Read Online Sunfail by Steven Savile - Free Book Online Page B

beneath one of the big scrolling boards. They moved with grim efficiency. There were more computers there, hulking units that kept the back end of the system up and running so the traders could do their work up front.
    The crew, some sort of paramilitary unit, gathered around the banks of machines as a computer screen lit up. What the hell? There was no juice in the place and it seemed pretty obvious an EMP or something equally toxic to electronics had wiped out every system in the city, but these guys just happened to have found the one working network in New York?
    He watched the team move down the row, doing something to each machine in turn. Before they moved on to the next, the terminal powered up, lighting the room with its cool digital glow. The backup generators must have been fucked up beyond repair by whatever it was that had brought the systems down citywide.
    This was big.
    Important.
    Whatever had happened today, just like the graffiti artists on the subway, these guys were prepared .
    Where are the warriors? he thought, remembering the line they’d shouted.
    But who—or what—were they at war with? He didn’t have any answers.
    The man he’d followed to the trading floor slipped into a booth, using the shadows from its curving partition for cover.
    Smart , Jake thought, but the only similar place he could see for himself was across the floor. He couldn’t risk crossing that kind of killing ground. He stayed where he was and watched from the shadows, gambling that no one was going to follow him in through the door.
    It didn’t take long to see there was one guy on the team who was the alpha dog; he barked out rapid-fire instructions and no one argued with him. His guys sat at their row of reactivated computers. Six terminals, six men.
    Almost as one they began typing.
    Okay, he thought, this is some sort of high-tech heist. It made sense, kind of, but even if the terminals were working, they had to be offline, surely? With the systems down the trades wouldn’t register. And when the system came back online it’d reboot from backups, wiping out anything they’d done.
    But the men kept typing.
    Jake almost missed the sound of the stairwell door opening behind him. He barely had time to duck down as a new figure strode calmly toward the trading floor.
    He was older. He moved with confidence that bordered on arrogance, like he owned the place. The gray in his cropped hair caught the screens’ backlight. Average height, stocky, and dressed in the same nondescript black jeans–dark jacket combo of the guy Jake had followed. He walked straight up to the team leader.
    A nod passed between them.
    The newcomer walked along the bank of machines, talking quietly. Jake could just make out the sound of their replies, but not the actual words.
    The man nodded several times, and moved in closer to study one of the screens.
    Jake could see his face: blunt, with harsh features like he’d been chipped from rock, all the rough edges left untouched. Native American, maybe, possibly Latino. It was difficult to tell in the ambient glow of the computer screen.
    The man nodded again and stepped back, pulling a pistol from under his coat, and abruptly shot them in the back of the head one after another. The silencer, visible along the barrel, kept the noise to a soft whisper of displaced air.
    None of the men at the terminals had the time to save themselves. They barely had the time to make a sound as they slumped and fell out of their chairs.
    Jake had seen violence before. He’d experienced death. But not like this. Not this rapid-fire, cold-blooded murder. What the fuck had he got himself wrapped up in? Hit teams? Deadly assassins?
    The killer checked each body in turn, holding a finger at the thick vein in their necks to be sure there was no pulse. Satisfied, he rose and tucked the pistol back away in its holster at the base of his spine. He crossed the trading floor, walking slowly up the ramp toward the doors where Jake