CHAPTER 6
Compared to the high security structures Cherry had been designed to infiltrate, Torino’s Pioneer Museum did not present any sort of challenge for her initial entry. Dragging Warren Springer Stowe along constituted a small hiccup in her usual methods, and the exfiltration demands for Warren’s antique vehicle multiplied that hiccup into true heartburn, sticking with the gastronomical metaphor.
To his credit, Stowe seemed to bear the heavy, bulky backpack without strain, revealing a reasonable degree of physical conditioning under his polished, urbane exterior. Perhaps she wouldn’t be forced to literally carry his weight, at least.
As Cherry stood silently waiting at the foot of the museum’s darkened rear wall, Warren cleared his throat before speaking up. “So you’re going to—”
“Be quiet,” Cherry said, never turning from her fixed pose, staring upward. A moment later, she detected the flicker of movement at the crest of the high wall, her preprogrammed LTA drone dropping its small payload right on time while it stayed too high for the drone detectors.
With a flicker of intent, Cherry felt the symbiote shifting within her to compress and harden her fingertips even as she sprang upward, hearing Stowe’s startled gasp behind her as her fingers and toes caught tiny imperfections in the stone high above Stowe’s head. Two explosive leaps placed her at the rooftop where she found the security scanner muffled by the shroud her drone had dropped. Reaching carefully up within the shroud, she slipped the filter cap in place, knowing she only needed to fool the scanner for a few minutes. Only then did she spool the knotted line down for Stowe.
True to his assertion, he managed to clamber up the high wall with a minimum of grunting and gasping despite his encumbrance. This was good, because Cherry only allowed him a moment to catch his breath as she gathered up the knotted line and spoofed the sensors on the ventilation duct.
“In you go, Stowe,” she commanded as she levered the grille open, waiting for him to crawl inside before carefully removing the shroud and filter from the security scanner. That would surely baffle the local constables, and the thought gave Cherry a fleeting pleasure . . . before the image of a survivor from the Blue Light Brigade reduced to such petty challenges stole that brief joy.
Cherry slipped into the duct and resealed the grille behind them before following Stowe’s scuffling progress. “At the fork, bear right,” Cherry murmured in a low voice.
“Right,” Stowe replied, his voice muffled by the bulk of his body and pack filling the tight ducting.
He crawled along at a steady pace, passing several branching passages and two lighted vent grilles before Cherry called a halt. “Here,” she said softly, “if you can turn around.”
She double-checked the vent for any sensors before prying it loose, gripping it with one hand as she thrust her head and one shoulder through.
Right on target.
Beneath the vent a large, cluttered back room of the museum lay waiting in the half-light, and Cherry’s augmented vision scanned every inch of it for any spectrum of active detection beams, seeing nothing of note. The museum staff clearly had not felt much concern over this storage room filled with oddities of a perceived low value, many shrouded under dusty slip covers. Their inattention to security, and their shameful valuation of Stowe’s prized horse-car, should both receive some fresh institutional attention shortly, Cherry thought, grinning to herself.
She pulled back within the duct and rooted through her equipment, rigging a slender line through one magnetic piton. She leaned back out of the open grille to fix it in place until the green indicator illuminated. “Alright, Stowe,” Cherry said, passing a loop of the line to him, “down you go, then.”
Warren took the loop in hand and hesitantly scooted through the open grille, his heavy pack dragging along behind. Cherry gripped the tail of Warren’s pack as he slipped out to swing on the thin line, easing the pack out to hang from Warren’s quivering arm. Cherry spooled the line smoothly out, lowering Stowe quickly to the floor before his muscles gave out, following him down after dangling a moment to resecure the grille in place.
As soon as Cherry touched the floor she flipped the line sharply upward, disengaging the piton, causing it to drop like a stone into her waiting hand, while Warren looked on curiously. She turned to Warren as she spooled the line, saying, “Don’t you have loads of arcane fiddling to do, Stowe?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes,” Warren said with a sheepish tone, scrounging into his pack and drawing out several mysterious objects, one of which sloshed, clearly containing some quantity of fluid. Cherry didn’t observe the remainder of his unpacking efforts, moving instead to check the two wide exit doors from the room, securing them against any surprise visitors with two precut lengths of steel cable. By the time she returned to Warren’s side, he had his tools and equipment positioned about him, and he began removing the dusty cloth covering his prized antique vehicle.
He glanced over at Cherry. “I spoke to a retired tech who had the engine running on this thing a couple of years ago, so it shouldn’t be too tough to get her operational now.” Warren whipped the final breadth of cloth away to reveal this ancient prize as he finished talking, and Cherry eyed the vehicle critically in the low light. She found herself appreciating both its contours and that odd flavor of industrial simplicity it exuded, even as her innate sense of practicality scoffed.
Such an anachronism served no useful purpose in modern life, even if it didn’t cost a zillion guilders to own it.
Warren opened the engine compartment and poked about, uttering satisfied sounds from time to time, and Cherry cast her eyes over the other oddities relegated to this realm of outer darkness, wondering what failed litmus test resulted in this shameful exile. An ancient leather jacket, framed under glass, rested to one side, a faded cartoon woman painted thereon, her large eyes and long eyelashes offering some strange allure. “Betty Boop,” Cherry said quietly, reading the name beneath the image with a shrug. She stepped to a shrouded bulk squatting nearby and lifted the cloth to reveal the other sort of ancient vehicle, gleaming in black and chrome, though this one seemed unsteadily perched on only two wheels. Motorcycle, was what Warren had called the thing.
Cherry stood admiring the saddlelike arrangement for the motorcycle’s operator when Warren spoke up.
“Like that?” he said, peering out at her from the Mustang’s engine compartment, grinning. “Just an engine and a pair of wheels, with a tank full of explosive propellant right between your legs. Hah!”
Cherry tilted her head. “It’s got a certain something. Really working for the whole horse thing, weren’t they?” She leaned closer. “And who was this Davidson chap?”
Warren thrust his head back into the Mustang’s engine compartment, his voice emerging from its bowels. “Uh, the fellow who made them, near as I can figure.”
Cherry flipped a leg over the motorcycle’s seat, sitting comfortably astride, her hands wrapping over the odd control grips. “And not a single gyro or logic controller?”
“Nope,” Warren said, his head reemerging. “Not that I’ve ever seen.”
She looked at the dusty, simplistic gauges between the handlebars, one of them revealing a series of graduated numbers that ascended to a zone marked in red. “What happens when your gauge reaches this red zone here, eh?”
Warren glanced up. “Oh that? That’s the, uh, red line. When you redline it—push it too far, um, the thing can blow up.”
Cherry shook her head. “Our honored forebears esteemed their lives even less than we do, it seems.” She looked back at Stowe. “And you’ve operated some of the, um, motorcycles yourself?”
Stowe scratched his chin, leaving a grease mark. “A few of them, sure.”
Cherry raised her eyebrows, considering him. “Mister Stowe, within your unimpressive exterior lurks a serious lack of self-preservation instinct.”
“Hah!” Warren laughed, turning back to his tinkering, emerging from the engine compartment after a moment to heft a canister-like object from among his equipment. He moved to one of the strangely flattened wheels of the vehicle, seeming to freeze for a moment before reaching out to aggressively grasp the flattened portion. Stowe uttered a muffled oath.
“What is it?” Cherry asked, slipping from the motorcycle seat.
“Unbelievable!” Warren kicked the wheel. “These ignorant savages must have seen pictures of Old Earth cars sitting on flattened tires and thought that was their natural state.” He kicked the wheel again. “You see this beauty? It’s a solid composite, not an inflatable tire at all. I mean, collectors often use solids—but this set is actually formed with one flattened side; intentionally flawed. Tell me, who is that stupid?”
Cherry could see the dilemma immediately and began thinking through the implications as she said, “No one, I think. Anyone would know this thing needs to roll—even I can see that at a glance. So they must have proper wheels around here somewhere.” Cherry moved to another cloth-shrouded form and peered under the cover.
Warren snapped his fingers. “Maybe you’re right.” He moved through the cluttered space, peeking under each cloth, behind every obstruction, but in mere minutes they realized the inescapable truth.
“So, what have you in the way of a backup plan, old stick?” Cherry inquired, staring fixedly at Warren’s flushed face. “Because, as I see it, we’ve got about seventeen bloody minutes until we find ourselves in a little fix.”
“Seventeen minutes?” Warren said, looking from the Mustang to his collection of tools and gadgetry. His gaze fell to the motorcycle where it squatted. “Can you—I suppose you can get yourself out of here okay alone?”
“Escape from the underpaid security yobs of a backwater museum?” Cherry inquired. “Though my heart fails at the thought, I think I can manage it somehow.”
“Okay, okay,” Warren said sheepishly, rubbing his chin as he thought. “I can scrape together a getaway myself. Sure I can. I got this. Chips are down, and Stowe springs into action!” He moved to his arcane equipment in a rush, dragging his pack up beside Mr. Davidson’s motorcycle instead and pouring fluids in various portals about the steel-and-chrome anachronism.
After watching for a short time, Cherry pondered Warren’s odds of successfully evading even the second-rate security he would face, feeling less certain by the moment.
Warren finished his tinkering and threw a leg over the motorcycle. “Umm . . .” He looked around the room. “If you could unsecure that door over there for me, that’d be great.” Warren tugged his cap over his face until only his eyes were revealed. “Then it may be time for you scarper off. This thing’s likely to be really loud, and we’ll probably draw some attention when I fire it up.”
Cherry loosed the securing cable from the door and cracked it open to survey the wide, shadowy corridor awaiting them. She turned back. “Your vehicle seats two, Stowe. I’ll come along for a bit; see what I think of your silly antique thingummy in action.”
“Are . . . are you sure about that?” Warren asked, moving the motorcycle awkwardly forward, pushing himself along with thrusts of his long legs.
“Indeed. If you cock it up too badly, I’ll abandon ship and let you fend for yourself.” Cherry couldn’t see Warren’s face, but the wrinkles appearing beside his eyes made it clear her words had provoked a smile.
“Alright,” he said, placing one foot on a projecting peg-like member on the side of the machine. “Here goes.” He threw his weight down on the peg, cranking it about, and Cherry waited for the advertised roar to bellow forth. Instead the motorcycle emitted a few paltry splutters and a trickle of gray smoke. Cherry folded her arms, leaning against the doorframe. “Umm . . .” Warren seemed to adjust a few controls before jamming the peg down again . . . and again . . . and again.
The process continued for some time and seemed more of an ancient exercise device rather than a means of transportation to Cherry. “Four minutes, Stowe,” Cherry said, seeing the sweat dripping from around Warren’s eyes, his chest heaving from exertion.
“Four?” he panted. “Okay. Almost got it.” He spritzed some fluid into a metal orifice and gathered himself for another lunge.
At first Cherry thought this was yet another spluttering failure, then the sputters chained together, rising, coughing, turning slowly into a deafening roar. Sheathed in a cloud of smoke, Warren wheeled up to Cherry and she cast the doors wide. As Warren urged his metallic steed forward, she leaped lightly up behind him, tugging her own cap down over her face, peering from the eye slit.
Warren poured on the power with a jolt and Cherry seized the machine between her thighs, wrapping her arms around Warren’s midsection as she heard and felt the bestial explosion of power.
Though objectively she realized their relative velocity could not compare to any number of vehicles she had operated, the impression of speed as they tore down the corridor, so low to the ground, the snarling exhaust echoing off the walls, made Cherry grin.
Despite the novel assault on her senses, Cherry’s tactical mind remained fully engaged, tracking their route through the needlessly sprawling halls of the museum. Placing her mouth beside Warren’s head, Cherry yelled, “Bear left . . . there!”
The ancient engine’s roar subsided to a growl and Cherry felt Warren leaning the motorcycle far over as they rounded the corner, wondering how it maintained such stability without gyros.
As they came through the turn, Warren cranked on the accelerator again, the motorcycle straightening, and in the next instant Cherry caught a flash glimpse of a wide-eyed security guard as they roared past him. Cherry initiated a tactical timer at that moment, counting down the seconds until they would surely find themselves thronged by Torino’s finest flatfoot ensemble.
Straight ahead Cherry saw the broad exit gleaming and she wondered just how well this two-wheeled contraption would handle the conditions they had planned for the Mustang’s exit.
The transponder in Warren’s pack linked with Cherry’s pre-deployed system, and she saw the orange tracery of burning lines flash over the broad glazing of the exit a millisecond before it spiderwebbed, showering down like a waterfall of white crystals.
As they sped through the powdered crystal remains, Cherry felt the machine beneath her fishtail slightly, but Warren kept them upright. And they flew through the bare frame and out into the night air.
The sense of accomplishment died in a flash of bright light stabbing down from above. Cherry’s augmented eyes looked through the blinding beam to see the only thing it could possibly be: a police Mako waiting up there to scoop them up. Inexplicably, impossibly, the police had anticipated their moves somehow.
Stowe and his assertions of genius . . .
Though Warren’s vision could never resolve the sleek vehicle above through the glare, he clearly knew what they faced, whipping the motorcycle around the first corner and stoking even more speed out of the ancient engine, roaring down a narrow alley, the Mako’s probing beam losing them for a few moments.
Warren yelled back over his shoulder, “I’ll slow down so you can bail!”
Before Cherry could decline his kind offer, they saw the road ahead blocked even as the Mako swung in above them again, its light encircling them. An amplified voice declared something official sounding scarcely discernible over the motorcycle’s roar, and Warren throttled back, sliding the two wheels to a halt just a stone’s throw from a line of grim constables.
Warren reached over and killed the engine before dragging the hood from his head, tossing it aside. “Good evening, gents!” he called out, fishing in a pocket to withdraw his smoking case as a chorus of weapon-related clicks and buzzes rang out a warning.
“Warren Springer Stowe,” an officious voice called. “You are hereby arrested for burglary and theft.”
Warren smiled, smoothly rolling one of his nasty little cigarettes, and said, “Burglary? Theft? My heavens, no! Just a little demonstration. Publicity stunt, that’s all.”
Cherry thought Warren was actually doing a fair job of calming the excitable hearts of these coppers, but when he struck a flame from his cigarette case, she discovered her mistake.
The universally eager trigger finger of the constabulary had been tempted too far. Before Warren could even touch his cigarette to the flame, two sap rounds struck him solidly in the gut, knocking him sideways, his limp body sliding to the ground.
Cherry struggled to keep the motorcycle from toppling over to crush Warren’s slumped form, easing it down and moving to cautiously check Warren’s pulse. As she felt the steady thump, she heard Warren groan, stirring to spit the crumpled cigarette from his lips.
Two figures stepped out from the perimeter light, their grating steps bringing Cherry’s distracted gaze up. Cherry knew low-level bureaucrats when she saw them, and the man and woman staring triumphantly down fit the bill perfectly.
“Who are you, then?” the man asked.
Cherry slipped the hood from her head and shook her short hair out, latching onto the first ridiculous pseudonym that came to her mind, seeing those big, melting eyes from the old museum image. “I’m Betty Boop. And you are?”
“We’re about to be your worst nightmare, Miss Boop,” the woman said, smiling in a truly unpleasant manner, clearly even less aware of Old Earth pop characters than Cherry.
“Not so fast, Masters,” Warren slowly growled out from his recumbent position. “My lawyers . . . gonna make mincemeat of you two.”
Cherry really didn’t appreciate the way the two stiffs began to smile then.
“Your lawyers, Stowe?” the man asked politely. “Do you mean the esteemed firm of Mordaunt and Mundercast? I believe they only practice within the Confederated Worlds, not independent systems like Bethune.”
At Warren’s gurgled sound of surprise, Masters smiled sweetly. “Oh yes, the official announcements will be everywhere tomorrow, but it’s true: Bethune seceded from the Confederated Worlds. Your fancy law firm won’t save you this time.”