The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Cutting Things Close

Instead, he took the coil of climbing rope that was attached to the back of his vest and fed the loose end to the Swedish hardwire. Who promptly tied it to the now secured vacuum anchor before dropping the rest of the coil down into the darkness.

Both lone gunmen then gave the carabiner clips attached to their belts a quick tug to make sure they were secure. Then Mordecai was stepping forward to feed the loop of rope Jeriko had held back from the coil through his clip. With the rope in place, he clambered into the vent shaft, turning to face Jeriko as he readied to descend, the rope in his now gloved hands.

"Tally ho," he whispered hoarsely with a grin then dropped out of sight with a soft rasp of cabled nylon against leather.

The big man dropped perhaps ten metres before he pulled up by tightening his hands on the smooth rope as it passed across his palms. With a soft whine, he slowed then stopped. Leaving one hand holding the rope against his hip, the cord looped beneath his buttocks to hold him dangling in place, he used the other hand to first pull out a small flashlight then a pair of UV-sensitive goggles.

The goggles went over his head and masked face to settle snugly over his eyes. Then he was switching on the tiny flashlight, which immediately threw a cone of dim UV light over the inner wall of the shaft in front of him. But to his now-enhanced vision, the interior of the shaft exploded into sharp relief. Fixing the UV lamp to a holder on top of the goggles so that it would point wherever his vision fell, Mordecai pressed on downwards. They still had about ten metres to go before they were at the level of the offices they had detected from the street.

Silently the big man marked the space as the wall of the shaft slide upward past his point of view. There: ten metres. Again Mordecai came to a halt, using his gloved hand to brake against the rope.

This time, however, his free hand drew out a small, pen-sized device from a utility pouch. A simple twist of one end and the other began to glow a bright blue. Jeriko dropped out of the darkness to come to a halt beside him as Mordecai pressed the glowing end against the sheet metal of the shaft's wall directly in front of him.

Immediately a brief spray of sparks showered back towards the man in black as the energized tip, a fine bore cutting laser, burned its way through the metal. Then Mordecai was drawing it smoothly to the right, the laser easily cutting through the metal, leaving a slightly glowing line of red behind it.

Using the cutting laser like a pen, Mordecai quickly drew a large square, needing to give them enough room to slip through, gear and all. Just as he was finishing the last line, Jeriko reached past him to press a vacuum anchor onto the cut out square, pumping the stud on its side to create the seal. Then she was drawing the square back via a recessed handle in the anchor after Mordecai severed the final piece of metal holding the square in place.

As soon as the sharp edged chunk of metal was safely out of the way, Mordecai slid his head into the opening to take a look around. And instantly hissed in dismay.

"What do we have?" Jeriko asked softly from her position just above him. The big hardwire carefully drew his head back into the shaft to glance up at her.

"We've accessed some sort of maintenance corridor," he replied, returning his gaze the square opening. "Physically deserted, but literally walled in with wards. They're so thick I could hardly see across the corridor to the far wall. It's going to be next to impossible to slip our way through without setting something off!"

Jeriko snorted softly.

"Sometimes being so powerful is more of a curse than a help, huh?" she said lightly. "Can't think of a delicate way to do things. Here, anchor to the wall and let a woman by. I'll get us out of here in two shakes!"