Mercedes Garcia-Marquez crouched behind a row of trash cans, her back against the slimy wall of a tenement building. A high-pitched whine from the street told her that there were still enforcement drones scanning the area. They wouldn’t find anything, but to come out of the alley now would be suicide.
The noise got softer. They were moving away. Mercedes gestured to the others behind her to stay down. She peeked over the trash cans. One of the drones turned its silver head towards the alley. Its lone black eye glowed with a red light. Mercedes ducked again. They had sent the Black Corps. These drones were equipped with bio-energy processors. It was a nice name for a gun that split apart your atoms and stored the energy for use in the Citizen’s Energy Bank. Usually, they only used BEPs on bodies, as dictated by President’s Order 6780. There were no more open-casket funerals in Cuba; Fidel Castro’s grandson had seen to that.
She heard a human officer knock on the door of a building two doors down. He exchanged a rapid conversation with the landlady, but it was too soft for Mercedes to hear.
A sudden shot rang out. She hoped it was only a warning, not an innocent citizen mistaken for one of her group. She heard no shouting after that, so she told herself that it was the former.
“Blackies?”Jose Ramirez leaned over for a look himself and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He was her lieutenant, godfather, and for tonight he was her extra courage. “They’re expecting us, chica.”
“No mistakes and no goodbyes tonight,” Mercedes whispered the phrase that was their ragtag band’s creed. The bitter whine of the drones softened and then vanished as the machines moved on to another street. Even more softly, she mouthed the beginning of a prayer, “Dios te salve, Maria, llena eres de gracia.”
It was time. Mercedes and her soldiers slipped into the street, towards the President’s manor.
#
The manor rose from the ground, looking more like a castle than a house, even the house of the most powerful man in the country. It was so perfectly white washed that it glowed under the starlight. Mercedes found the third window on the east wall and pointed it out to the others. They nodded. Three broke off from the group to go act as security.
There were already agents posted around the manor, watching for her signal, but this night would have to go perfectly. It was the last night that it would be warm enough for Santiago Castro to sleep with his window open, and it was unlikely that the group would be able to stay hidden for another five months. Not with the Cuban Order and Intelligence closing in on their base.
Static hissed in her ear. With a start, Mercedes remembered the communicator. She pressed the small button hidden in her earring.
“Finally,” It was Wheels, their tech wiz and surveillance expert. With his direction, they had planted cameras around the manor weeks ago, just out of range of the virtual tripwires and sensors that riddled the estate.
“Window’s open,” Mercedes said. “I’m heading in.”
Wheels said nothing for a minute, but she could hear the clacking of a keyboard in the background. “Glasses?”
“Check,” Mercedes took a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses from the front pocket of her shirt and slipped them on. There was a thin cord hidden in the frame. She freed it and plugged it into her earring. A map of the grounds filled the left side of her vision. It took a minute to get used to.
“These are the lasers,” Wheels said, as the picture switched to lines of red overlapping the scene in front of her. “There aren’t any ground-implanted devices in this section. Go twenty yards, then stop.”
“Got it,” Mercedes back flipped through the lasers, almost falling on one. She froze, and then kept going. Twelve yards, and they were out of the first trap.
“Energy mines next,” Wheels changed her picture again to show small red dots, a centimeter below the ground, spaced only a few inches apart. “They scan for biometrics, and trust me; none of you are in the system. You can’t dodge these; you’ll have to go over them.”
A tree across the lawn flashed red. “That’s about the maximum of your line capacity. That archery had better come in handy.”
Mercedes nodded, and drew two cylinders, the size of her fist, from a pouch on her belt. It was extra-wide nylon rope, yet another of Wheels’ miracles. There was a tiny dart on each end. Mercedes twisted one into the tree closest two her and aimed for the other at the far end of the green expanse. Closing one eye, she aimed for the center of the trunk.
You have a steady hand, her father said, as he taught little Mercedes to pull back the bowstring. He held her arm and showed her the center of the target. At the window, her mother smiled and waved. Little Mercedes grinned back and let the arrow fly.
Mercedes shook the vision out of her head and pressed the top of the cylinder. The second dart hit the tree and stayed. She repeated it with the other cylinder, keeping it close enough for them to have a foot on each line. She got up first, testing the hold, and then motioned for the others to follow.
Step by step, soft as a cat and delicate as a songbird she eased down the lines. She had been taught this on the Havana rooftops, in the shipping district. Skydancing was what they called it, their art of finding ways across narrow ledges and the steep crevices between buildings.
Halfway across, the line shook. Mercedes turned in time to see Emanuel fall from the line. There was a flash of light and a smell halfway between cigars and overcooked steak. All that was left of Emanuel was a smear of black, greasy ashes.
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