"You okay?" I asked Jung.
"I"ll live. By the way, you owe me a hot dog."
Knuckles beeped and made a move toward me.
"Give me a second," I said. "This shouldn"t take long."
The Mark Three and I approached each other slowly. "Last chance to walk away," I said. Not that he could walk away, but at least I made the offer.
He tried punching me, but I blocked it and shoved my forearm into his cranial unit. I followed that up with a couple of jabs to the chest to further throw off his center of gravity. An uppercut finished the job, and he fell on his back.
He writhed, trying to get back to his feet. This could go on all day. While Knuckles was no match for me, robots didn"t fatigue, and they didn"t give up.
Rather than allowing him to rise and take another shot, I put a foot on his torso. It wouldn"t keep him down forever. Mark Threes had a thick sh.e.l.l, and fresh off the a.s.sembly line, it might take me a while to get through. Knuckles was full of stress fractures, and my opticals detected a weak spot in his cha.s.sis. I bent over and pierced his gut with one punch. I dug around in all the delicate internals until I wrapped my hand around what I was looking for.
He beeped once.
I yanked out his battery. He went off-line.
"Sorry, pal," I said. "I know you didn"t have a choice." I tossed the battery into the Dumpster.
I turned toward hologram Greenman. "Give me a second, Abner. I"ll be right with you."
I grabbed Grey"s limp form and gave him a shake until his eyes focused on me. "Anybody home in there? Give me a gurgle if you can hear me."
He groaned. Close enough.
I held out my hand, and Jung dropped the disruptor into my palm. I pressed the device against Grey"s neck.
"Did you know that recent studies suggest that one disruptor jolt is perfectly safe. And two in an hour is no big deal."
I pushed the b.u.t.ton, and he twitched.
"They say three in five minutes could result in permanent neurological damage."
I pushed the b.u.t.ton again. His eyes rolled back in his head, and drool dripped from the corners of his mouth. I shook him until his eyes focused back on me, and I was fairly certain he was paying attention.
"Four might kill you," I said. "Or at the very least make you wish you were dead."
He mumbled, and there was definitely fear in his eyes.
"When you get out of the hospital, I suggest you consider the following equation: whatever diminishing percentage of control you have over my systems divided by the rating of my patience index. Now multiply that by zero, and you"ll get the odds that I won"t kill you next time I see you. Understood?"
Grey jiggled his head in a manner that could be loosely interpreted as a nod.
"Glad we cleared that up."
I pushed the disruptor b.u.t.ton one more time. He didn"t have the energy to twitch anymore. His eyes glazed over, but he was still breathing.
I turned to Greenman, who stared at me with cold contempt.
"I"ll do what you should be doing, Abner," I said, "and I suggest you stay out of my way."
I stepped on the projector, and he disappeared.
Jung jerked his paw at Grey. "Should we call an ambulance?"
"In a bit. Where"d you get the disruptor?"
"I"ve had it for a while. Driving a cab is dangerous work sometimes." He pocketed the device and winced while rubbing his skull. "Never had to use it before. Interesting company you"ve been keeping."
"That"s detective work for you," I said. "Get to rub shoulders with some of the most colorful citizens."
"Sounds like fun."
"Laugh a minute."
"You don"t laugh."
"Not on the outside."
We started toward the street.
"So you"re a detective now?" he asked.
"I guess. Beats driving a cab."
"After we save the city," asked Jung, "do you think you could use a partner?"
"Dangerous job," I said.
"Beats driving a cab."
20.
"So let me get this straight," said Jung. "Your plan basically boils down to you smashing your way into the Dissenters" laboratory while Humbolt and I take advantage of the confusion you"ll be creating to sneak in, grab Julie and April, and walk out."
"That"s the plan," I said.
Jung and Humbolt exchanged skeptical glances.
"I don"t know, Mack," said Jung. "Seems a trifle optimistic."
"Yeah," said Humbolt. "I gotta say it does seem to fly in the face of statistical viability. No offense or nuthin"."
"None taken," I replied.
Jung leaned back in the couch. "Correct me if I"m wrong, but didn"t you nearly get sc.r.a.pped the last time you entered that lab?"
"That"s right," I said.
"And that was with the element of surprise on your side," said Jung. "If you go busting through the front doors, they"ll probably see you coming."
"That"s what I"m counting on."
"You"re counting on getting sc.r.a.pped?" asked Jung.
"I"m counting on drawing their fire."
"And meanwhile Humbolt and I just waltz in and liberate two prisoners?"
"It has to work that way. They"re keeping Julie and April in a separate location from Holt. Two objectives means we"ll have to split up." I pointed to the map displayed on the reader screen. "I"m giving you the easy job. The Dissenters don"t care about Julie and April. They"re only holding them prisoner because they don"t see the point in killing them. According to this information, they"ve got them stashed in a minimum security holding cell on the sixtieth floor. Most personnel will be drawn away by my a.s.sault. The rest won"t give you any problems."
"So you called ahead and asked them politely not to shoot us?" said Jung.
"You"ll be disguised. I"ll download some maintenance uniform designs and security badges from my memory matrix, give them to Humbolt, and he"ll whip up some illusion suit facsimiles."
"The boss lady has a machine that does all the work," said Humbolt. "All I gotta do is feed in our measurements and it"ll do the rest. Shouldn"t take more than an hour."
"And with the suits, you should be able to pa.s.s casual inspection. At least long enough to reach Julie and April"s cell on the sixtieth floor."
"Should?"
"Nothing"s guaranteed."
"And what if the inspections aren"t casual?" Jung asked.
"They should be too distracted to be paying much attention to a couple of janitors."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Trust me. When I prioritize my directives, I can be very distracting."
"Well, I said I was in on this. So I guess I"m in. a.s.suming your plan works, you draw their fire, how the h.e.l.l do you expect to get the boy out of there?"
"Don"t worry about that," I said. "That"s my objective."
Jung leaned forward. "If push comes to shove, the Dissenters will want Holt dead rather than in the hands of their enemies to keep anyone from making a counteragent."
"Yeah."
He leaned forward more and braced his knuckles on the coffee table to keep from falling off the couch. "You might be protected by an indestructible alloy, but he isn"t."
"I know."
"So how do you plan on getting him out?"
I turned off the reader display. "If I reach him, then it won"t be a problem."
Extracting Holt was tactically unsound. Not impossible, but highly improbable. This wasn"t a rescue mission. It was seek and destroy, remove Holt from the equation by any means necessary.
Jung was a smart ape. He"d figured it out, and he didn"t like it. His nostrils flared, and he bared his teeth in a snarl.
"Do you think you can do it, Mack?"
"Getting in isn"t the hard part," I said.
"Not that. I know you can do that. I"m talking about . . ."
"If I have to."
His beady eyes bored into my opticals, and he waited for me to justify myself. This wasn"t a moral decision. This was just a simple ratio: one versus thousands. Nothing complicated about it. Just a reliable equation.
"If you"ve got a problem with this, Jung," I said. "Tell me now."
"Oh, I got a problem with it," he said, "and there has to be another way."
"Maybe there will be. Maybe I"ll find it. But it"s not something I"d bet on. In three hours, it"ll be too late. If we don"t do something now, then there"ll be a lot of dead people and a lot more who will probably wish they were dead. And it"s not just the biologicals. If Empire crumbles, there aren"t a lot of options left for guys like you and me, Jung. Anywhere else, I"m just a weapon and you"re just a monkey. This isn"t about the norms, the mutants, aliens, or bots. It"s about everyone who calls this city home who doesn"t have a future anywhere else. And in three hours, that future is gone."
Jung snorted, but he saw my point. It was just a numbers game. Like Doctor Zarg, I had a choice to make. One life balanced against millions. It was a simple calculation.
"Just remember, whatever happens, whatever you end up doing in there . . ." Jung snorted. ". . . you"ll have to function with it."
I waited across the street while Jung and Humbolt, disguised as a couple of janitors, walked into Carter Centre. They went in first as a test. The lobby was loaded with security scanners, technology the Pilgrims had not yet seen fit to share with us. The only way to find out if Lucia"s illusion suit cloaking tech was its equal was to walk in and see if alarms went off. I stood outside, ready to charge in and pull Jung and Humbolt out if I needed to.
If it didn"t work, then this would be the end of it. An hour and six minutes remained in the countdown, and if this plan didn"t work, then there was no time for anything else.
The front of the building was gla.s.s, allowing me to scan all the details from across the street. They went in. A security guard checked their badges and waved them on. My partners entered the elevator, pushed a b.u.t.ton, and the doors closed. Not a bell or whistle or security drone in sight.
Perhaps it was my paranoia index, but I wondered if they"d pa.s.sed undetected. Security might"ve been smart enough to wait until they got deeper inside, where it"d be easier to make them disappear. Even if that were true, in fifteen seconds security would have more to worry about than two wayward janitors.
I dropped a nickel in a phone booth and asked for Detective Sanchez. They told me to wait a minute. I told them who I was, and the minute ended at six seconds.
"Mack, where are you?" Sanchez asked.
"Carter Centre."
I hung up the phone, picked up a thick metal briefcase beside me, and crossed the street.
While I was wearing an illusion suit of my own, I calculated it unlikely that I could fool the scanners. I was still a distinctive unit. The suit couldn"t mask my proportions or my weight or a dozen other cues that the Dissenters had doubtlessly taken the precaution of incorporating in their security net. There was no way around it. I stopped at the threshold and waited for the signal from Humbolt that they"d reached the floor where Julie and April were being held.
"Sixtieth floor," transmitted Humbolt into my radio. "No waiting."