Helix: Episode 9 (Countervail)

Chapter One Mustek Metro Station, Praha 1 Olesya was surrounded. The red dots blinking on her watch were closing in, and she could hear footsteps echoing through the vestibule and down the escalator. Marina was ready, watching the corner of the subway platform, eyes on the moving stairs, but the two of them would be no match for the number of Purity Guard pushing toward them. Both of them were wearing Purity uniforms and armor, and Marina still wore her helmet. Olesya reached for hers and wondered if their appearance meant they might talk their way out of this. Her Czech was limited, and Marina’s wasn’t any better. Her phone could translate into English through her earpiece, but that wouldn’t help Olesya if she needed to say something herself. Aviary had scrubbed their faces from Purity’s network, but even the slightest suspicion would see them all captured. Something stirred behind her. It was Xiu. Slumped against a pillar, she was moving again. Her hands trembled and a strange shiver of color moved across her face. Something was wrong with her adaptive camouflage. The kill switch. ‘You’re still here,’ she said. ‘We’re going to get you out of here, OK?’ Olesya answered. Xiu managed a weak smile. ‘Are you convincing me or yourself?’ ‘We need to go through the tunnel,’ Marina whispered from the corner. ‘Can she walk?’ Xiu tried to push herself upright, but didn’t get far. Olesya would help her walk if she had to. They couldn’t be here when the Purity Guard arrived. A breeze cooled Olesya’s face. That was either very good or very bad. ‘Train,’ she said. Marina turned. ‘Talk or shoot?’ Olesya checked her watch: Gleb, Aviary and Andrey were close, but their location was jumping around. That meant they were between stations and struggling to transmit a signal. Olesya hoped they were on the train coming through the tunnel right now. She hit her pressel switch. ‘Olesya to Gleb, are you here?’ No response. The train whipped into the station, slowing as it pulled up to the platform. Olesya put her helmet back on. ‘Olesya to Gleb. How do you say “friendly” in Czech?’ No response. She crouched behind another pillar, her Balerinka mini-carbine in one hand, phone in the other. Beside her, Xiu was only partly concealed; it was too late to move her. As Xiu grasped for her Vector submachine gun, her knuckles rippled with the color and pattern of the pillar. The carriage doors opened. There was movement through the window. Three soldiers. But was that all of them? Talk or shoot first? She had to make the call now. She drew her coat back, took out her NetGun and fired around the pillar. The web shot through the open carriage doors just as the trio of Purity soldiers stepped off. The tensile net wrapped them in a tangled heap, dropping them to the platform and shocking all three with a mild electric current. Marina rushed from the corner to a closer pillar, her weapon trained on the open doors of the other carriages. She fired, her shots echoing across the platform. ‘Go!’ she yelled. Olesya was on her feet, pulling Xiu up. She could jump down onto the tracks on the other side, but the train with Gleb and Andrey aboard still hadn’t arrived, and it would be coming down that tunnel. She didn’t fancy being hit by it, so that left only one place to go. Up the escalators. Behind them, more gunfire. Purity were shooting back through the carriages, their rounds ricocheting off pillars and cracking past Olesya. The armor on her leg hardened suddenly, and she almost tripped, taking Xiu down with her. She’d been hit. Marina was running up behind her, smoke from a grenade billowing in her wake, buying Olesya enough time to recover. She hauled Xiu to the top of the escalators and into the vestibule. Marina, still on the steps a few paces behind, was watching the smoke for evidence of movement. But Olesya was more concerned with what lay ahead. Purity Guards rushed through the vestibule, right toward them.