S Hunter - Longevity

She couldn’t see the house but she knew it was beyond the garage and further to her left, towards the road. Ahead, across the open courtyard with its splendid oak centerpiece and driveway and gardens she could see two small cottages. For now, they became her ultimate goal, but she had to clear the garage first.

From above her, out of an open second-floor window, came raucous voices raised in conversation followed by a man hooting. She distinguished the voices of at least three men. Security or chauffeurs or mechanics, it didn’t matter. The longer she waited, the more likely she’d be discovered. So far, she’d been lucky, which probably meant that on this pristine country morning either someone wasn’t watching the acueye screens as diligently as they were supposed to, or they knew right where she was and they were waiting for her. If the latter, the men were doing a good job of covering it.

She reminded herself that these were men were hirelings. It was even possible that they didn’t like their boss, and weren’t above taking advantage of him on a Saturday morning.

There were convenient stairs to her left. She took them silently, two at a time while she formulated her first rule of engagement: no hesitation, especially when you are in an exposed position in enemy territory.

The external door at the top was unlocked and quiet, and then there was a short hall to the open door from which the loud voices still sounded.

The guards in this tranquil country setting were indeed in a different frame of mind than the ones in Bedford’s showy mansion in the city. Of the three sitting at the poker table, only one even noticed her at the door, and that one got two duoloads before the other two saw his startled expression and turned. She shot the next two while moving diagonally and rapidly into the room, and neither of them got off a sound other than the typical paired grunts as darts hit them. It was so nice not having to face alert men shooting guns at her. She loved the country.

She’d been lucky indeed. The poker room appeared to be the actual security center. One wall was covered with monitors and equipment, all of it functioning perfectly. With wonderment, she saw the monitor that showed an expansive view of the acueye covering the orchard, the route she had just taken to reach the garage. In both modes, photopic and infrared, despite her mud camouflage she must have been captured by the sensors as she threaded her way through the trees. She looked back at the table. The three now-sleeping players were all still flush with chips, to variable degrees, although two of them had scattered their piles as they fell. The quadrant of the table occupied by the fourth chair, the one that faced the monitors, was clear. Someone had lost early, and left the game.

Livvy grinned. She loved poker, too.

Remembering Chris’ admonition, she went over to the wall of monitors and equipment and proceeded to use her Attach’n’smash to access every panel. Exposed quantum CUs were supposed to be very vulnerable to decoherence, and although she knew even less about that than she did molebiol, she did know that stale potato chips, peanut butter cups, and warm beer weren’t good for anything, so she sprinkled them liberally over the exposed CU innards. The mixture should be as effective as Chris’s gunfire, and it was a lot quieter.

She blamed her fatigue for what happened next, because otherwise she wouldn’t have made the easy assumption that the fourth man at the table was sleeping it off somewhere, and she certainly never would have set her Stinger down on the table so she could work with both hands unencumbered. She heard the man’s voice first, just an instant before he came around the corner of the door jam. He was securing his fly as he entered the room.

“Will someone grow some balls and start betting their hand before…”

The very young-looking, slight man looked up to see his fallen comrades and a second later spotted her. Fortunately, although his mouth fell open he didn’t shout – which she took as a sign that there was no one left within earshot – and he didn’t go for a gun – another good sign – but he did take off at a healthy speed. She grabbed her Stinger and took off after him for the same reason she had removed her shoes earlier. Another rule: if you are counting on surprise, gotta preserve it.

He made it down the stairs and out into the open in front of the stable before she could get her Stinger to bear, although in desperation she sent three darts after him that missed. He was well into the courtyard before she got her focus back and hit him with two duoloads, at which point he stumbled into one more step then fell forward and skidded for a foot before he stopped.

She’d had no choice but to follow him, but she knew enough not to waste time looking around before she rushed over to him and dragged him quickly into a box stall. Her shoulders tensed from the expectation of a challenge, but none came. Talking softly to the nervous horse, she listened. No shouted challenges, no running footsteps. No time to dwell on her luck. Her original plan had been to finish in the garage building and then circle behind the stable to get to the cottages, but there was no point in backtracking now.

As she left the box stall she picked up something in her foot, a piece of sharp debris, and she had to stop and pull it out. Very bad for the horses, she thought. She missed her shoes.

Chris had been focusing on Williams intently but when Bedford got up and walked over to the desk his attention was caught by movement within the idyllic scene framed by the French doors. Bedford was already at his desk and turned back into the room when Chris caught sight of a man running into view from the direction of the garage, with Livvy about six meters behind him in full-out pursuit, gaining ground. Several of the horses that had been looking out withdrew their heads. She had her pack still slung over her left shoulder and her Stinger in her right hand, and in the few seconds Chris was watching she aimed on the run and presumably shot, because the man finally went down. It was just seconds, Chris knew, but it seemed to take an inordinately long time.

Chris stopped looking directly and kept his gaze directed at Bedford, but out of the corners of his eyes he watched her efficiently drag her victim into a stable box. When she came back out, she started running across the courtyard towards the cottages, but almost immediately skipped for several steps, favoring her right foot, until she stopped completely and picked up her foot to check the bottom. Chris noticed she was barefoot and covered in mud, and he forced himself to keep his face expressionless and stop watching. When he looked again, she was gone.

Chris glanced back at Williams. He’d seen. Having turned to watch Bedford get the gun from the desk as well, he’d probably seen the whole thing. He did not, however, continue to track Livvy’s progress. When Bedford looked up again, Williams had turned back to Chris and was staring at him with an enigmatic smile. With his back to the window, Bedford returned to the side chair and sat back down. He was carrying the handgun and pointing it squarely at Chris.

Livvy was behind schedule, or to put the blame where it was due, he had not been able to think of anything that new or interesting to say to temporize. He’d made his point with Williams; to belabor it would just irritate him. He’d apparently irritated Bedford beyond the limits of his tolerance. Chris tried to think of something to say that neither of them hadn’t heard many times before. He was very tired, and the arguments were very old, and no one ever seemed to listen anymore.

Livvy must be exhausted.

Thinking of Livvy, he tried again, ostensibly addressing Bedford, but targeting Williams. “You’ve never killed someone before, have you Bedford? At least, with your own two hands. You’ve used your tools. It’s not as easy as you might think.”