Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Apay-per-minute connection booth stood against the edge of a building. Sin guided Rissa to it, pulling out the same GoPay card he'd shown her earlier. Swiping it gave her access. She grabbed the extendable cable, pulled it under her hood—ignoring the disgruntled noise from Sin—and hit the web.
The two men moved to flank her. Both stood facing away, their backs toward her and their eyes scanning the area around them. Caleb seemed more tense than Sin, but Rissa didn't care. Like this, she knew she could focus on what she was doing. They'd warn her before anything happened.
That meant she had no reason to dawdle, and each minute would cost the priest more money.
It seemed as if Caleb had already seen enough to make hiding from him pointless, and Sin hadn't yet killed the man as a threat.
Plus, if she was never going to return to OutLink, then her employers couldn't punish her for acting outside of her programming.
And yet, it was still hard to relax around the new man. Sin said he knew Caleb, but they clearly were not friends. The only experience Rissa had with this guy was when he'd chased her onto the train. She did not trust him, but Sin was right. This couldn't wait.
So she grabbed the edge of the booth and opened her mind to the full extent of the connection.
It wasn't even close to what she could handle.
In a few seconds Rissa had accessed the GoPay servers, bypassed their security, altered the contact information for the card, adjusted the security, and added a tiny virus that was set to deploy in two days.
Next, she moved to OutLink's financial department, delving into the records for their accounts.
That led her to the proper bank. It didn't take long for the money to be moved from one place to another.
She disconnected with almost fifty thousand credits accessible to the card immediately.
"Didn't work?" Sin asked.
Rissa huffed out a laugh. "Seriously? That's twice." She turned, heading toward the train station, but Sin caught her arm and pulled her back behind him.
"What are you talking about?" he demanded, gesturing for Caleb to watch her other side.
Together, the three of them moved. They didn't slink or try to hide.
They simply walked, and quickly. Rissa knew this pace would have her breathing hard soon, but she didn't care.
The empty streets around them made a panic want to rise inside her.
Everyone else was gone, and that would make picking them off even easier, but she'd heard Sin's question.
"I'm saying that twice now, I've processed information and you've assumed it was a failure," she explained.
"So, it worked?" he asked.
She grabbed his arm, letting his longer legs help to propel her along. "Of course it worked. I'm an Ingénue!"
He pointed behind them, towards the booth. "You were connected for forty-two seconds, Riss. Not even a minute. How could you do all that?"
She couldn't help but smile behind her veil.
"Well, if you don't mind your 'friend' knowing: I maxed out the connection speeds.
Didn't even reach a third of my capacity.
I can design an interstellar ship in an hour, complete with blueprints.
I can prove the existence of previously unknown atomic particles in three.
How long do you think a financial transfer should take? "
"Fuck," Sin muttered with a relieved smile on his face. "God, you're amazing. Sometimes you seem so normal, I forget you're a walking genius."
"Yeah?" Caleb said, moving his gun before him even if it was still down. "Well, I hate to break up this little celebration, but we've got movement on the cross street."
"Shit," Sin breathed, quickly turning serious. "Riss, how long until the train?"
"Seven minutes and nineteen seconds," she said. "Unless the bombings have caused more delays."
"We can use the station for shelter," Caleb said. "Can your Legion transponder unlock the security room?"
"Should," Sin agreed.
"Well, it's lined against penetrating rounds," Caleb said, flicking his gun in the general direction. "Which means it might be time to jog a little."
The three of them ran. Rissa had to grab the fabric of her long robes, and the men moved slower so they wouldn't leave her behind, but she did her best. With each breath she sucked in, her veil was pulled between her lips, puffing back out when she panted out an exhale.
Altering her body's systems only helped so much, though.
She simply wasn't fit enough to do this!
But as soon as they rounded the corner, Rissa was jerked from Sin's grasp.
In the darkness, she could barely make out the silhouettes of multiple people rushing at them.
The yank made Rissa trip, her slippers catching on the hem of her floor-length robe, but someone caught her.
Someone who wasn't gentle about it. Then something cold and very hard pressed against the back of her head.
***
The moment Rissa was yanked from his grip, Sin pulled a pair of guns.
One, he pointed at the idiot holding his angel.
The other was aimed at anything else dumb enough to move.
The whine of the magnetics engaging was enough to make everyone around him stop.
It seemed there were eight men, each one dressed to hide in the shadows, and they were all facing him.
And Caleb was gone.
For a moment, Sin couldn't figure out where that bastard had disappeared to, and then he caught movement from the edge of his vision.
Crouched down in the shadow of a bush, it was impossible to know if the head of Pharmacon's security force had set them up or was about to save them.
Sin also didn't care. He could do this on his own.
Then the man holding Rissa jerked her against his chest to get Sin's attention and tapped the hard steel muzzle of his gun against the side of her head. Rissa didn't yelp, though. She didn't even flinch. Instead, those beautiful eyes of hers simply watched him, filled with nothing but faith.
"I will blow her brains out," the man holding her warned. "You move, and your angel dies."
"Riss," Sin said, his eyes locked on the man holding her. "I'm going to need you to be very still, ok? Don't move, don't flinch, and dear God, do not try to break free. Just go with it."
"Yes, Legate."
The man chuckled. "You gave her a nickname? Have you ever seen one of these without the robe? Nothing but hardware. I wouldn't even feel bad about killing her. Everything human about these things was cut out and replaced with a computer!"
"You'd never get the shot off," Sin warned, ignoring everything but the tension in that man's hand. "Your finger so much as twitches, and I'll drop your ass to the ground."
"And my friends will finish you off."
Sin smiled. "Sounds good to me. Let's go, motherfucker."
He squeezed the trigger in a smooth motion, the gauss gun whining as the bullet was propelled from the barrel.
He didn't stop to see where it hit, firing with his left hand instead while he chose a new target with the right.
His eyes passed over Rissa. She was falling, still locked in her assailant's grip.
From the shadows, Caleb surged to his feet, unloading both of his guns to take out a pair of men behind them Sin hadn't seen.
But turning meant Sin found a third fool, tapping off a shot to the neck before the remaining men realized all hell had just broken loose.
"Go!" someone screamed.
"Get the girl!"
"Fuck the girl!"
While the men were talking, they weren't running.
Sin put a round in the closest, right in the head.
Four down, four to go, and that was when they started shooting back.
A slug slammed into Sin's thigh. The pain was intense, but his armor prevented penetration.
The man got a bullet between the eyes for his trouble.
More were coming from the side. Caleb was handling those, so Sin let him deal with it.
This had just become an entire fucking squad of people, but where the hell had they come from?
Even worse, they weren't dressed like punks or street thugs.
As Sin took out another, he saw the closed eye of the Legion on the man's shoulder, but it wasn't the symbol for a priest. Unfortunately, the bullets were still coming at him.
Ducking, he tried to make himself a smaller target, but something tackled him from behind.
He hit the ground rolling, and his eyes traveled across another assailant.
This one had turned on Caleb, but the motion made Sin's gun point that way so he pulled the trigger.
The shot was bad, only hitting the guy's arm, yet the man still dropped.
Caleb finished him off a second later, and the person who'd tackled Sin was coming back for more.
She was lean and quick. He didn't even have time to find his feet before she was on him again.
The woman struck, hitting him in the head with her fist. Pain flared in his temple, but she hadn't hit hard enough to knock him out, so he shoved at her, hoping for distance.
Again, the bitch attacked, acting like a damned cat.
Hissing and clawing, she tore the shit out of him, but he was pretty sure it wasn't her nails.
Gloves maybe? She should be the last one, but how many more was Caleb dealing with?
He didn't have time to play around with her.
Sin twisted, wrenching his arm around her body and pressed the muzzle of the rail gun against her head. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger, feeling her brains splatter across his face and shoulder. "Rissa?" he called.
"Is it safe?" she asked.
"Caleb?" he tried next, the sudden silence sounding a little too loud.
A grunt was his response. "Fucking Kevlar." Huffing out a cough, Caleb stepped into sight. "I'm good. We need to move."
So Sin stepped over and offered Rissa his hand, pulling her to her feet—and they ran.