Rachel Caine: Working Stiff

There was a final click, and Bryn knew she’d lost the bet. No time to lose now, not if she wanted to actually end this; she abandoned the doors and ran, looking for someone, anyone, in a security blazer. She found one heading for the basement. “Harte!” she yelled at him. “Where is she? I’m her evac driver!”

“Downstairs private meeting room,” he said, and kept running in the opposite direction, where she could hear the muffled booms of gunfire. Two gunmen. Pinned down . That was McCallister and Fideli.

But she couldn’t help them yet.

Bryn raced down the silent hallway, the empty one, all the way to the end, and banged open the door to the stairs. Her heart was hammering now, her palms wet, and she knew there would be someone waiting for her at the bottom. Probably a lot of someones, all intent on stopping any intruders.

She could take some pain, and some injury, but it still frightened her.

This has to be done. And you’re the only one left.

There were security men stationed at the bottom of the stairs, inside the door. Both had guns out and trained on her as she rounded the last turn of the staircase, and they didn’t challenge or wait.

They just fired.

The bullets took Bryn in the chest and left arm, and she staggered against the wall under the assault. The pain rose and then receded, too fast for it to be a nanite thing; shock, she guessed. She felt woozy and strange, but calm enough as she lifted her gun with her right hand and fired clean head shots.

They went down. So did she, falling the last few steps, but she staggered up, pressed her wounded left arm to her side, and kicked their handguns out of the way into the shadows. They weren’t permanently down, but it would take time.

And time was what she needed.

The shots had drawn more security out from their positions in front of the meeting room the security guard had told her about, and Bryn didn’t wait this time; she began shooting, fast and accurately. She took four of them out and wounded a fifth, but then something hit her from behind with staggering force. Not a bullet, though.

A chair.

Bryn twisted around and caught the wooden chair as it descended again, using her wounded left arm; it didn’t stop it entirely but it reduced the force of the blow. She kicked out, and her assailant fell back, dropping the chair in the process.

Mareen, Harte’s executive assistant. She held up her hands in surrender as Bryn aimed at her. “I’m not revived!” she gasped. “I didn’t get the shot yet; you can’t!”

“No, I really can,” Bryn said, but she shifted her aim and took out Mareen’s knee instead. The woman went down screaming. Somewhere deep inside, the nicer, kinder Bryn winced and complained, but this wasn’t the time for mercy or kindness. It was time to get it done.

The meeting room doors were closed and locked. Bryn kicked, bracing herself, and it took three tries before they flew open.

She went flat to avoid the hail of gunfire that followed, and was only partially successful. She felt more bullets striking, and this time, the shock didn’t really protect her as much. The bright, razor-edged net of pain fell over her and tried to pin her down, but Bryn fought her way back out of it. She rolled, stumbled upright, and dropped three men in jackets, one after another. One got her with yet another round, but it was a flesh wound in the upper arm. Still, it made Bryn’s vision gray out for a moment.

That was just long enough for Irene Harte to step up and shoot her in the chest, twice, point-blank. This time it was bad enough to stop her. Bryn went down flat on her back, unable to breathe, unable to think. The wave of agony was crippling. Her brain seemed to be covered in a red and silver storm—red for the pain, silver for the nanites trying desperately to abate it.

“I knew it’d be you,” Harte said, from a great distance away. “Not McCallister. You . Because you never understood the good we were going to do here.”

Bryn blinked, and the world steadied and sharpened just a little. Irene Harte was standing over her with the gun, staring down. She didn’t say anything else as she cocked back the hammer of the revolver and aimed it at the center of Bryn’s forehead.

Bryn couldn’t breathe, and she couldn’t think, but she could tilt the gun that was still in her right hand, and with the last of her strength, she pulled the trigger.

She hit Irene Harte in the chin, and the bullet exited the top of her skull in a shattering explosion of blood, bone, and brain.

Harte stared blankly down at her and tried to squeeze the trigger—or at least, that was what it looked like, in that split second of frozen time. But then Harte’s eyes rolled back, and she folded like a paper doll, and the shot, when it came, bored into the floor an inch from Bryn’s head.

The next security wave poured in, looked at Harte’s body, and went still in confusion. Bryn rolled up to her knees. She could breathe only in shallow hitches, and she knew the nanites were working overtime to keep her moving, but it was enough.

Harte had invoked protocols, but she’d specified only that they were supposed to protect her . With Harte dead, they had no real direction to follow. Nothing to work for. Nothing to achieve.

Nobody paid attention to Bryn until she gasped out, “Evacuate the building. Get everybody outside. If they resist, knock them out. No killing. Go.”

Five security personnel dashed out to do her bidding, and she hadn’t even tried to invoke protocols. Her ability to get up wavered when she achieved a kneeling position, so she stayed there for a long few moments, wondering how much time was left, wondering whether she had the strength to make it to McCallister. She wanted to. She wanted to get him and Joe safely away, before it was too late. The FBI would allow them to go. They weren’t … infected. They were still alive.

Harte was safely and permanently dead. Bryn checked. There was no sign of any nanites trying to heal her wound. Her eyes remained open, fixed, with uneven pupils. Like Mareen, she hadn’t taken the shot; she’d wanted to be the puppet master, not the puppet.

Thank God.

It took five long minutes before Bryn could make it to her feet, and another three before she could manage to crawl up the stairs. She left a bright trail of blood behind. The hallways were chaotic now, Pharmadene people with conflicting orders, all trying to carry them out.

Gunfire was still coming from the area where McCallister was pinned down. Someone had given this batch of security personnel orders to take down the intruders, and somehow, even the bomb threat hadn’t altered that order.

Bryn made it to the doorway, leaned against the jamb, and methodically put rounds into the backs of six guards who were firing at McCallister’s barricade. The last one turned and tried to shoot her, but then he hesitated. She knew him. It was the man who’d escorted her through Pharmadene on her first day.

“Get out,” she told him. “Just go. Go now, before it’s too late.”

He thought about it, raised his gun, and then lowered it again. There was confusion in his eyes, and fear.

Then he ran.

Bryn collapsed.

McCallister lunged forward as he came around the barricade and caught her on the way down.

“She’s dead,” Bryn said. “Harte’s dead. You have to go now. Get out before it’s too late; the government’s cleaning all this up. Please go. You have to go while you still can….”

“Fuck,” McCallister spat. He picked her up, turned, and said, “Joe! We are leaving !”

“About fucking time,” Joe said. “Harte?” He slid around the barricade, carrying a shotgun.