John Hawks - The Golden City

A rat-about eight inches long from nose to tail-scurried across the bricks. As the cooking smell grew stronger, more rats appeared, and she felt sick to her stomach. Some of the rats ran away from the light, but others stayed frozen on the sloping sides of the culvert. Her light made their eyes look like little red beads. The culvert angled left, and when she came around the corner she saw hundreds of rats clinging to the wall. The light caused a panic, and some of the rats leaped into the river, making high-pitched squeaks as they splashed over to the other side.

The river current pushed the rats toward her. The water was high now, almost to her waist, and she could see the rats’ sharp noses and thin tails. Maya drew her sword and used the tip of the blade to flick the rats away. The grease smell was almost unbearable. A drop of water fell on her forehead. Don’t touch your mouth or eyes , she told herself. A child is inside you, growing within this body .

After twenty yards of culvert, the rats began to disappear. A few stragglers scurried away when she sloshed up the tunnel. She found the blue light near a Y-juncture, but there was no indication about which way to go. She took the right fork and was relieved to see the red marker.

How far to the Evergreen building? Was it thirty yards? Forty? She continued up the culvert until she found two fiber optical cables that ran into the culvert from a maintenance pipe in the ceiling. The pipe was about three feet wide and sealed with a hinged steel plate. When Maya tapped the plate with her knuckles, she heard a hollow sound.

Water swirled around her and white foam clung to the waders. Trying not to slip and fall, she loaded one of the breaching rounds into the shotgun. Then she held the weapon close to the plate and fired. The noise echoed down the tunnel. It was so loud that she almost fell backward. A six-inch hole had appeared in the plate, and she used the bolt cutters to hack through the steel.

Sweat covered her face, and she tried not to panic when it touched her lips. After transferring her weapons to the knapsack, she tied the bag to a nylon cord and looped the other end around her shoulders. Grabbing one of the cables, she began to climb hand-over-hand, the knapsack swinging beneath her. The cord dug into her skin and the dead weight tried to pull her down, but she kept climbing until she reached a closet-sized switching room. The breaching round had been very loud-the noise might have been picked up with a sensor. Perhaps the guards had been notified and now they were there, waiting for her.

Maya took a deep breath and kicked open the door.

Maya found herself in a basement with old desks and chairs stacked against the wall. Using the light from her head lamp, she crossed the room and inspected the main electrical panel. Taped to its cover was an inspection certificate that gave the building address: 41 Limeburner Lane . Her fatigue disappeared and she smiled. Nora Greggs was right: the lost rivers could take you anywhere in London.

She zipped open the knapsack, removed her gear, and tossed the bag and the waders into the closet. The Free Runners had supplied her with a pink smock with a company logo, cleaning supplies and a plastic bucket. Pulling on the smock, she considered an immediate assault on the four guards, then rejected the idea and placed the sword and shotgun in a nylon bag.

Her mind shifted into the Harlequin way of thinking as she left the basement and climbed up a short flight of stairs. Two doors were on the landing, one marked MAINTENANCE and another fastened with a padlock. She cut off the lock, slipped it into the front pocket of her jeans and stepped into the building’s emergency stairwell. Seizethe summit , Sparrow wrote in his book of meditations. It is easier to fight your way down the mountain than to fight your way up .

When she reached the fifth floor, she opened the door and stepped into a lobby in front of the elevators. A burly security guard sat behind a desk reading a men’s magazine. He looked startled by her sudden appearance.

“Evening,” Maya said, using a strong East London accent. “Where do I start cleaning?”

The guard hid the magazine beneath a newspaper. “And who the hell are you?”

“The regular girl was sick. I’m Lila.” She gestured to her pink smock. “… From the Merry Maids.”

“This is a restricted floor. You don’t clean here.”

It was important to get closer to him, inside the range of her knife. Smiling, she approached the desk. “Sorry! I talked to the guard at the entrance and he told me to go up the stairs.” She stopped near the side of the desk. “If I made a mistake, please don’t tell my supervisor. I’ve only had this job for three days. Don’t want to get sacked…”

The guard checked out her breasts and grinned. “Relax. A girl as pretty as you can make all kinds of mistakes.”

One step closer, she thought. Use the stiletto, not the throwing knife. Best target is the lower neck, between the shoulder blades.

“I’m calling down to the main desk,” the guard said. “I just want to see what’s going on.”

Maya came around the desk and stood behind him. “Thank you. I can see you’re a real gentleman.”

As the guard picked up the phone, Maya remembered the padlock she had cut off in the stairwell. She reached into her jeans, slipped the lock into the palm of her hand, then hit the guard on the side of the head. He lurched forward-dazed, but still conscious-so she hit him a second time in the middle of the forehead. The guard was propelled backward onto the floor. Maya reached down and touched his carotid artery. Still alive.

She took a roll of duct tape out of the nylon bag, gagged the young man, and taped his ankles and wrists. Then she picked up her supplies and hurried down the hallway. There were three locked doors, and all of them used wall-mounted sensors instead of keys. Her lock picks and bolt cutters were useless.

Maya returned to the desk and crouched beside the guard. She wasn’t surprised to find a small scar on the back of his right hand; in order to get the job he had agreed to carry a Protective Link chip beneath his skin. She grabbed the guard by his feet and dragged him down the hallway. When they reached the first door, she pulled up the guard’s hand and passed it in front of the sensor. Nothing. Perhaps he wasn’t authorized to enter that room. A cut on the guard’s head smeared a line of blood across the carpet as she dragged him over to the second door. Once again, she raised his hand. This time the door clicked open.

She entered a residence suite that was probably used by the members of the Brethren who visited London. The living room was filled with modern furniture, and framed photographs of nature scenes were on the wall.

The living room was attached to a kitchen and a small dining room. A hallway on the left led to a bedroom. Maya drew her knife, moved cautiously to the open doorway, and peered inside. A night table. Dresser. Bed. And there was Alice Chen with her black braids lying like two strands of rope on a pillow.

“I’m here,” Maya whispered. “I’ve come for you…”

Alice opened her eyes and sat up in bed. “Don’t come in the room, Maya! An alarm will go off!”

Maya stood a short distance from the doorway and saw that cameras had been mounted in each corner of the room. The four cameras clicked and whirred, following every movement of the child’s body.

“Take off your nightgown and put on your street clothes,” Maya said. “I’ll count to three and then you’ll run out of the room. We’ll be halfway down the stairs before they respond to the alarm.”

“No. I can’t do that. The machine is watching me.” Alice pushed back the quilt, revealing a thick plastic shackle fastened around her ankle. “They call this a ‘Freedom Bracelet.’ If I leave the room, I get a big shock.”