21


The best thing to do was haul ass. "Go, go, go! Don't stop until you get across the street. Duck behind that building and wait for me," I shouted.
"Was that necessary," X-37 asked.
I aimed my rifle left, then right, scanning the area in between for possible attacks as I moved the weapon. "The doctor said this place should have blown up four hours ago."
"Not precisely," X-37 said.
"You know what I mean. I don't trust him."
"You've made this observation before. Are you going to do something about it?" X-37 asked.
"Yeah, I am."
I caught up with Hastings and his daughter, then led them through several alleyways with pipes running overhead almost like a false ceiling. We came out into the open and I noticed gangs were creeping after some unlucky victim. Steam filled the low areas, reducing visibility but somehow carrying sound.
If Callus and his team were still looking for us, it didn't seem to be in this area. Gangs, however, were always a danger.
We reached a bridge to another major section of the top deck. Looking into the crevasse didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Memories of the cable crossing caused my fingers to throb and my augmented left arm to twitch.
“Are you all right?” X-37 asked.
“Sure, X. Thanks for asking.” I stepped nearer the doctor and his daughter. “Elise, I need you to come with me. You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
She gave me a shitty look. “Are you?”
Some questions were better left unanswered. “Come with me. We’re climbing this bridge support. I need your young eyes.”
“What about me?” Doctor Hastings asked.
“You’re fine right there. Just stay put,” I said.
We climbed in silence, trying to ignore the on-again, off-again gravity the higher we went on the support beams.
“What’s going on, Cain?” Elise asked. "What are we doing?"
I touched a vest pocket that still didn’t have cigars or get out of jail free cards. "Testing a theory."
"He looks exposed,” Elise said. “I don't like him right now, but he’s still my dad."
"He's leaving breadcrumbs for our pursuers." I wanted to confront the scientist, but it was too soon for that. Things needed to play out for a bit.
"Okay, I suppose that means something in your world. What do your breadcrumbs have to do with anything?" she asked. "You think he wants us to get caught?"
"Yeah. I just don't know why," I said.
"That really pisses me off. It’s just like something he would do." Elise looked ready to scream.
I wanted to ask questions, but darkness fell hard and fast like it did often on Dreadmax. It wasn't long before I heard crazies screeching nonsensically as they climbed out of the grates.
"We should let them have him,” Elise said.
"He came here to save you, or at least demanded I save you when I could've left you to the RSG."
She snorted. “He didn't come here to save me."
I wasn't sure what to make of that. There wasn't time for psychoanalysis. It was decision time—abandon the mission, or get killed trying to save a man I didn't trust.
Elise scrambled down the support beams but angled away from her father. "He did okay on his own before. Once we get away, we can find him and decide what to do."
I followed her but stopped to look back.
"You're going to let the girl make decisions?" X-37 asked.
"Just watch," I said.
A mob of crazy, animal-like humans surged toward the doctor. There were at least a dozen that would reach him before he could escape across the bridge below us.
The leader of the charge fell flat on his face, blood shooting up from his head before he struck the ground. Two more clutched wounds to the chest and tumbled sideways. Others kept running after Hastings but couldn't catch up. He had a good lead and was very motivated to escape.
I thought about what I'd seen as I made my own crossing of the bridge. There wasn't time to act on what I knew. Once we reunited with Elise's father, I took a stand against the poorly armed men and women while my principals fled to safety.
“Stay back, you crazy flesh-eating freaks!” I shouted.
A few of them look at me quizzically, but others saw my gun and were wary. It was tempting to stay here. I had a pretty good idea that the father-daughter reunion was going to be explosive.
Who needed that kind of drama?
Doctor Hastings panted as he turned angrily toward me, barely aware of his daughter, who was pushing between us. "You were going to leave me!"
"We should have!" Elise shouted.
I stepped back, knowing this had to happen sooner or later but worried about the noise. The man had never seemed like the father of the year. He had demanded I save his daughter from the RSG stronghold, but that was an easy measurement of his paternal devotion. What father wouldn't want his daughter rescued from a display cage in the middle of a prison gang’s hideout?
“I’m your father. I risked my life for you. I could still be shipped off to one of those illegal mining colonies in the Deadlands for what I’ve done. Do you understand that? I risked everything to—”
“Settle down!” I barked, my voice so loud it stopped the both of them. After a pause, I turned away and quietly spoke to my AI. “X, I’m looking for the spec ops ship. Not seeing anything. What’d I miss?”
“Analyzing.”
I heard the groan of twisting metal from somewhere far away and braced myself for another tremor that never came. It might’ve been my imagination, but it seemed the environment shield near the edge of the ring distorted just for a second.
“No sign of the spec ops recon ship detected,” X-37 advised.
“You don’t know what it’s like being your daughter!” Elise broke in, apparently not finished.
“How could I? Stop being so irrational,” he replied.
“I hate you, you aging piece of shit!” Elise stomped away then turned around to make another inarticulate curse.
“I’m not sure why you’re allowing this,” X-37 said. “The volume and duration of this argument are concerning.”
“They need to get it out of their system,” I said. “There will be worse times for this to happen. And I’m still testing a theory.”
“Well, I hope it is a grand theory, because we have drawn the attention of the locals and an element of Callus’ team,” X-37 said.
I trusted the Reaper AI’s ability to maximize my senses and use his analysis to provide an early warning system. It had saved my life many times before I fell out of the Union’s graces. “Doctor Hastings, Elise, we’ve got company. You both need to shut the fuck up.”
Instant compliance was nice when it happened.
I climbed onto one of the narrow footbridges and used the elevation to look back toward the main bridge. I heard the motorcycles at the same time I saw them. Callus’ scouts had requisitioned three of the combustion engine two-wheelers I’d seen from time to time since arriving here. These were the first that I’d observed since the RSG stronghold.
A large group of Slab’s people swaggered through the street-like trenches in the other direction, heading toward their rivals by random chance, it seemed. The problem was there were too many of the local gangs. It made sense because they took what they wanted and it was better to be with them than against them. I’d seen that in other prisons I’d either done missions in or been shuffled through on my way to BMSP.
My left eye twitched in perfect synchronization with the fingers of my augmented arm. I braced for pain that felt like I’d grabbed an exposed wire.
“What’s happening?” Doctor Hastings asked, looking up wide-eyed, his expression a mixture of concern and hope. The man was tired and wanted this over. I could see that in his deteriorating posture.
Elise, silent and sulking, had backed away from both of us, so far away that I could barely see her in the shadows.
Descending rapidly from my observation post, I cut off her escape by hopping down to the deck. “Don’t make me chase you.”
“I’m pissed at you too. Why can’t you just get us off this place?” she asked.
“Always wanted an irrational teenager to babysit.”
This rendered her speechless with rage and I thought I might’ve miscalculated. If she ran off, I’d have to make some hard choices.