He wasn’t used to being lost. And would have asked Saben for directions, but the comm had gone silent some time ago. He tried to focus on his task, worried about what that meant.
So far he hadn’t seen anything that looked like VitD. Most rooms were filled with machinery or people or both. No one noticed him, their attention focused on their work.
He’d also managed to avoid the guards. Sometimes he’d see them in the hallway. When that happened, he’d either choose another direction, or wait until they moved on.
It wasn’t the guards who concerned him, though. It was the new squads of mercenaries who now marched up and down the halls in groups of two or three. They were big and thuggish, strapped down with firepower and clearly ready to do battle.
Dade looked into a window and was about to sneak past it when the right corner of his mask’s eye scanner shimmered, taking on a slight red haze. He immediately stopped. The sensor noted things like air quality, temperature, and movement. He wasn’t quite sure what this anomaly meant. He twisted his head this way and that, but the shimmer never repeated.
Suspicion kept him still. Just because he couldn’t see something didn’t mean it wasn’t there. His gut told him that he had to figure out the problem fast. Before he was cornered by a group of mercenaries.
He pulled out his datapad and opened the program that scanned for anomalies. Once he set the scan in motion, it only took a few seconds to measure a reading. There were no abnormal qualities to the electro-fields in the hallway. Convinced that there had to be something there, he switched programs. He checked the air first. Then he moved the datapad along the wall and tested. Everything still came back normal. He couldn’t let the flicker go, though. He crouched to the floor, placing his datapad on the surface, and reran the test. This time the biofeedback measure was a flat zero. Even the ambient electro-currents that were always present showed no readings.
That wasn’t possible.
The floor looked normal. He would have walked across it and not thought twice if he hadn’t seen that red haze. Dade put away his datapad. He stared at the floor, thinking, his vision unfocused.
The lack of focus made him notice a faint light coming from the grout where the tiles intersected. He inspected it closer. It appeared to be a fibrous filament that was not quite shiny.
Perhaps the floor was a series of grid sensors. He didn’t know what they would do, but he had a few guesses. They could simply ping his location, or burn him on the spot with vape-fire.
He expelled a sharp breath and frowned. Perhaps it was time to call this mission off and figure a way out of the facility. His internal clock had steadily been ticking louder and more insistently the longer he delayed. The pressure of getting out unseen now eclipsed anything he’d come to do.
Dade decided to try at least one more corridor, hoping that there was an exit at the end of it. Because he knew for sure there wasn’t one in the maze behind him.
Touching his wrist, he activated the suction grip on his gloves. Then he kicked the floor with the back of his heel, releasing small hooks from the toe of his boots. Up he climbed onto the wall. That made it a hundred times more difficult to bypass the windowed doors, and made him vulnerable to anyone who happened to turn the corner into this hallway.
His body strained, exertion making him sweat under the cloak and synth-mask. Grunting, he released himself from the wall and fell to the ground at the other end of the hall.
A foul mood had set in. Dark thoughts surrounded Saben’s silence and Dade’s awareness that he needed to get the hell out of there. He huffed, his breaths deepening while his body flexed with agitated worry.
He gave up on trying to find VitD and instead started looking for anywhere that could be used as an exit, an airshaft he could pry open, a window in an empty room that he could crawl out of. He turned the corner into yet another identical-looking hallway. He let out a strangled growl. This was not good. There were no guards or mercenaries, however, so that worked in his favor.
Halfway down the hall, he peered through a small round window into a dark room. It was the first empty room he’d come across in the last half hour. Dade couldn’t make out much. From what he could tell, it was some kind of supply room full of boxes. He decided on a closer inspection, hoping for a window to the outside.
The door used a biometric scanner. Dade pushed the thin bio-print on the thumb of his glove. It matched a random employee he’d chosen who had access to most of the facility. The digital reader scanned the synthetic that mimicked skin, searching for not only the print but also the heat and ridged texture. A string of codes flashed across a small monitor before the light next to the door switched from red to green and the door slid open.
Dade pulled his phaser from his hip before crossing over the threshold. It was still inside the dark room. No sound but the thumping of Dade’s heart as it reverberated in his ears. The door whisked shut behind him.
He’d made it to the first set of boxes when a voice said, “We’d hoped with a little encouragement you’d take the bait.”
Dade stiffened.
A hired mercenary stepped out of the shadows on the far side of the room. The man was dressed in black, his face partially covered by heat-shielded synth-fabric. He held a phaser aimed at Dade’s chest.
Then another mercenary, this one a young girl, stepped out from a stack of boxes across the room. She looked every bit as menacing, holding her phaser steady.
Dade was caught in the middle. He took a few steps back, then a few more, keeping his own phaser up. Trying to gain a little wiggle room and some time. The only exit out of the room was at his back, and he knew he couldn’t make it there without being shot.
They matched him step for step, keeping their phasers pointed, one at his chest, the other at his head. Their gazes took Dade’s measure.
The man shot first, a rapid succession of three blasts.
Dade had seen the twitch of the man’s finger on the trigger seconds before he pulled, giving Dade enough time to dance to the side before dropping and rolling behind a stack of boxes. He returned fire, exchanging volleyed shots. Several came close enough to singe the fabric of his cloak. Boxes disintegrated around him.
A sense of peace came over him. He let go of the danger and instead focused on the moment, his every breath, each shot, moving steadily across the room while he stayed behind a barrier of boxes. He inched his way toward the door.
But the girl, seeing that, slipped between him and his goal, blocking his way out. She grinned.
Dade shot at her, satisfied when he sent her scurrying.
The room was blown to hell. Everything that had been in the boxes had been pulverized, creating a cloud of debris that choked him.