Chapter Six—When Problems Arise

After jabbing the desk guy, Kyle dragged the unconscious man to the bathrooms, installed him atop the toilet in one of the cubicles, then for laughs, pulled his pants down.

So immature.

He crawled under the door. It was so amateur. He had to find another way to do that so he didn’t have to dirty his suit.

So, he thought. Amateur and immature.

With complete ease, he made his way over to John in the vid-booth. “Yo. All good in here?”

“Yes,” John said without turning. He was elbow deep in wires and circuits. “Just need to connect the loop. What took you so long?”

“Had to plant the desk guy in a bathroom stall.”

“Good thinking.”

Kyle chuckled.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothin’.”

“Shit,” John said. “You pulled some kind of stunt, didn’t you?”

“Let’s stay focused, Staxx.”

The only reason they were doing this in the first place was because of the residents’ private security. If they got wind of something and become suspicious, usually they had access.

The overlord megalomaniacs often wanted their security teams to at least have second hand access to security information, and if something went awry during their little outing, the feeds would need to look natural, otherwise they’d have a lot of problems.

And Max and Staxx didn’t want that much heat dropping down on them.

“How much longer?” Kyle asked, feeling impatient. He wanted to be in this asshole’s penthouse suite already. He had a score to settle.

“Patience, Max.”

“I don’t do well with patience. You know that.”

John said nothing. Then after a few moments said, “Uh-oh. That’s not good.”

“What is it?”

“Well…” John said casually. “The feed circuit is hooked up to an interpolator buffer with a required security clearance.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” John said, grunting as he bent over the open console, “that if I don’t bypass it in about thirty seconds, we’re going to have an alarm trip.”

“Well. Deal with it, big guy. I’ll be ready at the front console.”

“Okay.”

“Hey!” a voice called. “What’s going on here?”

Max leaned out of the security booth from where he was propped up inside the door frame.

Oh hells!

“Deal with this!” Max called as he ran out into the hall to confront the guard who had come upon them without warning. Max drew his pistol in a quick and fluid motion then pulled the trigger—

And got shot in the shoulder.

“Agh!”

“Kyle!” John called.

“Forget it, I’m fine!”

He got up, dropped his pistol by no fault of his own. The pain in his shoulder made his hand spasm, but lucky for the two-million dollar ballistic leotard under his suit, he hadn’t taken any penetrative damage.

For the guard, he couldn’t say the same thing. The man was face down. Max walked up to him as he squirmed a bit. His gun had slid a few feet away.

He grabbed the guard by the shoulder and lifted.

“Are you hurt, macho guy—“

And then his vision snapped in white fl;ash as he stumbled back from the punch. Before Max could recover the guard was atop him, grabbing at his neck.

He punched at the guard’s head, took one blow, two, then macho man raised his arm to block Max’s first. He squirmed under the broad-shouldered hunk of meat. He was almost as big as John!

The noises he made scared him almost as much as his inability to breathe. Pushing up against the guard’s face, he was able to dislodge himself somewhat. “When you’re ready—agh!—let me know!”

“Almost there!” John called. “How are you doing?”

The guard punched Kyle in the ribs, pain blossoming inside his get. He kicked at the man. “Son of a bitch!” He grasped for his pistol reaching as far as he could but was several inches short. He kept kicking. “I’m just”—and finally his loafer came into contact with the guard’s face—“fine!”

The broad man grunted and suddenly he wasn’t pulling at Max’s legs anymore. Max grabbed his pistol, smiling as he did so.

Got you, baby!

“It’s happening!” John called.

Max squirmed to his back on the slick floor and put a silenced shot into the other man’s chest as he aimed for Max. Max pulled the trigger three more times, putting a mess of holes into the guard. He fell, slumped against the wall.

Blood, he thought, curling up in pain from those punches. That’s a lot of blood. Gonna have to clean it.

Oh yeah—the chip!

John’s voice cracked over his wristlet, his shout echoing out of the security booth. “TEN SECONDS, MAX!”

“Shit!”

Max spammed, jumped to his feet and ran for the front desk.

“Max! Four seconds! MAX! Three! Two!”

He jammed the chip into the console.

“One!”

“I got it!

“Max!”

“I said I got it, big guy. Shit.” Then he called out, the pain in his side causing a sharp ach. “Did I…”

“Max?” John said, arriving into the main lobby. He came up to Kyle. “Are you all right, little guy?”

Kyle nodded, saying nothing. He wasn’t the type to take pain real well, usually just curling in on himself until it passed.

“Damn,” John said.

“Yeah,” Max said through a pained laugh. “Guess we got cleanup duty.”

“Oh yeah.”

He looked at John. “Hey, Staxx.”

“What?’

“’Little guy’?”

John/Staxx shrugged. “You always call me ‘big guy.’”

Max snorted. “Agh! That hurts.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah… I’m fine. I just—I think I might have cracked a rib fighting Q-Ball over there.” To add to his pains, his back where he had his knife hurt.

“Let’s clean that mess up.”

“Yeah.”

“And be ready to get out of here in a hurry,” Kyle said. He wasn’t about to leave, not unless someone heard that gun shot. A couple of police unites they could take on easily. But after that, they’d have to get out of there pretty quick.