The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Gone Fishing

The air around the Brotherhood psionics seemed to shiver as it was abruptly filled with several tight shockwaves, one right on the heels of the previous. There was the harsh bark of hard impact, and then bodies were being scattered in every direction. Without hesitation Mordecai and his companion darted through their midst, quickly stepping over the twisted bodies, some still groaning with a measure of life, before they were into the stairwell.

There they took two and three steps at a time down the switchback staircase in front of them. The concrete steps echoed their footfalls loudly in the stairwell cylinder. A cylinder that stretched up for a couple more floors and falling what looked to be a good ten floors down. Such was their frantic pace, that they were down a full floor before the door above and behind them swung closed.

Pushing through the door that led out onto the third floor even as he heard the elevator whine into motion just to their left, Mordecai led them around a nearby corner. And immediately they were forced to skid to a halt when they found three people standing in a tight cluster in front of them, backs to the staircase and dressed in hospital scrubs. They were looking at detailed charts in their hands and talking in rapid French.

Hearing the door to the stairwell bang closed, the three paused to look up and around. Almost instantly their eyes fell onto the black-clad Mordecai and his shivering partner.

"Merde!" one of them had time enough to hiss in dismay before she was being picked up by a shockwave and hammered into the wall behind her. Another was knocked aside by a blurred crescent kick and the third dropped to the ground after getting a right hook to the jaw.

Mordecai expression tightened as they ran past the three downed hospital scrubs. It would only delay them if he had to keep on taking out every knot of Brotherhood they came across in the search. With time against them, he couldn't afford that, especially with a massive Brotherhood security force set to counterattack at any moment.

Spotting a nook set into one of the walls where several carts of medical equipment were stored, he skidded to a halt. Taking the woman by the arm, he quickly pushed her into it.

"Stay here!" he tightly commanded. As a look of panic appeared on her face, he went on. "I'll be right back! I just need to scout ahead." With that, he activated the mirror field generator on his waist and faded from sight, leaving the woman wide-eyed and stunned into silence at his abrupt disappearance.

Re-cloaked in invisibility, the man in black ran down the hallway as quietly and quickly as he could, looking for room 317. There! Almost seventy metres from the staircase doors, he spotted it, one of those carts with medical supplies sitting on it in front of it. Just as the powerful hardwire reached the door, a woman in scrubs came out, pulling off a pair of latex gloves and apparently unaware that an emergency had unfolded around her. Slipping past the bored looking woman and into the room while the door was still open, he managed to get inside without being detected.

Only to find himself facing a sobbing Tabitha as she redid the buttons on her smock. A quick glance as he slid into a corner told him that she had nothing else on. Still crying softly, the young telepath sat on a hospital-style bed, sitting the corner of the spare, cubical and relatively small room, burying her face in her hands. Mordecai waited until the door was fully closed before he deactivated the mirror shield generator on his waist to fade into sight.

"Tabitha!" he whispered hoarsely as he peeled away the vision enhancing goggles and thermal suit facemask to reveal his features. Tabitha's head snapped up like it was on a string.

"W-who? Mordecai!" she husked in disbelief, shock on her face, tears forgotten. She took the thermal suit in at a glance. "How, . . .?"

"Never mind that. I saw what happened to Samson and the rest of the Alliance. I tracked you here so I can get you out of this rather nasty place. Are you ready to travel?"