Old Ironsides Page 7

  ‘No, don’t shoot!’

  Her cry caused the guard to turn, and Nathan lunged forward and swung a punch that cracked across the nearest guard’s jaw. The trooper staggered sideways into the wall as Nathan grabbed his rifle and swung it to point at the other guard.

  He barely saw a bright blue pulse of light that flared from the other man’s rifle and washed over him like electrified water. His limbs convulsed and his legs buckled beneath him as nausea poisoned his innards. Nathan collapsed in the corridor, his body shuddering uncontrollably as he heard Helena screaming at the soldiers.

  ‘Stand down! Get away from him!’

  Nathan felt the writhing bands of energy vanish just as his world fell into silence and blackness, the strong arms of the security guards hauling him off the cold floor of the corridor and dragging him back toward his room.

  ***

  X

  ‘Sign here, please.’

  Kaylin glanced down at the holographic electro-sheet hovering in mid-air before her at the reception desk with a flashing red box at the bottom, and in response to the proximity of the sheet a few lines of data appeared to hover in front of her left eye. Although Kaylin had a natural dislike of bio-mechanic enhancements, trying to get through life without at least a basic optical communicator was a bit like trying to breathe without lungs.

  Installed at age five, Foxx’s optical implant was wired both to her ID chip and via neurolanes to her brain. The connection to the ID chip allowed access to the DataStream, and the neurolanes allowed her to control the chip itself for security purposes.

  Kaylin mentally allowed the data sheet access to her ID, and moments later her genetic code, her DNA, was checked against the records at CSS and the red box changed to bright green and the sheet flickered out.

  ‘Thank you,’ the receptionist said, a shimmering hologram manning the main desk, ‘please go on through.’

  The medical center was a quiet, sparse environment, a mixture of white panelled walls and warm artwork that somehow reminded Kaylin of one of the asylums of century’s gone by, where perpetually dazed people who had lost their minds were gently guided from one room, and one day, to the next by orderlies in white suits. She strode down the corridor, her navy blue police uniform stark against the white walls as she sought out the room her optical display had informed her was where the mark awaited.

  Kaylin saw a pair of security guards stationed outside the room as she approached, and any last hope for a quite few days of easy work fluttered away from her as she tensed herself for whatever awaited her inside the room.

  ‘Lieutenant Foxx, escort, CSS assigned,’ she announced herself to the guards.

  One of them glanced slightly to his left, an instinctive reaction that some people had when reading data from an optical implant. Kaylin, like most police officers, had been trained to read their data flow without physically moving their eyes, a “tell” that could alert a suspect to new information flowing into a cop’s ID chip about an arrest.

  ‘Go on in,’ the guard said as he stood to one side. ‘The subject’s on lock-down so the shield’s up.’

  Kaylin braced herself and stood in front of the door, which dutifully dematerialized in front of her and allowed her to walk inside.

  The room was small, no more than ten metres square, white panelled and without windows. On her side of the ray-shield was a small work station at which sat a tall woman with dark hair and eyes. One the far side was a rudimentary living quarters, including a gravity bed upon which lay a man in his thirties, dressed in a gel suit and with one arm flopped over his face to hide it. He did not look up as Kaylin entered the room.

  ‘Lieutenant Foxx, welcome, I’m Doctor Helena Sears.’

  Helena shook Kaylin’s hand and Kaylin instantly detected stress in her demeanour, an edgy tension in the room and the fact that her eyes flicked down to look at the empty holster on Kaylin’s hip.

  ‘Who’s the mark?’ Kaylin asked. ‘And what’s his problem?’

  It wasn’t tough for her to figure that with the ray-shield and guards, the mark was too much of a handful for the lone doctor assessing him.

  ‘Psychological trauma,’ the doctor explained, but then added urgently: ‘He’s not a criminal.’

  ‘Never said he was,’ Kaylin replied. ‘Talk to me, tell me what I need to do here.’

  The ray-sheilding blocked sound effectively, so she knew that the mark wasn’t able to hear them talking, not that he was bothering to take any notice of their presence anyway.

  ‘His name is Nathan Ironside,’ Helena explained. ‘He’s suffering from deep mental trauma due to the loss of his family.’

  Kaylin felt a twinge of sympathy peek around the wall of her concern as she looked at the man lying on the gravity pad just a couple of metres away.

  ‘How long ago?’ she asked.

  ‘Recently, as far as he’s concerned,’ Helena replied, ‘although it may actually be a lot longer.’

  ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Repressed grief,’ Helena said, ‘an inability to deal with the loss. He’s riled up real tight.’

  ‘That the reason for the guards?’ Kaylin asked as she tilted her head back toward the now-closed door.

  ‘He got angry and made a break for it,’ Helena explained, clearly embarrassed. ‘It’s my fault. I should have kept him on a tighter rein until he could be more properly treated.’

  Kaylin turned and looked through the ray-shield at the man on the bed.

  ‘Why the escort? Were his family the victim of violent crime?’

  ‘No,’ Helena replied. ‘I’m not at liberty to explain the details of his incarceration, I’m afraid. It’s classified at this time.’

  Kaylin wasn’t sure whether she should be relieved or even more concerned. The man was a former law enforcement officer or some kind and clearly under immense stress, wasn’t a criminal or the victim of a crime and yet he was being assigned a personal escort for the duration of his stay at the medical center. Witness to a major crime, she guessed, was the only explanation for her presence here at his side.

  ‘Why me?’ Kaylin asked.

  ‘You’re an orphan who lost your family at a young age,’ Helena said. ‘We felt that Nathan might have a stronger connection to you.’

  Kaylin’s vision blurred for a moment as she was reminded of her parents and her brother, lost to her so many years before. The grief was still there – it never really ever went away completely but the pain was no longer as sharp, wasn’t quite as savage and brutal as it once had been. Kaylin swallowed once, and as she focused again on the room before her she realized that the man on the bed had stood up and was watching her in silence.

  He was taller than she had thought he would be, broad shouldered and robust looking. His jaw was lined with stubble and his hair unkempt, but then she guessed he would be kind of ruffled up given what he’d been through. A pair of gray eyes looked back at her in silence, haunted by distant storms of pain that she could imagine raged behind them.

  Kaylin realized that they were staring at each other, neither of them moving, like two predators who had unexpectedly encountered each other in the forest. Nathan Ironside’s gaze was unnervingly steady, as though he were assessing Kaylin just as she was assessing him.

  ‘Open the shield,’ Kaylin said, rousing herself from her torpor.

  ‘The security guards said that he should be kept inside until…’

  ‘Open it,’ Kaylin repeated, ‘and then leave us for a while. If this guy’s my mark then I need to get to know him.’

  ‘He’s quite strong,’ Helena warned, ‘so the guards said.’

  Kaylin shot the doctor a withering glance. ‘I can handle myself.’

  Helena turned for the door. ‘What is it with you cops and the bravado?’ she asked as she swept through the door and opened the ray-shielding as she went.

  The door closed and Kaylin watched as the ray-shield vanished. The air in the room changed as the pressure
altered slightly. A metal rod clattered to the floor nearby, and Kaylin realized that Nathan must have leaned it against the shield as a warning to when it was next opened.

  ‘I’m Lieutenant Kaylin Foxx,’ she said. ‘I’m here to baby sit your ass for a few days so play nice, understood?’

  Nathan didn’t respond. He looked briefly past her at the closed door and then he turned his back to her and strolled to the gravity pad and sat down, ran both his hands through his thick hair as he stared at his feet.

  Kaylin remained standing as she looked about the room. No evidence of any personal belongings adorned the small living space: no pictures, no clothes, no ornaments or personal effects that she would have expected to see. The guy couldn’t have been frisked if he wasn’t a suspect or convict, the human rights lawyers would have gone wild, so where the hell was all his stuff? Where, for that matter, was the guy’s lawyer?

  ‘You need anything?’ she asked, keen to start a dialogue.

  Nathan looked up at her and a brief flicker of humor cracked his rugged features.

  ‘My life back?’

  His accent was unusually sharp, brusque and tainted with a cynicism that she had rarely heard from a cop. Despite all the dangers they faced, everybody knew that life was good for humanity - the Aleeyan War was almost over now and there was much to be hopeful for in the future. Then again, the loss of Ironside’s family would have shattered any faith he might have held in universal karma, and Kaylin herself could appreciate that attitude.

  ‘That’s what I used to say.’

  Ironside looked up at her again. She could see his mind working lethargically until he came up with the solution to his own question before he’d asked it.

  ‘Orphaned? Bereaved?’ he suggested. ‘They sent in the bad cops first and now it’s time for the nice lady cop to come in and be a shoulder to cry on?’

  ‘I lost my family in a shuttle accident twelve years ago,’ Foxx said, not willing to let Ironside’s cynicism tarnish the memory of her own loved ones, ‘my brother and both parents. Took me a long time to get past that and start living again.’

  Ironside stared at her for a long moment.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he murmured, and she thought that she detected a genuine compassion buried somewhere behind the smoldering rage.

  ‘And I yours,’ she replied, trying to sound as genuine as she could. ‘I can’t replace what you’ve had taken from you but I can try to help you move forward. For some reason they want me alongside you until further notice, so love me or loathe me I’m your shadow for a few days.’

  Ironside nodded slowly as he gathered his thoughts.

  ‘Cop?’ he asked as he looked at her uniform. ‘Soldier?’

  ‘A bit of both,’ Kaylin replied. ‘I’m homicide, armed response team leader and detective with an anti-drugs unit. You?’

  ‘I used to be a cop, a long time ago.’

  Kaylin frowned. ‘You’re not that old, surely?’

  Nathan looked up at her again and this time a bemused smile spread across his features. It turned abruptly to a laugh, fingers pulled through hair once again as Ironside revelled in some private joke.

  ‘Something I should know about here?’ she asked, hoping that Ironside wasn’t genuinely losing his mind.

  ‘No,’ Ironside said as he recovered from his mirth. ‘I guess it’s all classified, right?’

  Kaylin rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, there’s been a lot of that. You want to fill me in?’

  Ironside stood from the gravity pad and walked across to her. Kaylin tensed despite herself, went up onto the balls of her feet. Ironside noticed, hesitated a pace and almost mirrored her actions. Their eyes locked for a moment and Kaylin offered him a quick, uneasy smile.

  ‘Force of habit.’

  Ironside relaxed, held his hands out to his sides.

  ‘We’re cops,’ he said, ‘it comes with the territory. I’m not going to try to bust your ass here, I just want to get out of this box, okay? You think you could help me with that?’

  Foxx eyed him testily, unsure of whether to trust him. Ironside had a slightly mischievous air about him, a piratical hint of unpredictability that she could both admire and fear. For the first time she saw a proper smile crease the line of his jaw, and just a hint of life and light in his gaze.

  ‘C’mon, I just want to take a look around at this brave new world. It’s not like I can conceal a weapon wearing this gel suit thing, and I can’t run away ‘cause I wouldn’t know where the hell I’m going anymore.’

  Kaylin frowned, somewhat off balance as she tried to figure out what Ironside meant by “brave new world”, but she figured that he wouldn’t be able to go far afield.

  ‘You’re my responsibility now,’ she said, ‘so if I let you out of here you do as I say, when I say, got it?’

  ‘Scout’s honor,’ Ironside said and flipped her an odd little salute.

  Kaylin, both concerned and bemused, mentally activated her radio set and selected Doctor Sear’s communicator.

  ‘Doctor, we’re gonna take a ride. Can we get this guy something to wear that’s not quite so transparent?’

  ***

  XI

  Nathan smelled the air as soon as the large, concave hatch opened. It wafted in and washed away the clinical scent of the hospital, the odor of open oceans and untainted forests sweeping through him as he stepped out onto what looked like some kind of helicopter pad elevated above the city.

  He could tell at a glance that they were probably three hundred feet in the air, the gantry approaching the landing pad perhaps four yards wide and with no visible barriers or railings to prevent a terminal plunge to their deaths as he walked alongside Lieutenant Foxx out to the craft awaiting them.

  ‘What is it with you people and heights?’ he asked as he peered over the edge of the gantry and saw the yawning abyss beneath them, where far below pedestrians walked the streets of the city.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Foxx asked.

  ‘Anybody could just fall off the edge and be dead in moments.’

  Foxx frowned at him as though he were born yesterday.

  ‘Not unless you can walk through the energy shielding,’ she said.

  Nathan gave her a blank look, and Foxx suddenly jumped past him and hurled herself backwards off the edge of the gantry. Nathan heard his own cry of “No!” as he reached out for her, an image of her slender form suspended in mid-air over the precipitous drop, and then a flare of blue light flickered around her and she bounced back from certain death and landed on her feet on the gantry. Nathan froze in mid-pose, his features stricken and one arm still reaching out for Foxx.

  ‘Seriously, you didn’t do that in school?’ she asked. ‘Used to drive my tutors nuts.’

  Nathan withdrew his arm, shrugged. ‘Sure, I just…, didn’t know if they were switched on is all.’

  Foxx raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Hard light doesn’t need switching on, Ironside, it’s always there.’

  ‘Hard light,’ Nathan echoed, ‘right, sure.’

  Foxx cast him an uncertain glance as they walked toward the craft awaiting them. Nathan could see that it was a sleek, delta winged machine with forward canards for stability. However, he could see no evidence of any engines or a tail. The fuselage blended smoothly into the wings, and a wide glossy black windscreen was countersunk into the elegant nose.

  As Lieutenant Foxx approached the craft, a rectangular hatch in the fuselage folded down automatically to accept them into the interior. Nathan climbed in after the lieutenant and saw a few rows of plush seats, each with windows that overlooked the wings. Forward, he could see the cockpit where Lieutenant Foxx settled into the captain’s seat.

  ‘You’re a pilot?’ he asked as he joined her.

  Foxx nodded as she began surveying the instruments. ‘Most police officers are required to gain their license as part of the training.’

  Nathan watched as she began activating the craft’s systems, an array of lights and instruments o
n the glossy dashboard glowing into life. There were no dials or switches, just panels of lights denoting functions.

  ‘So, where do you want to go?’ she asked him.

  Nathan looked straight ahead, his mind already focused on an image of his hometown.

  ‘Aurora, Colorado,’ he said, and then added, ‘if we have enough time?’

  Lieutenant Foxx frowned at him again, a bemused little smile curling from the corner of her lips as she spoke.

  ‘Destination Aurora, Colorado, cruise velocity.’

  Nathan glanced at her as though about to reply but then another voice cut across him.

  ‘Flight path approved, west corridor, flight level seven five zero, cruise velocity.’

  The voice came from all around the cockpit and before Nathan could say anything the craft silently lifted off the landing pad and turned in mid-air. The nose lifted gently and he felt himself pressed back into his seat as the craft accelerated smoothly away from the pad, climbing out over the city and turning gradually toward the west.

  Lieutenant Foxx sat with her hands in her lap and watched the scenery unfold around them as the shuttle climbed out and accelerated smoothly through marching ranks of cumulus cloud. Within moments they were above the clouds and Nathan could still feel the acceleration pressing him back into his seat. The interior of the shuttle was silent, no evidence of engines or wind noise from outside despite the craft’s small size.

  ‘Mach One, flight level two zero zero.’

  The voice was calm, smooth, female and apparently entirely in control.

  ‘Who’s flying the plane?’ he asked.

  ‘The what?’ Foxx asked.

  ‘Who’s in control?’

  ‘The shuttle’s internal programming,’ Foxx replied with a casual gesture of one hand to the instrument panel. ‘I’m not interested in flying her to Colorado in a straight line and besides, the computer flies the shuttle much more smoothly than I could.’

  Nathan could read the data displays easily enough and saw what he presumed was the airspeed indicator flicker through Mach Two and onward. Nathan knew from a long drive in his youth that Manhattan to Denver was a good sixteen hundred miles, but a display showed them still climbing but already over Pennsylvania and fast approaching the Ohio border.