Ciphers, Matt Rogers [a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT] 📗

of the overturned chairs, Slater said, ‘Is this about us?’

She checked the magazine was full, slammed it back home, then looked up. ‘What?’

He jerked a thumb toward the street. ‘Everything happening out there. Are we the reason?’

Violetta stared at him. ‘Are you being serious?’

‘The timing adds up.’

‘If this was just about you two, you think they’d take out all of New York City?’

King stiffened. ‘Is that what happened?’

‘Didn’t you know? Everyone got the same emergency alert. There’s more than eight million people affected.’

‘How?’

She looked at King. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The networks are down. How’d you get that alert out? I didn’t even think about that.’

‘We got it out before they went down. It was close. Whoever’s behind this killed the cell towers half an hour after they killed the lights.’

‘Why are the networks down?’ King said, disgruntled. ‘Aren’t there backup generators in place to keep the cell towers operational? I thought all that was put into place after one of the hurricanes.’

‘It’s complicated,’ she said. ‘We don’t entirely understand it. Right now, the phone companies can’t communicate with critical cell towers. It’s like they were targeted, too. Like this was one giant cluster bomb of disorientation designed to go off at once, to sow the seeds of panic.’

‘What’s happening here, Violetta?’

Silence.

King said, ‘What is this?’

‘Nothing good. I’m not about to brief you here. There could be more of them on the way.’

‘Do you know why they’re coming for us?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have an idea?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Are we testing your patience?’

‘Yes.’

Slater said, ‘Let’s go, then.’

‘Drop the rifles and get handguns,’ she said. ‘We need to move on foot. I don’t want the pair of you causing a mass panic by openly wielding fully automatic assault rifles in plain view.’

‘It’s dark,’ King said. ‘We’ll be discreet.’

She stared daggers at him.

He dropped the G36C.

‘Understood,’ he said. ‘You’re the boss.’

Slater didn’t like it. ‘Have you looked around? You think whoever wants us out of the equation is going to stop at one wave? Do you remember what happened before Nepal?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Please don’t start this here, Will.’

‘I—’

‘You have a problem with authority. And you might have a personal problem with me, too. You think I favour King because we’re together. Right now, none of that matters. We only need to cover a few blocks, and I’m not about to have you parading through the streets with HK rifles. People are on edge enough as it is. And the streets are clogged. In those circumstances you’re both a better shot with a handgun that with a rifle. Now pick up a pistol and follow me.’

Slater mulled it over, but by now he was almost completely sober, and common sense took over.

He said, ‘Okay.’

Violetta blinked. ‘Really?’

‘What?’

‘You’re complying.’

‘You don’t think people can mature?’

‘Maybe some people,’ she said. ‘You? Not so much.’

King half-smirked.

Slater gave him a death stare.

King wiped it off his face immediately.

‘Where are we going?’ King said.

‘We have a temporary HQ, not far from here. A covert set-up in an empty office building. Fully discreet. No-one knows of its existence. The pair of you can treat it like a safe house until we get this sorted.’

‘Was it created for a reason?’

‘What do you mean?’

Slater said, ‘He means — did you know this blackout was coming?’

‘Not the blackout, specifically.’

‘But you knew something was wrong.’

She looked at them both. The silence was ominous.

‘Yes,’ she said.

Then she put the hand holding the Glock inside her coat, shielding it from view, and set off for the building’s entrance.

As if on cue, the dim light in the lobby spluttered out.

In the darkness, King and Slater exchanged a look.

It said everything that needed to be said.

Then they followed.

22

Rico was halfway through a mugging when gunshots exploded into earshot, just down the street.

He nearly leapt out of his skin.

He’d stumbled all the way to the Upper East Side from Palantir, wired to the eyeballs from the cocaine, barely noticing the frantic crowds all around him. He thought he noticed passersby getting slightly more perturbed by the blackout, but he chalked it up to his adrenaline firing on all cylinders and forced it out of his mind. He couldn’t care less if the whole goddamn city started freaking out. It didn’t affect him one iota.

He’d spent a considerable amount of time searching for the perfect location to cause some trouble, and found it in a quiet street just off Second Avenue, home to a smattering of luxury residential buildings. It hadn’t taken him long to find a target.

He’d cornered a couple in their sixties not long after arrival, shepherding them into the shadows with sharp jerky movements. They were old and unaccustomed to the harsher side of life, and they’d obeyed like sheep. She was in a fur coat and he was in a three-piece suit that barely hid his gut. Rico figured they’d been on the way home from the theatre or an expensive dinner when the lights went out. They were pathetic, in his opinion. Dinosaurs stuck in their ways, moving through life on autopilot. He hadn’t even pretended to own a weapon. He’d just stuck his chest out and acted unhinged — which, frankly, didn’t take much effort given the amount of substances in his system — and demanded their wallets.

They’d been in the process of handing them over, both of them on the verge of breakdowns, when the gunshots went off like fireworks in the distance.

Rico flinched so hard he gave himself a heart palpitation. He felt the organ lurch and jerk in his chest, which added to the sudden shock. He gave thanks that it was dark, and that the elderly couple didn’t see him go pale. He touched a hand reflexively to the left side of his chest to make sure he wasn’t about to have a heart attack, but everything returned to normal within seconds.

Recovered from the jarring sensation, he snatched the two wallets and shooed the couple away. They hurried off down the street, in the opposite direction to the gunshots. Rico thought he heard a sniffle