Code Enforcement: Wetware

The device skitters towards us as the door snaps shut. I turn to dash for Sparrow, shouting at her to get down, just as it detonates. The explosion throws me back before I reach her, driving the air from my lungs. I gurgle wordlessly, glimpsing Alex, Sparrow, and Cartwright blown off their feet as I'm forced to squeeze my eyes shut too late against the brilliant flash. The sound is so loud that I only hear ringing, and my body hits the floor and rolls.

Dazed, I try to push myself up with wobbling arms, feeling blood dribbling from my lip. A bright purple blotch occupies most of my field of vision and there's a muffled warble in my ears. I cough in the acrid smoke, nose burning and eyes watering. What the hell was that? A flashbang? Holy void-spawned fuck, that's got to be Casey's crew!

I can vaguely make out the cylindrical tank on the ground, the transparent skin now webbed with cracks. But the blurry thing inside swims without obvious distress, and the tank doesn't seem to be leaking. Wiping my lip, I shake my head, looking around at the rising figures wreathed in sharp grey smoke.

There's another warble, and something grips my shoulder. Disoriented, I gasp and shake it off, but it grips me again and pulls. I growl, twisting away and throwing a fist at someone. And missing. The figure warbles at me again, then a flare of pain erupts in my cheek. An icy shock clears my head as Sparrow slaps me.

"Melody!" she shouts in my ringing ear, her face resolving through the purple weal in my vision. "Chimera!" She's pointing to the dock and trying to pull me to my feet, and I manage to stumble with her a few steps.

"No..." I pant, stopping and looking back. "Alex, and Cartwright-"

I squint and see two figures wrestling with a third in the curling smoke. Clearfield! Fuck, I can barely see, but she's the tallest. I reach into my pocket and turn my dampener off, trying to log into the nearest node as I stumble towards them. My overlay blooms, tracing a silver outline of the dock's nodes and hardware. It doesn't help much in the smoke, but I can orient myself. A stale ping blooms in my overlay in silver. It's simple text, from TooBee, timestamped ten minutes ago. 'It's done, I'm out, good luck!' I shake my head, flicking it away. Gee, thanks.

There's a snap and the sharp clicking sound of a taser, and one of the figures goes down. Alex? Fuck! I try to rush the tallest figure, but traveling a straight line is strangely difficult. I fact, I stumble to my knees, wincing at the pain even in reduced gravity. My vision swims as I look up at the wrestling figures, trying to ignore the roiling in my belly. Damn it, my equilibrium is fucked to hell.

Through the smoke, I keep hearing the chirp of the doors unlocking, then the blare of them immediately locking again. It happens again, the chirp-blare combination echoing in succession even faster, and Clearfield curses. I twig to what's happening a moment later. Oh shit. Cartwright's locking Casey's crew out with his CE Key, and Clearfield's unlocking the doors with hers. CE keys of the same rank giving conflicting commands? Has that ever happened before? Holy void-spawned fuck, if they get a foot in the door, we're out the airlock without a helmet!

I try to use my admin access, but it's immediately overridden, and I'm booted out of the nearest node. Attempting to get back in gives me a red flashing denial. Damn. A CE key overrides everything, even general Admin access. For the next few minutes, until they run out of time on their keys, they're calling the shots. If she takes Cartwright out, she's got control.

And Casey's crew knew exactly where and how to hit us. Clearfield is their man on the inside. She's feeding them data in real-time, right fucking now!

I leap for her as Cartwright takes a hook across the cheek, staggering back. Despite my wobbling legs, I manage to swing an arm around her neck. I hear her curse, but I yank hard with one hand as I spin the dampener's disk with the other. "Scouting Officer playing scout? Should have guessed," I snarl as the overlay winks out again. She elbows me hard in the gut, right in the beanbag-bruise. I wheeze, coughing as my belly clenches, but I shove my hand down the back of her uniform. She gives a strangled yelp as I drop the dampener down her top, severing her link. As she claws at her shoulders, I kick her hard, driving her forward into Cartwright's fist.

I almost feel bad when it connects with her jaw, throwing her head back the other way. Cartwright winces, pulling the rifle up as I catch Clearfield. She groans, busted nose leaking as her eyes blink, spitting out a chip of broken tooth. The chirp of the door ceases, and through the smoke, the red lockout symbol shines bright. Got it! You're trapped in meatspace now!

But my skin crawls when the speakers above us boom with a deep and familiar voice. "To the individuals currently determined to play aquatic guardians, allow me to strongly advise you to reconsider your position."

I feel a tide of red-hot fury rising up inside my belly, but I clamp down with a sneer. "Well, if it isn't Caspian Casey. Not quite in the flesh, but in the next room at least," I say, holding the rogue Captain tightly as Cartwright wrestles to get a set of cuffs on her. "I assume with Clearfield down for the count, you find yourself locked out and twiddling your thumbs."

There's a pause, and I can imagine the gears turning in his head. "Ah, Ms. Cruz? Or should I call you Dame? You've turned out to be quite a stubborn little bug in our system." I hear panting, and see Alex's silhouette standing shakily in the gradually-dispelling smoke. "May I assume the others with you are Code Enforcement Officers?"

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I grit my teeth, struggling against Clearfield's thrashing. "Yes, and you'll find more raiding your hardware and software, I'd imagine," I shout back, finally hearing the cuffs snap tight. "Of course, I'd guess you already know that. Throwing a flashbang? You must be desperate. That could have gone badly in a closed space with a delicate lifeform," I call, as Clearfield hisses and stills her writhing, panting and flushed and bloody.

"A lifeform in an enclosed tank, in an open dock. Like all fruitful endeavors, it involved a measure of calculated risk, Dame. And speaking of risks, it's time for you to weigh some of your own," he responds evenly. If Casey is disturbed, his voice doesn't betray it. "We're coming through this door one way or the other. If you're gone, but the squid isn't, then we have no reason to pursue you."

"I doubt it," I call loudly. I try to ping the various nodes around us, but I'm still locked out. "You won't blow the door; that would kill everything in the dock. Cutting through will take some time, and other Code Enforcement officers will respond to admin alerts for explosions or decompression."

There's a short chuckle in response. "I think you'll find the local admin office has disabled the alert system and is redirecting traffic to the starboard docks. Nobody is coming to help you, Dame."

I feel the hair rise on the back of my neck. "If there's no rush, then think about your situation. We've got your friend Jessie as a shield, and you won't do anything that will destroy the squid or its tank. You've got four pissed off folks with weapons, two whom are Scouting Officers," I add, looking around. Where the hell did Sparrow go? "It's a bad gamble. Even if you win, you'll be cop-killers. You'd be hunted in whatever district you hide in."

This buys a tense moment of silence. "The League is already being hunted regardless, Dame, so running doesn't leave me better off. Besides, enough credits will purchase freedom even from those kinds of consequences," Caspian points out.

A vile accuracy. "There are a lot of Solar-District Gaians who are dead or in prison that thought the same thing. Don't be greedy, Casey; you're holding a bad hand, so do the smart thing," I say, pulling away from the door and keeping Clearfield between me and it. "Fold: cut your losses, fly away, and live a little longer."

"Sorry, Dame; some payouts are worth the risk. Besides, I've already gone all in, and the pot is sitting in the next room." I hear a loud, high-pitched whine that quickly rises in frequency and sets my teeth on edge. "You raised me when you tried to turn Morgan, and now I'm calling; let's see if have the cards."

I'm expecting that his crew will get pneumatic cutters or shears and spend the next half-hour cutting through the door. I mean, if he just blows it down with explosives, the squid will end up as sushi.

However, I'm disquieted when the whine swells, making my teeth hum as a oblong red glow begins to bloom in the metal. A few seconds later, I wince as a brilliant blue-white lance pierces the doorframe. Turning my head, I take a step back as acrid grey smoke billows from the door. Biting my tongue, I shield my eyes against the glare from both the blue-white arc of plasma and the yellow-orange rivulet of molten metal dribbling slowly to the deck.

My mouth falls open, staring in dread as the plume of plasma slowly melts a narrow channel through the alloy. Of course that won't hold them. You vacuum-sucking moron, what now? I could just board the Chimera and run with Sparrow. I mean, Casey might hold a grudge, but he wants the squid. If I bail...

If I bail, Alex and Cartwright are as good as dead. Even if they escape the dock, both know too much. But if I have the squid, they'll all be after me. Not Cartwright, not Alex. Not Sparrow.

I drop the cuffed captain unceremoniously, hearing her squawk as she hits the ground. Cartwright shouts something at me as I sprint towards the tank. With no other ideas, I grab the squid's container with a grunt. In only fifteen percent gravity, it's not heavy, but it's awkward. Running is more like waddling urgently as I race against a plasma torch.

I just reach the north wall when green admittance symbol lights up and the doors slide open.

I skid to a halt before a half-dozen or so very pissed-off looking irregulars in unmatched outfits, sporting a number of weapons that should be illegal. And some that definitely are. And a number of augments I'm not sure are weapons, though I don't know what else they could be.

Any uncertainty is removed when one of the items sprouts a shuddering arc of bright purple plasma and the bald bearer whips it around to rest at the side of my neck. I gasp, turning my head as another weapon rises, a hollow tube is pointed directly between my eyes. Maybe it's a projectile weapon, maybe an energy weapon, but either way, it must be lethal at this range. And almost certainly illegal.

I gulp, tilting my eyes up to meet the gaze of an androgynous individual with half a head of bright pink hair and more piercings than I can count. Her teeth are bare in an angry rictus, and the vaguely masculine figure beside her presses the plasma blade closer, making me pull back from the heat.

My mouth opens and closes silently, the tank in my arms keeping me from reaching Clearfield's pistol on my hip. Even if the weapon isn't slaved to her biodata, my belt might as well be Luna for all I'll reach it before I die. "Uh..." I manage, tongue thick in my mouth.

The pink-haired gunwoman narrows her eyes, dragging them up from the squid to meet my gaze. "Oh, this is kismet indeed. You must be Dame?"

I take in her lanky, spacer build and the ad-hoc equipment her team is sporting. Definitely a local. Armed Jovian mercs? There's only one group that could be. "You're with the Daughters of Ganymede, I gather?"

The woman gives barking laugh before she flicks the safety off the weapon. "Oh, yesss..." She purrs, grinning. "Captain of the Daughters, in fact. The name's Trinity. We haven't met, but I'm glad we get this chance to speak." She takes a step forward, and I'm forced to step back to give her weapon some breathing room. Two of the others with her step into the dock, and the bald man with the blade keeps it at my neck. The woman's gaze doesn't leave my face, and she licks her lips, glee dancing in her eyes. "Cara Morgan was my boss, before you got her and a bunch of my friends killed."

Staring down the barrel of the weapon, listening to the excited snaps and clicks of the tiny alien squid in my arms, I can't help but smile and wonder which of us is more helpless right now. Out of the engine, into the drive-plume, Dame.