Rat Runners Read online

  “I don’t know,” Nica sighed. “I was never really interested in the whole science thing, you know? And Dad hardly ever talked about his work. I just know he was working on something for this company, Axis something or other. Dad’s part of the project fell through—it wasn’t working, so they fired him in the end. But he found this private client to pay for the research, and kept going on his own. And he said it would sort my birthmark, and just before he died, he got really excited about something, and I reckon he’d cracked it, whatever it was. Anyway, that’s all I know.”

  Manikin pressed her lips together in frustration, tapping her fingernails on the glass table. Had Move-Easy’s men screwed up? Had they killed Brundle before they got their hands on the seed thing? Or had Vapor’s men killed him to keep Easy from getting it? It didn’t matter. What mattered to Manikin was handing over that box to Move-Easy, and keeping her and her brother alive—and Scope, Nica and Nimmo too, if it was possible.

  “Listen,” she said to Nica. “You’re right, these guys will get you if they want you. You’re not even safe with the police—the guy who’s after you owns as many coppers as he does criminals. If you want to stay safe, stay out in public, stay in front of the cameras.”

  “I can’t do that for ever!” Nica cried softly.

  “You won’t need to,” Manikin said. “Just for today. Stay out of their reach for today. I’m going to take care of this.”

  Without saying anything more, she stood up, picked up her bag and strode over to where the Turk and his men were sitting, sipping their tea. Confident that they wouldn’t try anything with so many witnesses around, she leaned over the table and locked eyes with the huge man.

  “It’s me, Manikin,” she said in a tight voice. “We know where the box is. We’ll have it for Easy within the hour. Leave her alone—she’s no use to you, now that her dad’s dead. Leave her be.”

  “Not for us to decide, my love,” the Turk replied in a thick Greek accent, making a regretful face that was almost cartoonish. He held the knuckles of his fists a couple of centimeters apart on the table, and blue arcs of electricity crackled between them. “We do not make decisions. We just watch. We watch her, we watch you, we watch Brundle’s lab, we watch Vapor and Vapor’s fellows. Always we are watching.”

  “You know who Vapor is?” Manikin asked, intrigued despite herself.

  “The boss does. He knows many things about many people. You scoot along and fetch box—bring back to us. Mister Easy is very reasonable man. I am sure he will listen to your appeal.”

  Manikin stood up straight. She prided herself on being a keen judge of human nature, on being able to read someone by their body language and tone of voice. She saw the way these four men were looking at her, with their chilly, uncaring stares, their closed-off expressions, their postures suggesting that they had no interest in what she said, that they were waiting for something else. In that moment, she became certain that these men meant her harm.

  Turning on her heel, she strode off towards the nearest exit, needing to get out onto the road beyond the apartment blocks. It took all her self-control not to break into a run.

  CHAPTER 27

  BURNING TO KNOW

  IT HAD BEEN agreed among Nimmo, FX and Scope that, before retrieving the box, the three rat-runners would search Brundle’s lab for any last evidence that might provide a clear picture of his work, and an explanation for his death. They all figured the less time they actually had the case in their hands, the less risk they were taking.

  They climbed up through the building without meeting anyone, including the inquisitive Mrs. Caper. It took Nimmo no time at all to pick the lock, and then they were inside. Nimmo had stopped to close the door again, so it was FX who walked past the pug dog toy sitting on the office desk. All three of them jumped in fright as it started barking and frantically nodding its head.

  “Jesus, that nearly gave me a heart attack,” FX said, taking a deep breath.

  Scope let out a breath of her own and nodded. Nimmo grinned.

  “I keep forgetting about that bloody thing.”

  FX picked it up, turning it over, but there was no off switch. The battery was sealed into it, so he just put it down by the door, where its infra-red sensor wouldn’t detect them. Then they began the business of searching the lab.

  FX went straight over to what Nimmo said was Brundle’s main computer. It booted up quickly, and he set about exploring its files.

  “Somebody’s been on this since Brundle died,” he told them. “They’ve wiped all the files, but they left the hard drive intact—too sloppy for Vapor’s lot, so it must have been Move-Easy’s trolls.” It was very difficult to delete digital files properly without completely wiping the drive; most of what got deleted from a desktop could still be saved. “I’m going to try and retrieve as much of it as I can.”

  Scope was going through the research materials and lab equipment, looking for anything that might be useful, with Nimmo helping her. He watched as she looked at machines and dismissed them, switching on anything that could store computer files, or examining the contents of others.

  “Implants,” she said, studying something under a microscope. “Figured as much. He was using implants—and not just using them, I think he was making them. But there’s nothing here I haven’t seen before.”

  “He had a stash of notebooks,” Nimmo told her. “Kept them in his safe. It’s in the clean room at the end there.”

  “Really? He actually wrote stuff down on paper? And did he know you knew where his safe was?”

  “It’s not like it’s well hidden.” Nimmo opened the door into the clean room. “It’s just built into the wall behind a set of shelves.”

  “Oh sure, that’s hardly hidden at all.”

  “Anyway, if there’s anything he was trying to keep secure, it’ll be in there. What he probably didn’t realize is that I knew the combination.”

  “How?” Scope asked, as she followed him through the airlock of plastic sheeting.

  An air shower system would normally have been working to filter the impurities out of the air as anyone entering put on disposable coveralls in the airlock. Nimmo didn’t bother with the coveralls. Scope was about to object, but then decided she’d just sound stupid. Brundle was dead, and they were in a rush.

  “Because the numpty wrote down all his useful numbers on a sheet in his wallet,” Nimmo sniffed. “I had a quick look at his wallet one time.”

  “Bloody hell! You’ve never just taken a quick look at my wallet, have you? Nimmo? Have you?”

  “No,” said Nimmo. “Not yet, anyway. You’re not keeping any really personal secrets in there, are you?”

  “That’s not funny! Don’t ever mess with my stuff! You hear me? Nimmo?”

  There was more lab equipment in here, all immaculately dirt- and dust-free. Scope loved it. Brundle’s lab was a lot smaller and not as well equipped as Tubby Reach’s, or even Move-Easy’s, but it had been perfectly fitted out for the needs of a biologist exploring bio-technology. Plastic vials lined the counters, and Scope looked at their labels, but it was some cataloguing system, and she’d need the index to figure it out.

  The safe was set into the wall at one end of the clean room, where Brundle did all his micro-technology experiments. Nimmo swung open a set of aluminum shelves to reveal the door, which was as tall as he was. He gazed solemnly at the safe, which was clearly a serious affair. It had a keypad halfway up the left-hand side, and when Nimmo tapped in a six-digit number, it unlocked with a deep series of clicks, opening to reveal four shelves taken up with more plastic vials, and stacks of hardback, ring-bound notebooks, all wrapped in plastic to protect the work in the clean room.

  “He kept handwritten notes,” Scope muttered, smiling to herself. “How traditional. Move-Easy’s got a stash like this somewhere. All the blackmail material he’s got on coppers, judges. It’s what makes him so untouchable. Old school, huh? Power in something as simple as the written word.”

  �
��Plus you can’t hack paper and ink,” Nimmo said.

  “No, but it’s easier to destroy,” FX said from behind them, holding up a data key. “I’ve downloaded everything I could retrieve off the hard drive, but there’s serious encryption on some of this stuff. Don’t know if I’ll be able to crack it. Looks like his back-up disks were nicked too.”

  Scope hesitated for a moment, then pulled one of the packages of notebooks out and tore off the plastic. Opening one, she scanned through a few of the pages.

  “This is it—these are his research notes,” she said. “Years of thoughts written down. Everything we need to know will be in here.”

  Out in the main part of the lab, the pug dog started barking.

  The three rat-runners froze, looking towards the door. Nimmo strode over to the airlock, pushing through the zip-lock curtains, and peered out through the crack in the open door. Then he gently pushed it closed, and pressed the button that locked it.

  “It’s Krieger and Hector,” he whispered.

  FX swore under his breath.

  “What do we do?” Scope asked.

  “This clean room is also a safe room,” Nimmo said. “Brundle took his security seriously. The door’s solid steel, the walls are reinforced concrete. They can’t get in here without heavy cutting equipment or high-grade explosives. We can just wait them out.” He didn’t look entirely convinced. “That’s assuming they can’t find another way in—or find a way of flushing us out.”

  They heard the handle of the door pull down and spring back up again. It was tried twice more. There was silence for a moment.

  “What now?” FX said softly.

  “We could just wait,” Nimmo replied. “But if they’re here for Brundle’s research, everything they want is in this room.”

  Scope shrugged and looked through the pack of notebooks, trying to hide her nervousness. The books were dated, and she opened the most recent one and started reading.

  Then the lights went out. A few seconds later, two emergency lights, mounted on a box on the wall, came on.

  “They’ve cut the power to the room,” FX said. “Those lights must be on a back-up system.”

  Nimmo strained his ears to listen, trying to guess what the two men were doing outside. He heard a scuffling sound in the external wall, the one that had once had a window in it, before it was sealed up. There was a ventilation duct in that wall at head height, and Nimmo put his ear to it.

  “I think they’ve reached out of the window to block the vent up with something,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way to shift it from here.”

  “There should be fans running,” FX said. “To feed air into this place.” He found the switches on the walls, and flicked them on and off, but it made no difference. “How much air do you think we have in here?” he asked Nimmo.

  “Less than ten hours, in a space this size,” Scope told them, without lifting her head up from the book. “But we’ll lose our ability to think clearly and function properly a while before that. Somehow though, if they want us dead, I don’t think they’ll be satisfied with hoping we suffocate.”

  “So, what, you’ll be happy as long as you die reading?” FX gestured to the book.

  “We all have our own ways of dealing with life-threatening situations,” she said shakily. “I can think better if my imagination isn’t given time to dwell on my impending doom.”

  Nimmo went back to the door through to the main part of the lab.

  “The door’s getting warmer,” he grunted. “You’re right, they’re not waiting for the air to run out. They’ve set the lab on fire. Could’ve used any of the flammable stuff Brundle had in containers out there. Thought there was a sprinkler system, but maybe they’ve messed that up too.”

  “They’re going to smoke us out,” FX muttered, moving over to feel the door.

  “No, it’s a clean room—it’s airtight,” Scope pointed out, still keeping her eyes on the page. “There’s no way for the smoke to get in.”

  “She’s right,” Nimmo said. “They’re burning the whole place down, destroying the research … and us with it. I don’t think the fire can get in here, but the whole place could collapse if the rest of the building goes up. Either way, we’re going to bake like meat in an oven.”

  “Are you still reading?” FX asked Scope in amazement.

  “Brundle got his prototype finished,” Scope told them, pointing to a line of text. “It’s an organic implant—he actually grew the thing. It can … it can be wired right into a human’s nervous system! Do you know what that means? This is unreal!”

  “That’s fascinating,” FX said to her in a level voice. “Have you heard that we’re going to get cooked?”

  “We have to get out of this room,” Nimmo said, pulling the sleeve of his jacket over his hand as he hit the button to unlock the steel door. “We’re in a concrete and metal box that’s going to heat up fast.” He pulled a tiny fire extinguisher off the wall. He doubted it would be much good against a room full of flames, but he might be able to clear a path to the front door. “Cover your noses and mouths with something, and keep low to the floor.”

  “Hang on,” FX called, looking up at the sprinklers in the ceiling. “Maybe these still work. Our clothes’ll burn slower if they’re wet.”

  He pulled a lighter from his pocket, flicked it into life, and held it up to the smoke sensor. An alarm went off and a couple of seconds later, water began to spray at high pressure from the tiny shower-heads in the ceiling.

  Scope let out a cry of dismay as the notebook she was holding became soaked, and the ink began to run. She closed it and tucked it into her backpack, along with the rest of that bundle. Then she began pulling more packages of notebooks from the safe, but there was no way she’d be able to carry everything. There must have been nearly two hundred books. As she took another lot out, the package split and dropped at her feet. One of the notebooks fell open and, picking it up, she swore loudly at what she saw.

  “Bloody hell, we had it all the time!” she moaned.

  The other two weren’t listening. Nimmo was squatting down on the floor with FX beside him, a couple of meters from the door, as the sprinklers soaked their clothes and skin. In FX’s hand was a piece of wire, the other end tied to the door handle. Nimmo held the fire extinguisher ready.

  “Those scrotes could still be out there,” FX warned him.

  But Nimmo had felt the heat in the metal of the door through his sleeve.

  “I doubt it,” he said.

  FX pulled down on the wire, and a blast of hot air slammed the door open. The lab beyond was ablaze, the desks, chairs, and some of the equipment already in flames. Crouching low, Nimmo held his breath and darted out, blasting jets of gas at the roots of the fires close to him. In less than thirty seconds, he had made it to the front door. Dropping the extinguisher, he covered his hand with his sleeve again and tried to open the door, but the lock was jammed. FX came up behind him.

  “They’ve wrecked the lock!” Nimmo shouted to him, over the roar of the fire. “It’s another bloody steel door! We’d need a blowtorch to get through it!”

  “What about the windows?” FX called back.

  “They’re barred, and it’s a six-story drop!” Nimmo growled, looking around in desperation.

  The walls and ceiling were concrete—there was no way to get through them. The heat was intense, and the air was filled with fumes that made their eyes water and stung the back of their throats, making them gag and cough. In a matter of minutes, they wouldn’t be able to breathe. Both boys looked down at the floor at the same time. It had a seamless vinyl covering from wall to wall, the kind designed to make lab floors easy to clean. There was a utility knife on the desk. FX grabbed it, slid out the blade and cut a right-angled slash in the vinyl. It was tough stuff, and it took both of them to dig up an edge and peel it back. Underneath it was riveted steel plate. The type you used to reinforce floors that had to take heavy lab equipment.

  “Shit, we
’re going to die,” FX coughed.

  “Definitely, but not today,” Nimmo said.

  There was a cordless drill on one of the workbenches, and Nimmo grabbed it. Using the knife to cut away the vinyl to uncover the full plate—a square meter—he started drilling into the first of the twelve rivets.

  “Man, we don’t have time,” FX muttered.

  “Find a crowbar or a claw hammer to lift the plate,” Nimmo snapped, as the drill bit shredded the head of the first rivet. “And get Scope!”

  Sections of plaster were falling from the ceiling as flames crept across it. The smoke was making breathing unbearable. FX’s head swam as he grabbed the fire extinguisher and bent double to try and find the cooler, clearer air near the floor. By the time he’d made it back to the clean room, the extinguisher was used up. Tossing it away, he crawled through the door on his hands and knees. Scope was still trying to bundle as many of the notebooks as she could into her bag. The sprinklers were still spraying; the clean room was clear of flames, and the air was still breathable.

  “He wuh … wuh … was a genius!” she cried, when she saw FX coming through the smoke. Her voice was ragged and she was nearly choking, her breaths coming in short pants. “We … we can’t lose … lose all this. Help me! We nuh … nuh … need these!”

  “Scope, wake up!” he bellowed at her. “The building is on fire! The. Building. Is. On. Fire. Leave all that crap. We have to get out of here!”

  She tried to push another book into her bag, but he grabbed her and dragged her back out into the chaos that was the main lab. There was a toolbox under one of the tables, and FX kicked it over, seizing a claw hammer from the contents that spilled across the floor. The jerk of his body jolted Scope, who was trying to pull her inhaler from her pocket. The inhaler clattered across the floor, and FX urged her on before she could grab it. The vinyl was starting to burn, creeping across the floor from the edges, forming a slowly tightening circle of flames. Nimmo was coughing badly, his eyes filled with tears, but his hands were steady as he kept his focus fixed on destroying the rivets that held the plate to the floor. As the other two reached him, he finished drilling the last rivet-head.