Free Apex Cypher (Prequel to The Techxorcist series) by Colin F. Barnes Page B

within the plane.
    “I don’t like this, Gabe. This ain’t right,” Petal said.
    “It’s okay, girl, she needs the info, she won’t do anything stupid.”
    “It’s rude to talk behind someone’s back,” Shelley said, poking her head out of the gloom with a sarcastic smile on her ridged and weathered face. A set of keys flew out of the gloom and landed at Gabe’s feet.
    “There,” Shelley said. “Keys to the Ranger. She’s all yours. Bring her up to the fence, and when you hand over the information I’ll open the fence and you two can fuck off. How’s that sound?”
    Gabe turned to Petal. “You good with that?”
    Petal nodded, eyeing Shelley like she was a tiger waiting to pounce. “Yeah. Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
    Gabe picked up the keys, and keeping his eye on Shelley, headed back through the maze of scrap vehicles to the Ranger. Petal followed close behind, watching their backs. Every sound, smell, and change of wind direction felt like a potential threat. And yet nothing happened. They arrived at the truck safely. Gabe tested the door and it opened. He poked around the interior, expecting some kind of trap, but all seemed okay.
    Petal walked a circuit around the vehicle, checking under the fenders and bumpers before eventually opening the passenger side and sliding in on the seat. “All seems good,” she said.
    “Aye, that it does,” Gabe said, and followed her inside.
    He placed the key in the ignition and pressed the start button, half-expecting the thing to explode, but the engine simply turned once, twice, then fired up to a smooth whine. The H-core engine generated a belch of water vapour from the exhaust as he engaged the reverse gear and reversed across the dry, cracked earth in a circle so that he faced towards the fence.
    Driving carefully, he negotiated his way back through the piles of metal, all the time watching around him for an ambush or some other shenanigans. Nothing happened. He pulled the Ranger out of the tight confines of walls made from decades of dead planes and cards, and stopped just inside the edge of the fence where Shelley was waiting, with her ever-faithful shotgun.
    Petal held a pistol low beneath the window.
    Gabe stopped the Ranger and took his hands from the wheel.
    “You got a slate on ya?” Gabe asked Shelley. “I’ll download the info to it. When you open the fence.”
    With one hand still holding her gun, she reached into the folds of her skin-coat and pulled a slate. She passed it to him. “Transfer the info, then I’ll open the fence.”
    Gabe wondered whether the Ranger would have enough power to get through the fence, but with its reinforced concrete and Polymar posts and electrified chain-link, he doubted he’d get very far. He had no choice but to trust her. If worst come to worst, he’d just have to run the bitch down, and get the security codes from her.
    Taking the slate, he connected to its wireless transceiver with his internal system. Once connected, an image of the slate’s data directories appeared in his mental HUD. He created a new folder, and transferred the blueprint file to it. The hi-res set of images and maintenance documentation copied over in a matter of seconds.
    He handed it back to her. “There ya go. The info ya wanted. Now if ya don’t mind, we’ve got places to be.”
    Shelley ignored him. With squinted eyes, she held the slate close to her face, inspected the file. She nodded once. “Yeah, this is what I wanted. You did well. It’s a shame really.”
    “Shame?” Gabe asked.
    Shelley smiled, stepped back, and gestured across the slate. The fence of the gate started to open, but before Gabe had time to press the accelerator, a bolt of electricity shot through is spine, paralysing him in place. He only managed a brief glance to Petal to see that she too had been shocked; her body arced like a bow.
    A further stab of electricity struck him, knocking him forward, face-first into the steering wheel. The flow