PRELUDE
LIKE CIGARETTES
Dawson -Hull Conglomerate, Regional Offices. London, England. New European Union. 02:18 hours
He wasn’t going to make it. His brain kept nagging, but the animal deep inside snarled back and kept him running anyway. It’d been the last seconds of the data hack when the thick dark exploded and shot everything to hell. Now the air quivered with sirens and every light in the complex glared stark phosphorus. So the ronin flew through the maze of offices back the way they’d come. One last speed-stim tumbled everything together into a rabid blur; DH security hacks shouting, popping out in front of him like training targets in a kill house. He focused just enough to stitch ragged holes across their uniformed chests and flowed right over them. Other dead rose in his mind: Riko buried under the first wave of spider ‘bots, Mahoud choking on his own blood, shredded by the security turret. Even Daffid, so cool and precise, was spattered all over the lower level garage, buying him these last seconds. Lives snubbed out like cigarettes. He was the only one left.
Another guard folded up, then the click, click, click of the empty chamber registered. That was gone too. What’s the use? his brain queried again, but there was $500 million in flashfiles on his forearm pad. He didn’t know or care what they were. He just wanted to get outside. This facility generated a massive buffer zone and the infra-red beam needed clear sky for a burst transmission. So the animal kept running. His brain reminded him a stealth relay drone had been at the top of their load-out list - talk about a clue. Whoever hired them wasn’t counting on a clean bolt. And they’d been so right. He darted left, almost there. At least Mira and the kids would get benefits and a percentage.
The final stretch was empty and for a second he imagined he’d get clear. He almost laughed, but his lungs were heaving, muscles burning on the last ragged edges of the stim boost. He burst through the double doors onto the service road smack into the sharp reek of garbage and bio diesel, under a night sky littered with stars. Someone shouted, but he was out. Still at full speed he raised his arm and thumbed the transmitter. His ears heard the pad bleat out, his eyes saw the helmets braced, silhouetted against muzzle flashes. Rounds tore through him but they were too late - the machine valkyrie was bearing the code away. He did laugh then. He’d made it. Tri-bursts scoured his body, then all forward motion ceased in jerks and shudders as he tumbled to the asphalt. Blood was running now. Laying there, staring up, all the overdue pain came crowding in. It was finished though. He saw the sky, the stars, and thought of Mira. Then everything winked out.
In the sky over French airspace, New European Union. 02:37 hours.
Droning. Engines droning and the hiss of high stratosphere outside the compartment always made me sleepy. Soldiers sleep anywhere, anytime, and I guess if you do anything long enough, any familiar sound becomes a lullaby. Tam and I’d known this old Bulgarian guy who crashed in his foxhole during a firefight in the Balkans. Slept through the whole damn counter attack. Not a scratch on him either. He was pulped the next day when one of our own AI tanks failed to recognize his IFF tags during a routine maintenance and reload. Bad juju, but still. A gust of turbulence rocked the sub-orbital.
I opened one eye. It was dark. Tam was at the CnC holo-display, waiting. I could hear his boots shifting on the steel decking. We had a 3 minute jump window if this run was going down, and he was waiting on the green light. He was uneasy. He didn’t show it, but he was. I could tell. There was money to be made here. A lot of money. He didn’t want us to miss it. I looked back to see the cast of LED radar glow on his face. His matt black armor absorbed the rest and made him look like some Bakemono ghost head floating in a netherworld gloom. I needed more sleep.
“Jace”
I opened my other eye. “Yeah?”
“They prepped back there?” the head nodded toward the back compartment.
“Of course. Jeeze Tam, not like we haven’t done this. Been wheels up every night for a week waiting on a go sign.”
“Corp dime - Corp time. They keep payments coming, I’ll do this as long as they like. Better than getting shot at.”
“I read that.” I shut my eyes again. I opened them. “Those authorizations real?”
“The money?” he stared at the display. No flash yet. “Yep. They’re real. Triple mission standard rates, even equipment reimbursements, and bonuses. Rao thought it was a UN phish at first.”
I let out a low whistle. “You know what they say about ’too good to be true’, right?
The head looked up at me. “Yeah. Yeah I do. Our backup gear is still onboard, right? Tell me you brought our gear”
“Yes mother. It’s in the back. I’ll need 60 seconds once the ramp drops.” I settled back to doze again. “Probably a no-go tonight too - you want me to do a search on who’s footing the bill for this run when we get back? If it’s scam, the data’s drifting out there on the Grid.”
“Nah” his ghost head smiled. “Your web-fu is Amish. I already said something to Poet. He’s on it.”
“Amish? Ha funny ha. Don’t know why they say Koreans lost their sense of humor.” I closed my eyes a third time, hoping it for good until we landed back in Belfast. “If it’s out there, Poet will find it.”
“If it’s there. Still, nice to be paid. And it’s not like there’s too many other outfits who could make a run like this. Be nice to take a vacation after too. Belize is nice.”
“Nope. Marburg virus. Still a Q’d zone.”
“Hell. What about Disneystan then? Some of the resorts are secluded. Separate from the parks.”
“Better off with Cancun.”
The station warbled abruptly, and a large yellow cube appeared in the center display, rotating in the holo-field. It blossomed strings of code, COBOL3 encryptions unfurling, arranging themselves to coherency. The top field was blinking lime green. The suborbital banked hard to the left, going south. Tam absorbed the data, transferring the target schematics to his suit’s onboards and command net. He scanned the projection as a message played out. “That’s a full intrusion package. Proprietaries and overrides for the entire place. It’s a go.”
And this is how it went.
Dawson -Hull Conglomerate, Regional Offices. London, England. New European Union. 02:18 hours
He wasn’t going to make it. His brain kept nagging, but the animal deep inside snarled back and kept him running anyway. It’d been the last seconds of the data hack when the thick dark exploded and shot everything to hell. Now the air quivered with sirens and every light in the complex glared stark phosphorus. So the ronin flew through the maze of offices back the way they’d come. One last speed-stim tumbled everything together into a rabid blur; DH security hacks shouting, popping out in front of him like training targets in a kill house. He focused just enough to stitch ragged holes across their uniformed chests and flowed right over them. Other dead rose in his mind: Riko buried under the first wave of spider ‘bots, Mahoud choking on his own blood, shredded by the security turret. Even Daffid, so cool and precise, was spattered all over the lower level garage, buying him these last seconds. Lives snubbed out like cigarettes. He was the only one left.
Another guard folded up, then the click, click, click of the empty chamber registered. That was gone too. What’s the use? his brain queried again, but there was $500 million in flashfiles on his forearm pad. He didn’t know or care what they were. He just wanted to get outside. This facility generated a massive buffer zone and the infra-red beam needed clear sky for a burst transmission. So the animal kept running. His brain reminded him a stealth relay drone had been at the top of their load-out list - talk about a clue. Whoever hired them wasn’t counting on a clean bolt. And they’d been so right. He darted left, almost there. At least Mira and the kids would get benefits and a percentage.
The final stretch was empty and for a second he imagined he’d get clear. He almost laughed, but his lungs were heaving, muscles burning on the last ragged edges of the stim boost. He burst through the double doors onto the service road smack into the sharp reek of garbage and bio diesel, under a night sky littered with stars. Someone shouted, but he was out. Still at full speed he raised his arm and thumbed the transmitter. His ears heard the pad bleat out, his eyes saw the helmets braced, silhouetted against muzzle flashes. Rounds tore through him but they were too late - the machine valkyrie was bearing the code away. He did laugh then. He’d made it. Tri-bursts scoured his body, then all forward motion ceased in jerks and shudders as he tumbled to the asphalt. Blood was running now. Laying there, staring up, all the overdue pain came crowding in. It was finished though. He saw the sky, the stars, and thought of Mira. Then everything winked out.
In the sky over French airspace, New European Union. 02:37 hours.
Droning. Engines droning and the hiss of high stratosphere outside the compartment always made me sleepy. Soldiers sleep anywhere, anytime, and I guess if you do anything long enough, any familiar sound becomes a lullaby. Tam and I’d known this old Bulgarian guy who crashed in his foxhole during a firefight in the Balkans. Slept through the whole damn counter attack. Not a scratch on him either. He was pulped the next day when one of our own AI tanks failed to recognize his IFF tags during a routine maintenance and reload. Bad juju, but still. A gust of turbulence rocked the sub-orbital.
I opened one eye. It was dark. Tam was at the CnC holo-display, waiting. I could hear his boots shifting on the steel decking. We had a 3 minute jump window if this run was going down, and he was waiting on the green light. He was uneasy. He didn’t show it, but he was. I could tell. There was money to be made here. A lot of money. He didn’t want us to miss it. I looked back to see the cast of LED radar glow on his face. His matt black armor absorbed the rest and made him look like some Bakemono ghost head floating in a netherworld gloom. I needed more sleep.
“Jace”
I opened my other eye. “Yeah?”
“They prepped back there?” the head nodded toward the back compartment.
“Of course. Jeeze Tam, not like we haven’t done this. Been wheels up every night for a week waiting on a go sign.”
“Corp dime - Corp time. They keep payments coming, I’ll do this as long as they like. Better than getting shot at.”
“I read that.” I shut my eyes again. I opened them. “Those authorizations real?”
“The money?” he stared at the display. No flash yet. “Yep. They’re real. Triple mission standard rates, even equipment reimbursements, and bonuses. Rao thought it was a UN phish at first.”
I let out a low whistle. “You know what they say about ’too good to be true’, right?
The head looked up at me. “Yeah. Yeah I do. Our backup gear is still onboard, right? Tell me you brought our gear”
“Yes mother. It’s in the back. I’ll need 60 seconds once the ramp drops.” I settled back to doze again. “Probably a no-go tonight too - you want me to do a search on who’s footing the bill for this run when we get back? If it’s scam, the data’s drifting out there on the Grid.”
“Nah” his ghost head smiled. “Your web-fu is Amish. I already said something to Poet. He’s on it.”
“Amish? Ha funny ha. Don’t know why they say Koreans lost their sense of humor.” I closed my eyes a third time, hoping it for good until we landed back in Belfast. “If it’s out there, Poet will find it.”
“If it’s there. Still, nice to be paid. And it’s not like there’s too many other outfits who could make a run like this. Be nice to take a vacation after too. Belize is nice.”
“Nope. Marburg virus. Still a Q’d zone.”
“Hell. What about Disneystan then? Some of the resorts are secluded. Separate from the parks.”
“Better off with Cancun.”
The station warbled abruptly, and a large yellow cube appeared in the center display, rotating in the holo-field. It blossomed strings of code, COBOL3 encryptions unfurling, arranging themselves to coherency. The top field was blinking lime green. The suborbital banked hard to the left, going south. Tam absorbed the data, transferring the target schematics to his suit’s onboards and command net. He scanned the projection as a message played out. “That’s a full intrusion package. Proprietaries and overrides for the entire place. It’s a go.”
And this is how it went.
CHAPTER 1
SEQUENCE START: VAMPIRES IN THE MIST
Secure Research Facility, Southern France, New European Union, same night, 02:59 hours
It was overcast and we came in from a mile up. A moonless night, with new drop rigs and the 6 of us were inside their perimeter like vampires stepping out of the mist. It was that clean. We dumped the packs and crouched together waiting another full minute. All their security routines had just been lifted and raped blind, so we owned every null space and nanosecond. That’s what they told us, anyway. But the boss, Tam Song, wasn’t the trusting sort. He had the 6 of us geared up in Mitsubishi stealth armor, running 3rd tier ECM, with no less than 3 of our own drones ghosting over the facility squirting real-time into our HUDS. All that was out of pocket, but teams had been left cold before: a midnight epiphany of aristo-tech solidarity in a penthouse boardroom, and suddenly a few million in freelance fees becomes a bump in the expense account no one wants to confess to. This facility was chartered mega-corp territory. Maybe it was just me, but trouble was hanging in the air, and none of us at Song Associates were much interested in the Death Benefits clause in our contracts.
After nothing exploded or started wailing, Tam waved our gun boys ahead. The albino Triplets were the last of N’kosa Mambi’s fever dream of an African empire; illegal combat clones he’d gene-modded to their eyeballs, literally. Most of them had been hunted down and exterminated by Coalition forces after the battle of Angel Falls, but these three had made it out. They were designer soldiers; lethal savants grown in vats, raised by V.R. tactical programs, and honed by the Sub-Saharan bush wars. In night vision green, I watched them glide forward, waltzing with their eerie grace then settle into new positions further onto the little plaza. The whole time their HK’s tracked every approach. Flawless ballet. They’d never been given names so we just called them Flopsey, Mopsey, and Cottontail: our killer bunnies.
Tam was on the com-link. “Poet9, I need a splice on their local net. Probably a Node in that guard station. Jace will take you there.”
Poet9 was our Net cutter - a splicer from the Mexico City zones. Ten years ago, he’d cobbled a deck together from the scrap heaps and one sweltering night from his cinderblock hut, hotlined the Public Access and hacked his way into BioGen’s financial AI. Less than ten minutes inside, he’d shifted a million credits and spent the next day rich. He was 15 at the time. BioGen went spastic tracing him, and when the Sec-teams broke down the door, they gave him an option: two in the ballcap, or a seat at their Security grid. He took the job. Then one day, three years back, he just dug out his Chip and strolled into Tam Song’s office. Haven’t been able to get rid of him yet.
I slipped out and intercepted Poet9 on the move and we shifted left towards the guard house. A combined barracks and security bunker, no amount of landscaping and avant-garde sculpture could hide that squat ugly shape. It had thick poly-steel plating, and multiple Comms relays on the roof. Pop out panels for the sentinel turrets tastefully displayed the corporate logo on a 5 minute loop, casting shifting glows on every side of the station. Other than that there was no movement. Perimeter patrols weren’t due for another 17 minutes, so that meant all 4 guards were still inside, biding time against the night chill. We approached the double doors.
“Smooth as silk, Jace.” Poet muttered.
“So far.” I squeezed the grip of my SMG and the flex stock cinched tighter. In the dim light it looked like some alien insect was mating with my forearm, but it makes the 6mm IMI Blizzard a dead-on bullet hose - no other sub-machinegun comes close. I kept peering out into the dark, waiting for something to snap, but Poet was oblivious. I brought the Blizzard up and nodded, then he flipped open the data pad on his wrist and keyed one of our drones to override the door cameras. 53 seconds later we were inside and the desk guard was dead.
Area denial, micro-drones, laser trips, smart mines, all ultra-tech, all lethal, all precise. And predictable. Predictable is good. Automated systems can be hacked with hot code, bounced with
newer, faster tech. That race is a fevered constant. People are the problem. A good human guard has intuition; just a gut feeling that something’s not right. Get a creeping suspicion, and it’s better to slap the panic button and get chewed out for a false alarm than end up shackled in front of an executive committee explaining how you spaced a hostile infil. Oh, there’s still plenty of hardcore left-overs who can loot and shoot, but that’s not the reason they‘re still around. It’s instinct; there’s no robotic substitute for it.
So good operators run black. Not just cut out their Chip, drop off the grid, then train to ghost through security nets; a black market doctor and decent stealth gear takes care of that. It means go blank. Void. You null down your psychic profile so there’s no sense of person there. You’re empty space. It can’t be drilled into you; either you have it or you don’t. I have it. Tam Song has it. And that’s the real reason we were still alive doing the nasty for multi-nationals, governments, and the occasional PMI contract. It didn’t matter they despised us, as long as they paid on delivery. Call us Zone scabs, Sprawl trash, war whores, whatever; Song Associates Inc. is one of the top covert teams in system. We get in. We get out. We delivered. Posers, hacks, and straight mercs come and go - but running black is different. It’s life at the shadow’s edge.
I left Poet9 at the desk while I moved down the halls for the last three guards. He’d have to jack in uninterrupted in the Control room at the center of the barracks, so there was no skipping them. Schematics put the armory just down from a break room, and with a patrol due, that’s where they’d be. I dropped a blade into my left hand - just in case - and I moved with the Blizzard straight armed and sighted.
Sure enough, two were suiting up in the armory, half dressed, helmets, shotguns and radios all neat on a table. I closed the door with a click and they turned looking for one of their partners. The Blizzard coughed neat holes in their faces and they crumpled, disappointed, on the floor.
I switched off the light and slipped back out into the hall. One to go. Where was he - sleep or food?
I sub-vocaled Poet9, “Two more down. Desk monitors got eyes on the fourth?”
A few second later, “Nothing on screen. Find him fast. I need access before the next sequence. Want me to call Tam?”
“Just be ready. I’m on it.” I said, and slipped right, towards the break room and kitchen. Instinct works both ways.
I found him eating. Older guy with a rank badge and cold eyes; probably a vet. Definitely modded because he was up and moving at warp speed the second I spun in thru the door. I stitched a neat row on the wall behind where he’d been. He crash flipped a table for cover and dodged left towards a Comms panel. I moved to cut him off, the Blizzard spitting, but he came up on my right with an ugly snub carry piece. Definitely a vet. Two shots roared in the small room and panels splintered next to my head. My turn to dodge. I tumbled and slid into some chairs and came up hosing the area until the breech locked open. As my thumb hit the ejection and the empty mag slid down out of the grip, he came up with those eyes and that backup piece lasered in on me. My left arm whipped around and my knife sprouted from his neck. He went down backwards and out of sight. Just in case.
Then Tam was in the doorway, a sliver of a smile on his flat Korean face. “You finished?” He moved to the body, yanked my knife out, wiped it and tossed it back. “Poet’s in and he thinks we have to move on the labs now.”
We entered the control room opposite a wall of monitors with grainy black & white exterior sweeps that had random thermal views winking in every 30 seconds. It was enough to give you seizures. I looked for Poet9 and found him spliced in, cables from the big black neural unit on the side of his head running like IVs into the station terminal. He was talking off hand, distracted, keeping focus in both worlds.
“No increase traffic on their nets - no staff in the labs, just guards, two, three, total - yeah, three inside …….” He closed his eyes for a moment, “ facility patrol - 3 bots and six guards - right where they’re supposed to be - doing routine sweeps in overlapping eights. There’s one Cerberus ‘bot and a guard on the lab doors - looks like another pair on building perimeter.”
He jacked out and his eyes cleared. “ I’m not done yet. I still have to set this terminal to give it’s standard ‘all clear’ reply to the next system security query. They‘re every 30 minutes and next ping is in just over 9. We have 11 minutes until this station’s patrol pair should start walking their loop. This might bluff once, but not twice. We have to be gone before then.”
Tam thought a minute. “The contract downlink gave us floor plans and key codes for the secure areas. We have to access the lab’s defense network and disable the systems. Any chance you can hack from here?”
“Not in a half hour. The entire net is Enigma 3 centralized with top down priority. If I splice in a
specific zone I can affect the local grid. I need a terminal, even a key pad,” Poet9 squared off in front of Tam, even lowered his voice a bit . “You want it down, I’ll have to go in with you.”
“Alright,” Tam sighed. “Scan the bodies and dig out their chips. I’ll tell Flopsey & Mopsey walk the patrol loop with them - that might buy us a couple more seconds. They’ll prep some Empees in case any robots show up and we have to turn & burn off site. Jace and I will drop in. You hang back until I say it’s clear. Got it?”
Poet9 nodded, his eyes gleaming as he zipped in his data lines and tugged the knit cap back over his misshapen head. Then he patted the oversized Walther 11 holstered on his hip, “We’re good.”
“He’s even got a name for that new hand cannon,” I whispered as we left the room.
Another faint smile, “I don’t even want to know.”
A minute later we headed out the door with two bloody RFID chips from the guards‘ hands. Tam got on his micro-bead redeploying the Triplets and I checked feed from our drones. Still nothing. The action inside bled off some tension, but something still gnawed at the edges. I looked at Tam, but he’d gone into mode and was all crisp. I sensed the Triplets moving, so I shrugged, and sprinted out into the dark plaza towards the tangled geometry of the labs. We were running this all the way, and the six of us were about to go deeper.
Secure Research Facility, Southern France, New European Union, same night, 02:59 hours
It was overcast and we came in from a mile up. A moonless night, with new drop rigs and the 6 of us were inside their perimeter like vampires stepping out of the mist. It was that clean. We dumped the packs and crouched together waiting another full minute. All their security routines had just been lifted and raped blind, so we owned every null space and nanosecond. That’s what they told us, anyway. But the boss, Tam Song, wasn’t the trusting sort. He had the 6 of us geared up in Mitsubishi stealth armor, running 3rd tier ECM, with no less than 3 of our own drones ghosting over the facility squirting real-time into our HUDS. All that was out of pocket, but teams had been left cold before: a midnight epiphany of aristo-tech solidarity in a penthouse boardroom, and suddenly a few million in freelance fees becomes a bump in the expense account no one wants to confess to. This facility was chartered mega-corp territory. Maybe it was just me, but trouble was hanging in the air, and none of us at Song Associates were much interested in the Death Benefits clause in our contracts.
After nothing exploded or started wailing, Tam waved our gun boys ahead. The albino Triplets were the last of N’kosa Mambi’s fever dream of an African empire; illegal combat clones he’d gene-modded to their eyeballs, literally. Most of them had been hunted down and exterminated by Coalition forces after the battle of Angel Falls, but these three had made it out. They were designer soldiers; lethal savants grown in vats, raised by V.R. tactical programs, and honed by the Sub-Saharan bush wars. In night vision green, I watched them glide forward, waltzing with their eerie grace then settle into new positions further onto the little plaza. The whole time their HK’s tracked every approach. Flawless ballet. They’d never been given names so we just called them Flopsey, Mopsey, and Cottontail: our killer bunnies.
Tam was on the com-link. “Poet9, I need a splice on their local net. Probably a Node in that guard station. Jace will take you there.”
Poet9 was our Net cutter - a splicer from the Mexico City zones. Ten years ago, he’d cobbled a deck together from the scrap heaps and one sweltering night from his cinderblock hut, hotlined the Public Access and hacked his way into BioGen’s financial AI. Less than ten minutes inside, he’d shifted a million credits and spent the next day rich. He was 15 at the time. BioGen went spastic tracing him, and when the Sec-teams broke down the door, they gave him an option: two in the ballcap, or a seat at their Security grid. He took the job. Then one day, three years back, he just dug out his Chip and strolled into Tam Song’s office. Haven’t been able to get rid of him yet.
I slipped out and intercepted Poet9 on the move and we shifted left towards the guard house. A combined barracks and security bunker, no amount of landscaping and avant-garde sculpture could hide that squat ugly shape. It had thick poly-steel plating, and multiple Comms relays on the roof. Pop out panels for the sentinel turrets tastefully displayed the corporate logo on a 5 minute loop, casting shifting glows on every side of the station. Other than that there was no movement. Perimeter patrols weren’t due for another 17 minutes, so that meant all 4 guards were still inside, biding time against the night chill. We approached the double doors.
“Smooth as silk, Jace.” Poet muttered.
“So far.” I squeezed the grip of my SMG and the flex stock cinched tighter. In the dim light it looked like some alien insect was mating with my forearm, but it makes the 6mm IMI Blizzard a dead-on bullet hose - no other sub-machinegun comes close. I kept peering out into the dark, waiting for something to snap, but Poet was oblivious. I brought the Blizzard up and nodded, then he flipped open the data pad on his wrist and keyed one of our drones to override the door cameras. 53 seconds later we were inside and the desk guard was dead.
Area denial, micro-drones, laser trips, smart mines, all ultra-tech, all lethal, all precise. And predictable. Predictable is good. Automated systems can be hacked with hot code, bounced with
newer, faster tech. That race is a fevered constant. People are the problem. A good human guard has intuition; just a gut feeling that something’s not right. Get a creeping suspicion, and it’s better to slap the panic button and get chewed out for a false alarm than end up shackled in front of an executive committee explaining how you spaced a hostile infil. Oh, there’s still plenty of hardcore left-overs who can loot and shoot, but that’s not the reason they‘re still around. It’s instinct; there’s no robotic substitute for it.
So good operators run black. Not just cut out their Chip, drop off the grid, then train to ghost through security nets; a black market doctor and decent stealth gear takes care of that. It means go blank. Void. You null down your psychic profile so there’s no sense of person there. You’re empty space. It can’t be drilled into you; either you have it or you don’t. I have it. Tam Song has it. And that’s the real reason we were still alive doing the nasty for multi-nationals, governments, and the occasional PMI contract. It didn’t matter they despised us, as long as they paid on delivery. Call us Zone scabs, Sprawl trash, war whores, whatever; Song Associates Inc. is one of the top covert teams in system. We get in. We get out. We delivered. Posers, hacks, and straight mercs come and go - but running black is different. It’s life at the shadow’s edge.
I left Poet9 at the desk while I moved down the halls for the last three guards. He’d have to jack in uninterrupted in the Control room at the center of the barracks, so there was no skipping them. Schematics put the armory just down from a break room, and with a patrol due, that’s where they’d be. I dropped a blade into my left hand - just in case - and I moved with the Blizzard straight armed and sighted.
Sure enough, two were suiting up in the armory, half dressed, helmets, shotguns and radios all neat on a table. I closed the door with a click and they turned looking for one of their partners. The Blizzard coughed neat holes in their faces and they crumpled, disappointed, on the floor.
I switched off the light and slipped back out into the hall. One to go. Where was he - sleep or food?
I sub-vocaled Poet9, “Two more down. Desk monitors got eyes on the fourth?”
A few second later, “Nothing on screen. Find him fast. I need access before the next sequence. Want me to call Tam?”
“Just be ready. I’m on it.” I said, and slipped right, towards the break room and kitchen. Instinct works both ways.
I found him eating. Older guy with a rank badge and cold eyes; probably a vet. Definitely modded because he was up and moving at warp speed the second I spun in thru the door. I stitched a neat row on the wall behind where he’d been. He crash flipped a table for cover and dodged left towards a Comms panel. I moved to cut him off, the Blizzard spitting, but he came up on my right with an ugly snub carry piece. Definitely a vet. Two shots roared in the small room and panels splintered next to my head. My turn to dodge. I tumbled and slid into some chairs and came up hosing the area until the breech locked open. As my thumb hit the ejection and the empty mag slid down out of the grip, he came up with those eyes and that backup piece lasered in on me. My left arm whipped around and my knife sprouted from his neck. He went down backwards and out of sight. Just in case.
Then Tam was in the doorway, a sliver of a smile on his flat Korean face. “You finished?” He moved to the body, yanked my knife out, wiped it and tossed it back. “Poet’s in and he thinks we have to move on the labs now.”
We entered the control room opposite a wall of monitors with grainy black & white exterior sweeps that had random thermal views winking in every 30 seconds. It was enough to give you seizures. I looked for Poet9 and found him spliced in, cables from the big black neural unit on the side of his head running like IVs into the station terminal. He was talking off hand, distracted, keeping focus in both worlds.
“No increase traffic on their nets - no staff in the labs, just guards, two, three, total - yeah, three inside …….” He closed his eyes for a moment, “ facility patrol - 3 bots and six guards - right where they’re supposed to be - doing routine sweeps in overlapping eights. There’s one Cerberus ‘bot and a guard on the lab doors - looks like another pair on building perimeter.”
He jacked out and his eyes cleared. “ I’m not done yet. I still have to set this terminal to give it’s standard ‘all clear’ reply to the next system security query. They‘re every 30 minutes and next ping is in just over 9. We have 11 minutes until this station’s patrol pair should start walking their loop. This might bluff once, but not twice. We have to be gone before then.”
Tam thought a minute. “The contract downlink gave us floor plans and key codes for the secure areas. We have to access the lab’s defense network and disable the systems. Any chance you can hack from here?”
“Not in a half hour. The entire net is Enigma 3 centralized with top down priority. If I splice in a
specific zone I can affect the local grid. I need a terminal, even a key pad,” Poet9 squared off in front of Tam, even lowered his voice a bit . “You want it down, I’ll have to go in with you.”
“Alright,” Tam sighed. “Scan the bodies and dig out their chips. I’ll tell Flopsey & Mopsey walk the patrol loop with them - that might buy us a couple more seconds. They’ll prep some Empees in case any robots show up and we have to turn & burn off site. Jace and I will drop in. You hang back until I say it’s clear. Got it?”
Poet9 nodded, his eyes gleaming as he zipped in his data lines and tugged the knit cap back over his misshapen head. Then he patted the oversized Walther 11 holstered on his hip, “We’re good.”
“He’s even got a name for that new hand cannon,” I whispered as we left the room.
Another faint smile, “I don’t even want to know.”
A minute later we headed out the door with two bloody RFID chips from the guards‘ hands. Tam got on his micro-bead redeploying the Triplets and I checked feed from our drones. Still nothing. The action inside bled off some tension, but something still gnawed at the edges. I looked at Tam, but he’d gone into mode and was all crisp. I sensed the Triplets moving, so I shrugged, and sprinted out into the dark plaza towards the tangled geometry of the labs. We were running this all the way, and the six of us were about to go deeper.
