The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Cutting Things Close

The two hunkered down amongst satellite dishes, radio antennae and heat vent outlets on the neighboring skyscraper's flat roof some seconds later, the object of their scrutiny the Brotherhood's headquarters directly across from them. They now peered out of snug fitting masks that covered their faces entirely except for two narrow eye slits.

"Hmmm. I suspect they don't think their facility can be penetrated from the roof," Jeriko commented softly. "It would appear that they're unprotected there. I don't see any active detection nets, only passive wards."

"Those are easy enough to get by." Mordecai grinned abruptly as he opened a small portal into a fold of space cut off from the rest of reality in a pocket of psyken. From it he swiftly removed a large duffel bag. The portal to the pocket winked out of sight as he dropped the bag to the asphalt and gravel roof to pull the zipper open with a steely hiss.

The first out of the duffel was a crossbow in black metal and plastics. Sitting on the back of the crossbow's stock was a heavy wheel and winch assembly, made to winch in the line of high tensile strength plastic monofilament cord that hung from a special hook beneath the bow apparatus. The cord was attached to a heavy bolt, armed with a piercing point, already loaded.

Unhooking the free end of the cord, he turned and tossed it to a waiting Jeriko, the end weighted with a metal clip hook. The blonde hardwire caught it easily and held it in her left hand while her right dipped into the duffel bag. An instant later it came back up with a piton gun, a device for powering climbing pitons into solid surfaces like rock and concrete, its penetrating power provided by a removable explosive charge.

With a piton already in the gun and the gun charged, she held the line in her hand as she stepped to a nearby satellite dish to place the gun's muzzle against the dish's concrete base. There was a sharp 'crack' and a puff of dust as the gun hammered the piton's metal alloy tip deep into the concrete. Then Jeriko was stepping back to clip the monofilament's hook into the piton's eye hook. Once the line was set, she gave it a hard tug to make sure it was set. That done, she looked over at Mordecai and gave a short nod.

Smoothly Mordecai stood and, sighting through the night vision scope set on the crossbow's spine, he set the stock against his shoulder. There: the concrete shell of the elevator shack, rising above the flat plain of the roof and at a decent down sloping angle from where they stood, a perfect anchoring point for the line. He applied light pressure to the trigger and the bowstring released with a 'twang', hurling the arrow and its monofilament passenger silently out into darkened space.

A dark and ignorant messenger given purpose by its user, the crossbow quarrel darted across the intervening space with single minded intent, biting deep into the concrete shell of the elevator shaft with a flash of sparks. Feeling the impact traveling up the cord and into the crossbow with a gentle vibration, Mordecai nodded in satisfaction as he lowered the crossbow from his shoulder.

Then, with quick and nimble fingers, he was pressing the releases for the winch, freeing it from the stock as the cord's slack twisted slightly in the air. Winch in hand, he stepped away from the roof's edge and to where Jeriko had anchored the cord in the dish base. Feeding the cord through the winch's mechanism, he snugged it up to the piton before uncoiling a small, secondary cable about a hand's length in size, also equipped with a clip hook, from a storage compartment in the winch's rear.

The smaller hook quickly joined its larger companion on the piton, securing the winch in place. A stud was depressed on the side of the winch then and, with a soft hum, the tiny but powerful electrical engine began to take up the slack.

As they waited for the tiny winch to do its task, the two hardwires swiftly returned to the duffel bag to pull additional equipment out, either attaching it to their utility belts or putting them into one of the many pockets and pouches on their vests. The winch was just taking up the last few metres of slack when Jeriko pulled two odd looking devices from the duffel before zipping it closed, the crossbow secured inside once more.