Read No Going Back for Free Online

not have allowed only half an hour to carry ten children out of here safely. Something doesn’t add up.” He pointed the gun at me. “Try again.”
    The wound under my hands was closed. I tried to flex my thigh but couldn’t quite; the nanomachines were still working on the interior of my leg. I kept my voice low and shaky as I said, “I only just learned about them. It was the best plan we could come up with on such short notice.”
    He shook his head again and shot me in the other leg.
    The nanomachines were blocking the pain, so I screamed for effect when I saw the blood blossom. I grabbed that leg with both hands. A wet trough ran along the top of the leg.
    “You had enough time to obtain gas to use on us,” the host said. “Therefore, you could have purchased gas that would knock us out for far longer. Care to try again?”
    I nodded and paused as if gathering strength to talk. I flexed my left thigh; this time, it felt reasonably solid. I should be able to move shortly. “They’ll be out for about four hours.”
    He smiled and nodded. “And the rest of your team?”
    “Maybe ten, fifteen minutes out. I have to go outside to signal them to come.”
    “And if they don’t hear from you?”
    “We had no way to know when the auction would start or when I’d need to make my move, so they won’t be worried for at least another half hour.”
    “Much better,” he said. He started walking toward the exit. “Just in case, I’m leaving now. With any luck at all, you’ll be alive but unconscious when my people come back here. We’ll continue our discussion later. I’ll need the names of everyone involved, from your colleagues to those who hired you.”
    When he was a few steps past me, he turned and faced me.
    My right leg no longer bled. I felt the trough in my skin filling, a weird sensation I’d never grown accustomed to.
    “It’s sad,” he said, “that you people aren’t capable of understanding that we are saving these children. None of them comes from auspicious origins, and now each of them will have a new start with a benefactor of substance and a chance to make it in the world, a chance to grow and learn real love.”
    What I thought was, I understand that you are all sick perverts who rationalize their abuse as love, that you are horrible twisted creatures so distant from any real humanity that would you warp children forever to satisfy your own disgusting needs . What I instead said was simply, “I don’t know about any of that. They paid me to return these kids.”
    He shook his head, turned, and walked slowly away.
    I stared at his back as I pulled up my knees and pushed tentatively with my legs. All good. I instructed the nanomachines to release the pain, and soreness and a dull ache flooded into my legs. I wanted to feel it so I’d know if I pushed my legs too far. The nanomachines would soon enough leach all the pain-causing chemicals from my system.
    I turned onto my knees and stood as quietly as I could.
    The host kept walking.
    I advanced on him slowly. When I had closed to within three meters, I accelerated and grabbed his throat from behind. He swung the gun toward me, but as his arm was moving I stepped my left leg in front of him and threw him face-first onto the ground. The exoskeleton started to lift him, but I sat on his back; it wasn’t built to handle the extra hundred kilos of weight.
    I twisted his head to the right, so he could breathe and I could reach his mouth.
    Blood ran from his broken nose.
    “Do you have any idea who I am?” the man said. “Who all of these men are?”
    I said nothing. Keeping my weight mostly on his back, I wrenched free first the gun and then the cane. I shoved each across the floor, out of his reach.
    “I will find you,” he said, “and then I’ll learn who hired you—and how you’re still walking when I saw you bleeding.”
    “I should kill you now,” I said.
    “You won’t, though,” he said, “or you would already have done