Night Call Page 21

  Inside, dozens of bodies began to stir and recover from the sudden attack. Many were Automatics, Blue-eyes probably stacking and moving boxes for some extra cash. They all ran the moment they recovered from having their wires scrambled. Dealing with fewer attackers certainly made my life a lot easier. One of the bodies, however, was a Red-eye who drew a pistol to fire in my direction. Toby stepped up beside me, holding the Thompson by its waist, and pulled the trigger, emptying the magazine of heated thermite rounds and thus turning the Red-eye into swiss cheese. The husk flopped over before it had even pulled the trigger of its own weapon.

  “After you.” I gestured to the hole in the wall. Toby leaped across and landed on the splintered wooden planks.

  I pushed the Suppression Rifle to the side, pulling my feet from the hooks on the floor, backed up, and made the leap myself. I felt my left foot catch the edge of the floor, but it wasn’t enough to make me tumble into the sea. I recomposed myself and yanked my Diamondback out of its holster.

  “Just like the old days, huh?” Toby laughed, releasing its first straight magazine and loading in a second one, charging it with a crack.

  “Yeah, but these places used to have more competent guards around …”

  “Elias!” The loudspeaker in the cargo bay of the Rotorbird was loud enough to be heard in the warehouse. “I got movement farther up — something’s coming toward you. Might be a Titan model. I’ll get in position to —”

  Boom!

  The crates behind me exploded into shrapnel, flooring me as something massive sprinted past. The aircraft lurched and swerved. I glimpsed Allen spewing clear liquid from its mouth into the sea below. The aircraft successfully dodged whatever was trying to grab it, flying out of sight for the moment. The massive figure turned around to face Toby and me as I pushed myself from the ground.

  He was about seven feet tall, dressed in ragged clothes like mine, and he had so many metal attachments on him that a war vet might confuse him with a Manual. His hands were stripped and retrofitted with mechanical augmentations. Everything below the knuckles was probably bolted onto his bones. The tubes which ran from the massive backpack attached to his shoulders powered his mechanical bits and pumped chemical mixtures into his blood to keep him from feeling pain. His face was thick and greyish with bloodshot eyes, and he wore a retracting mask that pulled to either side of his head.

  “Of course they have a fucking Auger.” I put two bullets into his chest, only to see them get squashed against the dermal plating he had under his clothing. “Goddamn it!”

  As the thing ran toward me, Toby put half a magazine into him. The .45 rounds could get through the dermal plating, but it wasn’t enough to stop this beast, especially with all the medical equipment in and on it pumping away. I made a run for it, heading for the bramble of crates ahead of me with the intention of going straight through and continuing northward toward the other adjacent warehouses. I looked back but couldn’t tell whether Toby had bit it or the Auger had just ignored it. He’d probably been too crazed to process the difference between a worker bot and a brand new one.

  I found a spot in the labyrinth where I could rest, feeling my heart running at a mile a minute. The Auger was losing its shit, smashing things to try and find me. Meanwhile, the sound of the Rotorbird’s propellers moved from the west side of the warehouse to right above me. Looking up through a ceiling window, I could see the bird scouting for another way inside. Unluckily for me, it wouldn’t be much of a distraction to the Auger all the way up there.

  The click of a drawn hammer made my head snap back down to see a gun barrel pressed to the side of my head, held by a Red-eye. Despite the rust and patchwork of parts keeping it operational, I could see that it was a Swinger bot. No doubt a Swinger with police programming that I myself had put in. To my surprise, it didn’t fire, though the trigger was half-pulled.

  Was it him?

  I wanted to level my own weapon and protect myself, but I was frozen in place. I couldn’t pull the trigger.

  I’m going to die here, I thought.

  My brain went fuzzy as a loud crash and several gunshots sounded.

  I blinked a few times and looked around, realizing that I was unharmed. The Automatic in front of me was crushed under the weight of another metallic body and had a few more holes in its chest than before. The body lying atop the Red-eyed Swinger was Allen, who held a smoking 1911 and was groaning and pulling itself to its feet.

  “Where the hell did you come from?” I finally said. Feeling glass in my hair, I looked up at the broken window.

  “I jumped,” it said, nursing fresh wounds that were hidden under its suit.

  I looked down at the motionless Automatic. James. There it was … dead again. Or was it? My brain was whirling. Was it really James? Was it really trying to kill me? Had Allen killed the right Automatic?

  “Detective!” Allen yelled to get my attention. “I think we should move.”

  I knew the monster of a man had heard the crash and the gunshots, because I could hear everything that lay between him and me being crushed or thrown out of the way as he approached. Instinct took over as I ran, and Allen followed close behind.

  We neared the northern wall of the warehouse, where a large metal door between this building and the next was thankfully open. We ran through, Allen grabbing the sliding door and throwing it closed with inhuman strength. This gave us a few seconds to look around and note that this building, which was much larger than the previous one, was even more full of crates and containers. Some held Automatic parts, others alcohol, weapons, even car parts.

  The Auger began bashing against the closed metal door, leaving several impressive dents. Rather than waiting to see what other damage it could do, we ran, putting several feet between us and the entrance, and hid behind some boxes.

  “Detective, what is that?” Allen asked, panic in its voice.

  “We call them Augers. Mean, nasty assholes who trade out flesh for metal. The tech isn’t good enough to completely replace limbs, so they just bolt the metal bits onto bone, which I’ve heard is pretty painful. It also means he has to carry a Tesla Battery on his back, which is our best bet to beat him.”

  “I’m sorry to ask redundant questions, Elias, but aren’t Augers mechanical devices used for digging into dirt for the implementation of supports?” Allen looked very worried, even if it didn’t mean to. I figured it wasn’t always in control of its expressions.

  The metal door finally flew open, slamming into a nearby pillar. The Auger hadn’t spotted us yet, so I lowered my voice.

  “That explain it, Allen?”

  “Yes, Detective. What is your plan?”

  “I never have one. But, maybe I can try to lure him through the crates, slow him down, find a way to get outside and into the Rotorbird and use the Suppression Rifle on him. Or, while I’m distracting him, you can take Robins’s gun and shoot him in the back.”

  “Will that endanger his life?”

  “Probably not, but just be sure, for your conscience’s sake, to aim for the battery. As soon as that goes down, so will he — like a brick. And be quick with your shots when you get the chance. I’d rather not get turned into paste.”

  “Roger that, Detective.”

  I snapped my head to the left, spotting the large glass-topped entrance on the east side of the building, about fifty feet ahead of me. I could get outside from there, but that door led right out to 11th Avenue, and the last thing I wanted was civilian casualties. Maybe I could run north and get out onto the Pier 62 park, where the Rotorbird could actually manoeuvre. I guessed we would see.

  “Hey!” I yelled, standing up.

  I started running as the Auger made a beeline for me. Allen remained where it was, and I soon lost sight of it while I ran between the shipping containers and small loading vehicles littering the warehouse floor. I wasn’t expecting any more adversaries, but more Red-eyes came out of the woodwork as I ran northward. They’d probably been preparing for an ambush af
ter hearing my entrance. The sporadic fire of a Thompson deafened me. My eyes searched for the source as I held up my weapon parallel to my vision. Another Red-eye stepped out from behind me, and a moment later a thermite bullet pushed into its chest, flooring it and giving me room to breathe.

  Throwing myself behind a crate, I opened the breech of my revolver, replacing the spent casings and waiting for my hearing to return. I could faintly make out the sound of automatic fire, possibly from the Red-eyes, or maybe even from Toby. It seemed the Auger’s attention was directed toward the robots, giving me a moment of respite. I pulled my leg up and grimaced as the skin burned and I felt a moist sensation along my leg. It seemed the Red-eye I’d taken down had gotten lucky and clipped me. Bastard.

  I had no alcohol on me to numb the pain, but luckily for me, these racketeers were transporting more than parts. One of the boxes hit by the machine’s .45 rounds had spilled onto the ground, revealing the whiskey within. I yanked a bottle out, removed the cork with my teeth, and swallowed some of the liquor.

  “Thank God …” I said to myself, moments before another Red-eye appeared. Its bullets missed me, but hit the glass bottle, causing it to crash onto the floor. I levelled my Diamondback and fired a round at the machine. “Goddamn it, come on!”

  My journey north continued, and before long I had reached the doors leading to the northernmost and final warehouse along the docks. There was another set of massive metal doors ahead of me, with a smaller, man-sized door nearby. Behind me, the area between this door and the eastern doors leading to 11th Avenue was filled with Automatic parts and still-smoking guns. I wasn’t sure where Allen was, but I hoped it was okay. Toby came out from the labyrinth of boxes, walking backward at a brisk pace, putting sustained fire on the approaching Auger.

  “Good job, Toby, keep it up!” I yelled.

  “Not the time, Roche! I swear —”

  Toby didn’t finish its sentence as the Auger grabbed it and tossed it south. Toby’s body slammed through many more boxes and landed somewhere unseen. The Auger then turned to me, his chest piece riddled with holes, his mechanically reinforced organs still functioning, and his dinner plate–sized pupils staring me down.

  “Shit,” I whispered to myself.

  He let out a guttural roar and sprinted toward me. I kicked open the door leading into the last warehouse, jumped inside, and slammed the door closed behind me.

  I looked around. The building was empty.

  I figured it must have been designed for aerial shipments, but the retractable roof had been left unfinished, leaving a large hole open to the elements. Through the opening I could see the tops of buildings and the Plate’s bulbs gleaming down at me. The sight reminded me that I was on a strict schedule.

  Suddenly the Rotorbird appeared in the opening, and Sinclair skillfully lowered the aircraft through the hole until it was hovering just a few feet above the floor. High-calibre rounds might not stop the monstrosity hunting me down, but I doubted he could survive rail gun shells.

  I was about halfway to the aircraft when the Auger pounded his way through the doorway, which was just a bit smaller than his massive frame. My burning thigh slowed me down a bit, but I had just enough time to crawl into the bird and grab the handles of the Suppression Rifle before the Auger reached us. He was running toward us, bellowing loudly. I eased open the breech of the gun, making sure there were three shells loaded, and then centred the rifle.

  “Goodnight, asshole.”

  I fired. The shells hit the floor just ahead of the Auger. The explosion hardly fazed him. He jumped through the mess of rubble and concrete, arms outstretched, and grasped the bulkhead of the Rotorbird, attempting to drag it down. Sinclair was still trying to maintain control of the bird after the recoil from the Suppressor shot, and now he had to contend with the added difficulty of the Auger trying to pile-drive the entire aircraft.

  He gunned the engine as the steel underbelly of the aircraft was forced down, just centimetres from the floor. I could hear the engine revving as it struggled against the Auger’s strength. The bulkhead began to creak, the rotors spun faster and faster, and the metal wavered as the Auger’s steel fingers dug into it. I pulled out my Diamondback, aiming to put a round in the Auger’s head. But the retracting mask slid down over its face, protecting its cranium; three bullets bounced off and ricocheted around the empty warehouse.

  With all other options exhausted, I grasped the Suppression Rifle again and tried to charge it up.

  “Paddy, load it!” I yelled.

  “You will fucking kill us, Elias!”

  “We got a better chance of surviving if we use the damn thing!”

  Sinclair slammed his hand into the dash of the cockpit in anger, but still, he flipped the switch that charged the rifle. Static whines sounded from the barrel of the weapon.

  As I prepared to fire again, I heard a single gunshot. I watched as the Auger, still masked, released its hold on the bulkhead and began to pivot forward. The Rotorbird almost flipped before Sinclair wrestled control at the last second. He swung the bird back several feet as the giant man fell forward and lay stone still on the concrete floor. Behind the corpse of the Auger stood Allen, the M1911 in its hand still smoking. Allen seemed stunned, almost as rigid as the dead man. It didn’t lower the gun from its firing position, but just stood there, its mouth hanging open, an expression of utter surprise on its face. I hopped out of the Rotorbird, and Sinclair pulled the aircraft up and away from us, taking out the landing gear and setting it down safely.

  I walked over and peered down at a large hole in the back of the Auger’s head. Blood was leaking out from the edges of the mask, still covering the corpse’s face.

  I placed a hand on the pistol in Allen’s hands, lowering it as the robot released its grip on the weapon. Allen’s fingers curled, appearing to still be holding an invisible firearm, even when I pushed its arms down.

  “Allen, you okay?”

  It didn’t answer.

  “Allen?”

  CHAPTER 17

  “MAKE SURE ALLEN’S OKAY, then get Toby and get the hell out of here!” I yelled to Sinclair, who had just stepped out of the Rotorbird’s cockpit.

  Peering up, I saw movement in the window of a small office up on the catwalk that surrounded the room. I snagged a pair of cuffs from Allen before Sinclair grabbed the robot and led it over to sit in the Rotorbird. I’d check on the metal man myself in a bit, but first things first.

  I ran over to a stairway that led up to the catwalk, grabbed the railing, and started up. The bullet wound on my leg was giving me some trouble, especially now that the adrenalin rush was fading.

  As I reached the top, two people came out of the office. I instinctively lifted the 1911 and fired two shots at them. One hit the wall inches from their heads and the other passed by their feet. “Get back in there now! Back the fuck up!”

  They followed my orders as I ran forward, weapon outstretched. Adrenalin kicked in again. Both had their hands up, smart enough to leave their pieces where they were. I manhandled the one in front, grabbing his pistol and tossing it down from the catwalk before grabbing the cuffs from my back pocket. I hadn’t put cuffs on a man since ’28, so I fumbled a bit locking the first suspect to the railing of the catwalk.

  The second man was lanky, taller than me, though he looked older. A square head and shallow jawline contrasted with the shaggy hair, and his rigid stance made me think that he’d once been military or police. He’d been there at Times Square, I was almost positive, but I needed to be absolutely sure that I had the right man. I grabbed him and threw him into the office, where a terminal sat on a wooden desk flanked by three chairs and a locker rack. A small telephone hung on the wall. I forced him into one of the chairs and used my foot to push both him and the seat against the lockers. The wooden chair legs creaked and squealed against the floor, and the lockers rang out from the collision of the chair against the metal. I levelled the 1911 at the man’s forehead as his chapped, drooling lips
spit out some sort of excuse.

  “Y-y-you don’t understand, l-look, it was simple business. All’s good now. You need money, I can get you a ton. A literal ton! Sixty percent of my profits, we call this square, and I’ll get out of town. Right, Roche?”

  He knew who I was. He knew how deep in he was.

  “Cory Belik?” I asked.

  “Yeah?”

  I kicked him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him before hitting him in the jaw. Blood sprayed across the steel locker doors.

  He looked back at me with a level of fear that I’d only ever seen once before, long ago. It was pathetic. He was frailer than my grandmother, with the shaking voice and teary eyes of someone who’d rather not be threatened, no matter what they’d been through. He was weak, physically and emotionally. He looked like Allen for just a second …

  Revenge and duty might have been my driving forces, but I wanted the right person to pay. Until then, there didn’t have to be any more bloodshed. Allen would be talking my ear off about that, and while it wasn’t here now, I was thinking about what it might say. Why would I kill someone if the evidence suggested that he’d little or nothing to do with what occurred at that speakeasy? I sat on the desk and did my best to make the atmosphere more comfortable for Belik. Making him hysterical wouldn’t help me get the truth out of him.

  “You apparently killed two men from the 5th. But listen to me. I don’t care that you were in on something with them. I don’t care that all of you were breaking multiple laws. I couldn’t give a fuck what kind of payroll you had them on, or that you were on with them. They died, and a lot of people think you pulled the trigger. As much as I’d love to do the same to shoot you and blindly follow my orders, I don’t like ignoring my gut feelings.”