“You need to be back there, with Dr. Grace. Both of you need to come back home.”
“You’re not going near her,” I say with a snarl. “Not a fucking chance.”
We rush each other again, crash into the cabinet full of drugs, and vials spill out onto the floor. I kick, he punches. He attacks, I parry. We’re getting nowhere, but we continue. He grabs me in a headlock and forces me to my knees as I jab him with my elbow repeatedly. There’s a sharp pain in my neck, and I realize he’s trying to pull out the device Spat installed to keep me from being tracked.
I twist and throw him over my shoulder. Reaching up to my neck, I feel the chip partially detached but not completely. Flashes inside my head are trying to reconnect with it, but can’t quite establish contact.
Isaac grabs a table nearby and flings it at me. I duck, have to regain my balance, and crouch again, ready for his next move.
“Don’t make me do this, Sten!”
“I can’t let you take her, Isaac. You know that.”
“You just gotta come back, bro. Please.”
His plea tears through me. I know what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to appeal to whatever bond we are supposed to have. If he had pulled the inhibitor chip completely out of my neck, it might get through to me, but it wouldn’t be enough.
He knows that.
He knows if we continue to fight, I will eventually win. The best he can hope for is a stalemate. There are no sounds coming from the hallway that indicate reinforcements have arrived though he has had plenty of time to contact someone.
Something’s wrong.
If they knew I would be here, why would they only send Isaac? Why not a whole group of them? Did they really believe he’d be able to talk me down, get me to come back of my own accord?
Because it’s not just me they want.
I grab Isaac by the shoulders and throw him across the room before I dart for the door. I slam it behind me and race down the hall, throwing anything I can into the path to make following me more difficult. I head straight to the back stairs and fling open the door.
I follow the stairs marked “roof access” as I listen to Isaac’s steps following close behind. When I get to the top, I slam the door behind me. There’s a chain on the ground, one that used to bar the door. I pick it up and secure the chain around the latch. There’s no padlock for it, but it should delay Isaac for a few seconds.
The roof is flat with a short barrier around the outside of it. I head immediately to the edge closest to the next building and look at the gap between the structures.
I can’t make it.
I know my physical limitations, and the gap between buildings is just shy of what I can manage. There’s a fire escape with a ladder up against the building, and I might make that if my jump is perfect, but I could just as easily fall to the ground. The impact wouldn’t kill me, but it might slow me down enough for Isaac to get to the ground before I can escape.
Behind me, I hear the door to the roof slam open with a loud clang.
There’s no other choice.
Backing up a few feet, I sprint to the edge of the building and jump into the air, arms out. I fly over the gap between buildings but start to fall too quickly to reach the other side. Extending my arms as far as they will go, I barely catch the edge of the fire escape with my finger tips and grab tight, tensing my shoulders.
With a jerk, my body comes to a stop, nearly pulling my arms from their sockets. I pause to take a breath before I start to climb up. I hear Isaac yelling at me from the other side.
“You can’t win this, Sten! We’re going to bring you back home!”
I take one last look at my friend as I press my fingers against the interface chip in my neck, shoving it back into place. I feel the sting of the prongs followed by a sharp click inside my head as the device reconnects. I have no way of knowing for sure if the interface has been damaged, allowing me to be tracked, so I have to move quickly.
I speed off between buildings and down alleys, taking a haphazard route back to the edge of the city and then around to the east. The checkpoint isn’t far from here, and I’m sure I haven’t been followed.
The abandoned service station is deserted and dark, just as it had been the first time I was here. Remembering Wick’s words, I creep forward and check for a card in the window.
There is nothing.
No white card, no red card.
In fact, the window is broken. There’s no shattered glass on the ground outside, so someone must have forced their way from the outside in.
My skin chills, and I check around the area with all my senses to determine if there is someone else about, but I get no sense of life at all. Cautiously, I head to the back of the building.