Gaea

Chapter 5

by Baybelletrist

Mars City Meridian Hotel

7/29/2098, 1518

The beeping of his wrist comm woke Zach from a light doze. He glanced at the clock and grimaced. Well, at least I got a few hours' rest.

"This is Zachary Foxx."

"Captain, this is Ridley. She just entered the building. Somehow, out of four cops, nobody noticed her until the door was shutting behind her." Zach heard the frustration in Ridley's voice. "We've dispatched a car already to pick you up."

Zachary sat up quickly. "We'll be right there, Lieutenant. Do not approach the suspect."

"Affirmative, Captain. We'll be telling the building manager to keep it cool and stay out of your way. Ridley out."

Doc stuck his head in the door from the main room. "What's the news, Zach?"

"We're heading out." Zach stamped his feet into his boots and stood. From across the suite he heard a soft knocking and then the sound of Niko's door opening. He emerged from the bedroom, smoothing his hair down with one hand, to find Niko and Doc waiting for him. He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.

"Goose is down in the lobby," said Doc. Zach frowned. Why...? But Doc and Niko were watching, so he gestured toward the door.

"Let's go."

Nicole Galloway lived in a run-down apartment building in one of the outlying, poorer sections of Mars City. Trash blew through the streets past dilapidated cars and squads of scruffy children playing games on the pitted sidewalks. Small markets made bright spots of color among the aging buildings with their dingy, peeling paint.

Zach had had their driver drop them off a block over from Nicole's building. Watchful, the S5s trotted halfway up the block with Goose at the point. Locals melted out of their way until suddenly the street was miraculously clear of people. As he and his team closed the distance to the apartment building's front door, Zach activated his wrist comm again.

"Ridley, this is Foxx. What's the situation?"

Ridley's face appeared in Zach's miniscreen. "Subject's inside, on the northwestern side. Apartment 713, remember? We're standing by."

"Understood. Foxx out." The four of them paused at the corner of the building. Zachary looked around at his team: Doc, watchful yet still smiling slightly; Niko, face calm, ready, Zach knew, for anything; Goose, tense and grim, prepared for conflict.

"Okay, people, we've all seen the layout. One main door and a fire exit, two stairwells, three elevators. She used the main door to enter, but there's no telling which way she'll leave. Doc, you're with me at the main entrance; Niko, you and Goose go in the back. Give her one warning only. Set your weapons on medium stun. Any questions?" Headshakes all around. Zach nodded. "Good. Let's go. And watch your backs."

Tense and listening, she unlocked the door as silently as she was able. Still, the lock clicked faintly, and she flinched.

She pushed the door slowly open, still listening. Nothing stirred in the dimness. She reached out with her inner senses and found no one. Relaxing, she stepped inside, shut the door and leaned on it, eyes dropping closed in exhaustion.

Only the faint scrape of a bootsole on the rough, cheap carpet saved her.

She dropped into a roll, and the man's first shot crackled over her left shoulder. He didn't get a second. She snatched his gun from his hand with a thought and sent it spinning across the main room of the apartment. Distantly through the intensity of battle she heard it thump against the far wall. Grabbing his right arm, she sank in her thumb, just so, twisted his arm back and up behind him and used the leverage she'd gained to slam his face against the wall in front of him.

"One chance," she said coldly. "Who sent you?" And why didn't I sense you? shrieked some terrified corner of her mind.

"Fuck off, bitch," he said hoarsely. A runnel of blood trickled from his left nostril, smearing the white paint of her wall.

Her lips narrowed in annoyance. Grabbing his hair, she twisted his head so she could look him in the eye. "Who sent you?" she repeated, and her mind took hold of his like a vise. Distantly she noticed it seemed harder than usual. So stop wibbling, fool, and focus, she berated herself.

She saw his pupils dilate in panic as she drilled ruthlessly into his memories. She felt the muscles in his throat and abdomen tensing for a scream and froze those muscles with half a thought.

"Hard to breathe that way," she remarked conversationally, sifting through his mind like a child sorting baubles and hoping her voice didn't sound as scared as she thought it did. "I can tell you're trying not to think of something. Who sent you?"

An image floated up from his memory.

Shocked, she froze. He felt her muscles twitch and tried to squirm free. Almost absentmindedly she put him to sleep with a touch and let him slide bonelessly to the floor.

"No," she whispered to the listening silence of what had been her home for two years. "No, no, no, he's dead. I killed him."

Panic seized her. Oh gods. I have to get out of here. She scrambled to the doorway where she'd let her bag drop, mind ranging, looking for other watchers, and still it seemed weirdly difficult to use a gift she'd had all her remembered life, that usually came easily as breathing. Halfway into the bedroom, she froze again. Police. The police are outside. I have to hurry... Her mind raced as she yanked open drawers to paw through them, pried up the carpet and then a piece of the floor in the back corner of the closet, pulled a picture down from the wall and ripped the backing from the frame. That damned boy with his vidcam. I thought I'd wiped the chip—Careless, you fool... How the hell am I going to get offplanet now?

In less than five minutes she had what she needed stuffed into her shoulder bag. How to leave the building? Not through the front door, the back door's too obvious... It'll have to be the roof. Why aren't they headed up here already?

She paused on her way out, looking down at the unconscious man on her living room floor. "You left those people to burn," she said softly. "You want to take me back to him. What kind of person are you?"

Not waiting for a reply, she fled.

Zach and Doc found, on entering the shabby but relatively clean lobby, that only two of the three elevators were working. "Well, at least it's one fewer that I have to secure," Doc said as he activated his CDU. "Pathfinder, Firefly, get in there and shut these elevators down."

The two sparks of light flew into the control box for the elevators and emerged moments later. "Finito, Doc," chirped Pathfinder. "Those things have seen better days! I wouldn't ride in 'em!"

"You don't have to," Doc reminded his program.

Zach pulled open the door to the stairwell with a grating of hinges. The bottom of the door scraped unpleasantly over the dingy, worn orange carpet.

"Seventh floor," Doc mumbled to himself. "We'll be too tired to fight by the time we get there."

Goose paused outside the back door, eyes narrowing. "Hey, Niko," he said.

"What is it, Goose?"

"We know she's got telekinesis because you saw her pull that box off the wall."

"Yes. And?"

"She knew somehow that Tulley was watching her. So she's a telepath?"

"I'd assume so."

"Then she'll know we're coming?"

Niko sighed. "Very possibly, yes." What's he— She broke off mid-thought as he pointed upward.

"We missed an escape route."

Niko was already opening a link to Zachary as Goose leapt upward. The fire escape ladder clanged loudly as he tugged it down.

Doc groaned. "Twelve-story building and now we have to climb to the roof?" he protested between gulps of air. 'Excuse me, Ms. Galloway, we're here to arrest you, but first I have to lie down for a few minutes.'"

"Save it for climbing, Doc," Zachary grunted. They ran past a large numeral 7 painted on the wall. "We're already halfway there."

Their feet made a din on the metal steps. Niko "pushed" again and used the lift to jump from one landing to the next. Goose, a floor above her, was taking the steps in great, long leaps. "Ninth floor," she called. "You've got a plan, I assume?"

"A what?"

She swore. "Goddamn lock," she wailed in a whisper. She could feel them moving upward through the building. She closed her eyes and concentrated, a line appearing between her brows.

Push that pin there, this one just so... finally!

The lock popped open in her hand. "Last time I try finesse," she mumbled. "Next time I'll just rip it apart and let them wonder."

"Never leave a trace of your presence," whispered a voice from her memory.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" she answered through clenched teeth.

She pulled the chain off the door, letting it fall to the landing, and pushed her way through. The door slammed behind her. Turning, she concentrated long enough to jam the bolt into the striker plate. That will slow them down a minute or two—I hope.

From the landing of the eleventh floor Zach and Doc heard a door slam solidly.

"Shit," Zach swore. Doc stared at his captain's back, amazed, even as he followed him up the last flight.

The door to the roof was shut, the chain that had secured it lying discarded on the landing nearby. Zach bent to pick up the lock.

"She picked it," he noted, and let it fall again. Doc was already trying the handle.

"It's jammed, Captain."

Zach rattled the handle himself. "The bolt's stuck."

"Three guesses who did that."

She heard the door handle rattle and skittered across the roof like a frightened squirrel. From the side of the building she clearly heard booted feet on the fire escape.

"I've only got one chance," she whispered to herself. She backed up, readying herself to take a running leap across the fifteen-meter gap to the next building. Okay, it's okay. You can do this. Remember the jump you took in Chicago. You can do this.

"Galaxy Ranger! Put your hands on your head and turn around!"

Goose reached the edge of the roof and saw her. She was backing up as if getting ready to take a running start. His eyes flickered to the gap.

"Shit!" he muttered. "That's gotta be fifteen meters wide!"

Niko had just reached the landing below him. He saw Nicole Galloway tense, psyching herself up, and he drew one of his guns in a flash.

"Galaxy Ranger!" he shouted. "Put your hands on your head and turn around!"

Nicole whirled. A tall, blond man in a Ranger's uniform stood at the top of the fire escape at the edge of the roof. She realized suddenly that he was one of the four she had seen on the news. And he had a pistol leveled right at her.

"Hands on your head!"

He was going to fire. She could see it as clearly as if someone had pointed at a picture and said, Here.

She struck.

From three steps behind him Niko saw Goose reel, dropping his gun. He fell to his knees, already reaching for his badge.

Niko saw Nicole Galloway step back, uncertainty showing on her face. Niko unholstered her shotgun, and the uncertainty faded. She felt a blow against her psychic defenses—even through them, she felt as though her teeth rattled—and felt her gun snatched out of her hand to fall to the fire escape steps two levels down.

Nicole's eyes went wide.

"You—" she began—and behind her the door to the roof blew apart, shattered by Zachary's Thunderbolt. Nicole spun, giving her back to the empty air, a shimmering field appearing around her.

Doc and Zachary, his bionics still fading from visibility, burst out of the doorway, breaking in opposite directions—and then, for Niko, everything seemed to happen at once. Zach stiffened suddenly and fell like a poleaxed bull; Doc fired once, twice, the stunner bolts bouncing off Nicole's shield, and then he too crumpled; Goose's biodefenses finished activating, and he stood.

Niko touched her badge and threw a psibolt, only to see it disintegrate against the other esper's shield. She shook her head.

Goose leapt forward.

Nicole struck at him again—and fear crossed her face as he kept coming. She gasped, and then he was on her and all she could do was dodge.

Stunned, Niko stood at the edge of the roof and watched in awe as Nicole smoothly avoided strike after strike. Niko could sense the immense force of the mental blows raining down upon Goose's mind, but his biodefenses turned them one by one.

Fear twisted the young woman's face; fear, and a slow realization that crept gradually across her features.

The dance went on, Goose punching and kicking, Nicole weaving and sliding under and around and away from his blows, never trying to land a strike with hands or feet. Slowly Goose's defenses began to wear down. And slowly, Niko saw, slowly the field protecting Nicole faded, flickered, thinned.

"Dammit!" she swore furiously. "My gun's two floors down!"

Niko, stepping forward, kicked something, something that clanged on the fire escape's metal bars. She looked down, to where Goose's gun lay at her feet.

The pistol hadn't the heft of her shotgun. She took careful aim, knowing she'd only have one shot.

Nicole dodged another footstrike; struck again, a blow turned by his defenses—but Niko knew he was weakening, and saw that Nicole knew it too as hope crossed the young woman's face for the first time. Nicole struck again and again, hammering at his mental shields with all her strength. That assault took its toll: Niko saw the shield flicker and go out. Niko braced, took a deep breath, steadied herself—

"GOOSE! DUCK!"

He dropped. Nicole whirled to face Niko, and so the stunner bolt caught her square in the chest. She dropped like a bundle of discarded clothing and lay still.

Gaea - Chapter 05

From Betamountain.org

Gaea

Chapter 5

by Baybelletrist