Mace’s code 10 was taking longer than Dak would have hoped and soon he was forced to distract Lacy Law. Fortunately this wasn’t overly difficult, other than the keeping her icy hands off of him part. Dak just hoped that Erin wouldn’t be leading the way and find Lacy practically sitting on his lap as she was.

When the door to the hotel room was finally kicked open, Dak lunched to his feet, which lunched Lacy onto her ass. After emitting a very undignified chirp when she landed, Lacy suddenly sprung into action.

“Come on Dak,” she yelled while delivering a karate kick to a Jumper’s face. The man went flying backwards into a wall, his face an angry smear. That would be enough damage to send that boy back to the Grafter’s cloning vats.

Since she was watching, he was forced to stun one of his own allies. When her kick took out another masked Jumper, Dak realized that his remaining allies were dwindling. He grabbed one of the Jumpers by his jacket and together they slammed into a wall. Dak winked at the man, then used his Flashgun to send a stunning beam of yellow energy into Lucy’s back. She fainted before she could turn, but he would have just blamed it on the Jumper anyway.

When freed, Mace shook his hand. “I guess I finally owe you one.”

“After helping me with Erin you are more than even.”

“Or maybe you’re going to owe me again,” Mace said, as a smile spread over his bruised face. With his hand his gestured to two limp bodies that were being dragged into the room.

“What is this?”

“We can’t leave you looking like a incompetent can we.” His hand patted the side of Dak’s face. When he saw Dak’s look, it quickly jerked away. “These two Jumpers have broken a few of our laws. They’ll take the rap on your side of the law as their punishment.”

He was walking over to the unconscious Lacy as he spoke. “That will help your story, get you your first big Jumper bust, and get rib of these two dregs all in one move.”

“If I didn’t know better, I might think you set this all up.” Mace only smiled. “Hey don’t mess with her,” Dak started but it was already too late. Mace had found a small dagger somewhere and stabbed it into Lacy’s leg. It drew more sparks than blood.

“Just as I thought, she has some type of cyber legs. I’d watch out for this one Dak.”

“You can count on it. Now, since you are still basking in the glow of my rescue, I wanted to talk to you about Matthews. He needs to be on the task force. I also think…”

* * *