Read Online Inquisitor by Mitchell Hogan - Free Book Online Page B

Since the door she’d come through opened inward, the proxy would have a hard time opening it. Unless…
    An explosion rumbled. The door broke from the frame and clanged against the corridor wall.
    Angel stabbed at the button again, and the door closed.
    She rode the elevator down and took stock. Fucking hells, her hands hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut for a few moments. “Come on,” she muttered at the elevator. The proxy would follow her down using another elevator. She didn’t have much time.
    On the service floor, she glanced at the indicators. One of the elevators was descending. She estimated she had twenty seconds. The floor was open and cluttered. Not many rooms, mostly columns to support the building’s weight, leaving spaces for the service automatons to roam about on their tasks. She pushed past a number of the bots and looked frantically around for the chemical storage rooms.
    There. Toxic and hazardous material warning signs adorned the wall. Hands aching, she kept low and swerved across the floor just in case. At the door, she ducked inside just as she estimated the service elevator would arrive.
    She hunched over the automated dispenser controls. Scrub-bots would roll in and refill their supplies here. Punching in instructions, she forced the cleaning automatons offline and tasked them to gather outside the dispensary. They should delay the proxy long enough. She hoped.
    A list of chemicals scrolled down the screen as Angel searched her mind for the right ingredients. It had been a long time ago, but she’d seen Pemenee make explosives out of the bare basics back in her mercenary days. The waiflike woman had had a genius for it. What was it she’d used on the Hydra system job they’d taken? A disinfectant? Potassium… chlorate? Yes. There it was.
    A scrub-bot entered through the door, and she barely glanced at it. If it had been the proxy, she would be dead already. Sweat dripped from her nose onto the floor. She directed it to connect to the dispenser and continued looking for what she needed. Ingredient number two: a plasticizer. Unfamiliar names blurred in front of her. Angel shook her head to clear it.
    “Keep it together,” she admonished herself.
    What did she have to choose from? She set a filter and narrowed the list. Another liquid—they’d laughed about the name and joked about “explosions”… something phthalate.
    A crash and the sound of tortured metal came from outside the dispensary.
    “Oh sh…”
    She punched in instructions to mix the two compounds and fill the scrub-bot. As it stood there gurgling, Angel cycled through her ammo and squeezed a few grenades onto it. They stuck fast, tiny red lights winking at her.
    “One,” she breathed. “Please let there only be one.”
    The dispenser gave a cheerful chirp to indicate its job was complete. The scrub-bot rolled from under it and stopped by the door. Angel tasked it to move toward the military-grade proxy outside and “clean it”. She ducked out of sight behind a crate.
    The door opened, and the scrub-bot rolled out. There was a shattering crash of scrub-bots disintegrating as the proxy churned through them in an effort to reach the dispensary. Her implants still connected to the dispensary system, Angel monitored her bot, her savior. Its signs were green, fully functional. Its spray nozzle and wipers activated as it tried to complete her order: clean the proxy. Which meant it had to be close.
    Another shriek of metal and its life signs went red.
    Angel remote-triggered her grenades—igniting the makeshift explosive composition she’d created.
    The floor shook. A hundred claps of thunder cracked in the air. Angel felt herself start to scream as the doors blew inward. Roiling flames and a hot wind whooshed through. She curled herself into a ball on the floor.
    Sprinklers came on, and water sprayed around and over her. She could smell burning. Orange emergency evacuation lights lit the room. She didn’t need to be told