Nexus

39 FRYING PAN TO FIRE

Feng shook her awake with mind and body. Even after all these years, this body still needed sleep.

Shu opened her eyes. "What is it?" she asked in Mandarin.

"Explosion. Nana District. Near where he was attacked on Monday."

She was awake instantly. Feng opened his mind to her, and she absorbed it all. She became one with her higher self, breathed deep in the glory of it, scanned the net for all public knowledge of this, saw how paltry it was. Thai Royal Police databases opened for her, told her fractionally more, not what she was looking for. Where was Kade now? Thai Telecom opened to her mental touch. There. His phone was at the site of the blast.

"Get the car," she commanded.

"This may be dangerous," Feng replied.

"Get the car," she repeated. Feng bowed and turned, sprinting for the other room in their suite.

"And your guns, Feng. Get your guns."

Sam landed hard in the alley. Pain shot up the damaged leg and it gave out. She couldn't roll with Kade in her arms, staggered instead, caught herself on one knee. Fuck. Jumping one story shouldn't hurt like that.

Coughing racked her body violently. Bloody mucus landed on Kade's scorched shirt. Kade had burns all over him. He'd passed out from pain or smoke or something else. She could hear the last fading mental screams of the dying in the apartment above, as the smoke and flames brought their lives to an end.

This is how my family died, she thought to herself.

More coughing racked her body. She'd inhaled too much smoke. Fuck. She didn't have time for this. She had to get them out of here. That way, the main street. Find a cab. Go to ground, somewhere, anywhere.

What had she done?

Time to think of that later.

Sam came up to her feet, lurched painfully down the alley towards the main street. She made it a handful of steps when she heard running feet behind her, a yell, in Thai. "There!"

She tried to turn, was too tired, too slow with Kade. Something jabbed her fast and hard in the back. Electricity coursed through her, convulsing her muscles. She screamed. A taser round. Oh, god, no. Not this again. Not now, when she was so tired…

A second round hit her. Her legs gave out. She stumbled, fell to her knees. Kade rolled out of her grip. Running feet approached. Her vision was fading. Someone kicked her in the face and she toppled backwards, into a pool of broken glass blasted out by the explosions above. She was vaguely aware of someone picking Kade up, hauling him off. She could feel someone's mind… A mind she'd felt…

Suk. Suk Prat-Nung. He was still alive.

An electrified shock baton came down on her. Her body spasmed. Kicks rained down, more shock batons. Three of them above her. Four. Maybe five. She pushed it all away from her self, like she'd pushed the beatings, the rapes, the humiliations and abuses.

She'd been so stupid.

"The Friday night event is a trap," the note had said.

Wats. It must have been Wats. That's why he'd been here. He'd known it was a trap. He came into it anyway, died trying to save Kade.

Thank you for saving my life, she whispered to him.

She felt a last feeble mental scream from someone upstairs, felt his skin turn to ash and his mind wink out. Loesan. That had been Loesan. Dead, all dead.

Her eyes opened. Wats had made her promise something. Promise that she'd keep Kade alive, keep him alive so he could make an impact.

They'd rolled her onto her stomach, she realized, brought her up on her knees, face down in the alley, on the cobblestones and the broken glass. There was a forest of legs around her, just visible in the pre-dawn gloom. One was yelling in Thai that she'd killed his brother. The blows had stopped coming down.

They were going to take her with them, he was saying. Then they were going to rape her. They were going to make her scream for hours. They were going to flay the flesh from her stupid body. They were going to make her beg for death.

Fools. They should have killed her here and now. Her hand closed on a long, jagged piece of glass, inches wide, a foot long. The sharp edges bit into her palm, her fingers. Blood welled up.

"Chaonai Rayum Khongkhun pen Kon Kaa!" she yelled. Your fucking boss killed him!

Sam lashed out behind her with a kick, felt it connect with one of them. She slashed to the right with the broken glass at the nearest leg, took him on the back of the calf, hamstrung him. Blood fountained out of the leg. The thug dropped to one knee, mouth open, screaming in pain.

She reached up with her left hand, grabbed the man above her by the hair, used it to pull him down and herself up, jammed the foot-long glass shard into the underside of his jaw – all the way up into his head – as she came up to her feet. Red arterial blood spurted out. The man gurgled and gasped for breath, dead on his feet.

There were rotor sounds above her. A helicopter. Someone kicked at her chest. She cut a furrow in his leg for his trouble. A spotlight illuminated them. An amplified voice boomed out in Thai, instructing them to halt by order of the police. Gunshots ricocheted off the brick walls. The thugs turned and bolted, scattering in all directions. Fuck.

An explosion ripped out of the apartment upstairs, some munition on one of the bodies finally going up. The chopper pilot jerked up and away, and the light came off her for just an instant. Sam rolled, painfully, came up with a limp, threw herself into a shaded doorway.

She had to find Kade. Where had they taken Kade?

Kade came to abruptly. Someone had smacked him across the face. He was slumped in a chair. One of his eyes wouldn't open. Everything hurt. His hands and the left side of his face burned. It hurt to breathe.

Someone smacked him again. He screamed in pain. Oh my god, that hurt. The skin of his face was on fire. His eye, he couldn't fucking see through one eye. It hurt like hell!

A fist landed in his gut. He doubled over, gasping for breath, retching. He couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe.

A voice spoke in Thai. The next blow didn't land. A tiny bit of air leaked back into his lungs. He gasped. He was in a large room of some sort. A warehouse. Where was Sam? Where was Wats? Oh my god, that was Wats. He'd felt his friend die. Felt them all die.

Oh no. Oh no. Dead, dead, dead, all dead. My fault. My fault. All my fault.

The hand came back, slapped him again. He'd been screaming. He whimpered softly, sobbed. The pain of his flesh was nothing. He inhaled, let the serenity package take over and calm him.

Someone spoke in English. "Who are you?"

There was a mind there. Suk. Suk Prat-Nung.

A hand struck his face again. It burned like hell.

"Who are you? Who do you work for? They're dead, all dead because of you."

The hand hit him again, hard. Kade could feel the rage and fear and hatred of the mind behind it.

All because of you, Kade thought. All true. All true.

The serenity package had kicked in. He was empty, now. He was cold. He was nothingness.

Another man came forward. Thai. Angular. A large hooked nose.

"How do you do this?" he asked in accented English. "How do you have so much Nexus in you, for so long?"

The Nexus. That's what it had always been about. He wasn't going to tell them. He shook his head.

The new man's hand clenched around Kade's testicles, squeezed hard.

"You're going to tell us," he said. "Or we're going to kill you." He squeezed even harder. "Slowly." Again. "Painfully." And again.

Kade shook his head, screamed his anger at them, screamed it from throat and mind. "NO!"

He saw the man in front of him recoil from it, felt Suk wince in pain. They had Nexus in their minds. He could hurt them.

The thug stepped forward, rammed his fist into Kade's face again, into the burnt and bruised and swollen side. The pain made the world go hazy for a moment.

Suk stepped closer again. "Tell me."

The thug grabbed Kade's left hand, took his pinky finger, wrenched it backwards until it broke.

FUCK!

Kade knew what he had to do then. Emptiness consumed him. Hatred. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you! Stop! Please!"

The thug grabbed his next finger, bent it halfway back, enough to hurt. Coldness descended over him. The pain was nothing.

"Please! Stop! I have to show you. Please."

He opened his mind for them to suck them in. They came closer. Kade showed them the first discoveries, he and Rangan's first experiments. Suk and the other one lapped at it eagerly. He showed them more. Whizzed them through memories – fast fast faster. They came closer, hungrily, sucked up as much as they could from him. He was giving them more than they could possibly keep up with. He wanted them as close and as open to him as possible.

"Wait, wait, slow down!" the angular one said.

Kade could feel him now. His mind was faint. His name was Tuksin. He was a monk. He was here to steal these secrets, free himself of Ananda, become the lord of Nexus. His mind was twisted and foul to the touch.

Kade sucked them in deeper, showed them the synthesis for Nexus 5, the molecular structure of the individual components, how they fit together. It was still too much for them, too complex all at once. They needed more bandwidth. They came even closer, almost touching him, opening their minds as fully as they could to absorb what he was giving them.

And then he showed them hell.

[activate nd* pri: max]

He blasted them with the Nexus disruptor, the signal the ERD had bombarded Rangan's brain with, the way they'd disrupted all thought in that cell. It was pain more intense than anything they could ever have imagined. They screamed with it, both of them, screamed and fell to their knees. Even through the filters in his mind the barest fraction of it took Kade's breath away.

The thug turned, saw them writhing in pain, hesitated for a moment. Kade kept pounding the signal into their brains. The big man wheeled on him, smacked Kade hard enough that it knocked him out of the chair, onto the floor. The pain stunned him.

He held on, kept jamming the signal into their brains. The thug kicked him. Pain exploded in Kade's abdomen. Still he held on. There. Yes. There. Suk and Tuksin were writhing in agony, all thought gone from their minds.

Kade stopped the Nexus disrupter. He needed to focus entirely on something else. There was a gun on the thug's hip. Kade was in Suk's mind now. Push/pull. He was the master of it. He always won.

The gun. The gun. The gun.

The thug kicked him again. Something cracked inside him.

Shoot him. Shoot him. Shoot him.

The gun was in Suk's hand. The thug turned, his eyes going wide. Suk fired, enormously loud in this space. The thug's kneecap exploded. He roared. His leg gave out. He collapsed, hauled himself half up, reached for Suk to slap the gun out of his hand.

Suk fired again. The bullet took the bigger man in the belly. He grunted, still trying to move forward, almost prone now.

Suk fired a third time. The bullet entered the top of the thug's head, split it open like a melon.

Suk blinked in surprise. Tuksin tackled him. The gun went off again, without Kade's willing it this time. Tuksin coughed, and blood came up out of his mouth.

Suk scrabbled backwards, away from Kade, pulled himself up on his feet, pistol still in hand, backing away rapidly. Kade could feel his hold slipping as Suk put distance between them. Kade tried to stand; pain lanced up his left leg and it buckled under him. He crashed to the floor. Fuck.

Suk was at the other end of the room now, maybe forty feet away. He was pointing the gun at Kade. His hands were shaking.

"What are you?"

Kade tried pushing at his thoughts, got nowhere. He was too far, too far.

"You're a devil! A devil!"

Suk fired, missed at that range. Kade felt a bullet embed itself in the floor near him. He scrambled back with one leg and both hands. Suk fired again, missed again.

Kade looked around for anything to hide behind, anything to use as a weapon. The thug's submachine gun was against the wall. He crawled for it as fast as he could, rough pain shooting up from his insides with every motion. It was so far away. Everything hurt so goddamn much. Suk's hands were steady now.

"You go to hell!" the Thai man yelled at him, taking careful aim.

The outside door burst in. Sam stood in the doorway. Suk saw her, dragged his gun around, fired on her. Sam rolled, flinging something at him as she did. Something sharp cut Suk across the left arm. He moved forward, gun trained on Sam. Fired, missed.

Kade got his fingers around the submachine gun. Suk was at thirty feet. The Thai man fired again, but missed Sam.

Kade brought the gun around, pulled the trigger. The recoil knocked him back, pinned him into the wall, brought agony to his broken rib. The shots went wild, too far to the left. Suk turned back towards him, fired. Kade felt a searing pain in his left arm, kept the trigger down, tried to bring the muzzle around to bear on Suk. Suk fired again, missed. Kade's bullets tracked from Kade's left to right, took Suk across his gun arm and then into his chest, knocked him off his feet. The gun clicked. Empty. Silence ruled again. Then sirens, sirens from outside.

• • • •

There was silence in the C&C onboard the Boca Raton. Nichols couldn't believe what had just happened. A dozen agents dead, at least that many civilians, many of whom were still alive when they'd initiated Protocol Thirteen.

Nichols looked down at his lap, shaking his head.

Then Jane Kim spoke up. "Sir?"

Nichols looked up. "What is it, Jane?"

"Sir… Canary is still up, sir. And Blackbird… most of her channels went dead, but we still have a GPS feed from her phone. And… it's moved, sir. She's outside of the building."

Nichols looked at the bank of screens. It was true. The feeds had collapsed from the twelve members of the assault team, but not from Lane. And from Cataranes, most of them had died, but died after recording a location just outside the building. Her phone was still uploading GPS data even now. As he watched, it moved again, from the alleyway into the building that Lane was in. Their positions converged. She was moving.

There. On the video feed from Lane, that had been a flicker of Sam. Unmistakably so.

Shu directed as Feng drove. Traffic control was hers. Police routing was hers. Street cameras were hers. The Opal barreled down the street at a hundred and sixty kilometers per hour. The streets were nearly empty in the pre-dawn gloom. Every light was green for them. Bangkok Metro Police vehicles rushed by on parallel tracks, never to see them.

She knew the position of Lane's phone to the meter. It was no longer in the conflagration. It was less than ten meters away from the burning apartment, but that was all the difference in the world. She only hoped the boy was with his phone.

This was foolishness, she knew. She should just let the boy die. But she wasn't going to, not if she could help it.

Here, Shu told Feng. They crashed a pedestrian barrier, entered the alleyways, barely wide enough for the Opal to drive down, forbidden to motorized vehicles.

Here again, she sent him.

Feng expertly skid-braked the Opal, turned into the perpendicular alley. Lane was climbing, gaining elevation.

Here, she repeated.

Feng brought the Opal to a skidding halt. Lane was about to reach the rooftop of the building directly in front of them. She could feel his mind at this range. He was still alive, wounded, in pain. She reached out to him and the Cataranes girl, told them help was coming. From here it was up to Feng.

And there were two more minds running Nexus on the first floor, both fading into oblivion. How interesting…

Sam picked up the submachine gun from where Kade had dropped it, ejected the banana clip and reversed it, slammed the full one home.

"You OK?" she asked.

She could feel his mind. The Nexus was frazzled from the shocks she'd taken, but not as badly as a few days ago. She could still feel Kade through the static. He had the combat adrenaline in him. He'd just killed a man for the first time. That was going to stick in his head for quite a while, along with everything else about tonight.

Kade nodded, tried to get up, collapsed immediately as his leg gave out again. Pain radiated from him. His lungs were burning. Ribs were cracked, sent horrible pain as he tried to move. His leg wouldn't take any weight. He shook his head, coughing feebly. Blood came up when he did.

Sam bent to pick him up. They had to get out of here.

There was a noise at the door. Another thug appeared in the entrance. Sam yanked the gun up, fired a burst. There was a curse and the thug disappeared back out the doorway.

There was another door at the other end of the room. "Come on, Kade." She picked him up, heaved him over her shoulder. Agony flared out from him. She ignored it, limped and ran towards the other door. Fuck, that hurt. She got to the door, kicked it open with her good leg, turned and fired another burst at the door the thugs had appeared in for good measure, then smashed the door beside her open with her shoulder.

The door led into a stairwell. Sam tightened her grip on Kade, jerked her body up, felt Kade groan, moved up one painful step at a time. The door at the first landing was locked.

She fired a burst into the lock, slammed the door open with her shoulder to confuse them, kept climbing.

She was at the second landing when she heard them enter the stairwell. She froze. Kade moaned. She shushed him with her mind. The men on the first landing were talking in Thai. Three of them. Maybe four. They were moving carefully. She heard clips being checked, replaced. The voices went away.

She counted to five, then continued up.

A voice yelled out. Fuck, one of them had stayed behind. Shots came up the center shaft of the stairwell. Sam threw caution to the wind, threw pain to the wind, sprinted up the stairs, felt muscles in her damaged leg protest painfully on each step, didn't fucking care. Pain racked Kade's body from his broken ribs with every step. She ignored it. She had no choice.

The thugs were all yelling now. They were running after her. They were top-heavy, strong as five men, but pathetically weak in the legs in comparison. Their oversized muscles sapped their cardio ability. Sam was smaller of heart and lung, but built for speed. Even with Kade on her shoulder, she was faster.

She passed the third landing, the fourth, the fifth, got to the rooftop access, blew off the lock, rammed it open. God, she'd kill for grenades right now. She looked around for cover. There was a giant rooftop air-conditioning unit on the far corner. Sam sprinted for it, dropped Kade behind it with a thud and a staggering surge of pain, crouched down out of view herself, checked her ammo. Almost empty. She flipped it to single shot. She had to conserve the ammo she had left.

KADE… CATARANES… WE ARE HERE… STAY ALIVE… FENG IS COMING TO YOU.

Su-Yong Shu's voice boomed huge in Sam's head. Kade gasped out loud. Holy fuck, what was that woman?

Automatic fire burst from the other side of the roof. Bullets penetrated the AC unit. A spray of metal pieces shot out, lacerating her arms, her legs, her chest. Kade moaned in fresh pain. The thugs kept shooting, firing now on one side of the unit, sending sharp shrapnel out where Sam crouched. She rolled towards Kade. Supports inside the AC unit gave, and the damaged side slumped down. Sam slouched lower, pulled Kade with her. The thugs were eating away at their cover.

Their guns went silent, Sam popped up, fired three rounds at one of them, saw two hit him in the chest, dropped back behind cover. One down. Three left. Sam popped her clip, checked the ammo again. Two rounds left. Fuck.

Could they jump from the roof into the alley? Would Kade survive?

The guns opened up again, aimed at their hiding place, pulverizing the last of their cover. More shrapnel sliced through her arm. Sam rolled, came up at a different spot, fired her last two rounds, took one of them in the gut. The others brought their guns around towards her. More shots fired out, pistol shots, six of them, and both men's heads exploded. Their lifeless bodies slumped to the ground.

Behind them, in an impeccable black chauffeur's suit, stood Feng, a smoking pistol in each hand. He raised an eyebrow at her in greeting. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. She'd never expected to be saved by one of these men, but she'd take it. By god she'd take it.

Feng strode over to the man she'd shot in the gut. He was still moving. The Confucian Fist put two rounds in his head, did the same to the first man she'd shot.

Sam crouched over Kade. He radiated pain. His skin felt charred from the flames, flayed from the shrapnel. He was alive, though. Cut up, broken, one of Suk's bullets in his arm, but still alive, still conscious. Feng joined them.

"Time to go, yeah?" the Chinese soldier said. He was smiling.

Kade tried to speak, coughed up blood for his troubles, nodded instead.

Feng bent to pick him up.

Sam raised a hand to stop him, crouched down herself.

"You're hurt," Feng said.

"I'll carry him," she replied.

Feng nodded silently, holding her eyes. He understood.

Sam hauled Kade over her shoulder, ignored his pain. They made their way down the stairs and to the black Opal, Sam limping painfully every step of the way.

"That's a Confucian Fist," Nichols said.

Williams and Kim both nodded.

"What the hell is one of them doing there?"