Turning, Amelina waved her forearm over a hidden sensor next to the door. It silently slid open. Quickly, the five fighters slipped inside. As soon as the door shut, Kieran turned to Amelina and produced a pistol from an inner pocket. He was carrying both his own weapons and the majority of Yan's arsenal, with the exception of the broadsword; Amelina's need for a gun appeared to be much more urgent than his own need for an additional sidearm.
In less than three seconds, she took the gun, skillfully ejected the magazine, examined it, put it back firmly, and chambered a round. "Yes," she said in a steady, low voice.
Kieran's eyebrows went up a bit. What could have made me decide to break up with her? In the back of his mind, the question reverberated without a response.
"Shall we?" Amelina pointed to a door on the other side of the service corridor and asked. Kieran gave a nod.
Nora instinctively took the rear guard position again as the six arranged themselves in a line. Even though they didn't expect any trouble right away, they couldn't ignore the possibility of running into roving security patrols. At this point, failure would be disastrous.
They walked silently down empty corridors and through stairwells. Amelina led them on a convoluted journey, making two laps around the arena's center via routes that were only known to security and senior staff and were painstakingly planned to circumvent every sensor grid. After a full twenty-five minutes of travel, they were finally dropped off outside Lek's private office suite's main door.
Amelina looked at her chronometer, which was in perfect sync with the central time system of the building. 2152:03. When the corridor's timed alarm system deactivated for its maintenance window, they had four minutes and fifty-one seconds to act. Then, before the system reactivated, there was only a six-second lag to get all six of them safely inside the office and across the hall. It would be another five hours before the next window appeared. It would take at least three hours to slice all the pertinent data, based on Nayla's simulator practice runs with the hacking program.
Amelina silently calculated that she would definitely not make the first window. When they entered Lek's office, she intended to go back to her own, prepared to lead them out at the next window without an alarm. Additionally, she could alert them if someone unexpectedly approached by using the direct intercom line to Lek's office.
There were thirty seconds left. When Amelina looked up from her chronometer, she saw Kieran standing tensely near the door with his pistol up and all of his senses on high alert. She approached him almost instinctively and gave his cheek a quick kiss.
He was momentarily stunned that the woman he had deeply wounded could still be so tender toward him, and he jumped, startled almost a foot in the air. For what seemed to be the first time since she had arrived, Amelina put her hand lightly on his shoulder and looked him in the eye.
"Luck," she said simply in a whisper.
Kieran was startled out of his reverie by the beep of her chronometer's alarm. Nayla opened the door with a wrench. The others trailed behind her as she took two quick steps across the hall. They were sealed inside when the alarm window closed and Nora pulled the office door shut behind them.
Kieran stopped just inside the office and glanced back at the door that was closed. Amelina kissed his cheek, and his mechanical hand slowly rose to touch it, resting there for a moment as he took it all in. He shook his head slightly, bringing himself back to the here and now. There were more urgent issues.
Kieran turned and looked around the office. The craftsmanship here was much more intricate, but it was paneled in the same pricey dark hardwood as the furniture in the top box of the arena. The room's center was dominated by a large, ornate desk and a leather chair with a high back. The walls were decorated with old paintings of classical, heroic scenes. A computer terminal glowed dimly beneath a glass panel set into the surface of the desk. A number of oversized armchairs were positioned against the walls, close to bookcases containing dusty, antiquated-looking books that Lek had probably never read. The only notable light coming from the city lights came from a large window behind the desk, and the carpet was completely dark against the wood-paneled walls. A corner close to the entrance was devoted to a well-stocked wet bar. The room quietly declared the prestige of its occupant with its aura of history and quiet power. Unfortunately, Kieran reminded himself, that's partly true.
At the terminal, Nayla and Luna were already attaching a data card writer and a portable holographic emitter to an open hardware port. In order to avoid using the outdated 2D interface and instead navigate the computer's intricate file network in three dimensions, Nayla put on a pair of thin gloves that were studded with position sensors.
Security was Kieran and Nora's main responsibility, but even they couldn't stay on high alert for five hours at a time. Nora stumbled sideways into one of the armchairs in the corner. She pulled a data pad out of her pocket and opened one of the seven thousand books that were on it, but her weapons were still within a half-second's reach because of her position, which allowed her to see the door clearly.
Kieran looked at his chronometer absently. 2202:40. The initial window for escape was over. He estimated that there would be another one in roughly four hours. After gaining access to the system, Nayla and Luna were now loading the KRY virus, a potent tool for data slicing and decryption. Now all they could do was wait.
Already, Nayla was searching through Lek's files. The first security layer had been circumvented by a simple password breaker; she now even knew the password. She was currently browsing directories, exploring, and marking any encrypted files she came across so the KRY virus could process them. About twenty folders, or just 4% of the system's total memory, had already been marked by her. Particularly, one file appeared promising: redundantly backed up in three different locations and heavily compressed to just under a gigabyte. She calculated that she would need to spend at least an hour using the 3D holographic interface to sort through more than a terabyte of data. Standing next to her, Luna made sure Nayla had put each accessed file back exactly where she had found it. Nayla was very good at infiltration, data slicing, and general computer chaos, but she wasn't very good at regular, legal tasks.
Kieran strayed toward the damp bar. Reportedly the best vodka ever made, he picked up a bottle of Starka and put it down firmly. It was not a good night to drink. It was a brilliant idea for Nora to retreat into her digital library. Kieran had nothing but a ceiling to think about. Five hours is going to be long.
Yan thought impatiently, "They're definitely taking their sweet time." Typically, dinner was served at 2000 hours. The time was 2200, and nobody had been seen. On a global network, he had been passing the time by watching a mind-numbingly corny game show. The sheer amount of time he'd spent watching it finally made him realize how incredibly bored he was. "They're not coming," he grimly told himself.
When he realized that, he swung his legs out of bed and threw back the thin covers. With the heavy metal bed frame facing the locked door, he dragged it across the room. He inhaled deeply, positioned his feet against the distant wall, bounded forward, and used all of his strength to slam the bed frame into the door. The reinforced plating of the door was dented by the impact, but the lock remained secure. Yan flinched back from the impact, landing on the ground with his chest bruised against the metal frame.
Undeterred, he clambered back up and moved the bed in preparation for another try. The door abruptly slid open as he was pushing off the wall to make his second charge.
Lek's enormous Crejak bodyguard was standing there, with two equally intimidating orderlies on either side. Obviously, they weren't bringing dinner. With the bed frame in front of him, Yan was already speeding in their direction. The heavy metal frame slammed into the three men's midsections before they could even register surprise, their eyes widening slightly. All three were knocked out cold by the impact. One orderly fell, his pelvis breaking audibly where it joined the femur, the broken bone instantly immobilizing him.
Yan's instinct took over after he had barely had time to process what had happened. With the remaining orderly and the furious Crejak guard chasing after him, he ran down the hallway. It's smooth, he thought mockingly. You're completely screwed even though you're out. With his eyes desperately searching for an exit sign, he swerved past nurses carrying medicine trays and avoided doctors wheeling patients. There. A red sign, blessedly simple, glowed behind a nurses' station: EXIT.
With a quick apology shouted over his shoulder, he jumped over the chest-high counter, knocking over a computer monitor and scattering a stack of data slates. Opening the exit door with a wrench, he slipped through and slammed it behind him.
He discovered himself in a tiny conference room with a table, a dozen chairs, and some basic presentation tools. The window was the only other exit. In an attempt to save a few valuable seconds, Yan snatched up a bulky office chair and stuffed it beneath the doorknob. And then he grabbed a small LCD projector off the table and threw it as hard as he could at the big plate-glass window. It broke, scattering pieces on the outside ledge and sweeping the floor right below.
He was immediately relieved that he hadn't just jumped and leaned out cautiously. An alley used by the city's recycling service extended below. Sorted stacks of cardboard, scrap metal, and Styrofoam were neatly stacked next to a parking lot with four big trucks. The issue? It was a dizzying twenty stories down the alley.
Yan glanced to the left, then to the right, thinking quickly. With each level offset and about twenty feet below the one above, the entire structure was intended to resemble a gigantic spiral rising from the earth. It was only fifteen feet below his current position on the roof of the level. Excellent.
The door of the conference room flew open less than a second after he had finished his plan. The wood of the doorframe ripped away under the force of the chair he'd wedged there, shattering it into pieces. Yan wasted no time in throwing himself out the shattered window, landing on the broad ledge below feet first. The soles of his feet were pricked by glass fragments, but the pain was insignificant in comparison to the impending danger.
The ledge was too narrow for two people to walk on comfortably, but it was wide enough for one. Yan started running, his bloodied feet gaining speed from the building's spiral design's gentle downward slope. With no sign of pursuit, he made three complete laps around the building, descending about ten stories.
Then he was out of luck. He skidded to a stop after rounding a corner halfway through his fourth lap. His path was blocked by the Crejak bodyguard. How on earth did he end up here? Yan pondered briefly before the solution became clear. The guard must have just climbed down from level to level, drastically reducing the distance, rather than running the spiral.
There was no way out now. He had to struggle. Having your funeral, blue-boy Yan squared up and thought grimly. With his legs shoulder-width apart and his arms shielding his face, he assumed a ready stance. He reminded himself sharply to watch the ledge.
This was Yan's first opportunity to get a close-up look at the guard. Even for the naturally strong Crejak, he was remarkably well-built. Despite being only three inches shorter than Yan, he probably weighed a lot more than him—possibly close to three hundred and twenty pounds. He was dressed in a spotless black uniform with silver accents. His four-armed shirt had a pair of chrome-rimmed sunglasses hanging loosely from the collar. This is a typical Crejak adaptation, as many of them are sensitive to brighter sunlight due to their home world's low lighting levels. Even though it was night, Yan knew that his opponent couldn't be hampered by the darkness.
Yan's fundamental confidence remained unwavering in the face of overwhelming odds. Go ahead, fat-ass.