Apex Cypher (Prequel to The Techxorcist series) by Colin F. Barnes Read Free Book Online Page A

apartment building. She’d taken them out through a rat’s maze of ducting and hidden tunnels until they came out on the top floor. Gabe could hear music coming from the other side: an old reggae tune. He recognised the sound of it from his parents. Reggae was the soundtrack of the shelter back in Hong Kong.
    Holly knocked harder. Looked up into a swivelling camera lens. The music stopped. The door opened.
    A man appeared in the doorway. He wore a pair of floral shorts and a white tank top vest. It looked like he cared for himself. No malnutrition and plenty of body mass, sculpted into muscle. His dark skin was clean and clear, no indication of disease.
    When he smiled the whiteness of the teeth stood out in stark contrast: no sign of bad dental hygiene with this one.
    He first looked at Gabe, seemed to size him up like some men do. A kind of internal ranking system. The thought being whether he could handle Gabe. This made Gabe realise he hadn’t seen much of the world. For one thing, you can never tell what a person is capable of just by looking at them.
    There was this little Chinese kid back in the gang he ran with. To look at him, you’d have thought he was some weak little teenage boy. But Gabe had watched him take down guys twice his size without breaking a sweat. And he could take a punch like no one he’d ever seen before or since.
    “Hi,” Gabe said, nodding at Jericho, keeping his distance, being respectful.
    Jericho nodded back, didn’t say anything as his eyes found Petal.
    Gabe saw a familiar look in his eyes as he took her in. She stood there all bravado as usual. Her mohican was matted with sweat and dirt, but she still strutted, held out her chin. Gabe stepped closer to her, subconsciously protective. Not that she needed his help, of course. She’d been more than capable of handling her own safety from scumbags over the years.
    “What you want?” Jericho finally said to Holly, all the while keeping an eye on Gabe and Petal.
    She held up the bag of parts.
    “Got you a delivery. Same deal as before, yeah? Oh, and d’ya mind if we chill out here for a while? Things got a bit hot in the station.”
    His eyes darted then, looked past Gabe and Petal into the darkened corridor. “Hot? What happened?”
    “This crazy bitch only went and killed Tatsu. Stabbed him right in the chest and guts. It was epic! Oh, and Miyoko and her bitches are dead too.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “This true?” he said to Petal.
    She just shrugged.
    “We had to defend ourselves,” Gabe said.
    Jericho laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure ya’ll did.” He took the bag from Holly, peered inside, and smiled. “Ok, ya’ll can chill for a bit. But don’t be pulling any bullshit. I ain’t a patient man. You get me?”
    “Yeah, we get you,” Gabe said.
    Jericho turned his back, waited for the others to come through. He was clearly confident of his own safety to just casually turn his back like that. When Gabe entered the room, he could understand why.
    Within the penthouse, two of the four walls lit up with holo-projectors, showing what looked like live feeds. When he inspected further, he noticed he had the apartment building covered and the surrounding parts of the city. In one square of the screen he saw the rabid pack that were chasing him outside the train station, standing below the terrace gantry looking for a way of getting up to it. One of them had a rope with a piece of metal tied to the end. He was swinging it up and over and trying to pull himself up, but he just fell to the floor.
    On the other wall was an open-plan kitchen. Still in good, and by the smells of the place, working condition. The kitchen was separated from a living area by a low dividing wall and in front of that sat a perfect-condition sofa.
    Opposite the sofa was a wide window over-looking the city. The glass had the telltale grid of graphene reinforcement. He noticed that on his way up to the apartment all the other windows were broken, blasted