Gary Snell looked out the window of his office, watching the sun set behind the tall buildings in the distance. He wasn’t in the worst part of Cascade Ridge, but it wasn’t the best either. There were plenty of people on the sidewalk below, but the smart ones were paying attention to their surroundings. The intercom on his desk buzzed, and he stepped away from the window to press the button. A disembodied feminine voice said, “Mr. Snell, your appointment is here.”
“Give me ten seconds then send him in,” Snell replied. He returned to the window and pressed the button to lower the blinds. The lights dialed up at the same time but not to full strength. Then the door opened by itself. A small older man walked into the little office. Snell stepped up and shook his hand while introducing himself.
“Glenn French,” the older man said. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”
“Of course,” Snell said, gesturing to a pair of chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”
French took a seat and Snell slipped into his own chair behind his desk. “So what can I do for you, Mr. French?”
“You were recommended to me. My wife has gone missing. In fact, she’s been kidnapped.”
“That is rough,” Snell said sympathetically. “How do you know she’s actually kidnapped?”
“You aren’t the first detective I hired,” French told him. “We know where she is. And we know who has her.”
Snell just raised an eyebrow.
French went on, saying, “It’s the Brokers… They took her from the club where she works.”
Snell asked, “She’s still in town?”
French nodded nervously. “Yeah. No telling for how long. That’s why we need someone who can act quickly. My detective said you were better suited to… well… do something about it.”
Snell smiled a little. He supposed he had developed a reputation. “I guess your investigator didn’t want you to tell me who he is?” Snell asked.
French nodded. “Right.”
Snell leaned back in his chair. “Alright then,” he said. “Show me what he dug up, and I’ll get right on it. Standard rate. And only if I get your wife back.”
***
Gil Ferris was thirty-eight years old, standing at almost six and a half feet tall with close-cropped red hair. Small bits of metal grafted to the side of each eye were the only indication of his optical implants, the only cybernetic enhancements he had ever experimented with. Ferris greeted Gary Snell at the front door and gave him an enthusiastic handshake before ushering him inside. Snell was eight years his junior, just over six feet tall, and in better shape than most, but Ferris made him look small.
Snell said, “I appreciate you meeting on short notice.”
“Please,” Ferris grunted. “Nothing I had planned is better than strippers and gangsters.”
Herman Elias was already waiting for them. Elias was as tall as Ferris and almost as broad, but he was sixty years old. His long hair and his neatly trimmed beard were almost completely white. He shook Snell’s hand and pulled him in for a gruff embrace. “The pay doesn’t hurt,” he added to Ferris’s assessment.
Snell pulled a small square from his jacket pocket and placed it on Ferris’s small dining table. Then he pulled a small cylinder from his pocket and held it between his fingers. The square on the table lit up along the sides, then a map of the city materialized on the table.
“Still rocking the external ticker,” Elias mused. “I can respect that.”
Snell ignored him and said, “Thanks to my anonymous reference, we know exactly where the victim is. I’ve confirmed myself the building is full of Brokers. I haven’t seen inside, but we know what Brokers get into. I did get us a floorplan for the building though.”
The map became small enough to take up a corner of the table. Most of the surface became the layout for an office building. “Is there a basement?” Elias asked.
“No,” Snell told him. “Not in the paperwork at least.”
Elias nodded thoughtfully and said, “Any captives will be on the second or third floor. They don’t like cameras inside, so they keep their boys above and below the cattle.”
Snell said, “If Herman can get a lock on our girl before we go in we’ll move straight to her. If not, we’ll go room by room. Either way we’ll be on our way home before anyone outside knows we were there.”
“Don’t be gentle,” Elias warned. “These guys make pretty good money. You can’t always tell if they’re enhanced just by looking.”
Ferris had been studying the map intently. Now he pointed to the projected layout and said, “We should hit this door and head right for the stairs.”
***
The trio was in the back of Elias’s van. Elias slipped a headset over his eyes but continued to move as if he could see clearly. Snell looked at the monitors and flashing lights in front of them. He could hack a camera or hotwire a door when he needed to, but he didn’t have a clue what any of this gear did. Elias handed him a small U-shaped device. Snell took it and clamped it over his right ear. “Comms check,” Elias said quietly.
“Perfect,” Snell replied.
“Now Gil,” Elias said. “Check, check.”
“Yeah I hear you,” Ferris said.
“Now both?” Elias said. “Now both. Both. Hello.”
“We’re good,” both men said almost in unison.
Elias said, “Gary, I can probably get you a discount on some high quality implants.”
“It’s not about money,” Snell told him. He slipped what looked like sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. His vision flickered for a moment then the glasses adjusted to the light in the van. They would let him see in the dark when the time came. Ferris had his own vision enhancements built in.
“We better move before they get suspicious,” Ferris said.
Elias said, “I’m getting interference looking for life signs. Probably intentional. Every camera I can detect is turned off though.”
“Let’s go,” Snell ordered. He jumped out of the back of the van and took up a small submachine gun, throwing the strap over his shoulder. Ferris followed, carrying what looked like an elaborate shotgun. It was a plasma weapon known as an orbgun. Snell led the way to the entrance but stopped short. Ferris approached the door with the orbgun. He tested the door first and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. Then he pressed the muzzle of the gun against the door handle and pulled the trigger. The muzzle flashed green, and the weapon emitted a quiet sound like rushing wind mixed with an electric crackle. The splintering door and half melted lock falling to the floor were louder than the weapon. The door swung inward.
Snell stepped through with the SMG up to his shoulder. The first floor was dark. The glasses quickly compensated and Snell could see clearly. He made his way to the stairs without seeing anyone. He rounded the corners smoothly with Ferris right behind him. They reached the second floor and Ferris stepped up to open the door. Snell moved through quickly.
Immediately he saw a man in a gray windbreaker. The shape of a large pistol was obvious beneath his thin jacket at the small of his back, but he was twirling an old fashioned billy club as he walked along. He was facing away from them and hadn’t noticed Snell yet. As the intruders watched, the man raked his club along a set of bars. Snell finally realized the rooms on either side of the hall had been converted into prison cells. Elias had been right about captives on the second floor. Snell suspected Elias was also right about some of the Brokers having hidden enhancements. He shot the man in the back of the head. The single suppressed shot was louder than the orbgun, but quieter than the impact of the round against the man’s skull. A woman screamed.
Snell made his way down the hall until he could see the woman clearly inside her cell. He looked her over carefully. She was young, far too young to be their target. She was petite and athletic with black hair cut in a short bob. “This is bad,” Snell said quietly. “They’ve added more people since our last PI was here.”
The young woman stared at them with her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide and she seemed to be fighting the urge to scream again. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” Snell told her. “We’re going to get you out of here.”
“That’ll mess up the timeline,” Elias said from his van.
“It will,” Snell agreed. Then to Ferris he said, “Cover me.”
Ferris already had his orbgun trained on the end of the hallway. He said, “Yep.”
Snell searched the dead gangster, but he wasn’t surprised the key wasn’t with him. A new voice echoed around the corner: “We told you not to touch the…” The voice trailed off as another Broker came around the corner. He swore loudly and tried to reach beneath his windbreaker jacket when Ferris opened fire. A green sphere the size of a baseball burrowed through the man’s chest and dropped him.
“Stay with the girl,” Snell said. He didn’t say it in front of her, but he was worried if the Brokers realized someone was onto them, they might kill any witnesses.
“Splitting up is a bad idea,” Elias said in their ears.
“Yes it is,” Snell agreed as he entered the stairwell. This time as he climbed, he was acutely aware of Ferris’s absence behind him. He skipped the third floor and went to the fourth. This floor was well lit and the glasses adjusted. There was no one in the hall, but he could hear voices nearby. He moved quickly and quietly toward the sound.
A large seating area looked like it must have been unchanged since before the Brokers took over the building. Snell pressed against the wall beside the first room he came to. The voices were on the other side of the door. After listening for a few moments he decided there were only two inside. He tried the door and found it unlocked. He crept in quietly and found two men sitting in plush chairs facing each other. They were dressed in suits. One of them even wore a tie.
Snell wasn’t sure if they were both Brokers, but behind them on a couch sat Kelly “Keke” French. She looked clean and unharmed to have been missing for several days. She also looked like she was drugged into an absolute stupor. Her body was crammed into a tiny dress that revealed most of her massive breasts and every inch of her long legs. She didn’t seem to be wearing any makeup or jewelry.
In the time it took Snell to recognize his client’s missing wife, the two men had noticed him and had begun to stand up. He raised the gun and fired a burst into the chest of the closest man, sending him and his chair backward to the floor. The other man was raising his hands as if to show he was unarmed, but Snell wasn’t taking any chances. He squeezed the trigger and sent two rounds into the remaining man’s face, causing him to crumple in on himself.
“Kelly…” Snell said gently. The woman didn’t react. He took a step closer and dropped to one knee. “Kelly, I’m here to take you home.” Then to his team he said, “Guys, I found her, but I think she’s drugged.”
“I’ll come to you,” Ferris said quietly.
“No,” Snell answered immediately. “Let me find the keys and I’ll carry her.” He let the gun fall to his waist and hang by the sling while he rummaged through the desk near where the men had been sitting. He found one ring of old fashioned keys in the desk. He shoved them in his pocket, took a second to make sure there wasn’t anything else to bring along, then he turned to the lethargic woman.
“Keke,” he said forcefully. Her head rolled listlessly from one side to the other.
Then Elias was surprisingly loud in his ear: “No, no, no… Somebody’s vitals were connected to a silent alarm. I killed it, but it went out for several seconds.”
Snell sighed. “This isn’t what you signed up for,” he said. “If either of you want out, this is your only chance. No hard feelings.”
“Nah, Shooter is staying,” Ferris said without hesitation.
“Van is staying,” Elias agreed. “You’ve got innocent people in there.”
Snell snatched the small woman under her arms and yanked her upward until he could maneuver her over his shoulder. He drew a pistol from beneath his coat and held it in one hand while steadying Kelly with the other. The SMG bounced against his hip as he made his way back to the stairs. He entered the third floor as cautiously as he could without wasting time. More cells lined either side of the long hallway.
“We have more civilians,” he explained tersely.
He approached the nearest cell. Another woman watched him intently with a look of mild curiosity on her face. She was short and athletic like the woman on the floor below. Her hair was long and dark. “I’m here to get you out,” Snell said. “We have to be quick.”
He stood close to the bars so she could reach into his jacket pocket. “Find your key in my pocket,” he said.
She immediately reached inside and grabbed the key ring. “Is my sister still here?” she asked hoarsely.
“There’s a woman downstairs who looks like you,” Snell told her. “Free everyone as fast as you can.” He scanned both ends of the hallway, not keen on the idea of shooting one handed while holding someone he was supposed to protect in the line of fire. The woman got her cell open and yanked the keys free from the lock. She went to the next cell where a tall young woman waited silently for her to open the door. The same key she had used before worked, saving them time. Then she stepped across the hall and freed a tall emaciated woman with long red hair.
“Follow me down,” Snell ordered. “We have a van.”
He led the way with Kelly French on one shoulder and his pistol aimed ahead of him. In the stairwell he said, “Shooter, Point is coming back to you with hostages. Don’t get twitchy.”
“We’re cool,” Ferris said.
They entered the second floor without startling Ferris. In fact he seemed amused when he saw Snell carrying a barely dressed stripper on his shoulder. “Let’s trade,” he said. “This is more my expertise than yours.”
Snell managed not to laugh. He didn’t want the frightened hostages to think he wasn’t taking the situation seriously. He holstered his pistol, took Ferris’s orbgun, and let Ferris take Kelly off his shoulder. Ferris took her up in a fireman’s carry across both of his massive shoulders. Snell let the orbgun hang by his side and replaced the magazine in his submachine gun.
“Sarah?” the dark-haired woman with the keys murmured.
“Well hey there,” the woman still behind bars said. Her voice was shaking and full of relief and fear at the same time. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”
Sarah’s sister unlocked her cell and the two embraced each other unselfconsciously.
“They’re here,” Elias said calmly but firmly. “There’s one in a suit. He’s confusing the equipment. I don’t know what these readings are. Watch out for him.”
“They’re blocking our route?” Snell asked.
Elias said, “No, they went in the front door. Four of them.”
“Get them to the van,” Snell ordered Ferris. Then to the hostages he said, “Can any of you shoot?”
“I can,” the thin redhead said with a shaking voice.
He shoved the orbgun in her direction. “It’s hard to miss with this thing. Don’t hesitate. They’re here to kill you now.”
She took the weapon and nodded meekly. Ferris drew a large revolver and asked Snell, “You sure?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’m just buying time.” He held up the small cylinder that comprised his external ticker. “My car is on the way. Get these girls out of here.”
“This way, ladies,” Ferris called out. He backtracked along the path they had taken while Snell approached the elevator. Snell hit the call button. The doors opened immediately, and he stepped inside. He pressed the button to send the elevator to the first floor then stepped back into the hall before the doors closed. Then he went to the stairwell opposite Ferris’s retreat.
***
Elias watched the monitor closely. There was no way to see what was going on inside the building, but he was keeping an eye on the street with the cameras attached to the van. The Brokers had left two goons by the front door half a block away. But one of them had begun to wander toward the van. Elias took his headset off and retrieved a knife in its sheath from the toolbox behind him. He stood there hunched beneath the low ceiling and watched the monitor as the man in his gray track suit passed by without a glance. Then the man moved toward the side door where Snell and Ferris had entered the building.
“Shooter,” Elias said, “You’ve got a Broker looking at your exit.”
There was no response. Elias listened for a moment then threw his headset back on quickly. “Shooter?”
“Why isn’t he answering?” Gary Snell’s voice asked.
Elias ripped his headset off and slammed it down. “Because we’re being jammed!”
“Then why can I hear you?”
“Because you’re smart enough not to have implants. It’s blocking the neural transmission, not the signal.”
“I can’t catch up with them,” Snell said urgently.
“I know,” Elias said. “I’ve got it.”
He jumped out of the van. The Broker heard him and turned but Elias had pulled the knife from its sheath and managed to stab the man half a dozen times before he could make a sound. Their momentum carried them past the corner of the building and out of sight of the other lookout. Elias stabbed the gangster a few more times then sheathed the bloody knife. It had been a long time since he had killed someone. He remained crouched over the dying man and tried to catch his breath.
He said, “Point, I cleared the exit. You still have one watching the front door.”
The broken side door opened fully, and Ferris suddenly loomed over the old man. He adjusted the woman’s position on his shoulders and said, “What is going on?”
***
In the lobby of the ancient office building the elevator dinged. Three men in windbreakers trained their handguns on the sliding doors as they opened. A fourth man in an expensive suit lingered behind them. He didn’t seem to be carrying a weapon. Snell watched them through the window of the door to the dimly lit stairwell. No one knew he was there. It almost seemed wrong to take advantage of his position, but then he thought about the kidnapped women following Ferris out of the building. Any sympathy that might have been blossoming withered.
Snell kicked the door open and rushed the quartet from behind. He held the trigger down and sprayed the room with nine millimeter rounds. At least one Broker dropped as if he had been hit. The gangsters returned fire, but Snell had already slid behind a thick reception desk. Even with the gunfire and shouting he could hear Elias’s van peeling out in front of the building. He thought he heard more gunfire out there.
The man in the suit approached the desk calmly until Snell slung the SMG off of his shoulder and held it overhead with one hand, letting off another uncontrolled burst. The man dropped low with superhuman speed. Then he rose to his feet smoothly, charged at the wall beside Snell, and ran up the wall. Snell tried to lead the target and squeezed off a few short, controlled bursts from a kneeling position, but the inhuman speed was disorienting, and he missed every shot. The man in the suit kicked off the wall and hurled his slender frame at Snell, punching him squarely in the face. The glasses broke and Snell lost control of the SMG.
The slender man in the suit now had a pistol in his hand. An extended magazine jutted awkwardly from the grip. Snell was disoriented from the blow, and the crooked and crumpled glasses obscured his vision, but he had drawn his pistol with practiced grace. Holding the weapon close to his body, he let off three rounds quickly. The thin man leapt aside with that cybernetically enhanced quickness, but Snell heard him grunting in pain. He’d been hit at least once.
One of the other Brokers jumped onto the desk. He did not have cybernetically altered speed or agility, so instead of surprising Snell he only made himself a target. Snell unloaded into his chest and abdomen, causing him to fall backward onto the hard floor. Snell changed magazines quickly while still lying on his back and shook his head to send the broken night vision glasses to the floor, but automatic gunfire peppered the desk and echoed through the empty building.
Snell tensed up instinctively, but he pushed the fear aside with gritted teeth and an audible groan. He chambered a round and began to crawl to the edge of the desk. The man in the suit closed in while providing his own suppressing fire. But when he finally loomed over the desk and prepared to actively attack, Snell had taken up a kneeling position to the side of the desk. The man in the suit adjusted quickly, but it bought Snell enough time to land several shots into the man’s narrow hips. He fell to the floor.
Snell stood up slowly. The man in the suit had dropped his gun, but he was reaching for it, straining to roll onto his side. His robotic legs were useless as he struggled to crawl to the weapon. Snell shot him in the head.
The other three men were on the floor. The one who had jumped on the desk was clearly dead. The other two had been hit numerous times by his blind fire. He didn’t bother to offer any help, but he left them alone. He put a fresh magazine in his pistol and retrieved the submachine gun and his broken glasses. Then he walked out the front door. The final lookout lay in the middle of the street, seemingly gunned down during the van’s escape.
His little coupe was waiting for him. As he approached, the door opened. He climbed in and pulled his ticker from his pocket. “You drive,” he told the car. “Gil Ferris’s house.”
The car pulled slowly out of the parking spot and Snell called Ferris through his ticker. His fingers tingled a little where he touched the small cylinder, and an image of Ferris appeared in front of him. “Gary?” he heard quickly.
“Hey, I’m alright,” Snell said. “I’m on the way to your place. Everyone okay?”
“Yeah,” Ferris said, “Even Sleeping Beauty is waking up. Her prince is a little older than I expected though. He’s meeting us at my place to thank you in person. Did the police show up?”
“No,” Snell said without emotion. “Human trafficking case would have too many potential VIPs involved. The Echo Wire can’t let the story get out.”
“Good point,” Ferris agreed. “We called CRPD. A Detective Vasquez said someone will take a statement during business hours. We managed to get some EMTs to check out the girls. Maybe we won’t have to wait too long for them to meet us.” After a brief pause, he added, “We did good tonight.”
“Yeah, we did,” Snell agreed. “I’ll be there soon.”
He hung up and shoved the ticker into his pocket. “Hey, give me the wheel at the next stop,” he told the car. A quiet ding acknowledged his request. The car rolled to a stop at the next red light and another chime indicated manual control was active. Snell took over. The city could seem so peaceful at night under the distant lights. He drank in the sights and sounds of Cascade Ridge after midnight and waited for the ring of gunfire in his ears to calm down.