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Annabelle
It’s all about the money.
Once upon a time, people used to pay for things with pieces of paper, or small metal coins. They’d walk up to a vendor, hand them the paper, and leave with their purchase. A simple and clean transaction.
Music to my ears.
My ship shuddered to a halt, hovering twenty feet above the ground. I popped open the escape hatch and did one last check of my equipment.
My splicer rode in a holster on one hip, my small pistol rode on the other. I ran my fingers along the metal armor covering my legs. Jet black, top of the line. A work of art. The guy I boosted it from would howl for weeks about it.
Smiling at the memory, I launched myself through the escape hatch. The frame handled the drop with ease. I barely had to bend my legs on impact.
I took a slow look around me. There wasn’t any security here, I’d made sure of that, but one never knew. The biggest payday of my life. No risks.
I slotted my splicer into the door controls for the bunker, tapped a few buttons, and waited. It didn’t take long for the splicer to crack the code. For Gatestrider security, the door was lightly protected.
The heavy metal doors slid silently open, revealing an entrance ramp bathed in scarlet light, emergency lighting running on batteries. The power was off. My inside man had done his job.
Perfect.
I left the door open, in case I needed a quick exit, and started up the ramp. It leveled out on a narrow corridor that my light frame was almost too wide to fit through. I had room, barely. That was good. I didn’t want to scuff the paint.
The hallway had only one door. The bunker was here to hold one thing, one secret. My splicer made quick work of the door lock. Inside, a single, oblong, metallic object lay on the floor.
A coffin.
Smiling and humming to myself, I used my splicer one last time to break the seal on the coffin. There was an eruption of gas, and the coffin door swung open. An alarm suddenly blared to life, and a woman’s voice announced that a biohazard breach had been detected. And to please exit the facility in an orderly fashion. I cursed softly. The coffin must have a battery backup.
After a few seconds, the gas cleared, and I got my first look at the thing that would make me a very rich woman.
Most of the alien’s lower body was gone, blown off in whatever explosion had killed it. Its skin was mottled gray, bloodless in death. The head featured a jagged, pointed chin, with some kind of helmet covering the upper half of its face. The mouth hung open, and sharp, fang-like teeth hung like daggers in its mouth. Why did Lucretia even want this thing?
The alarms sounded again, and the woman’s voice once again sounded her warning.
“Mhm, sure thing, sugar. Just as soon as I get my prize.”
And then, the cold barrel of a gun was pressing into the back of my neck.
“Don’t move. Don’t even breathe hard.” A male voice, one I recognized.
“Russell.”
“Put the splicer down, slowly.”
I let my splicer fall to the floor. It landed with a loud clang, and the barrel of the gun twitched against my neck.
“Now turn around.”
I did so, moving as slowly as the light frame permitted. As always, Russell wore that ridiculous coat of his. The damned thing would get tangled in his legs as soon as he had to run, and the equally ridiculous hat. He held a pistol loosely in one hand, aimed at the bridge of my nose.
“Where’s that hunk of junk you drag around?” I said.
He grinned at me, and I noticed he’d gotten his broken teeth repaired. “He’s outside. Didn’t want you hearing me come up behind you.”
I shrugged. “Well, you got me slick. What now?”
“Now I take the body and get paid.”
I crossed my arms under my breasts and arched my back slightly. His eyes stayed steady on mine. “Well, that’s just not going to work for me. The prize is mine.”
“Tough talk from someone with a gun in their face.”
“Mmm, true. I suppose you have me at a disadvantage.”
“Leave Anna, now, before I have to shoot you and ruin that face you’re so proud of.”
“Oh, come on, Rus, I’m sure we can work something out. I got security paid off, but those alarms are going to bring someone here soon.” I replied.
He shifted his weight slightly, and a small frown creased his mouth. “Plenty of time to kill you and take it.” I knew that tone of voice. He wasn’t as confident as he pretended. No time to go for my gun. He knew how fast I was. I needed an opening.
The alarms began again.
“Maybe. But I don’t think you’ll kill me.” I said with a small shrug. The holster, triggered by the movement, silently unlocked the catch, keeping the gun in place.
He scowled, “Oh? After you nearly got me killed on the Spasky job? I only got my teeth fixed a month ago.”
“I’m real sorry about that, Rus. But you know how it goes. A woman’s gotta eat, right? Besides, that was then. This is now.” I gave him my best smile, and though he tried to hide it, his jaw tensed. Poor guy.
“Move Annabelle. Now.”
I rolled my eyes and huffed out a breath. “You know I’m not gonna do that. Be reasonable, Rus, I’m sure we can work something out.”
“Nothing to work out. It’s mine.”
I shifted my balance from one foot to the other, a subtle movement, but it caused him to tense up. He was ready for any of my tricks, or at least he thought he was. Still, I had to move fast. I wasn’t lying about the alarms. I only paid for local security to forget to patrol the area. With that alarm going, they’d be here in minutes.
I held out both my hands in a placating gesture and stepped toward him. He tensed again and took a step back. Idiot. If he was half as smart as he thought he was, he’d have put a bullet in my spine as soon as he had the drop on me.
“Oh, relax Russell. You act like I’ve never touched you before.”
He sneered. “Oh yeah, I remember. Hey don’t–”
I took another step toward him, swaying my hips slightly. I laid my hands against his chest, gently pressing against the tightly packed muscle. Encased in the frame, I was the same height as him. Tilting my head to one side, letting my hair cascade across my shoulder, I subtly adjusted the holster again.
He growled under his breath and pressed the gun to my chest, right between my breasts. “Back off Anna, last warning.”
“Russel, please. We both need the job. Help me get it to Lucretia, we can split the money and get away for a while. You remember? Like we talked about?” My mouth quivered, just the barest hint of a pout.
The gun lowered slightly. “Anna–”
I kneed him between the legs.
My frame wasn’t a combat model, it was meant for heavy lifting and transportation. I’d picked it specifically to move the huge metal coffin, and almost all of my lower body, including my knees, were encased in metal.
Russell screamed and collapsed to the floor, grabbing at himself with one hand, while the other tried to raise his gun.
My hand blurred and before his gun was even halfway off the floor, I had my pistol pressed to his temple. “Shh, shh, drop it.”
He dropped the gun.
I kicked the gun away and straightened. “You know, you’re lucky I didn’t just shoot you. And you’re really stupid for not shooting me. I thought I taught you better than that.” I blew out a breath and turned back to the coffin, just as the alarms began again.
I suddenly froze in place as I realized that the pre-recorded message had changed.
BIOHAZARD BREACH. BIOHAZARD BREACH. CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES ACTIVATED. THE FACILITY WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN SIXTY SECONDS.
I stared at the coffin, slack jawed. Sixty seconds. Not nearly enough time to get the body and get out. I spun back to Russell and snarled. “See? See what happened? Now neither of us gets the money, you moron.”
I bent down and grabbed my splicer off the floor and stepped over Russell’s body. He struggled to rise, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to walk. Likely, he’d need another stint in the medi-tank to repair the damage.
Or would have anyway.
As I took another step, intending to sprint away from the bunker and fly the hell out of there, his hand reached out and grabbed at my foot. I turned to look down at him. He was trying and failing to speak. His gun lay a few feet from him, forgotten and ignored. His mouth worked as he struggled to speak.
“Guh…Sw..uh..”
I frowned down at him. Thirty seconds. “What?”
His face was bright red. The pain must have been excruciating. But he kept on trying to speak, though none of it was intelligible. And then suddenly, in a flash, I understood.
“Swayer? You want me to save your stupid horse?”
“Puh…pu…” And then his head clunked the floor, and his eyes rolled back into his head. He’d passed out.
I spent a few of my precious seconds staring down at the unconscious man. And then I knelt next to him, getting my arms under his prone body. Even though he weighed twice what I did, the frame made it easy. I tucked him against my body. The frame didn’t completely encase me. If I was in a heavier model, I couldn’t have done it.
It was going to be close.
I called up my command function, and over-pressurized the shock absorbers in the frame. Specialized gel that cushioned the impact of landing and rapid change of direction, so my internal organs wouldn’t get liquefied. As the pressure on my lower body doubled and then tripled, savage lances of pain surged through me. I heard the telltale crack of fracturing bone, and bit down on my lip to keep from screaming.
The frame was brand new, the boosters were top of the line and the interface had a lag time of a few milliseconds. Technically speaking, I could reach lower orbit with the power of the thrusters, assuming I didn’t mind running out of fuel and dying on re-entry.
“You owe me big time for this.” I growled at the unconscious man. I couldn’t do anything for his stupid horse. He’d just have to deal with it.
I took a deep breath. And triggered the boosters.
Set to maximum thrust, they exploded to life with twin roars of fire and fury. And then I was moving too fast for my brain to even articulate what I was seeing. We shot out of the bunker, moving at suicidal speeds. I hadn’t set a vertical component to the trajectory, and we moved at nearly the speed of sound, maybe half a foot off the ground. I realized I was screaming and held on to Russell as tightly as I could.
After I guessed we’d cleared the explosion, I cut power to the thrusters, angling myself so I’d land feet first.
We crashed in a roar of noise and explosive rock and ice. I landed more or less correctly, the over-pressurized shock absorbers taking the brunt of the impact. But no sooner had we landed, then a gigantic wall of sound and pressure hit me in the back and sent us tumbling through the air and bouncing along the ground.
Sparks and shattered rock filled my tumbling vision. I couldn’t see or make sense of anything. It was all I could do to keep Russell pinned to my body.
Eventually we came to a halt, and I found myself on my back, staring up at a mushroom cloud rising high into the sky. Actually, I saw several mushroom clouds. And it took a couple of seconds before I realized my vision was doubled.
“Must’ve hit my head.” I said and laughed deliriously. Every part of my body that I could feel, throbbed in pain.
Alarms began warbling in my ear, indicating catastrophic damage to the frame.
I looked down and saw Russell’s motionless body. Was he dead?
Something hard and metal nudged my neck. I screamed and tried to thrash away, but I was trapped in the dead frame.
It was Russell’s horse.
The pile of junk stared down at me with one eye, and then it nudged me again. Trying to get to Russell, I realized. I pried my arms apart, and he fell to the ground next to me.
One of his eyes opened and fixed on me.
I glared at him and then looked down at my destroyed frame. “You scratched the paint. You’re going to pay for that.”
Russell’s eye closed, but he was smiling.
Idiot.
