The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Dodging a Bullet

The bag went into the back and Mordecai joined Aizea in the front seat, closing the door before doing up the seat belt.

"Are we set?" the cabbie, a middle-aged Sikh with the characteristic turban wrapped around his head, asked with a lightly accented voice. Mordecai nodded and the cab smoothly accelerated into motion.

As the cab driver expertly maneuvered his way through the city and out towards the airport, Mordecai found himself staring out the window and into the growing gloom around them as they left the city street lights behind. As that darkness filled his vision, his mind continued to methodically work on the possibilities ahead.

There was, of course, a good chance that he was walking into a trap. If the Brotherhood had read Preacher's reports about him tapping into the wet banks, they may have assumed that he had learned about the breeding facilities scattered across Europe from there and, being ultra-cautious, had taken steps to protect them. He could be finding himself faced with a ward webwork even denser than the one that he and Jeriko had faced in Preacher's headquarters. And he didn't even want to think what sort of other defenses might be in place.

Now, that was a pretty big, but somewhat logical assumption. Even if the Brotherhood didn't suspect he was coming to knock down their house of cards, the defenses could still be considerable and perhaps even insurmountable. In that case, he might need to bring in another lone gunman, or two to help punch through. A list of possible partners floated for a moment in front of Mordecai's mind's eye as he thought about that.

Of course, there was the final possibility: the Brotherhood, so confident that no enemy would be able to penetrate into their very heart, would have no significant defenses in place at all. Mordecai grinned at that. That scenario was definitely 'best case'. Then all he would have to do was stroll in and, . . .

Abruptly his thought process was interrupted when he felt a slender, unnaturally warm hand slide into his. The man in black jerked his eyes away from the window to look down. Only to find Aizea's hand fitted neatly into his. His eyes immediately tracked up to her face. And found her lips mouthing the words: 'Thank you for everything.'

"Airport, next turn," the cabbie announced and the lights of the terminal became visible through the windshield.

After arriving at the terminal, the cab driver helped the six of them unload the luggage and get it to the check-in counter. That left them with only carry-on bags as they then made their way to the security checkpoint. All throughout Aizea stayed close to the big psionic, often reaching out to take his hand when he made to draw away. All the touching she was doing was making him think it was not just because the airport was crawling with psionics, both Brotherhood wireheads and nation members trying to flee the besieged city.

Mordecai and Aizea both kept the breeders close as they walked past encounter after encounter of Brotherhood heavies intercepting the desperate nation members, often right before they reached their departure gate, turning them back before they could leave. Still, for the chaos that was filling the terminal, they managed to stay clear of any entanglements.

That is, until:

"Wait a sec, wirehead," the big mover growled as he reached out to put a hand on Mordecai's chest. "Not so fast." Mordecai looked up to find no less than five hard softwires facing them, the knot of men having stepped out of the shadows just three metres before the door leading to the security checkpoint, their final obstacle before the departure gates.

"You seem to be going somewhere in a hurry," the mover went on to say, letting his eyes scan over Aizea and the other vampires, which literally cowered beneath the psionic's gaze. Behind him the other movers also stared hard at Mordecai and his party, small smiles of satisfaction touching their lips at seeing how what they thought were independent nation psionics, were scared of them.