Isaac quickened his pace. Marcus continued. “But now, I realize they were right. You do hog all the glory, just like your father.”
Tired, sad, overworked, and most of all, lonely, Isaac stopped dead. He weighed how much taking the bait would be worth. Maybe if he was rested, or older or wiser, he would have kept walking, but he was none of that.
Smiling grimly, he motioned open the door with his nano palmer. The instant it did, a shiny, orange blur burst through. It whisked over his shoulder and, snarling, slammed into Nothra.
Before Chelsea or Marcus could react, Isaac grabbed his discblade so hard he cut his own palm with it and furiously threw it across the room. He imparted his weapon with all of his anger and frustration, slamming the blade’s edge deep into the table between his two roommates, shattering Chelsea’s tablet, and splitting the table on which it sat. Both yelped and pulled away, shielding their faces from the shower of splintered wood.
Chelsea screamed. “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FRIGGIN MIND!? MY TABLET...”
Isaac reached them in three bounds and thrust his cryptocube in their faces. “OH, YOU MEAN THE STUPID, GOD DAMN TABLET THEY USED TO STEAL THIS?!”
Both wincing from the sound, he lowered his voice slightly. “Do you think I wanted to ask help from a teacher, for anything? That I had no clue it would make everyone despise me? But, I did it anyway because this cube holds my share of humanity’s most important endeavor. I am so, so very sorry my special treatment made my friendship inconvenient. I’m also sorry you can’t see past this pubescent idiocy, but I’ve been working nonstop for fifteen months with zero margin for error, barely sleeping, while trying to get a week’s worth of schoolwork done on a two-hour plane ride. And when I’m here? All I can look forward to is everyone trying to take a piss at me. A glory-hog, am I? Jeez... wow, doesn’t that all sound so magnificently glorious?”
Pinned to the wall by Isaac’s drone, Albus, Nothra trilled painfully.
Marcus and Chelsea glared back with fury and fear. Their discblades were in easy reach. With Isaac’s buried deep into the quartzite flagstone floor, he couldn’t fight back—yet neither made a move to retaliate.
Had he given them pause? Maybe there’s hope?
The room his stage, there was so much he wanted to vent about it clogged his brain and made him hyperventilate. “All I was asking was a little help from my friends. For one assignment, I offered to trade the next two weeks of homework. But no, you had to spit in my face and make it about my dad. Right now, he’s doing more for everyone on this planet than all of your family members ever did, combined.”
There was not a shred of regret in his words.
Chelsea found her voice. “Oh, there it is, Tycho. You and your father are God’s gift to Kepler, to engineering, to the scientific community, and the whole world. You get whisked away on a project that’s sooo important, you can’t possibly tell your friends, so important that when your stuff gets stolen, we pay the price.”
Isaac threw his hands up. “Jesus Christ, why do I keep having to explain this? It’s top secret! If I told you, they’d throw all of us in prison! Two more months, that’s all, and the project goes public. It’ll all be over.”
Marcus still seethed. “If you’re so damn busy, why couldn’t you stay out and let someone else win the Explorer’s Cup! One of US, for instance. Don’t tell me that’s not about arrogance.”
Winning the cup had accelerated Isaac’s social demise, but the idea, that with the grant money his space elevator could be realized hundreds of years sooner, blinded him to the inevitable backlash. Already an “intern” at O.L., already receiving special treatment, he could finally see how trying for the cup could be considered redundant, offensive, and greedy.
Marcus, in particular, felt blindsided, especially since Isaac encouraged him to submit his nano skeleton key prototype. It was pragmatic but no space elevator. Still, Isaac figured W.C. espionage reps would take interest. Marcus must have thought he was only going through the motions. When Isaac won, his friends felt deceived. Even so, and there was no way to say it without seeming arrogant. Out of all Kepler’s students, he was best suited to maximize the resources.
“What do you want from me? I won, fair and square. You want me to apologize for trying? Has there been anything I’ve done the last six years that would make you think I’d ever hold back? We didn’t become friends because we parse words.”
Chelsea replied coldly. “We were friends because we had each other’s backs.” Her use of the past tense felt like a trapdoor opening at his feet.
Lydia has my back. She understands. Why can’t they?
“It was just the dumb Cup... it’s done. At Kepler, it’s life itself, but in five years? It’ll be inconsequential compared to what job you get or company you create. Can’t we move on?”
Marcus echoed Chelsea’s finality. “No, Tycho. It’s not just the Cup. It’s everything.”
The argument was as pointless as it was redundant. They’d had the same talk countless times: spinning the same wheels, getting to same nowhere. They couldn’t see past their perceived betrayal. Or maybe Isaac couldn’t see past his own pride. Either way, for the first time, he wished school was over.
“Get out before we report this,” Chelsea demanded.
Albus screeched and released Nothra, unharmed. The tiny regal monster flew back to his master’s shoulder, ready to protect him.
Isaac gave them a burning stare and departed. When the doors opened again, the cold wind brought flakes of snow inside. A storm was coming. He stood there, letting the thickening whiteness howl around him, then walked out into the night.
As the day drew on, the vast grounds remained peaceful; their purpose as a haven for gifted students belied by a natural, almost wild, appearance.
But there were always those ready to disrupt the status quo. A shadow had crept closer to the dorms, icy voices apparently speaking to the deep, deserted forests.
“They’re fighting again, sir.”
“Excellent. Ready Ghost Squad Alpha1.”
Squad leader Captain Kudimo complied. He had his orders: single target termination, no trace of the body—the sort of mission they’d completed dozens of times. Gone were the days of nocturnal stealth choppers. In the aftermath of an irradiated ionosphere, RT satellite surveillance was a shadow of its former glory.
Ghost Squad Alpha consisted of five brutal assassins, more myth than mortal, who could destabilize any regime on the planet.
Intel indicated the children at this school could create all manner of surveillance devices, so they arrived at five separate locations, hundreds of miles away. From there they’d continued on foot, rendezvousing at a waterfall, four klicks north of Paonia before taking position here. They’d all spent the three hours since dusk up in these trees prepared to pounce. Fortuitously, the incoming blizzard further masked their already wraithlike presence.
Kudimo could feel his fellow Ghosts waiting for their target to move again. He knew the target but not the crime. From the photo, he was less than eighteen. He couldn’t imagine what harm a child could cause, but it wasn’t his place or his way to challenge orders. If the Peacekeeper Division2 marked him for elimination, he was a threat.
Apparently, a very high-level threat. The mission was AAC (At All Costs), extremely rare, except in the case of insurrection leaders. They’d even given Kudimo access to a reestablished GPS uplink from the fifth-generation constellation. Given the breadth of data they’d received, it didn’t require a deep analysis to surmise that someone was helping them from inside the school.
He remembered his time as a reformed cadet in the First Division of Triumphant Resolution. There were two universal rules; don’t mess with someone else’s stuff, and stay in your lane. Plain and simple. If this dragon drone was a protector, like the BoDyn Wolves in the Third War, the target would not let those he did not trust handle it.
Then again, he shouldn’t have trusted anyone.
A woman with Australian Abor
iginal features dropped silently from a ponderosa branch above him. She flashed some complex Milspeak3—a combination of English, Arabic, and Chinese—military sign language. Since it involved the entire body, those with decent visual acuity were capable of signaling from over two klicks away.
As her body contorted into patterns, Kudimo read the message. “Yes, well, that was his undoing.”
Kudimo flashed a response. “You are creeping me out with your intuition training, Maria.”
They’d spent eight years on missions across the globe eliminating threats to the glorious world peace achieved by the W.C. Without having to look, he knew she was grinning. He was staring into the dark, looking at the horizon, thinking ten times as far when an onslaught of Milspeak commenced.
“What is bothering you?” Maria shot to Kudimo.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think up here.” He replied.
“You’re doing that, now? She looked amused.”
He shrugged her off. “It seems too easy. Just kill the kid and take the body? When was the last time we got an assignment this straightforward?”
She shook her head. “You actually think killing a boy is straightforward?”
“Comparatively, yes. The only complicated part is waiting until he’s alone. God damn kids band together, and we have strict orders: no collateral.”
The wind carried the chuckling of girls. The squad froze. The sources were walking the path below blithely unaware of the danger perched above their heads.
Kudimo looked to Parker, their tech expert, who signaled. “No drones. All clear.”
Their jamming tech could easily handle the toys these kids built, but that didn’t preclude their accidental discovery by a drone pet innocuously flying about. Each team member had a small EMP grenade just in case, but that would almost certainly blow their cover.
They held their breaths until the students passed, and the silence resumed.
Maria jabbed more Milspeak. “The target’s probably pretty lonely. After all, we all know how shitty it is to be at the top always threatened by challengers.”
“If you are referring to me winning the sharpshooting triathlon every year at the academy, you can shove it.” Kudimo responded.
Maria’s torso was forming a response when their transponders vibrated. The target was on the move heading their way. Her head snapped up looking over Kudimo’s shoulder. Following her gaze, he peered beyond hundreds of crisscrossing branches to a dim lamppost that illuminated an otherwise dark pathway through the enshrouding trees.
Noiselessly, he adjusted his shouldered rifle and activated the infrared overlay on his HUD. The pines became dreamlike silhouettes allowing him to occasionally make-out the warm glow of movement. It was their target, but they couldn’t yet tell if he was alone.
Maria withdrew a spotter’s scope and set it up. A strong gust had them both swaying. “Damn this wind is high.” he gestured.
Maria gave him a playful smack on the shoulder. “Oh please, is that an excuse? It’s not even four-hundred meters. You hit that Saudi prince between the eyes at a full klick.”
Kudimo held up his hand for silence. Maria’s demeanor shifted into kill mode. Looking back through her scope, she froze a moment before signaling.
“Target is all alone.”
Through his sniper scope, Kudimo watched a lone figure walking along the path. A tiny shimmering something was perched on its shoulder. Briefly illuminated as it passed the lamppost, it was revealed as a shiny, miniature dragon.
Kudimo signaled the team. “Tracker confirmed. Target confirmed.”
Smith, Parker, and Valdok dropped to the forest floor, ready to retrieve the body and remove any evidence. The boy moved into a clearing away from the light.
“Almost there.”
To ready himself, Kudimo sought to void his mind—clearing his thoughts, dropping his heart rate. Then he rested the crosshairs on the target’s center-mass.
“Four-hundred eight meters and closing.” Maria murmured.
Kudimo whispered into his comm. “Confirm position.”
Three voices quietly answered in near unison. “Confirmed. Standing by.”
“Take the shot.” Maria said.
Kudimo placed his finger on the trigger.
Far below, hidden behind a fallen ponderosa trunk, Parker was facing the trail—the boy ten meters away, and closing fast. He heard Kudimo through his earpiece.
“Taking the shot.”
Across the open space, he could make out Smith’s shadow molding almost seamlessly with a twisted tree root. A voyeur of the moment where life so swiftly, yet gracefully departs, Parker waited for the bullet’s zip and the boy to fall.
But nothing happened.
Oblivious, the target passed within arm’s reach. Parker glanced to Smith who shifted enough to Milspeak, “WTF?”
Parker had no answer.
The wind sufficiently muffling, he whispered into his comm. “Maria? Do you copy?” Silence. Something’s wrong.
Normally they’d abort, but this was AAC. So, he gave the sniper duo the time it took a snowflake to fall from eye level to the ground, then unpinned his EMP grenade to take care of the dragon. For the boy, he drew a long blade dulled with charcoal.
He glanced once more to Smith, just in time to see him tumble into shadow. Before he could process what he just saw, something punched through his lung, shattered a rib, and burst out the other side. The bullet having travelled faster than sound, it was only then he heard the familiar:
Zip.
Though he couldn’t scream anyway, a cold gloved hand descended to cover his mouth as he, too, fell backwards, falling, seemingly forever into cradling arms. His final synaptic connections were spent pondering what had happened before the darkness took him forever.
Isaac thought he heard a twig snap, but chalked it up to his weary mind. He walked on taking large chunks from the nutrition bar. At the end of the trail, he was surprised to see Professor Hunt. He was in a dark overcoat, facing the wind, peering skyward at the billowing, flowing clouds.
Swirling flakes surrounded him, seeming to merge him with the atmosphere’s violence. “Lovely night, isn’t it, Isaac?”
“Invigorating, Professor, but a storm is coming.”
William smiled knowingly. “No. I think this one is going to stay away.” He gestured to the pyramidal library behind him. “Let me walk you.”
Side by side, they moved on. “Isaac, I know it’s been hard that you’ve felt alone at Kepler these past months.”
The directness caught Isaac off guard. He was used to the professor’s seeming omniscience but uncomfortable admitting to the feelings.
Professor Hunt put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a paternal look, not unlike his father’s. “There will always be those who misinterpret our intent or can’t accept the success of others, but remember, this trying beginning can lead to a boundless future. Isaac, we’re close to launch, and you have been crucial.”
As Isaac stood there stunned; his teacher blithely returned to his cheery self. “Better get in there. Lydia’s been waiting a while.”
Despite the biting cold, William Hunt strolled casually all the way to the mathematics building then slowly up each student-cursed step. He opened the door to his magnificent office and shook the tiny snowflakes from his dark overcoat before placing it on the rack.
Taking his NanoCube from his pocket, he touched it to a tablet. It glowed to life, its screen reading, MALWARE SCAN COMPLETE, SYSTEM CLEAN.
“Open a secure channel,” William commanded.
FaceTime screens popped up, one for Angelika, another for Marcus Medneon.
“Is it done?” Angelika asked.
William poured himself a glass of brandy. “It is. Isaac’s fine and unaware. I assume your shadow team eliminated the ghost squad, Marcus?”
“Yes, we have confirmation that the entire team is dead. Thanks for the call.”
“Glad we’re all on the same page again.” Willi
am said.
“In times like these, petty differences are beneath us,” Angelika said. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you for keeping those shadow forces here just in case Isaac was targeted. Madeline Good was behind the attack, I assume?”
Her face soured. “Undoubtedly, but she’s too good to leave a trail. Pursuing her now would only derail Bernard. He doesn’t need the distraction of his child nearly being killed. If it is her, she’s gotten too bold. We have to make sure she doesn’t try again.”
Marcus calmly agreed.
William looked at their feeds. “And I’ll do my part watching over him here. They’ll both be protected at all costs, as they say.”
The screens flashed off. William sat clutching his brandy, gazing at his NanoCube, admiring the circuit pathways across its surface. It was astounding, he thought, how much effort it took to keep humanity from sabotaging its own dreams.
After picking all the splinters from the couch, Marcus and Chelsea decided to give up on schoolwork for the night and collapsed on the cushions.
“What do you want to watch?” Marcus asked.
“Anything,” Chelsea replied.
He sent his streaming service collection to their big screen. They’d barely settled on an old episode of David Attenborough’s Planet Earth III, when a notification popped up.
Chelsea groaned. “Jeez, Marcus, update your notification blocker.”
“It’s updated, girl, I assure you. My system detects any rapidly accelerating web trends, particularly space news. Looks like there’s a higher-than-usual level of campus network activity. Must be something important.”
Chelsea opened a news website and was instantly drawn to the words “Hubert” and “Live.” Clicking the link, they were greeted with a view of a W.C. podium, where Angelika On, CEO of Outer Limits, stood side by side with Bernard Hubert.
A massive covered structure stood behind them. Angelika, a fierce looking predator, stood with a man that looked less like a dad of their renounced friend and more like a lion looking for its prey.
Beyond Kuiper: The Galactic Star Alliance Page 30
