Hostiles converging quickly," Lobo said, his voice crisp and inflection-free in my ear. "A man and woman who had acted as tourists and not previously tracked you are headed your way. I'm six seconds out."
The extra hostiles meant either Dougat had stationed people we'd missed or Chaplat had found us. It was about to get noisy. "Execute plan," I said.
"All warehouse charges detonated," Lobo said. "Almost all debris contained in implosion."
I grabbed Jack's shoulder and spun him to face me. Behind him I glimpsed several of Dougat's men running toward us.
"Three seconds," Lobo said.
I held up three fingers.
Jack nodded and gripped Manu tightly.
I dropped and swept Jack's legs out from under him.
Lobo activated the heads-up display relay in my left contact. The image from his forward video sensors overlaid my view of the approaching security men.
I watched with both normal vision and the overlaid video as Lobo transformed the Institute and its grounds into a fire zone.
Two low-yield explosive missiles left Lobo and almost immediately blew apart what I hoped we'd accurately identified as a receiving dock on the back of the building. No transports were parked there, so with luck the area was unoccupied. At the same time, the world went silent as Lobo remotely enabled my sound-blocking earplugs. I counted on Jack's and Manu's working, because a second later the howlers rocketed out of Lobo and tore up the grounds around us.
Right behind them a cluster of sleep smokers mirved to their targets and turned the air the color of storm clouds about to burst. I kept my mouth shut and forced myself to breathe through my nose; the sinus filters worked perfectly. If Jack and Manu did the same, they'd be fine. The active antidotes we'd all taken would keep us awake even if we breathed the gas, but until it had dissipated for a few minutes it would be hard on our lungs and throats. The nanomachines in my cells would repair me quickly enough if some gas leaked inside my nose, but I saw no reason to suffer any damage I could avoid.
The rest of Dougat's staff and, unfortunately, all of the visitors on the grounds and even some nearby pedestrians wouldn't be as lucky; the gas and the noise would affect them. Aside from any injuries they sustained when they fell, however, they should suffer only long, drugged naps, raw sinuses, bad coughs, and, from the howlers, ringing in their ears.
I reached for Jack, but he wasn't there.
Damn!
Anger flooded adrenaline into my body, and I trembled with the barely controlled energy and rage. He knew he shouldn't move! Now, he and the boy were at risk.
"Where are Jack and Manu," I mumbled through pursed lips.
My words were clear enough for Lobo.
My left contact's display snapped into an aerial schematic of the grounds, with red dots marking Dougat's staff, a blue dot indicating Jack, and a green one denoting Manu's position. The blue and green dots streaked toward the building.
"Running toward the ziggurat," Lobo said. "External staff and bystanders are all sleeping. I'm hovering overhead. Howlers have discharged; reenabling hearing."
In an instant the thrumming force of Lobo's hovering joined a chorus unconscious moans and wheezes all around me to replace the silence I'd been enjoying. I stood and darted forward. The blue and green dots veered to the side of the entrance to the ziggurat. Two seconds later, a stream of red dots poured out of it. These guys were clearly prepared for gas, because none of them fell. I cranked my own vision to IR and watched as the ten new security people fanned out in front of me. The blue and green dots ducked behind them, Manu barely ahead of Jack, and zipped into the building. Great. Now I had to get past this new team, retrieve Jack and Manu, and go back outside for pick-up. If they'd only kept to the plan and stayed near me, we'd already have been on our way out of here.
"Image enhancement suggests new hostiles are armed and environmentally prepared," Lobo said.
Sure enough, the new squad broke into four clusters. One sprinted for Dougat. The remaining three focused on me, the first taking a direct approach and the other two going wide to flank me. The only good news was that either they'd missed Jack and Manu or they'd assumed those two were down.
"Trank `em," I mumbled.
Lobo didn't waste time answering. I heard the rounds spraying from guns on his undercarriage, and within three seconds everyone on the new team dropped.
"Public feeds are rich in data about our assault," Lobo said. "We must exit soon or expect to face additional local resistance."
"I have to get Jack and Manu," I mumbled as I ran to the side of the entrance. I stopped long enough to pull a trank pistol from the holster at the base of my back, then dove inside. I hit the ground on my shoulder and rolled quickly to a prone position. I glanced to the right and then the left of the entrance. No one.
I stood and immediately regretted the action as a projectile round to the chest knocked me down. The body armor stopped it from seriously injuring me, but my chest throbbed with pain and breathing hurt. I slit my eyes and stayed still. Precious time was evaporating, but if I moved I might suffer a head shot.
A guard emerged from behind an exhibit five meters in front of me. He kept his pistol aimed at me and moved cautiously forward. He stepped with care, and his weapon never wavered. I did my best to look unconscious; the lack of blood would tell him I wasn't dead.
A crashing sound ripped the air from somewhere behind him, and he turned for a moment to check it out.
I fired multiple times at his back and head.
He dropped.
Too many trank rounds might kill him, something I didn't want to do, but I couldn't afford the time to check on him and make sure he was okay. Dougat might have more security personnel around. The warehouse distraction south of us was old news. I had to get out of there, but I couldn't leave without Jack and Manu.
I had no feed from Lobo to guide me in my search, so I ran to the center of the building in the hope that I could spot them.
Before I'd gone five steps, Jack dashed toward me from my left, Manu's hand in his.
"What were you doing?" I said, my voice shaking with anger at Jack's violation of our agreement. The air inside was now clean enough that I could talk freely without hurting my throat. "You idiot! You don't freelance, and you don't abandon your team!"
"Manu was terrified and ran," Jack said. "I didn't expect it, and I couldn't see him clearly, so I fell behind him. I couldn't leave him here, Jon. I had to find him."
Though his answer was reasonable, even admirable in some ways, I still shook with anger and adrenaline. I forced myself to nod. "Follow me," I said.
Motion in the corner of my eye caused me to stop and glance to my right. A guard emerged from behind an exhibit and trained a shotgun on Jack and Manu. I couldn't turn in time to stop him.
Another guard ran toward him, screaming as she approached, "Not the boy!"
Jack pushed Manu behind him as the guard turned to the woman and shot in the same motion.
The shell sprayed two exhibits in an arc that ran from the woman to Jack. Jack spun slightly and grabbed his right arm. The woman's left shoulder jerked backward, but her momentum propelled her into the man. The two of them crashed into an exhibit behind him. She rolled away, kicked the man in the neck, and stood, her legs shaking, her uniform's shoulder pad darkening with blood.
"Go," she said, "get the boy out of here."
She looked at her arm, then passed out and fell.
"Let's go," Jack said. He held up his bloody hand. "Now."
I stared at the woman. We should run, but she may well have saved Manu. I couldn't leave her.
"Wait," I said to Jack.
I ran to her, pulled her to a sitting position, and hoisted her over my shoulder. I stood with her, grunting slightly from the effort. She was almost as tall as I was and dense. I settled her on my shoulder and walked back to Jack.
"Follow me," I said. "Heading to you," I said to Lobo as we approached the exit from the building. "Land in the closest clear area—not on people—and direct me in. Prep the medbed; I'm bringing two casualties." Lobo had argued in our planning meeting that if we ended up in a fight he should set down right beside us, and that anyone he squashed in the process was an acceptable casualty, but even with time as short as it was I saw no reason to kill if we could avoid it.
"Moving," Lobo said. "Media scans put police ETA at under ninety seconds. Severity of injury? Jack or Manu hurt?"
"Don't know, and both Jack and a guard," I said.
"We're helping the opposition?" Lobo said.
I kept moving and didn't waste any energy explaining the situation. My chest hurt each time I breathed in, but I pushed my pace. Jack and Manu stayed close to me as we ran. A vector in my left eye's display led me forty meters ahead and to the right, toward the southern side of the grounds. Even with me carrying the guard, we reached Lobo quickly. As we drew closer to him, his camo armor exterior blending so well with the still gas-filled air that anyone watching without IR would have little chance of knowing where he was, he opened a hatch on the side facing us. I ran to him, stepped inside, and turned around to make sure Jack and Manu made it.
They were right there, Jack actually showing a bit of stress, Manu in tears but leaping perfectly and at speed into Lobo; the practice paid off. Jack entered right behind him, and the hatch shut.
Lobo accelerated as I set the guard on the floor. As I was straightening, I said, "Lobo-."
I never finished the sentence.
I felt Jack's hand on my neck, turned toward him, and sank into blackness.