37 – Door-to-Door

  By the time Addie and Tony made their way through the second, third, and fourth floors of Building C of the Royal Breeze Apartments, she’d collected seventeen data points, and every one of the people she’d interviewed had a Luminal Index reading between 2.5 and 3.1. Several residents had invited them in, but she and Tony were currently standing in the hallway outside apartment 412C, where the resident had told them to go to hell. Addie sighed and looked at Tony. “I think we have enough to prove this can’t be a coincidence.”

  As usual, he was leaning one shoulder against the wall near the door, his eyes constantly scanning the corridor. “If you think so. I’ve never tried to sell a story before.”

  “I’m not trying to sell—”

  “I meant that figuratively. You need that guy at the Aurora Commission—”

  “Collective.”

  “Right. Anyway, you need him to take your story—your evidence—and put his credentials behind it, right? I mean, we could try to approach some other corps directly, but that’ll be hard; a couple of rats from the Blast aren’t likely to get a meeting with anyone important in a major corporate office.”

  “Hey!” Addie shoved his shoulder. “Who are you calling a rat?”

  “That’s just what they think of—”

  “I know, I know. I’m just teasing. Fine; we’ve still got a couple of hours before dark. Let’s try to get a few more interviews on the next floor.”

  Tony nodded and gestured toward the stairwell door at the end of the hall. “How’s your Dust holding up?” Addie had stowed Humpty in her backpack and was using her optics to record her interviews, mainly because she couldn’t run the drone for hours on end. She knew what Tony meant, though: he liked her to scout the stairwells with the drone ahead of them.

  “I’m at about half. We’re fine. Can you take him out?” She turned, and Tony unzipped her pack and lifted out the egg-shaped drone. It sat in his palm, about twenty centimeters from tip to tip, matte-gray and nondescript. Humpty’s unassuming, easy-to-ignore appearance had made him ideal as a camera drone.

  “If you got a better reactor, you could run this guy all day.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never needed to do that before.”

  Tony handed Humpty to her, then zipped up her pack. “He’s really efficient for such a good little drone. I worked with operators who’d burn two hundred Dust flying a recon with much bigger, fancier models.”

  “Well, bigger and fancier means more Dust…” Addie wasn’t getting his point.

  “Nah, that’s not what I was saying. It’s just that low-end Dust-tech doesn’t tend to be efficient. I don’t think Humpty’s something you’d normally find in a district like this.”

  “He’s not. I told you he was my grandma’s, right? When Zane saw him, he thought he was one of the original probe models made to investigate the Aurora Gate—wreckage, I assume.”

  “Zane, huh? Guy knows something about everything, it seems.” His tone was a little droll, and Addie looked at him sideways as she made her connection to Humpty.

  “Why do you get so touchy every time I mention him?”

  “Touchy?” Tony scoffed, stepping around her to approach the stairwell door. “You’re imagining that. Here, I’ll get the door.” He pulled the handle down, waited until Addie flew Humpty close, and then pulled it open just wide enough for the drone. Addie knew he’d purposely brushed off the topic and was trying to occupy her with scouting the stairwell, but he must not have realized how good she was at multi-tasking.

  “It’s not like I’m dating him, you know. He’s just a nice guy, as far as I can tell, who wants to help me figure things out.”

  “Right.” Tony smiled but refused to look at her face, ostensibly peering down the hallway in case some bangers entered from the other stairwell. His tone was maddening, and Addie wanted to argue, but she knew he was trying to get a rise out of her, so she focused on Humpty, watching the stairs as he flew. First, she sent him down a couple of levels and then up, all the way to the ninth floor.

  “It’s clear to the ninth. Should I go higher?”

  “Nah. Let’s hurry up to the fifth.” Tony yanked the door wide, holding it for Addie, and then hurried up the steps ahead of her, taking them two at a time. She hustled after him, recalling Humpty as she went. Just as they’d done for the lower levels, Tony held the door open, and Addie scouted the long hallway with Humpty. Some kids were loitering around, but they seemed too young to be banger wannabes.

  “It’s clear.”

  “Right. After you.” Again, Tony opened the door, and Addie went through. She didn’t go straight to the first apartment, however. She took a minute to tuck Humpty back into her pack, then, as Tony pulled the heavy metal door shut, she folded her arms over her chest and glared at him.

  “If you’ve got something to say about Zane, go ahead.”

  Tony held up his hands like he was surrendering and shook his head. “Look, I’m just a suspicious guy, that’s all. I didn’t like how he bumped into you at the NGT tower, and I didn’t like how he let you play around with refined Dust to the point where you got sick. I just feel like he’s got other motivations than just being nice.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like he tried to recruit you, right? Plus, c’mon, Addie—you’re a pretty girl. You telling me he wasn’t flirting at all?”

  Addie stared at him for several seconds, trying to formulate a response that wouldn’t tie her tongue into knots. Hearing him call her pretty was infuriatingly nice, but she didn’t like the context. Finally, she blurted, “So what? So what if there was some flirting? Who’s to say it didn’t go both ways?”

  Tony’s perpetual shrug deepened, and he stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets. “I got nothing. Forget it.”

  “You’re right—you’ve got nothing. You haven’t even met him!” Tony didn’t respond, didn’t even look at her, and Addie felt her ire rising. She took a deep breath, ready to let him know he shouldn’t be judging people or, worse, her relationships with them, but he held up a finger and, to her utter shock, said, “Shh!”

  “Seriously? That’s your—”

  “Shh!” he hissed, actually pressing his palm to her mouth. “Come on,” he said, yanking the door to the stairwell open and pulling her backpack strap, dragging her through it. He quietly pulled the door shut, then leaned a shoulder against it, staring at her with his mismatched eyes. “I saw a guy poking his head around the corner. He had a banger jacket on. They were waiting for us.”

  Addie shook her head. That wasn’t possible, was it? She’d scouted with Humpty. “I only saw some kids around the corner. Four of them, and they looked like they were around nine or ten.”

  “This was a big bald-headed guy with a skull tattoo on his forehead.” As he spoke, Tony moved to the stairwell and peered down. “You hear that?”

  Addie strained her ears, but she didn’t hear anything. “What?”

  “Someone’s climbing up. Get that drone out!” There was an urgent edge to Tony’s voice that Addie didn’t remember hearing before. She shrugged off her pack and yanked the zipper, or she tried, but her fingers wouldn’t grip it right; they were shaking. What was going on with her? Tony reached past her and ripped the zipper down with a zzzzt. When he spoke, the edge was gone from his voice, and he seemed as easy and cool as he would have been if he were just chatting over his morning coffee. “It’s adrenaline—slow, easy breaths. Don’t worry, Ads. We got this.”

  Addie initiated her Dust link to the drone, and Humpty hummed to life, rising into the air. Somehow, focusing her attention on his feed made things better. Everything was a little distant. She saw Tony and herself, and he waved a hand to the stairwell. “Down and then up. Fast as you can.”

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  Addie nodded, or she thought she did, but she was focused too intently on her drone to know if her body carried out the action. She zoomed down the center of the stairwell, all the way to the bottom, then back up, this time watching the feeds more carefully. What she saw made her catch her breath. “Sh-shit…”

  “What?” Tony grabbed her shoulder.

  “Ten or more, creeping up. They’re only two flights down.”

  “Goddamn it.” Tony grabbed her wrist and propelled her toward the stairs, climbing so fast that she had to run, leaping up steps, until her thighs burned and she caught her toe. Tony didn’t let her fall, though. He hauled painfully on her wrist, dragging her up until she got her feet under her and managed to start running again. They passed the sixth floor, and Tony kept going.

  “Wait! Where—”

  “Come on, Ads. Keep running. They’re gonna cut us off, so we need to do something unexpected, like climbing a few levels for no good reason.”

  Humpty had come back to her, hanging behind them in his default “chase” mode. “Should I look ahead?”

  “No time. We’re rolling the dice.” He continued to pull her, but Addie had her feet under her now and was concentrating on her own two eyes. She managed to keep up until he stopped at the next level and kicked the crash bar, sending the door flying open. The hallway was empty. “C’mon!” He tugged her wrist, and then they were sprinting past apartments to the corner, where they turned and came face to face with three men in banger jackets.

  They looked just as startled as Addie felt, and they’d barely managed to come to a sliding stop before Tony released her wrist and flew into them. He smashed his elbow in the leading banger’s nose, spun with his momentum to land a bone-crunching uppercut to the second banger’s jaw, and then, in the same fluid movement, took a step, grabbed the third banger’s hair, and pulled his face down to meet his knee.

  By then, the first banger, after staggering against an apartment door, turned, blood streaming from a purple, swollen nose and groping for the handle of a thick black pistol at his belt. He’d barely put his hand around the grip before Tony was on him again, his mechanical fist smashing him between the eyes. The other bangers were down, one writhing, the other still as death, and Tony said, “Run!”

  Addie stared, struggling to wrap her head around what she’d just seen. Tony snatched the pistol out of the unconscious banger’s fist, and then he stood, grabbed Addie’s wrist, and pulled. “Run!” he repeated. They pounded down the hallway toward the far stairwell.

  When they passed the short hallway leading to a shared tenant laundry room and the elevator, Addie pulled against Tony’s grip. “Why not the elevator?”

  “I don’t like ’em in a situation like this. One way in, one way out—death trap.” He kept running, and Addie let herself be pulled along.

  “What if those bangers weren’t after us?” she asked as they approached the door.

  “Get real.” Tony slowed, pistol leveled at the door, then glanced at Addie and, more precisely, Humpty. “Ready to take a look?”

  Addie took a deep breath, steadying herself. Everything had happened so quickly that she felt like she was outside herself. Had they just fled up two flights of stairs? Had Tony just bludgeoned three men into unconsciousness? Was she getting ready to flee down another stairwell? How had everything gone sideways so suddenly? Hadn’t she just been teasing Tony about being jealous? She’d scouted the stairwell. They’d been questioning residents all afternoon with no harm done—nothing worse than rude remarks from a few.

  “Addie! Come on, I need you to scout that stairwell with Humpty. We gotta get outta here before we get swarmed.”

  “R-right. I’m ready.” Addie nodded, convincing herself as much as Tony. “Open it.” He pulled the door open just a crack, peering through with his chrome eye, and then he opened it wider and nodded. Addie sent Humpty through. The landing was clear. “Up or down?”

  “Down!”

  “Right.” Addie sent Humpty into the well and lowered him as fast as she could while still being able to focus on what his cameras displayed. “Floor six is clear…floor five…four—three bangers! There, between three and four!”

  “I don’t know if we’ll get better odds. C’mon.” While he spoke, Tony lifted the pistol and pulled back the top part, peering into the opening on the side.

  “You’re going to shoot them?” Something in her voice must have registered with him because he looked at her, his eyebrows narrowing as he struggled for words. His tongue might have been tied, but his hands weren’t; he pulled the door open and pushed her through. He moved ahead and started for the steps but paused and looked over his shoulder at her.

  “Stay back a few steps. I’ll—I’ll try not to kill anyone.”

  With that, Tony bounded down the first flight of stairs, and Addie hurried after him. By the time she got to the landing, he’d rounded the corner and was on his way to the sixth-floor landing. Addie slowed, gripping the rail, while she watched the center of the stairwell with Humpty. She saw Tony arrive on the sixth floor. Then she saw the three bangers moving up from four to five. “JJ, open comms with Tony.”

  “Request sent.”

  As soon as her comm window appeared, Addie said, “They’re almost to five!”

  “Roger.” Tony’s response was clipped and quick, and Addie continued down, guiding herself with the rail while she watched the inevitable collision between him and the bangers. She wanted to help. She wanted to do something other than feel harried, startled, and out of sorts. She zoomed in on the trio of gangsters, all wearing leather and chains, all carrying implements designed to inflict pain and death.

  “The guy in front has a black club-thing. It looks electrified. The guy in the middle has a gun—bigger than a pistol but smaller than a rifle. The guy in back has a big knife.”

  “Got it.” Tony was one flight from the trio now, and Addie froze as she watched through Humpty’s eyes. She thought he’d stop and lie in wait, but he didn’t. He rounded the corner, pistol up, and, faster than she thought possible, he trained the muzzle on his target and squeezed the trigger. The banger with the gun spun, his right arm flinging out, the gun clattering to the ground. He grabbed his biceps, cussing and grimacing, and Addie watched in hi-res detail as dark blood burbled out between his fingers. Tony wasn’t done.

  As the gun-toting banger responded out of reflex, grabbing his wounded arm, Tony calmly adjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger again. The gun roared, and the lead banger screamed as his knee came apart in a splatter of crimson droplets. He fell painfully to the concrete steps. Tony raised the gun, aiming at the banger with the knife, but the guy turned and ran. “C’mon, Ads. Keep moving.”

  Tony ran down to the wounded bangers, and Addie focused on her eyes, moving again. When she’d descended to the scene of the encounter, Tony held the stubby, half-pistol, half-rifle in his right hand, training it on the two bangers where they sat in the corner of the landing. The other gun was in his left hand, similarly tracking the bangers’ movements. “Any more coming?” he asked.

  Addie stared at the bloody scene for a second, unable to shut out the panting, wheezing breaths of the wounded men. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on Humpty, dropping him toward the ground floor and scanning the stairwell on the way. It was clear most of the way, and she began to feel some hope, but then the bottom door—the exit—flew open, and men in black leather, cheap chrome, and chains began to file in. “Lots,” she panted, “on the ground floor.”

  “Let’s go. Haul ass.” Tony waved her down, keeping his gun on the two wounded bangers. Then she was past them, and he was hurrying behind her. “Where’d the one who ran from me go?”

  “I didn’t see him. Maybe onto a floor,” Addie replied between ragged breaths.

  “Watch the guys on the ground. We’re aiming for the second floor.”

  “W-why?”

  “I have an idea.”

  Addie frowned but didn’t press him. She was struggling to hurry while watching the bangers through Humpty’s eyes. As she began to lag, Tony moved ahead of her. “They’re still at the ground floor. There’s like ten of them, Tony! I see quite a few guns!”

  “That’s ’cause they heard me shooting.” They passed the third floor, and the bangers at the bottom hadn’t moved yet. One of them, a tall, bald guy with black mutton chops wearing Lobos colors, was shouting directions. Addie tried to pay attention.

  “My crew will go up. Zombie, you and your boys run to the other stairwell. Flaco’s watching the elevator. We gotta catch these fuckers if we want that bonus. ’Sides, they already wrecked a bunch of our boys. We owe ’em!”

  “T-Tony,” Addie gasped, trying to catch her breath as she dashed down the steps, “They’re watching all the exits! Some Lobos are coming up!”

  “One more flight. C’mon!” Tony led by example, leaping down the last flight to the landing in front of the second floor, then he slammed the door open and held it for her, waving with the big gun. Addie hurried through, and he pushed it shut. “Damn! Wish I had a shaped charge or even an insta-weld.” He pointed to the long hallway. “Which one was the nice old guy who gave us a drink?”

  “Um…” Addie licked her lips, heaving for breath, staring down the hallway.

  “C’mon, Ads!”

  “Um, 232, I think! Mr. Valdez!”

  “Let’s go!” Tony nodded down the hallway, and Addie started running.

  “Wait!” she cried. “Humpty!”

  “Shit! You go; I’ll hold the door for him.”

  Addie started running but focused part of her attention on Humpty, urging him to return to her. His recall hardly required any effort on her behalf; it was a function of his. Even so, she watched through his cams as five of the bangers pounded up the stairs, nearly at the halfway mark between the ground and level two. Humpty raced past them through the empty air at the center of the stairwell and then through the door Tony held ajar.

  Addie whirled and watched Humpty come toward her while Tony carefully closed the door, trying not to make any noise. Then, he sprinted toward her, waving one of his captured guns for her to hurry. She rounded the corner in the hallway, startling a girl leaning against a window, whispering into the air, likely on a call. “Get inside!” Addie said, flying past. “236, 234, 232!” She stopped and hit the call button.

  Before anyone answered, Tony was beside her, guns held low. “Anything?”

  Addie shook her head and hit the call button again. A moment later, the speaker crackled, and the familiar, kindly voice of the older man who’d invited them in just a few hours earlier asked, “Hello? Did you forget something?”

  “Um, yes, Mr. Valdez. Could we come in? I realized there’s something important I didn’t go over with you.”

  “Are you okay? You sound breathless.”

  “Yes, sir. This should just take a moment.” Addie looked at Tony, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were trained on the corner they’d just come around. To her relief, though, the door beeped and clicked, and then Mr. Valdez opened it.

  “Thank you, sir, this—”

  Tony interrupted, stepping past her and shoving the door open so Mr. Valdez had to stumble backward. If he was startled or upset, Tony didn’t give him a chance to voice his displeasure. He pulled Addie with him as he bulldozed into the apartment, saying, “Sorry, sir. We’re being chased by bangers, and we need to use your balcony. Don’t worry; they didn’t see us come in.”