by John Conroe
“When does this end, Ajaya?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know, Mom, but I am training my replacements and they’re doing really well. This thing I’m doing tonight has to be done, and I’m the best choice. I won’t say it’s not dangerous, but it is arguably less so than going into the Zone.”
“But requires decontamination?” she asked.
“Would you rather we go overboard for safety or cut corners?” I asked back.
“Not fair, Ajaya.”
“Mom, this job directly impacts our family safety, as well as everyone in the city. And Rikki and I are the best at this. So yes, I’m doing a night job, and yes, there is danger, but we’re taking even more precautions tonight than we did today.”
She held my gaze for a moment and then deflated. “I just want this done, all of this done. It’s been too long and we’ve given too much,” she said, her expression now hopelessly sad.
My sisters glared at me like I had just stomped on Mom’s heart with booted feet. “Mom, I can’t tell you much. But it is a drone hunt and with Rikki, I’m the best. And it’s not the Zone.”
“Wait, you’re hunting a drone and it’s not in the Zone?” Monique asked.
I nodded.
“Something got out?” her sister asked.
“Not that any of you know!” I said. “It’s much less dangerous than almost anything in the Zone. Now, that’s all I’m going to say.”
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have said even that, especially about the level of danger. Sometimes your words come back to bite you on the ass.
Chapter 20
The Department of Citywide Administrative Services, or DCAS, used to be housed, like most of the Big Apple’s municipal offices, in Manhattan. Nowadays it was spread out across the other boroughs, but with most of its offices in Brooklyn. The DCAS IT department was housed below the old Brooklyn Municipal Building on Joralemon Street. Not directly below, but under two of the neighboring buildings that the City purchased through eminent domain after Drone Night.
Aaron had the wireframe layout up on a portable workstation in the back of a tricked-out Mercedes van that Zone Defense must have had squirreled away in its equipment depots.
Cutting-edge technology packed into a shockingly spacious area. There was enough room for Yoshida and me to gear up while listening to the briefing, while the four trainees from my dream squad observed. Yoshida had clued them in to the day’s events, and they were on hand with their drones if we needed additional assets.
“Citywide traffic is controlled from the computing center under the Brooklyn complex, but there are over fifteen conduit tunnels connecting from the center that each distribute the traffic and transit AI’s commands throughout the city. The same tunnels are used for the electrical smartgrid, the water and sewer systems, streetlight control, and emergency response networks,” Aaron lectured.
“Fifteen?” I asked.
“Yes, but if you’d let me talk, I would have told you that we’ve eliminated six of the branches. All of the accidents have happened in areas whose command nodes are one of the remaining nine,” he said.
“That means there are likely drones in those nine, but it doesn’t eliminate the other six from consideration. There could be sleeper units waiting for activation,” Gunny Kwan said.
None of my four trainees were bashful about asking questions or speaking their minds, as I already knew, and it was kind of fun to watch Aaron deal with their directness.
“Yes, possible, but considered unlikely. So we’ll go with the nine probables. We won’t, however, leave without checking the other six,” Aaron said.
“Who’s this we?” Tyson Perry asked.
Aaron got flustered but he answered. “You four will check them out, but after Major Yoshida and Gurung get done with the other nine. You all are, as I understand it, our reserve force.”
“Right.”
“The major has also sent the rest of the trainees, along with his remaining squad members, to the terminating ends of every one of the tunnels. It’s likely that a lightly armed infiltrator bot will choose escape and evasion over confrontation. Should anything run out that far, the Kestrels will sense them and they can be stopped,” Aaron finished.
“Ajaya? What do you think?” Yoshida asked, looking at me.
“I think it would be better for one of these four to follow each of us as we clear the nine tunnels. We’ll switch them out at each tunnel change, but that way we’ll have backup in the tunnel with us and they’ll get experience before they clear the last six,” I said.
Yoshida was mildly surprised, at least if I read his expression correctly. It was often hard to tell, but I was getting better at it.
He glanced over at the four soldiers. “What do you think? Ready to get real?”
Every one of them nodded instantly, no hesitation. “I like it,” Elizabeth Kottos said before turning my way. “How far back would we be?”
“Six or seven meters, with your Kestrel between us and you. Our drones will be out front, then us, then yours, and finally you. Four layers of containment. You’ve updated your drones with the infiltrator’s specs?”
Four voices said “Affirmative” almost at the same time.
“It leaves the reserve force down to whichever two of them aren’t in the tunnels with us?” Yoshida asked me, tone clearly questioning me.
“Any more than two people and two drones at a time is going to get too crowded in those tunnels. Four people would just get in each other’s way,” I said with a shrug. “I think they’re more valuable in the tunnels, learning and backing us up. We may have a whole lot of these infiltrators to hunt down, not just here, but who knows where else. You need operators with experience.”
He nodded almost as soon as I finished. “Yeah, I agree. Kottos and Gunny Kwan, you’re first up. Perry and Abate alternate.”
“Who is with who?” Abate asked.
“Your four work it out. I don’t care and I’m not gonna let Ajaya play favorites,” the major said, giving me a level stare.
“These four are my favorites,” I said with a shrug. “You got any more of these fancy suits for them, Sarge?” I asked Rift.
She snorted, giving me a disgusted look. The suits in question were modifications of what we had worn earlier. She had come up with changes while Yoshida and I were in the hive.
Apparently she had access to some automated fabricators because the spider-silk bodysuits now had shoulder, upper and lower arm, back, thigh, and knee armor affixed to them. It was a much thicker pad of something like Spectra fiber or Kevlar. Not sure. The hard helmets had been replaced with form-fitted carbon fiber shells with built-in lighting and a face mask that offered better laser protection than the goggles had, as well as both thermal and light-enhancing vision modes. Best yet, the face mask allowed greater air flow, greatly reducing the risk of fogging. Matching gloves with lights attached to the back of the hand finished it out. We wore the regular Zone D boots that I seemed to go through by the half-dozen. Between the black clinging skin and the armor pads and reflective face masks, we looked like someone’s vision of dystopian storm troopers.
Rift issued suits that were already sized for the four soldiers, and they stripped to their underwear on the spot and put them on. The major and I were already suited up and studying the tunnel maps, trying to ignore the sudden mobile locker room feel.
We were going in with live AI assistants and voice comm, so we’d have the tunnel layout projected in our faceplates, but knowing the map without electronic aids was still required.
Electromagnetic detection was useless in these heavily cabled tunnels, just like it had been in the hive. We would have to go with visual cues to spot the Spiders’ infiltrator or infiltrators, which frankly favored our drones over our merely human eyes. The black shell of the infiltrator bot would have looked a lot like any other piece of high-tech infrastructure to me, had I seen it first. I had Rikki share his visual files with the science types and they, in turn, had upd
ated everyone else’s drones to look for the same cues. The thermal and night vision features of the new face masks might or might not help, depending on how active the bot was and what the background temperatures were. Despite what I told Mom, this was going to be dangerous.
The municipal building was almost empty at midnight, but the few people who met us were pretty high level. The Deputy Mayor was on hand, as was the Police Commissioner, a bunch of their aides, the DCAS Commissioner, and the deputy commissioners for IT, Facilities Management, and Energy Management, plus a small group of underlings who were the people who actually knew how things worked, had the keys to the locks, and were truly useful. Luckily for Yoshida, General Davis and some of his senior staff were already there to interface with the important people and let us get down to business with the useful people.
Our big van backed right up to a side entrance and we went inside, past all the suits, and directly down into the tunnels. The complaining and political maneuvering paused for a few seconds as we filed past the brass, our drones hovering alongside us.
“Why is that drone different?” a self-important looking man asked the general. I was looking straight ahead but didn’t make it by them. “Ajaya?” the general called out. I stopped and turned to face them while the rest of team moved swiftly to the stairwell.
“Yes, General?” I asked, Rikki hovering by my right shoulder.
“Ajaya, this is Deputy Mayor Haskell,” Davis said, turning to the DM. “I suspect you recognize this young man, Donald? Unless you never watch any programming at all.”
“Oh, you’re the one who hunts the drones. And that is a real Berkut?” Donald Haskell, Deputy Mayor of New York City, asked, staring at Rikki with an expression of half fear, half fascination.
General Davis had me fixed with a penetrating stare, doing his own bang-up job of nonverbal communication.
“Yes sir, Rikki is a Berkut, although he’s been heavily modified, so probably only about half of him is original.”
“I thought they were triangular?” The DM asked.
“The Berkut has two flight modes, Don,” Davis said. “This rounded form is easier to maneuver in small tight places, right Ajaya?”
I knew my cues even without prior Explain action. “Yes sir, General. Gives him an advantage in the tunnels. Sirs, if you don’t mind, I need to catch up with the team if Rikki and I are going get underground and root this bot out,” I said.
“Yes, Ajaya, go on. We want our most experienced hunters down there,” Davis said, letting me beat feet into the stairwell. Behind me, the DM’s loud voice carried. “He’s really good, right?”
“Yes Don, that’s why he’s here,” Davis agreed, his voice dropping in what I guessed was further reassurance. I shook my head and followed my drone down the stairs.
Chapter 21
The team was just ahead of us as we arrived in the basement, and Tyson looked back at me with a knowing grin. I caught up to them just as the IT folks were unlocking the doors to their kingdom. Our three science types were deep in conversation with their City counterparts while the no-nonsense facilities guy showed us the utility tunnels access.
“Ready, Ajaya?” Yoshida asked, his hands checking over his gear in a kind of pre-op ritual that I had seen him do at the hive.
“Yeah, I’ll take tunnel one with Kottos and Abate. We’ll move up to where it branches into three. Carl will guard the junction while Elizabeth follows me into the first branch. After that, they’ll switch and we’ll clear the second, doing it again for the third. You’ll be in the second main artery with Tyson and Gunny Kwan running the same drill. If nothing pops out at us, we’ll all regroup and move to the third artery, which has five branches,” I recounted.
“Correct. Everyone clear? Rift, you’re in charge of the fail safe squad. You’re security and backup, but none of you have your powered armor, so remember you are not invulnerable.”
The troopers who had accompanied us wore standard Zone Defense gear and regular body armor, but all five were drawn from Yoshida’s strike force group.
“Alright, let’s do this,” the major said, and with that, we headed in, leaving everyone else behind.
I moved into the tunnel, which was at least partially illuminated by a row of overhead bulbs. This part was wider than what awaited us up ahead, a really big conduit of fiber optics and regular data lines running along the center ceiling of the straight-sided corridor. But after a short ten or twelve meters, it changed into a rounded room with round openings for three smaller tunnels. I turned and made eye contact with Kottos and Abate, who both nodded and drew their sidearms. All three drones moved around the node junction, checking for any bots. When they came up empty, I nodded at my partners and then waved Rikki into tunnel one, crouching to follow.
The smaller tunnel had just enough height for me to walk hunched over and was only illuminated with a series of small LEDs that were more spread out than in the main tunnel. “Brutus is on your six,” Kottos said in my earpiece. Most of the trainees had taken to the idea of naming their drones, with most of the nicknames sounding like they were borrowed from childhood pets.
“Roger that,” I said, all my lights on as I focused on the thick utility cable while staying aware of Rikki’s actions ahead of me. We moved slowly and carefully, dropping down to knees to peer under and around the conduit structure. Rikki was a dark form ahead, just slightly lighter than his surroundings in the enhanced vision of the face mask.
We travelled that way for a hundred meters, that being the predefined limit for our mission parameters. It was possible the infiltrators could be further down, but it had been determined by our brain trust that it was unlikely for units attempting to control multiple traffic or city systems. If we found nothing in the first set of sweeps, we would go back and run the tunnels for three times that distance and send the drones out even further.
Yoshida had told me that General Davis was all for us just sending the drones in alone without humans at risk, but the major had countered that it would be hard to certify to the powers above that a tunnel was clear without direct human oversight. Personally, I was pretty certain that the drones were better equipped for this hunt than we were, but Davis had ended up agreeing with Yoshida. I imagine it would be easier to answer questions from up the food chain with boots on the scene.
At the end of our limit, we turned in place, Brutus moving past Elizabeth to take the lead while Rikki stayed behind me to provide rear security. “Let’s keep a sharp eye on the way out, as it can look different from this point of view,” I said, knowing that she would likely have done that as a matter of course. She was a good five or six years older than I was, and it was like me telling Aama how to weave blankets.
“Affirmative,” was her only answer. I noticed that she didn’t have to hunch over like I did and allowed myself to notice that she was in excellent shape before banishing everything from my mind but staying alert.
We came back out to the node, moved to the next tunnel, and Carl Abate and his Kestrel Hawkeye took the six o’clock positions. We made it ten meters in when our earpiece came alive.
“Contact,” Yoshida’s voice said, followed by a gunshot, then another. “It’s by me. Gunny, it’s coming your way.” The sound of a Kestrel firing, then a pistol.
“It’s hit but still moving. Bird dog, fetch!” came Max Kwan’s southern twang. Two more Kestrel shots. “Target down.”
Ahead of me, Carl Abate turned to glance back at me and meet my eyes, his expression a careful excitement mixed with satisfaction. One of the trainees had scored. Then his eyes flicked over my shoulder and widened. Simultaneously, I heard Rikki tick five times fast. I dropped to my knees and twisted at the same time, my pistol coming up. A black horror of plastic and legs was racing toward me along the conduit, a shiny needle reflecting a gleam of light. It was between me and Rikki, foiling his shot.
“Rikki, down!” I said, pulling the trigger a heartbeat later. The big pistol thumped in my hand, then thumped again
as my drone dropped to the tunnel floor. My first shot glanced off the hard shell of the needle-nosed bot, just skimming the angled surface, but my second round tore through the shoulder segment, knocking the bot slightly sideways. It tried to right itself, gave up, and fell to the floor. Rikki lifted up, tilted down, and flew over it as I fired again. His own gun barrel stuttered three times, then twice more as the bot twitched on the ground.
