Steal the Demon: A Science-Fiction Novella by Robert Roth (free novels to read txt) 📕

quickly and quietly until, turning left at the corridor junction, she nearly ran right into a uniformed Al-Zamani engineer.

“Shit, Joe,” exclaimed the engineer, a look of surprise on their bearded face. “I didn’t even hear you coming.”

“Sorry about that,” Kimiko replied, working to keep her expression placid and voice calm. She started to move around the engineer and continue down the corridor when they held up a hand to stop her.

“Hey,” they said, “where’s your ID badge.”

Kimiko wavered briefly before recovering her wits. “I haven’t been assigned one yet. I’m on my way to do that right now.”

The engineer nodded, but still had a look of suspicion on their face. “Okay, well, I’ll just call in and get you an escort then.”

They started to lift a hand toward his ear when Paradox cut in. “Disable them now, Kimiko!”

Without even thinking, she thrust a hand out in a knife strike to their throat. The engineer faltered, barking a loud, choked cough as Kimiko spun on the ball of her foot and got behind them. Then she wrapped an arm around their neck, locked their head with her other arm, and put them into a sleeper hold. She held them firmly as they struggled, before she felt them slump into her grip, unconscious.

“There is a compartment hatch to your right,” Paradox announced. “Hold your palm out near the input pad. I can modulate the shield emitters in your suit to try fooling the NFC reader.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. If we had more time, I’d be happy to discuss the finer points of field energy manipulation.”

“Ok, yeah. Sorry.” She balanced her grip on the engineer to hold her hand out as instructed. She couldn’t feel anything happening, but assumed Paradox was hard at work trying to break the code. The QED node was really pretty amazing if it allowed him to do that. She’d so far not lost contact with Paradox and, even inside the Al-Zamani Shipyard, was still receiving a crystal clear signal from him.

“Got it,” Paradox said just as the input pad lit up green, and the hatch slid open.

Kimiko hurriedly dragged the engineer inside the small compartment. It was an armory. Except for a viewscreen, the walls were lined with gun racks containing hand-sized and rifle-sized blasters, as well as two frames full of baton-shaped stun sticks. A trio of Security Bots sat in the corner.

“Shit!” she exclaimed in surprise, before realizing that all the Sec-Bots were folded down and deactivated.

“They don’t appear to be active at the moment,” Paradox confirmed, coming to the same conclusion. “This compartment must be where security personnel coming onstation can arm themselves. You might consider doing the same.”

Kimiko grunted as she pulled the engineer to the side of the compartment and propped them against the wall. She knew she was running out of time before they regained consciousness, so she searched their body, finding a Comm unit in their pocket and an ID badge hanging around their neck. She took the Comm unit, threw it to the deck, and then stomped on it with a boot, crushing it.

“Can you deactivate the hatch controls for this compartment?” she asked Paradox as she stood to look over the weapons racks. The rifles were out of the question, since she’d hardly ever trained with one. She’d trained on hand blasters, but guessed that the only thing more suspicious than a joe running around the station with no ID badge would be a joe with a blaster in her hand. But the stun batons appealed. She grabbed one and attached it to a waist loop on her coveralls.

“Yes, I believe so,” Paradox replied.

“Stellar.” Kimiko took one more look around the armory, at the viewscreen mounted on one of the walls. “And there’s no security terminal access you can use in here?”

“No,” Paradox said. “But that viewscreen is displaying an annotated station layout.”

Kimiko smiled as she focused on the viewscreen. She looked over the nearby areas and found the compartment they’d chosen as her first stop, conveniently labeled as a Security Station. “There you are,” she said quietly.

“I’ve updated our map with that location. You shouldn’t delay any further.”

She looked back and saw the engineer starting to stir. “You’re right.” She pressed the hatch control panel, and it slid open. Once she was back in the corridor, Paradox instructed her to hold her hand in front of the input pad again. After a few seconds, it lit up all in red.

“The hatch is now locked and quantum coded,” Paradox said.

“And our sleeping friend is stuck in there?”

“Until someone physically cuts away the hatch, yes.”

She smiled. She was starting to really enjoy having Paradox on her team. “Is there anyone else coming?”

“I don’t have any Net access outside of the docking bay, I’m afraid.”

“You think you’re afraid,” she said with a chuckle, “you should try being in here with me.”

Paradox laughed. “That was a figure of speech, of course. But, for all intents and purposes, I am in there with you.”

“Then you better not forget to duck when all the shooting starts.”

He laughed again. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

Kimiko turned on her heel and continued onward. She stopped when she reached the next junction and peered carefully around the corner. The corridor was clear, so she started moving again. The Security Station was just ahead, marked on her mini-map with an icon on her right. As she approached, she could see the bright orange hatch decorated with a black shield icon. Next to the hatch was a Security Personnel Only warning sign in Arabic, Mandarin, and English, mounted just above an input pad. She reactivated her helmet, then, as it unfolded around her head, held her hand in place in front of it like she’d done before.

“Okay, Paradox, work your magic again.”

“Working on it. Stand by.”

Suddenly Kimiko heard a hatch slide open behind her. She turned around to see another uniformed Al-Zamani employee standing in the hatchway. They looked at her with a shocked and mildly annoyed expression. She was glad that