Read Code Breakers: Beta for Free Online

manoeuvrable owing to the more advanced VTOL engines, which were now ubiquitous on Jaguar-style helicopters, planes, and even the UAV drones that The Family used.
    The driver wore the same kind of robes as those in the compound, along with goggles and a long-barrelled rifle attached to the front of the sleek pill-shaped vehicle. A monochrome camouflage paint job covered its exterior. Ideal for wintery conditions in Russia , she thought.
    The red scarf around the driver’s face confirmed it: a Red Widow.
    “Screw it!” Petal shot the lock with the pistol, exposing its innards. She realised without her implant she’d have no way of interfacing with it. So she shot it again until the entire control box hung from the door, exposing the mechanical part of the lock mechanism.
    “Stop!” A voice boomed over a PA.
    She had a few more seconds.
    Petal turned to face the approaching ATV, held the pistol behind her back. She casually walked forward a few steps. She held her breath as the vehicle stopped and the Widow got out. The heavy-barrelled rifle remained attached to the vehicle’s hood, but the robed woman carried a similar looking shotgun to the one Gabe had wielded. Although a crude, short-range weapon, it had the mark of a western gun maker. The blued, carbon-graphene snub-nosed barrel and sturdy stock featured a hexagonal texture, making the gun incredibly light and rigid, transferring the power into the shells with incredible accuracy.
    The Widow carried a large arcing blade on her back: a sickle like the one the guards back at the compound carried. Petal hoped the Widow hadn’t seen her pistol. She hoped it was small and quiet enough that the noise of the engine would have obscured the short blasts.
    “Kneel to ground. Show me hands,” the Widow said. Her red scarf, covered in dust, came down to her chest and flapped in the wind along with her long, brown robes.
    Petal knelt, dropped the pistol to rest on the back of her calves and brought her hands round to the front, palms up. If only I had access to my spikes , she thought.
    The Widow approached, shotgun inches from Petal’s chest. She spoke aloud, but not to Petal.
    “I’ve apprehended prisoner zero one, zero one, zero six. Kill or detain?” Her voice was thick with a strong, Russian accent, and her eyes were like the others: glassy, intense, fanatic. It was like she were controlled by someone, or something else. The Widow nodded to herself. Must have received an internal message. A smile like an open, rotten wound stretched across her face exposing black and yellow teeth.
    She chambered a shell in the shotgun and placed her index finger on the trigger.
     
    ***
     
    Petal blinked twice, and within that time, she’d wrenched the shotgun from the Widow by the barrel, swept her legs from beneath her, crashing her to the ground, and struck the butt against her skull. It cracked sickeningly against the bone, crushing and breaking it, killing the Widow instantly.
    The gun juddered and transferred the impact to Petal’s hands.
    A thrilling jolt shivered through her body. She finally started to feel like her old self again. Except she was now, for the first time in years, free of rogue AIs and bad code crawling around inside her. She was free of the dependence on NanoStem. Was this what she really was? A killer? Was she made, or altered, to be a super-soldier? It made sense in that moment. But she knew that wasn’t the truth, that she was something else, not just a robotic kill-drone. She felt, she dreamed, she craved.
    Thinking about her creation reminded her again why she was here. She forced herself out of the kill lust, thought logically. A strategy formed in her mind: Blast the doors with the ATV’s huge gun. Hide the body. Steal the clothes. Get to Criborg.
    There was one thing missing on that list: find Gerry . But right now she had no leads other than a vague indication from Gabe that he may or may not be alive and perhaps up there in The Family’s