was no way I was going to outrun them in this lumbering truck, and the ship was still a couple of kloms away.