Kal Jerico by Various authors

Author:Various authors
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2017-10-19T12:35:00+00:00

6: The Cardinal Rule

A blast of flame and heat hit Yolanda in the face, throwing her back down the tunnel. She flew five metres through the air and landed on her back.

‘Ow!’ she said. Yolanda was pretty sure nothing was broken, but felt she deserved a little rest after the second tunnel attack in two days. She lay there in a pool of light, staring at the roof of the tunnel and wondering how many more times this would happen this week. Then she rolled to the side. She crossed her arms and turned over and over.

A burning tyre landed behind her with a squelch. Yolanda stopped rolling when she hit the wall. She looked back to see the wheel roll down the tunnel, leaving a trail of smouldering tar and black smoke. ‘I just don’t need this,’ she muttered as she pushed herself back to her feet.

Yolanda walked gingerly toward the burning bike. Smoke billowed toward the ceiling as a flaming puddle of fuel spread across the tunnel. She held her breath and darted past the puddle before it cut her off. On the other side, she searched for the trail of the final bike. It wasn’t hard to find. Apparently, the motorcycle had been leaking oil, which mingled with drops of blood and bits and pieces of Scabbs’s clothes and flesh.

As she jogged down the tunnel, following the trail of blood and oil, the black smoke behind her must have reached the ceiling. A decrepit sprinkler system cut in and stale-smelling water rained down on Yolanda, drenching her in seconds. Her dreadlocks soaked up the water and stuck to her face like thick, doughy strands. Rivulets of water ran down into her ears and eyes, and the ridge of her nose became a waterfall. Her leather vest and loin cloth became heavy with water and began slapping her bare skin.

Worst of all, a few minutes after the sprinklers started, the water all but washed away the trail.

‘Helmawr’s rump!’ she yelled.

The assassin crept across the roof of the old man’s hab, searching for a way inside. The hab backed up to the wall of the dome, so there was no back door and the buildings on the block had been built side-by-side, so there were no alleys. The only door led right into the room where the two men had been sitting, and the windows were all barred, even those on the second floor.

Whoever lived here was highly security conscious. The home was secure from anything but a frontal assault and that would surely bring the enforcers, probably preventing a quick and quiet escape. But if there was one thing the assassin knew, it was that no hab in the hive was totally secure.

The roof yielded only one possible entrance. A metal, box-shaped ventilation unit ran across the roof and down the entire block of buildings. A small pipe dropped from the metal box into each building to push air in, while a larger shaft allowed the recycled air to re-enter the ventilation unit from the building.

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