Penumbrials Ch. 02

Dormin braked hard and pulled out his gun but couldn't risk hitting bystanders as the buggy drove away through a wide passage, and took up his pursuit again.

The buggy raced through the panicked crowd and hit the sides of several small stands in the middle of the passages, along with trash cans and shop signs. Dormin rode close behind them but when the passenger of the buggy opened fire on him he had to swerve to the side towards a small group of shoppers. At the last second he turned towards an escalator going up and shot up to the next floor.

The people there jumped out of the way when he launched from the escalator and drove at high speed along one gallery of the floor, keeping an eye on the buggy below though the open middle of the passageway. Construction work on a shop in front of him blocked his way though and he drove too fast to brake and turn at the overhead passage or go straight without hitting the workers. His mind calculated his chances instantly when he saw thick boards leaning on the railing of the overhead passage, and he braced himself.

He took the hit from hitting the boards, held his breath while his heart stopped as he flew across the open gap of the passage, and landed on the gallery on the other side of the passage.

Cold sweat ran down his back as he sped along the gallery and his heart hadn't raced as hard since his last mission.

At another set of escalators he braked hard enough to safely go down, and sped up again to follow the buggy. It left the passage to enter the large hall ahead at one entrance and crashed through the glass front onto the dark street outside.

Dormin followed through the hole and stopped to see which direction the buggy went, then twisted the accelerator when he spotted it and the bike shot forward in pursuit again. He remembered the road works near this location and the buggy headed that way on the sidewalk while nearly running more people over. He saw the buggy had to go around the building site with equipment and materials for the road work and saw an opportunity to catch up.

He crossed the site towards the other end, jumped the bike over a low ridge of sand, crossed open ground in a shower of dirt, and hit the sidewalk along the road just behind the buggy.

The passenger reached for his gun the moment he saw Dormin beside him but Dormin was faster. The driver pulled on the steering wheel when the bullet passed through the body at his side and pierced his left leg. The buggy turned sideways and rolled over violently along the road leaving a spray of glass and sparks behind.

Dormin stopped next to the buggy. He confirmed both men were dead and pulled out a canvas bag from the wreckage. In it he found Breeze and another painting and he slung the bag over his shoulder before driving away.

***

'How are things at your end?' asked Dormin when he called Adalet later.

She stepped away from the noise of officers and ambulance personnel in the subway tunnel. 'So far normal. Terry and Ourania slipped away with the materials before I called this in. I said I was in the neighbourhood working the old case when I heard shooting. Possible rival criminal organisations.'

'Okay. I'll leave that up to you. When Terry erases my profile from the security firm they'll probably say I was the inside man.'

'True. I'll see if I can get access to the security footage to erase it soon.'

'Don't risk getting caught for my sake.'

She smiled a little. 'No worries, the chaos from the blackout keeps everyone very busy. See you later.'

'All right, later.' he said and disconnected before dropping the bag with paintings off at the doorstep of a respected art critic. 'She's not getting these any time soon.' he said to himself.

***

Elyssa turned to the man in expensive suit across from her desk. 'So, how did you like our little demonstration?'

The man looked at her from under his thick, black eyebrows and smiled ever so slightly, causing no extra wrinkles in his fifty year old face. 'Looks like you're capable of failure.'

Her eyes narrowed with a sly curl of her mouth. 'Does it now?'

He leaned back a little in his thick seat. 'You went through all that trouble and you still didn't get the painting.'

She put her fingers together. 'On the contrary. First off, I confirmed there's a leak in my organisation. Second, I now know what my opponents are capable of and I can identify them using the video footage from cameras I had placed around the area. And third, the owner of Breeze will now store it at a secured site owned by one of my companies. There, a counterfeiter will have all the time in the world to make a copy and then I'll have the real one here in my possession.'

The man nodded once after a moment. 'I'm looking forward to doing business with you.' he said and Elyssa gave him a warm smile.

***

Adalet arrived at her home after her shift was over and found Dormin waiting downstairs. 'Hey, lover.'

He smiled at her and kissed her. 'Done for today?'

'Finally.' she said and hit the button for the elevator. 'But I'm afraid we can only pin this on the guys we caught.'

The two went into the elevator and Adalet pushed the button for her floor. 'Yeah, I expected that.' Dormin said.

She leaned against him during the ride up and he put his arm around her waste.

Outside in a car with dark windows, a man picked up the small black control from the passenger seat and typed in a frequency. He watched as lights turned on inside Adalet's apartment. 'Goodbye.' he said and pressed the single blue button on the control.

A cloud of glass spread out above the street at the explosion.

02 - Catch

Firemen hurried through the building to evacuate everyone while they fought the fire in Adalet's apartment from inside and outside. Three of them were guiding a small group of elderly people outside, supporting them down the stairs and taking them to an ambulance for a quick check. They went back into the alley behind the apartment and stepped through a poster covered door of the building behind it and kept to the back of the parking floor.

Adalet pulled off her gas mask. 'If she was a person, I'd kiss Ismene.'

Terry dropped her mask and helmet and ran her fingers through her hair. 'Just don't smudge her screens.'

Dormin chuckled. 'I'm just as glad she alerted us to the message Elyssa received but I'll refrain from kissing electronics.'

Adalet looked back and up as if she could see her apartment. 'I just hope they'll identify those bodies as us and think we're dead.'

Terry took off her uniform. 'I did the same identification swap as before and with your guns at their sides they'd have no reason to doubt it.'

Dormin opened the trunk of the car Terry had arrived in earlier and dumped their uniforms in it. 'I just hope no one's going to dig too deep into this accidental gas explosion.'

'I wouldn't be surprised if they have that covered with someone on the inside.' Adalet said.

A minute later he drove out onto the street at the other side of all the commotion while Adalet and Terry kept out of sight under blankets and various junk at the back seat. The wig with curly hair and the fake goatee was enough to disguise him from curious eyes.

He stopped once later at a convenience store to buy some beer and snacks, then continued on his way to the meeting point where Ourania would land.

He tossed the pack of chocolate wafers to the back seat. 'We're clear. I saw no sign of anyone following us.'

Terry and Adalet sat up from under the blankets and Terry tore open the pack and stuffed a wafer in her mouth. 'Ourania says she didn't see anyone either.' she said slightly muffled and pulled out her ear piece.

'Good.' Dormin said and took a detour as an extra precaution. 'I've had enough action for today.'

Adalet slumped back in the seat. 'Goodbye, old life. Hello, obscurity.'

Terry chuckled. 'Now you get to experience how I've lived all this time.'

Adalet sighed. 'My poor potted plant, which I've carefully neglected all these years.'

'No worries.' said Terry and put a wafer in Adalet's mouth. 'That nice man down the hall will be surprised to find a new one between his other plants but he'll take good care of it.'

Adalet nodded and nibbled on the wafer.

***

Ourania had landed behind the used car dealer where Dormin returned the car they had borrowed, and the three boarded Diafanis quickly. Back up in the air and cloaked became the first moment they could relax and they sank down in the lounge couches while Ourania flew to a secluded spot outside the city.

'Okay, now we know Elyssa received info about us.' Dormin said. 'Any clue about who sent it?'

Terry examined Ismene's search results on her tablet. 'No. Seems she hit a dead end at one relay server she can't get into.'

Adalet leaned forward on the table. 'Who could have known we were there?'

They sat silent for a while before Terry spoke up. 'I can only imagine the same people who are involved in the mystery of Ismene and her hardware. They would have the capability as long as they can find information about someone.'

Dormin hummed. 'So once again we need to find out more about that. It didn't stop at Elyssa as we'd hoped.'

'The hardware is too advanced to be something she's be directly involved with. It has to be a very technologically advanced third party. Ismene's search on that is still ongoing.'

Adalet sighed and leaned back. 'In a way I'm glad my parents don't have to witness my death, even if I wish they hadn't been in that accident.'

Terry pricked up an ear. 'Accident?'

'Plane crash. Probable cause a failure in the controls after take off.'

Terry nodded. 'Sorry to hear that.'

Adalet took the drink Dormin had poured for her. 'My dad worried about boredom after retirement. Now he didn't have to experience it.' she said and downed the shot in one gulp.

***

A gentle bump told them Ourania had landed the airship in the air plane graveyard she frequented for spare parts. They couldn't see anything through the dark matter shield but if they had they'd see almost any type of war and civilian plane from the last fifty to sixty years slowly rusting away while nature swallowed the remains into the green field. She soon came down to the lounge to join them.

Dormin smiled at her when he poured her a drink. 'Nice place?'

She chuckled. 'Almost no one comes here, and certainly not in this remote section where there are only carcasses left without useful parts.'

Terry pulled up the video feed from the cockpit and chuckled. 'I feel like building a secret base as if I were a kid again.'

Ourania laughed. 'So did I, the first time I came here.'

'It's just-' Terry began but her eye caught a new message from Ismene. 'Chuck?'

The others watched her while she read the message and she stared back with big eyes when she put the tablet down. 'I think we have a new lead.'

***

Terry printed a few documents for the others to read while she explained. 'Chuck is a friend that I've known since I started living on my own and became involved with a hacker group sniffing out powerful suspicious people in industry, politics, entertainment. He was one of the best at hiding tracks and we often teamed up until he landed a respectable job at Think, a specialist in pulling useful information out of data like people habits, financial prediction, and so on.'

She laid a page on the table. 'And now he left a message at a gaming forum we haven't used since then.'

Adalet leaned forward to read the page. 'Hey Socks, thinking you're into Xia Sang, shall we play again?' She looked up. 'Code?'

'Xia Sang is a town in a game where a mission is to get away with smuggled electronic hardware while a secret government force is after you.'

Adalet looked at the page again. 'He knows?'

'He might. He could have the right connections to have heard something. Enough to guess it involves me.'

Dormin twiddled his thumbs. 'So now what?'

Terry twitched her ears and grinned slightly. 'I'm going to invite him to play.'

***

Chuck walked into the large supermarket and strolled around, checking food items to decide what he'd have for dinner, and went down the wide staircase into the wine and beer cellar. Down here the light was softer and the more exclusive and special drinks and food were displayed in wooden racks and cases.

He glanced at a young couple browsing cheeses and meats, then casually walked to the back up to a grey coloured fox in a short white dress examining the selection of exotic drinks.'Still drink a lot of that strawberry stuff?'

The fox turned the bottle in front of her back to the front label. 'And you those foreign draft beers?'

He chuckled. 'Whenever I can. How've you been?'

Terry smiled a little at the young man with wild, black hair down to his shoulders. 'Busy and hidden as usual.'

He smiled with one corner of his mouth. 'My guess was correct then?'

She took the bottle and put it in her basket. 'It might be the worst yet. Dangerous for you too.'

Chuck took a bottle of a dark red and spicy hot liquor and read the back. 'I figured it might. And that you could use a little help.'

Terry stepped aside to examine a bottle of black liquor. 'Yeah. We should talk.'

He gave a slight nod. 'Better not here. There's something off about that couple at the food section.'

'Yeah, we still have to take it easy between the sheets while their bruised ribs aren't healed completely, so we're a little frustrated.'

Chuck stared at the bottle in his hand, then turned his gaze towards her. She grinned at his wide eyes and open mouth.

Terry introduced Adalet and Dormin after she and Chuck went up to the empty service floor of the supermarket. 'What can you tell us, Chuck?'

Chuck cleared his throat and leaned forward on the back of one of the office chairs, on which he sat backwards. 'We've been working with a client who wants to improve their data mining. They have a lot of data from various sources. What they are, I don't know yet, and they use dedicated hardware. We don't have direct access to it and work by proxy. That doesn't make things easier for us and one of the guys complained often about it but they never explained the reason for the secrecy. But then a couple of days ago the supervisor slipped up and mentioned avoiding another theft by a slippery fox in a private conversation.'

He looked at Terry and she shrugged. 'It's just out of this world hardware. I couldn't resist.'

He chuckled. 'Yeah, I had my suspicions. I poked around a little and heard rumours about you being a target. Seems you're a threat.'

She nodded. 'Yeah. The hardware is not only more advanced than anything we know, but the operating system is highly capable of retrieving information. Dangerous in the wrong hands.'

'I sensed that and collected everything I could get my hands on like contacts, code, addresses. I can give you that information.'

Terry smiled at him. 'That would be great.'

Chuck sat up straight. 'Okay, meet me tomorrow night at Club Moon. It's a quiet place.'

***

There were few people at Club Moon, a jazz café downtown, when Terry walked into the low lit mix of realexing music and the smells of smoking and alcohol. A whispering couple and a single man tapping his fingers to the beat of the music were drinking on either side of the bar, and one couple drank and smoked at one of the tables in the even dimmer back. A smooth jazz song played in the background, trumpet and piano performing a duet on the rhythm provided by slow bass and gentle brush on drums.

Terry ordered a drink and sat down at a table in a corner, tapping her foot to the music. 'Seems clear.' she whispered after she received her drink.

'Same here.' said Adalet from her ear piece.

She didn't have to wait long before Chuck walked in. He joined her after getting a drink from the bar. 'Hey. Been here long?'

Terry leaned closer. 'No, just a few minutes. So, how've you been?'

'Busy with work and a few small side projects.' he said and glanced at the others in the club. 'Been seeing a nice girl who works at the tax office.'

Terry grinned a little as she drank. 'I'll bet that made at least one side project more interesting.'

'For sure.'he said and winked. 'And you?'

'All freelance work. Some boring but paying well enough, some very exciting.'

Chuck nodded. 'I expected nothing less from the the fox who can outfox just about anybody.' he said and glanced around again. 'It's time, agreed?'

Terry nodded once. 'Do you have it with you?'

Chuck pulled a three by three centimetre black disk out of his pocket and hid it behind the glass as he slid it against Terry's, and let it go behind hers. 'This is it. For some of the code you'll need to use that hardware. Do you keep it at a safe place?'

Terry took the disk. 'It's safe.'

The single man from the bar walked to the front, then turned and appeared at the table with a gun in his hand. 'Good. Then let's go there. Quietly.'

Chuck and Terry glared at him.

The man gestured with his gun for them to stand up, then froze at the poke in his back. Dormin stood behind him and Adalet moved beside him to take the gun.

'We thought something like this may happen.' she said. 'So we were here first at the back.'

The man grinned. 'We had the same idea. Right, Chuck?'

Terry shot her gaze at Chuck while he pulled out a gun. The couple from the bar presented theirs as they stood up.

'Please be so kind to drop your weapons. We don't want a mess in here.'

Adalet and Dormin dropped theirs on the table and the three of them had their hands tied behind their backs.

Terry growled low. 'To think I always thought you were the most trustworthy of the group.'

Chuck leaned closer to her ear behind her. 'I trust money more.'

The three were led out the backdoor and through a short corridor to a van waiting at the end.

'I'll wait at the office for when you get the hardware.' Chuck said to the first man while the others stepped into the van.

The van drove away after Terry gave them an address outside the city.

***

They were barely on the open and deserted road when they heard a bump on the roof. The woman who drove braked hard when the view in front of her blurred and turned dark. The men shouted while they braced themselves, and the roof at the front caved in at once. The windows shattered while metal bent and groaned and the van was pushed down against the road.

'What's going on!?' shouted the second man at the back.

The woman and man in the front screamed as the roof came further down on them and pinned them on their seats. The collapse stopped and the front of the van bounced back up.

The man at the back moved between the seats and Adalet, Terry, and Dormin who had ducked, to the front. 'Sil! Jan!' He heard them groan. 'Can you move!?'

He tried to push against the roof, then moved to the back again and opened the backdoors. He froze at the sight of the submachine gun in Ourania's hands.

She gestured with her head. 'Out!'

He held up his hands and she moved closer to the back of the van while keeping her eyes on him. 'Are you okay in there?'

Dormin stepped out. 'Much better than a minute ago.'

She cut his tie rip and he freed the others before turning to the man standing at the side. 'Who are you working for?'

The man grinned. 'Anonymous. But someone who knows a lot.'

Terry bared her fangs at him. 'Too bad we don't have time to interrogate him. Or go after that bastard Chuck.'

Dormin tied him to a seat in the van before they walked to Diafanis waiting in the field next to the road, and grinned at Ourania. 'Some stunt.'

She exhaled hard to relax. 'I didn't know what else to do to stop the van. Crushing the front with a landing strut while cloaked was the most difficult thing I've ever done with this airship.'