Escape Instinct

"A horse, a horse! A kingdom for a horse!"

King Edward III.

It wasn't even a scratch... But it hurt like hell. The steel wire tore at the skin hard enough to make him fear infection. Not bad for a trip to a protected area, they wouldn't die, he even had everything where it should have been... Just a damn scratch on his thigh. He settled back in his Nissan, pulled a bottle of Lubusz gin from the armrest compartment, and took a long, greedy swig. He poured some of the alcohol on the cut, pressing his lips together for a moment—the wound turned to flame. He tossed the almost empty bottle onto the backseat and reached for the ignition. "Who's on the road? A breathalyzer's not afraid," he thought, almost smiling. A distinct smell, reminiscent of aftershave, hung in the air.

He knew someone was here. He could feel it. The intruder had bypassed the electronic security, but not him. Karol Siemionowicz didn't love his job—but he had years of practice. He was good at his job because he had a sort of sixth sense he trusted. Now, this extra sensor informed him that something was wrong and he should get off his butt and see for himself what was happening. Cameras, motion, sound, and pressure sensors were effective—as long as whoever was trying to detect them had only a vague, or better yet, zero, understanding of them. A person who knew what and where to avoid could get anywhere... And that's why companies like Infoseek paid people like him handsomely.

The laboratory corridors were lit with dim, red technical lighting. But Siemionowicz knew this maze like the back of his hand. He walked slowly, trying to absorb all the information he could from his surroundings. He was searching for "something"—he had no idea what exactly it was... But whatever it was, it would prove his internal alarm was right.

A powerful sneeze interrupted his thoughts. The dust swirling in the air made his nose tingle. Dust? He glanced at the ceiling. Fragments were still slowly falling from the ventilation grille. He grabbed the radio. "

This is 8, intruder in the west wing. I repeat, intruder in the west wing." The voice on the radio was asking him something, but he was staring at the plaque on the door in front of him. "Server room," with "Data storage point" underneath. The alarm began to blare a moment later. Siemionowicz, however, didn't care at all. He knew he'd actually lost his job a few, maybe a few dozen minutes earlier.

The phone was the worst thing that could happen to him right now... Yet it rang mercilessly, shattering his hopes for even a glimmer of sleep. The air in the room was cruelly cold compared to the pleasant warmth of the blankets... A shiver ran through him as he reached for the phone, which only worsened his mood for the conversation he was about to have. Fortunately, it was an audio-only connection. He wouldn't have to pretend in front of the camera that everything was fine.

"Yes, I'm listening?" He strained, giving his words a relaxed, slightly surprised tone.

"Mr. Paweł, I hope you have time now?

" "Yes, of course." "Motherfucker," he thought, "I don't have a shitload of time."

"I'm glad, please report to the complex as soon as possible. It's important," the man on the other end added, as if after a moment's thought.

"I'll try.

" Without waiting for his response, he ended the call. "Fucking son of a bitch... I'll be fucking picked up on Saturday..." he said to the walls. He looked in the mirror as if the face he found there could save him. The image of too many sleepless nights, however, was as sad and indifferent as ever. Nothing had changed. He uttered another quick "fuck" and started getting dressed...

I sat there. Because what the fuck was I supposed to do? The skinny guy turned off all his toys right after leaving his wife. Bullshit, I told the idiot to stay in touch with me at all times, but the fucker didn't get it. Maybe send him a telegram? Or flowers with a discreet note saying, "Turn on the fucking radio"? Those toys are untraceable or eavesdropping. We wasted so much cash on quantum transceivers... Fuck it all, the only thing is we had that fucking database. I could already picture that mountain of cash in my head... Ten million euros! I'll take a long fucking vacation. Palm-sweet drinks, sunshine, and amazing girls, not some slobs or other moomins. Healthy breasts and shapely asses. I'll get a poultice that cures all ailments. The phone finally snapped me out of my images of paradise on earth. That son of a bitch just called me... What? He's not allowed to?

"Hi," they'll wet the conversation, as always, in their sweet tone.

"Has anyone ever told you you're crazy?

" "You, probably not long after you learned that word.

" "And I was absolutely right. Absolutely.

" "You have champagne or something in there somewhere?

" "You're not getting what I'm saying?"

"It's arriving... But you can start freezing the champagne now.

" "I'll wait with the toasts. Go give me back that junk. The scumbags might get impatient.

" "Fuck them, as long as the money is in the right place. Used banknotes, right?

" "In small denominations... Yes. Take a good look at the money before you give them the dice. I really want to spend that cash.

" "Okay, it'll be okay.

" "Ahem, turn on the communicator. I want to know how things are going. Just in case...

" "You'll be my guardian angel."

"If that's what you want to call it... A piece of shit. Just turn it on." An image appeared on the screens. The dashboard of a Nissan Primera, a street lit by yellow lamps...

"Better now?

" "Just so you know.

" "It's cool. I'm going. Skiing."

The voice in the receiver fell silent. The speakers by the monitors transmitted the soft purr of a car engine. The skinny guy didn't even turn on the radio. He was scared. I hoped he hadn't had anything to drink to build up his courage. The only thing missing now was a traffic stop. I lit a cigarette. I was scared as hell too.

The center director looked fresh, as if no one had bothered him in the middle of the night... That's probably why such people rise to high positions—they're like automatons. They smiled, not so subtly, at the figure behind the large mahogany desk. He waited for the other man to finally dismiss him. Finally, after a long and embarrassing silence, Jeży Lutomski—the lord and master of the Infoseek research center—timidly began the conversation.

"This is an unusual situation for all of us... Unusual and embarrassing... And for me personally, an unpleasant one...

" "Please don't drag this out. I don't like beating around the bush," the security guard interrupted bitterly.

"But please understand... This all puts me in a terrible light. Now he's calling the shots." Lurking in one of the dark corners of Karol's mind was the thought that maybe they wouldn't fire him after all... "We had data here... Various data." The director continued. "Of course, we notified the police... But... You have to get it back.

" "Excuse me?" Siemionowicz couldn't hide his astonishment.

"I want, or rather, the company wants, you, as our employee, to personally handle the entire matter. Find out what data was compromised. Who took it. And finally, destroy all media containing the compromised data.

" "What about the police?

" "You have to deal with the entire matter before the police figure out what's going on.

" "That's not in my contract...

" "Of course, we're aware of the danger... But for the good of the company... How about ten times your annual salary, and ultimately a promotion... to head of security?

" "Sounds nice. But... Why me?

" "Because you were there. Because you were a police officer." Because the fewer people who know about the whole incident, the better. Even before we hired you, we conducted a thorough analysis of your dossier. It seems you're the perfect man for this job.

"I'll need people... Equipment... Weapons?

" "Please address everything directly to me. Prepare a list and give it to my secretary. Please hurry. A lot depends on your efficiency.

" "Good... I'll give you the list in fifteen minutes.

" "Great! Then go ahead. We have no time to waste."

"Tere fere kuku. A woman shoots with a bow. She would shoot them..." The voice over the speakers cut off abruptly. "Oh fuck, how did they know there was such a... Something here?" I stared at the monitor, no less surprised. Someone somewhere had once said that the Russian bases were still empty... And all sorts of weirdos hang out there... But the ragheads? "After all, we're probably not the only ones stealing for them; maybe they've ripped off some map or some other crap." I replied philosophically. As a check, I checked the GPS again against what I had written down... Everything seemed fine. But what else didn't we know? I added another cigarette butt to the pile in the ashtray. "Look around carefully, maybe there's still a Stolnichnaya or some other Gorbachev freezing somewhere," I said into the microphone aimed at me. "I can't believe the Siberian bears left even the moonshine puree; they probably even took the empty bottles. You're sitting in front of those colorful monitors, probably sipping a cold beer..." Yes, always hungry... Always thirsty and always thinking about one, well, two things. "I told you, no drinking on the job." My authoritarian tone probably offended him, because he slammed the brakes so hard that the bottle of cologne he sometimes drank landed on the dashboard. "Well, damn right. You weren't supposed to drink..." I didn't finish. A long-unshaven mug appeared in the crack of the wall, a huge wad of rags where normal people try to grow hair or other strands. A raghead like those on CNN.

Siemionowisz wasn't the kind of person people expect when they think of professional security. He was a very average person. So average that as a teenager, he couldn't stand his own appearance. At school, teachers constantly confused him with other peers. At first, it was just another painful slap in the face, burning his young ego. Only towards the end of high school did he start taking advantage of it and... And suddenly it turned out that the bad guy wasn't him.

He had made one of those quick, brilliant careers in the police force that always end in some swamp or other muddy mess. He was good at his job—something his "colleagues" could never understand or forgive. He was fired with a bang. A national newspaper even wrote about him. He became a "dirty cop"... Such people end up in filthy gutters with a wound from a nail-studded board, or are discovered by heat and power plant workers when they inspect the heating ducts in the spring...

However... This time, his innate gift of anonymity didn't work. A few days after he'd drunk his severance pay, he was contacted by a man posing as a director at a reputable company. Good pay—easy work. Sometimes it surprised him... That just as he was languishing at rock bottom, a providential husband appeared and extended a well-groomed hand full of banknotes. He'd even tried to talk to others working in the "concentration camp" (as the workers called the complex)... Gentle grunts made it clear that no one wanted to discuss what he'd done before... Or how or why he'd started working for the corporation.

Now, as his "wish list" lay quietly shredded in the shredder, its substantive contents wandering somewhere up the company's management ladder, he wondered even more... Why Infoseek had hired him. What did they know about him that he himself didn't? Could this whole big, stinking case that had gotten him fired from the police force be their doing?

He passed a guard at the main exit. He just glanced at the monitor as he passed the contactless checkpoint. Then the scanner at the exit... And the large glass doors.

There were only a few cars in the vast parking lot. More than half of them belonged to the police... Undercover officers in "inconspicuous" cars. It didn't matter that the license plates could be easily found online... And as a certain kid he'd busted once told him, even the photos.

He passed a man walking quickly. Clearly sleepy, he tried to look serious... "Poor bastard..." he thought as he glanced back at the figure rushing across the granite slabs. "Probably from hell... What a week of work they'll do to him... He'll be stuck there until he tells them exactly what happened to their valuable data." His mind returned to the task assigned to him... Find and destroy. But how to go about it?

Whoever had taken a quick trip to the complex and grabbed those few megabytes of souvenirs... The guy, or rather the guys, must have known where and what was there. They must have been incredibly well-versed in the maze of corridors... Even the regular staff didn't know the exact location of all the offices and warehouses. People moved along colored lines marked on the floor. Each color represented a line for a different department. Security followed a black thread marked with numbers so that each team could see if they were "in their area." Or was this whole spectacle just a big hoax, intended to get a few guys out of their comfortable desks? This whole circus must have been planned and executed with the involvement of someone from inside the company. He stopped. For a moment, he stood there, confused, completely lost in what to do next.

A vibration in the inside pocket of his coat sent a shiver of surprise. He pulled out his phone and read the message. He turned on his heel and walked back toward the buildings.

I've always believed in being tolerant. Within certain limits, of course... In any case, I'm willing to accept almost anything, as long as I get something out of it myself. The fact that these ragheads appear so often on CNN and not Cartoon Network isn't an argument against doing business with them. They pay, so they meet the basic requirement of tolerance—they give others a little something too.

But damn, when someone promises you a meal and serves you lead, even my tolerance quickly wears thin. Sometimes I simply understand the meaning of the slogan "healthy food," and I don't feel like eating any fast food—especially when it's so fast it's hard to stop them with a bulletproof vest.

And these... They insisted... It turned out they had a whole armory of the former Soviet Union there. I wouldn't be surprised if Rudy 102 came around the corner. I don't know what they didn't like: the color of Chudy's Nissan? The ingredients in his aftershave? There's always the possibility they have some sort of allergy to skinny blonds around 30. Initially, everything was going like a soap opera. Goods were on the hood, and so was the cash. They only lost it when some little guy started yelling from one of the buildings. Chudy was sober enough to grab his suitcases and hide his bony rump in the car. He was so scared that he fit perfectly into the footwell under the steering wheel. I won't say he pulled off a real feat, but he would have decorated the surrounding trees with his transplant material if it hadn't been for the few days he'd spent in the garage with that car. It was time to earn money for my beer and cigarettes.

I quickly pressed a few colorful buttons that I'd incorporated into a piece of polished aluminum a few days earlier. The trunk lid lifted, and several grenades flew out – I never liked things breaking in the trunk while driving. A few bangs erupted from somewhere in the back, and I sweated, one hand over the joystick, the other struggling with the stereoscopic helmet. No simulator can give you what driving a remote-controlled car can; such a physical model is only available to the select few. It really gave the skinny a good shake when I practiced aggressive driving under fire. But all those years before the computer didn't go to waste. Mom will never believe how much good a hard game can do.

In the parking lot, he passed some security rat. He looked like he was planning to take over the world. They'd probably given him a hard time with the management, and now he was contemplating bloody revenge. A few years ago, one of the guards in the complex, after personally receiving his dismissal, had brandished a pistol and killed three people in the office. Since then, they hadn't allowed them in there with weapons. He thought of all those sexy babes pretending to type with one finger... They must have breathed a sigh of relief. The job of a secretary was no longer a high-risk one. The entrance was artificially crowded with undercover police vehicles. Some kid had once given him an address with photos of the cars. "I wonder if they don't know about it—or if they're just pretending not to," he chuckled to himself. He'd always respected the police, but... At times, they truly filled him with pity, as he reflected on how ungrateful the world was when you worked for its good.

As usual, the rat at the entrance didn't even glance at him. He just stood there in his gray uniform, staring at the row of screens. He walked across the lobby to the elevators. Halfway there, a chill ran down his spine. They stopped dead in their tracks. The guard spoke. "Please go to the management office, they're waiting for you there." It took a long moment for them to recover from the shock. For the first time in five years, the guard spoke to him. "I'm on my way," he replied, and forced himself to take another step.

This time, there was no smiling secretary, no leather chairs, and no hot coffee. He was given a note written in careless handwriting and a few verbal instructions. Go to level 0, retrieve the weapons waiting for him there, and sit down with the men who had already been sent there.

He watched the monkeys placed under his "command." Each of the five was a head taller than him, and they'd spent at least one of his lives longer at the gym. A true death squad. He decided to leave the question of where the company had found these men unanswered. They looked down on him, with a touch of contempt... But not brazenly enough to offend him. Professionals. To them, he wasn't a commander. He was merely a necessary element to collect his paycheck.

Time passed, but the promised contact wasn't there. He felt awkward among this gang. He knew they were watching his every move... And if their square heads revealed that he was weak, he'd better not turn his back on them.

Finally, his field communicator clicked. He received a brief message: "Abandoned Soviet military base, 80 km east of the city. The pilot will know where it is. Carry out the mission according to previous instructions."

He smiled and headed for the helicopter parked on a small helipad behind the management buildings. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a figure peering through the window of his client's office. "I wonder what this plastic guy is up to now," he thought.

We had one serious problem. The goods and payment were lying on the table in front of me. Which meant we had one thing too many, and a dissatisfied customer who certainly wouldn't stop at writing his sad story in the complaints book. Someone, somewhere, was surely reaching a similar conclusion, except that his subsequent actions... Well, my ass and Chudy's had just become a damned desirable target for a few crazy guys carrying laundry on their heads. I wheeled the cart to the kitchen; I needed a drink. Opening the refrigerator for someone who never works standing up can be difficult, especially when the kitchen isn't cleaned very often. I went back to my room and opened the beer. The hiss of the can bursting calmed me down a bit. The swamp we were swimming in was so deep I'd probably have to drink beer for the rest of my life to detoxify myself from all the sludge.

The sounds of a very relaxing bath came from the bathroom. The skinny guy was singing to the audience on the other side of the mirror, clearly not bothered at all by the fact that the other guy was clearly trying his hand at karaoke. I took another swig.

With the money, we were theoretically victorious. Theoretically, because at that moment, not only were bloodhounds following us, but also ragheads... And who knows, maybe half the city's thugs would be too, once the news spread. Surely, at least a few people would put everything together quickly enough to start sniffing around the crippled IT guy and his scrawny sidekick.