“He should have been nearby,” Vanessa replied. “I assume he’s dead too.”

  “What is this all about?”

  “Mason will tell you—”

  “Forget it,” Cassidy hissed. “I’d like to know whether or not this is worth it. I know the Silver Dragons. I can probably talk myself out of this so long as I serve you up to them.”

  “You don’t want to do that, Detective Hall.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll never get answers that way.”

  “I haven’t gotten any answers this way.”

  “Trust is earned.”

  Cassidy smirked and swung his needlegun toward her head. Her eyes widened in surprise and she ducked instinctively away, clearing the path for his needles to hit the first two thugs who’d reached the door he’d kicked in. They had made the mistake of leading with their faces, and both collapsed in the doorway in a spray of their own blood and brains.

  “Too much talking, not enough running,” Vanessa growled. “Liao isn’t going to forgive us for killing eight of his forty-niners.”

  “Eight...so far,” Cassidy said, ready to fire his weapon if needed as he shoved the door open, tumbling out in a lateral roll.

  Vanessa followed him out, slamming the door behind her as bullets from the front of the hallway began chewing it up from the inside. Cassidy came up on a knee as four more Dragons—armed with swords instead of guns—came screaming around the corner. He fired at them, pulling their attention away from Vanessa long enough for her to swing around and unload a full magazine of slugs into them, rendering them silent within seconds.

  “Let’s go!” she shouted, fleeing the first group of Dragons as they pounded down the inside hallway and burst through the riddled back door, their guns blazing.

  They sprinted down the alley, the next street visible ahead. It was off the main thoroughfare, making it less crowded than what they had left behind, but the few groups of pedestrians, scooters, cars and rickshaws passing by would help them blend in and disappear.

  They just had to make it that far alive.

  “Shit,” Cassidy said as the gunfire increased, a few of the rounds hitting him in the back. Even though the slugs were unable to breach his raincoat, they still hit him hard enough to hurt. And they could certainly kill either one of them with a head shot. He dove behind a dumpster, pulling Vanessa along behind him. Rounds meant for them pinged off the metal, the sound echoing through the alley.

  Cassidy shifted position to put his back against the metal cube, needlegun vertical near his face, panting as he swiveled his head toward Vanessa. He didn’t see any blood on her, but he asked anyway. “Are you hit?”

  “No,” Vanessa replied. “I take it your coat is treated?” She ejected her empty mag and fished a full one out of her coat pocket.

  “Yup. I’d be dead three times already if it weren’t. Yours?”

  “Mason is one of the top illegal arms dealers on the planet,” she replied, popping up from cover long enough to unload enough shots at their pursuers to force them into hiding.

  In other words, yes. “You’d think he’d give you something better than a G9.”

  “Like your NG? When I shoot a gun, I want to feel like I’m shooting a gun.”

  Cassidy smiled. He understood the statement. He hadn’t picked the needlegun. It was Hall’s weapon of choice.

  “We can’t stay here,” Vanessa said.

  Cassidy raised himself into a crouch and looked past the next dumpster to the end of the alley. They still had a ways to go to get to the street. “We’ll have to make a run for it. I’ll cover you. One benefit to a needlegun,” he said, grinning at Vanessa. “More ammunition.”

  She smiled, getting to her feet and moving next to his shoulder. “I guess it does have its uses.”

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Go!”

  Vanessa broke from hiding, running toward the street as Cassidy started shooting, squeezing off round after round, filling the alley with explosive needles. He saw the muzzle flashes from the Dragon’s guns, but he didn’t look back to check on Vanessa. Instead, he broke into his own escape right behind her.

  He continued shooting back down the alley behind him. He hit three of the Dragons in his initial barrage, two more as they stood in the alley stubbornly holding their ground. The rest retreated to cover, giving Cassidy and Vanessa the break they needed to get away.

  Chapter 30

  Cassidy’s knees burned as he ran the rest of the length of the alley, joining Vanessa at the corner and slowing as they melted into the crowd. He gritted his teeth while they walked along the street together.

  “I don’t suppose Garrett is close?” he asked.

  “No,” Vanessa replied. “We need to get a roto.”

  “Taxi station is that way,” Cassidy said, pointing the other direction.

  “So are the Dragons.” She lifted her ClearPhone from her pocket.

  Cassidy noticed immediately that it didn’t have an interface he recognized. “Custom operating system?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She continued tapping on it. “Just keep walking.”

  They stayed on the street, navigating through the other pedestrians. Cassidy stayed on high alert, looking over his shoulder every few seconds, but also paying attention to the path ahead and the alleys and cross-streets as they neared them. He wasn’t about to assume they had so easily lost a group as well-connected as the Silver Dragons.

  “There’s a roto landing area in that building up ahead,” Vanessa said, pointing to a skyscraper two blocks in front of them. “A roto is waiting for us there.”

  “Yours?” Cassidy asked.

  She smiled. “It is now.”

  “You hacked it from here?”

  “Technically. I already had the exploit loaded. I just needed to find an unpatched system to attack.”

  “It’ll get traced.”

  “Not with Leonidas.”

  “I thought you needed both ends to support the protocol?”

  Vanessa looked at him, clearly impressed. “How do you know about that?”

  Cassidy smiled. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” A commotion behind them drew Cassidy’s attention again. He could see the crowds parting for something further back. “Looks like they’re catching up.”

  “We’re almost there,” Vanessa replied.

  Another small commotion ahead didn’t bode well for them. He motioned to a hologram advertising a nightclub. “We can duck them in there.”

  “Okay,” Vanessa agreed.

  They broke through the pedestrians, pausing to let a scooter go by before hurrying to the front of the club. The opaque glass doors parted as they neared, allowing the loud music inside to escape into the street.

  A small desk sat on their right, a petite young woman in a skimpy black leotard sat behind it, a cat-eared clip on her head and her face painted to look more feline than human. A bouncer stood in the corner opposite her, beside the coat and umbrella check, doing his best to be inconspicuous despite his size.

  “Welcome to the Kitty Korner,” she said in overenthusiastic Mandarin. “Are you ready to party all night long? Cover charge is fifty coin.”

  Cassidy looked at Vanessa, who used her phone to pass the funds to the girl. She held up a stamper after the transfer completed.

  “I just need your hands.” Cassidy and Vanessa offered their hands. The girl stamped a glow-in-the-dark cat face on them. You can check your coats just over there. Enjoy your night!”

  “Thanks,” Cassidy said flatly. He glanced at the woman waiting to take their coats, and then followed Vanessa through a second pair of doors, which led onto the floor of the club.

  The place was crowded, the music loud, the air hazy with pastel-colored fog from machines positioned in the corners. A small stage in the corner held a DJ working the tracks, while a handful of large men in dark suits and silver ties—Silver Dragon enforcers—kept watch over everything.

  There were separate bars on each side of the entrance, with booths, sofas, tables and other places to escape the large dance floor dead ahead. Dozens of young women dressed like sexy cats strutted through the area carrying food and drinks.

  “Maybe we should have stayed outside,” Vanessa said. “We don’t fit in here.”

  Cassidy couldn’t argue, for the most part. The crowd inside the Kitty Korner skewed younger, and most of the men and women inside wore light t-shirts, shorts, short skirts or light pants, their weather-specific gear all checked in.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “We just need to get to the emergency exit. Come on.”

  He went to the left, intending to navigate around the perimeter until he got to the service door he knew had to be against the side or back wall. Vanessa stayed right beside him as they navigated around the other patrons and the serving women, getting to the far end of the space. Cassidy looked back the way they had come, cursing softly when he saw a handful of more enforcers enter the club.

  Vanessa looked back at Cassidy. “They got here fast.”

  “Are you sure they can’t track your device?”

  “Positive.”

  Cassidy turned and headed for the dance floor. Reaching the edge of the crowd, he pushed his way into the mass of revelers, Vanessa right behind him. Keeping his eyes sweeping around them, Cassidy noticed the guards on the perimeter begin to move, coming down from their raised positions and approaching the floor.

  “We’re made,” he said. “Keep pushing forward.”

  He looked down at the ring on his left hand. Then he put his fingers on his opposite wrist and pressed down, activating the needle. The stims shot through him like fire, starting with his arm and quickly traveling up to his heart. A moment of dizziness caused him to stop moving, his entire body beginning to waver.

  “Hall?” Vanessa said beside him.

  He didn’t respond. His entire body felt warm. Powerful. Every sense seemed a little sharper. Whatever Jazz had given him, he could get used to it.

  “Let’s go,” he said, starting forward again. He’d only made it a few steps before the first of the guards reached them—a shock stick in one hand, a gun in the other.

  Cassidy rushed him, using one hand to slap the gun aside, the other to grab the guard’s other wrist. He used his momentum to shove the stick backward, the enhanced strength from the stims letting him push it against the guard’s chest. The man shuddered and fell to the floor.

  Keeping the shock stick, Cassidy continued through the crowd, Vanessa right behind him, the pair not making it very far before another guard reached them. He used the stick to smack the man’s gun hand, numbing it and making him drop his weapon. Before he could do anything else, Vanessa shot the guard in the chest, taking him out.

  Even though they picked up the pace, two Silver Dragon enforcers broke through the crowd and charged Cassidy and Vanessa, blades in hand. Cassidy caught the first one by the wrist and jerked him forward, slamming the shock stick into the side of his head. The man went down like a felled tree. Behind him, Vanessa dropped low, avoiding a blade to sweep the legs out from under the other enforcer. She shot him in the head after he hit the floor.

  The crowd began to wise up to the conflict, a sudden rush of people pushing away from them and angling for the exit. Cassidy drew his needlegun, spotting one of the bouncers climbing back to his post with a rifle in hand. He fired a trio of needles, each of them hitting the guard center mass and blowing a gaping hole in his chest.

  Three more silver-tied enforcers broke through the civilians, charging at Cassidy and Vanessa. Cassidy shot the first one and then blocked the blade of the second with his shock stick before shooting him in the gut. Vanessa dodged the third’s strike, bringing her knee up into his groin and shooting him in the back of the head as he doubled over.

  “There,” Cassidy said, spotting the service door against the back wall. They sprinted to it and Cassidy yanked it open, guiding Vanessa through. They made it into the back corridor as bullets began to strike the wall and door behind them.

  Too close.

  “Which way?” Vanessa asked.

  The access corridor was deserted, though spilled trays of food and drinks suggested the waitresses had dropped everything to escape the sudden chaos. All of the evidence of panic was to their right which meant the exit was most likely to the left.

  They ran down the passage to a t-junction. Cassidy went to the left toward the emergency exit, Vanessa on his heels. He could hear footsteps behind them, the enforcers still giving chase. He didn’t break his stride as he aimed his needlegun back at them and opened fire, the rounds missing them and hitting the back wall. The needles detonated, the resulting cloud of dust and debris slowing their pursuers. But Cassidy didn’t slow, shoving the door open with his shoulder. He emerged into another alley.

  “Clear,” he announced.

  “We’re almost there,” Vanessa said, pointing to their target building, only a block away now, the alleys behind both buildings connected. “Don’t let me run into anything,” she said as she dug her ClearPhone out of her coat pocket, tapping on the screen as they ran.

  “What are you doing?” Cassidy asked, keeping his needlegun aimed behind them.

  “Calling a cab.”

  “What?”

  The Dragons reached the exit door, the first opening it and poking his head out. Cassidy shot him before he could get his foot out the door. He continued squeezing off rounds as they ran, keeping them pinned down until the weapon finally came up empty.

  “I’m out,” he said, sliding the needlegun back into its holster. They had put a few hundred feet between themselves and the Dragons, enough distance to render the enforcers’ return fire ineffective. The rounds either missed their marks entirely or hit off Cassidy’s bulletproof coat without enough force to punch through the protection.

  “I’m almost out too,” Vanessa said just as the sound of a roto reached their ears.

  The machine swung around the corner a moment later, running dark. The craft wasn’t quite as sleek as the newer rotos in the bureau’s garage, but it was a lot fresher than Hall’s vehicle had been. It descended sharply ahead of them, doors swinging open before it had even touched down. There was no one behind the yoke.

  “Get in,” Vanessa said, motioning to the passenger side.

  “Do you ever fly manually?” Cassidy asked.

  “Why would I do that?”

  Cassidy sped up, crossing over to the pilot side in front of her. “I’ll fly,” he said.

  She didn’t argue, switching sides. He was already strapped in behind the yoke when she dropped into the passenger seat.

  “Hang on,” Cassidy said, hitting the control to close the doors and then slamming his foot down on the accelerator. The spinners buzzed as he pulled back on the yoke, the roto jumping violently off the ground. They rose sharply and steadily at a steep pitch, racing headlong toward the lower traffic lanes while bullets pinged against the bottom of the chassis.

  “Hall!” Vanessa shouted, her face tight with fear as he swerved into the lanes of rotos.

  The stims Jazz had given him hadn’t only enhanced his physical strength. His mind was sharper, more focused, his reflexes faster. He watched the lanes of rotos approach as though they were moving in slow motion. Finding his spot he added speed instead of slowing, shooting up toward a gap in the traffic and punching through it to another lane.

  The rotos around him blared their warning signals. A few of them veered away. Cassidy cut through the layers like a knife through a cake, swerving and veering to find the next gap and shooting through it. He slewed through the eight layers of interlocking traffic like a needle threading fabric, the roto darting out the other side into open air. He spun the roto over before leveling off and slowing their velocity.

  He glanced at Vanessa, noticing how pale she was. “Are you okay?”

  “I think I wet myself,” she replied softly. “Where did you learn to fly like that?”

  “Marine Corps,” Cassidy replied, too late to catch himself. Damn it. Did she know Hall had never been a Marine? “I mean, a guy who had been in the Marine Corps taught me some tricks.”

  Vanessa smiled. “I’m glad he did,” she replied.

  “You’ve got some nice tricks of your own,” Cassidy said. “Calling for a roto. That was some fast thinking.”

  “There’s a lot you can do once you understand how the system works.”

  “Can I meet with Garrett now? Did I earn your trust?”

  “Yes, you can. And yes, you did. And then some.” She pointed south. “Head that way.”

  Chapter 31

  Garrett’s meeting place was on the opposite side of the city from the International District, in an area known as the Docks. While nothing traveled by sea anymore there was still plenty of trade across the planet, all of it maintained by massive floating barges not unlike the party roto that belonged to Bizrathi Praan, except they were much larger and more utilitarian.

  Garrett had no doubt arrived in the city by paying for illegal passage on one of the barges, and it wasn’t even mildly surprising to Cassidy that he had remained close to the airships even as he tried to accomplish whatever it was he was here to do. Garrett had obviously stuck close to the Docks in order to make a quick escape if and when the temperature got too hot for him to handle, which Cassidy had a feeling might be getting closer by the moment.

  If Garrett had tried to enlist the Silver Dragons to assist him with his scheme, whatever it was, and that partnership had fallen through to the point that Liao was trying desperately to locate him, then it was only a matter of time before the entire criminal element was forced to take sides. Maybe guys like Jazz were cautious when dealing with Garrett, but they wouldn’t choose him over the triad.

  The Docks hadn’t changed much in the twenty-plus years since Cassidy had last seen them. Large towers—dark and heavy, and made more ominous by the threatening skies and steady rain—rose from around the main distribution center like the points of a crown. A dozen massive airships hovered within the bottom edge of the clouds like bloated whales, taut cables providing service for huge elevators to quickly transport goods from their holds down to the surface. Running lights flashed along the length of the cables to prevent wayward craft from smashing into the otherwise invisible lines.