Empire Games Series, Book 1(101)
Rita heard the unmistakable sound of a truck in the distance and spooked. The recessed vestibule of a shop offered her cover, gilt lettering on the door proclaiming it to be Barrow’s Millinery. She stepped backward. The engine note was growing louder rapidly. Then the truck turned the corner. All she caught was a confused glimpse of a long hood and dark windows behind bright headlights. It pulled over on the far—left—side of the street. Doors opened, male voices called. Several men got out. Doors slammed, and the truck began to move again. She heard boots on the sidewalk, the men talking conversationally as they walked along the far side of the road.
Rita turned her face toward the shop’s interior. Let’s try and look as if I belong here, she decided. They’re probably just clerks arriving to open up shop …
Something metal-cold shoved up hard against the back of her neck. “Dinna move,” said the man behind her. His throat was hoarse, his voice deep. “I said, dinna move, woman. Dinna speak. Dinna even breathe.”
Rita froze from the belly out. She’d been so focused on the carload on the far side of the street that she’d never even heard his approach. Her left arm hung uselessly by her side. Her head-up display could flash a trigger engram if she asked, but the finger wrapped around the trigger of the gun at her head would be faster.
“When I stop talkin’ I want you to slowly turn an’ face the wall. Hands up and brace yerself, lean in. Then go ter yer knees.
“I am placing thee under arrest by authority of the Commonwealth Guard…”
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IRONGATE, TIME LINE THREE, AUGUST 2020
“I am placing thee under arrest by authority of the Commonwealth Guard. Slowly turn—now.”
Rita did as she was told: turned, raised her hands, braced against the wall in front of her. Please let him take the gun away, she prayed. Her lifelogger was keyed to a single word: bugout. All she needed was a second—
“I said, raise your hands and lean in! Do it now! Kneel!”
Shit. Rita slowly lowered herself to her knees.
“Over here!” her captor shouted, deafening in the confined space. The cold gun barrel at the back of her head wobbled slightly but didn’t withdraw. A handcuff locked around her left wrist. “Wrists together!” The gun barrel ground painfully into her hair. The other cuff closed. The one on the left covered the e-ink tattoo. Her initial terror was subsiding into an adrenaline spike and a sense of gnawing apprehension. They’re cops. They were obviously on some kind of sweep. What happens next? She had a feeling that jaunting was going to be easier said than done.
The gun muzzle withdrew, but before she could react someone yanked a canvas sack down over her head. Panicking anew, Rita tensed and reared up. They kicked her in the ribs, slamming her face into the wall. For a while she lost track of everything but the pain in her face and the difficulty of breathing.
Shattered fragments of memory captured unpleasant sensations. Being lifted and slung, hard, into the back of a vehicle. Motion, bouncing, and alarm bells ringing insistently above and behind her. Being lifted again and dragged through doorways and along corridors. The sack coming off her head in time for the final drop, facedown, onto a fetid, lumpy mattress that smelled of piss and terror.
By the time the cell door opened again, Rita had regained a tiny measure of control. Her head was sore, her ribs ached badly, and she felt nauseous: but she could think and assess her situation. They’d left her bound hand and foot. With the key generator behind her back, she couldn’t jaunt. She was alone in a graffitied jail cell, the walls white and covered in tiles. The only furniture was the filthy mattress she lay on. The door looked to be made of sturdy wood bound in riveted strips of iron. A spy hole completed the dismal ensemble.
I’m fucked, Rita realized. For the short term, anyway. But they’d have to take the manacles off sooner or later, wouldn’t they? And when they did, she’d be ready.
She rolled sideways, trying to work out if everything was still in place. They’d taken her hat. But the inertial mapper was in a concealed pocket … no, the inertial mapper was not in its concealed pocket. Shit and more shit. Alien technology would definitely flag her as an illegal. She shivered, flushing hot and cold. She could already see the Colonel shaking his head in pained disappointment. It was odd, she realized, how much this job had come to mean to her in so short a time. They somehow caught me, she realized, unsure whether she meant the police here, or the DHS, who had somehow managed to make her give a shit about the job, just in time for it to go horribly wrong.
She was still exploring this unwelcome new realization when then the door opened. “Up with ye.” Hands gripped her armpits and heaved painfully. “Open yer mouth. I said open it, wummun!” A meaty hand clutching a cotton swab on a stick appeared in front of her face.
Rita opened her mouth hastily: the prospect of another beating, or worse, terrified her. The swab stabbed at her tongue, twirled nauseatingly, and withdrew just as she began to retch. The hands supporting her let go, and she flopped down on the mattress. She heard rattling and clicking behind her, and tried to turn her head, but the door slammed shut before she got an impression of anything other than navy-blue uniforms and odd-shaped hats.
It was cold in the cell, and they left her alone for nearly an hour. She was shivering, and uneasily wondering if she was going to piss herself, when the door opened again.