Chapter Nine

Front street was indistinguishable from any of the other streets Gabriela had seen. Trash littered the road or was heaped on the sidewalk. Graphited storefronts with neon flashing signs bathed the street in light. Young men and women glared out from the mouths of dark alleys as the rest of the citizens shuffled by.

"This is it." Geraldo pulled the car across the street from the apothecary and turned off the engine. He typed a code into the keypad on the dashboard, the sound of each key he pressed rang out in the silence of the cab, which was again broken when a click rang out. The safety of the carbine, which was a standard issue for all Taurus security vehicles, was released.

"You take the rifle."

Gabriela did as she was told. Her AFD displayed the carbine's caliber, 7.62, as well as the remaining rounds in the clip. Gabriela ejected the clip and reinserted it before pulling the action back, arming the weapon.

"You stay back. Something about this doesn't feel right." He warned.

"You think Nora lied to us?" Gabriela shot him a worried look.

"No, she had too much to lose to lie."

"Then what is it?"

"We are walking into the lion's den." Geraldo wrung his hands on the steering wheel. "We don't know how many people work for this guy or how well-armed they are. Just be ready to call in backup if we need it."

"You got a vest on?"

Geraldo pulled down his shirt and showed her his combat vest. "Never leave home without it."

She let out a sigh. She had wondered how seriously Geraldo would take his own safety. "Okay. I got your six."

Geraldo took a deep breath before he opened the door, Gabriela followed.

The buzz of the neon sign that flashed "Drugs, Drugs, Drugs" was the only sound Gabriela could hear from the shop. She crouched next to the window and quickly glanced in. The window was one of the only few on the street that didn't have bars. A man was at the front counter, his head down. It looked like he was writing or using a terminal. Gabriela couldn’t tell.

A bell rang when Geraldo entered. The man at the desk looked up. "Can I help you?" He asked.

"Yeah," Geraldo said as he walked in and rubbed the back of his bald head. "I have had a killer headache. I was hoping you had something for a migraine. I have been seeing three dots."

"Yeah." The man said with a smile. "We got something that can help with that." And then, without warning, he lifted a pistol from under the counter and fired. Geraldo fell back on the shelves behind him. They collapsed around him as he was buried in nick-knacks and other merchandise.

A loud, high pitch squelching sound pierced Gabriela's ear. She cursed and pulled her earpiece from her ear. The loud sound continued emanating from the device. They had jammed her coms. She couldn't call for backup.

Gabriela quickly slipped the earpiece into her jacket pocket. "Shit." She whispered as she pressed herself against the wall of the storefront. She could feel the cold stone of the bricks seeping through her jacket. Think, think, she told herself. Her heart pounded, and her hands began to sweat.

And just then Geraldo's warning filled her thoughts, "Thinking will get you killed down here." Gabriela clenched her jaw and swung around, bringing the rifle to her shoulder. The man was just rounding the counter when she fired.

The glass of the storefront shattered, and the man jerked and fell backward, his blood plastering the wall behind him.

People on the street screamed and ran.

Gabriela stepped to the side and saw another man coming in through a door in the back. He fired. Gabriela could hear the round whiz past her ear.

She returned fire. The carbine bucked in her hands as it spread led into the man. Red holes climbed up the man from his sternum until his head burst apart like a melon. He fell to his knees and slumped to the side.

Gabriela climbed through the broken window, the glass crunching under her feet. A haze of gun smoke hung in the air, the neon lights giving it an ethereal look. The acrid smell assaulted her nostrils. She held her rifle at the ready as she swept the room from right to left.

A man came down the stairs next to the counter with a shotgun at the ready just as Gabriela had lowered her rifle. There was a loud boom, and the man's head cocked at an odd angle before his legs collapsed from under him, and he toppled down the rest of the stairs.

Gabriela swung her rifle over to where the shot had come from and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Geraldo pulling himself from the chaos of the shelves he had fallen into, his pistol still smoking.

"Are you okay?" She asked as she rushed over to help him to his feet.

"That hurt like hell." He groaned as he staggered. White fluid seeped down his chest, the non-Newtonian liquid leaking from a hole in his tact gear.

Gabriela relaxed a little. The relief she felt was almost palpable. "Your vest is compromised."

Geraldo touched the fluid and brought his fingers up, smearing the white liquid between two fingers and his thumb. "Shit."

"Stay here, cover the door." Gabriela brought her rifle up, leveling it at the stairs as she moved closer. "I'll clear the upstairs."

"I'll make sure there is no one else in the back. My com is down. They are jamming the signal. We need to find the jammer asap." He warned her.

Gabriela nodded before stepping over the dead body on the stairs and glanced back. It was dangerous to do a sweep with compromised armor, but she knew Geraldo understood the risks. She looked back over her shoulder.

"Be careful."

"You too," Geraldo said and moved deeper into the building.

The stairs creaked with every step Gabriela took as she made her way up to the top floor. She struggled to control her breathing. Gabriela had never killed a man before. But, she knew that it was inevitable in her line of work. She had thought she would know how to handle it when the time came, but the cold sweat that beaded on her brow and dripped and slid down her back reminded her that she was wrong.

A door stood ajar at the top of the stairs. Light and sound slipped past, spilling down the stairs. She took a deep breath before she shoved the door open and swept the room with her rifle.

The room was nothing more than a small office with a desk and a chair. Pornography played on the monitor on the desk. Other than that, the space was empty. The sound of the erotic moaning and filth was the only thing in the room. Gabriela breathed a side of relief and called out, "Clear!" Before she headed back down the stairs.

"Geraldo?"

"Back here." Geraldo's muffled voice answered from somewhere deeper in the shop.

Gabriela shuffled around the body of the man who had run in from the back of the room, rounding the doorway, and entered the back room. Half of his face was missing, and the one eye he had left bulged out of its socket in an endless stare.

"Don't." Geraldo's sound pulled her away from the body. "Don't look at it." He motioned for her to come over to him. "You had to do it." He reminded her.

"I know."

Geraldo nodded before he opened a door and revealed another set of stairs leading down into the darkness of the basement. "This is it."

"You should stay up here. Let me clear the basement." She said quietly.

"No, we are going together.”

“Your vest is compromised." She reminded him with a harsh whisper.

He flashed her a smile, a wide grin that spread from ear to ear. "I'll just have to not get shot then."

He started to walk down the stairs, but Gabriela stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "At least let me go first then."

"I can see in the dark." He tapped the side of his face, right next to his chrome eyes. His voice was low.

"I have AFD."

He looked down the stairs and hesitated before he gave a reluctant nod and stepped aside.

The stairs were made of metal grating, with a metal handrail built into the concrete wall. Their steps rang out in the eerie darkness of the basement. Gabriela stopped briefly when she got to the bottom of the stairs and listened. The basement smelled of sterilizer, and she could hear the unmistakable beeping of a vital monitor and a slow and steady woosh followed by a low hiss.

A low blue light emanated from behind plastic drapes. Gabriela and Geraldo both approached cautiously. Gabriela stood back and aimed her rifle at the drapes and motioned for Geraldo to move them. He reached out slowly and drew them back.

"Jesus," Gabriela gasped.

There was a steel operating table surrounded by medical equipment, and on the table was a woman. Tubes ran out from her body connecting to glass containers. Gabriela could see implants inside each of them. Both of the woman's legs were missing, as well as an arm. Her remaining arm rested on her swollen, pregnant belly. Eyes previously staring vacantly at the ceiling suddenly darted towards the officers, catching Gabriela’s gaze intensely.

"Help us." The woman breathed.