by John Conroe
Immediately she moved the rifle, awkwardly shifting the big gun, but before she got it more than a centimeter, Unit 19 twisted in mid-air, bringing the gun barrel around for her. This time, she looked again and then pulled back, surprised. Then back on the scope, this time lifting the stock to drop the elevation. Finally she froze, and careful not to disturb the weapon, she pulled back and looked at me. I nodded and carefully leaned in to take over the sniper rifle, making sure not to jar it a millimeter off target.
She nodded, then took a big breath as she realized what was about to happen. She fumbled her own rifle off her shoulder and checked it over, clicking the safety off.
Seeing she was ready, I put my head down, eyes to the scope. The reticle was black and so too were the trees they were trained on. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to see anything. I just needed to make a careful shot without letting the rifle come off its aiming point.
Breathing carefully, I snugged the big weapon into my shoulder pocket, curled my finger around the trigger, and began to take up slack. My breath went in, then half out, stopping completely, and I had enough time to marvel at how solid a rest the Decimator was providing when the big rifle suddenly went off.
Full power with no flash suppression. A ball of fire like dragon’s breath exploded in the night, the blast and recoil coming together with a familiar shove. Night vision completely gone, I pulled the rifle off Unit 19 and dropped down to a kneeling position.
The Decimator instantly spun in place and fired its electromagnetic gun. It slid sideways a few centimeters on its fans and then fired again.
Something fell out of the trees where I had shot. Big, metal, and thrashing. Stars in my eyes blocked what I was seeing, but I managed to get the crosshairs of the MSR onto the grinding, twisting metal monster. My second round killed it dead.
“Kite and one Wolf remain. Multiple drones responding from the building behind,” Unit 19 said. It still sounded odd.
“We have to run for it. One Wolf isn’t enough to stop us with three of us shooting, so we just have to be ready,” I said.
“Waiting on you, Gurung,” Harper said, eyes watching the trees, rifle held across her body, barrel down, finger indexed alongside the trigger—just like I had taught her.
We started to jog, running straight for the closest ramp, the big Decimator slightly out in front of us. I took the time the easy pace gave me to first fold the stock, then sling the MSR, pulling the little Honey Badger Short Barreled Rifle from my back and chambering a round.
A whirring came from the left, soft, quiet. The Kite, trying to distract us. Unit 19 swiveled the opposite way as it flew straight, pointing slightly to the right of our line of travel even as its big delta-shaped body still followed the direction of our path.
“The Wolf is over there, keeping a tree between it and Unit 19’s weapon,” Harper said.
“Good. The longer it leaves off its attack, the better,” I said. “Ready to go faster?”
She didn’t answer, but her stride lengthened out as we hit the base of the on-ramp, jumping over the side rail. Then we were sprinting and turning, spiraling up the ramp, unable to cut any corners, forced to follow the roadway.
“Multiple UAVs on approach,” Unit 19 said, twisting in mid-air to point back behind us. The big drone was now flying backward without any reduction in speed. “Advise closing eyes and opening your mouths. Renders inbound.”
“Do as it says,” I yelled to Harper, grabbing her arm to slow her and pull her down beside me, closing my eyes as we almost fell on the asphalt.
Light flashed behind my eyelids, bright enough to hurt, and thunder shook the ground, bouncing us like rubber balls. Eyes squeezed tight, I could only feel what was happening, and even that was jumbled and confusing. The hard steel and plastic of my PDW bounced off my cheekbone while something soft shoved against my chest. Then the shaking stopped and I opened my eyes to find Harper on top of me and fires burning west of us. Entire trees were aflame, lighting up the night. Other trees had been broken, tossed aside like twigs, along with a few cars and piles of debris that used to be sophisticated drones.
Harper climbed off me, then held out a hand to help pull me up. I took it, suddenly dizzy. My cheek hurt, my ears were ringing, and spots of light swam before my eyes. But we were alive.
“We have to go,” I said. “Now, before any more can come after us.”
“Concur,” Unit 19 said. “Zone Defense has been notified and is responding. However, reducing the distance to Brooklyn Bridge exit is warranted.”
It was more of a stumble than any kind of coordinated run, but the result was to move us out and onto the famous bridge. Wind blowing across the East River whistled through the metal uprights and the lights of Brooklyn drew slowly closer. The wind suddenly changed, blowing straight down on us from above and then the night lit up again, but this time it was electric spotlights blinding us, with shadows moving fast through the eye-searing brightness. Familiar thumps sounded all around us and I found myself reaching out to keep Harper’s gun barrel pointed down.
“We’ll take those,” a voice said from inside powered armor while gauntleted hands relieved us of our weapons. The down blast of air grew vastly more powerful as a massive shape descended—the giant Quad coming down as close as the bridge’s gargantuan suspension cables would allow. An armored soldier pressed close on each side, grabbing my arms and armpits, lifting my feet easily off the ground. My captors crouched and then jumped, all three of us flying through the well-lit night to land in the open hatch of the Quad. A second later, two more troopers touched down with Harper between them. Unit 19 floated in by itself, flying directly to its own charging station, where robotic arms instantly began to rearm its depleted munitions.
“Ah, Ajaya. Always in the thick of it, aren’t you?” an armored form said with the voice of Yoshida. Neither of my soldiers had yet released my arms and neither seemed to have any inclination to do so. Harper was also being held tightly.
“Back to base,” the major said and the big aircraft swerved so suddenly that I would have lost my feet if I wasn’t in the iron clutches of the soldiers. The craft accelerated and then, almost before it got going, it was already descending, this time all the way to the ground.
Chapter 38
We were separated immediately and I was shown into a room near the Strike Force offices. Just me, a table, and a couple of chairs—and then left there to cool my heels. None of the armored soldiers would talk to me, and the ones who escorted me were not people I knew very well.
They kept all my weapons but left me my pack, so I ate two energy bars, drank water, and attempted to patch up my wounds. Fifteen minutes after the door had shut and locked, it reopened, admitting a medical officer.
I didn’t know the medic and he didn’t talk beyond asking me questions about my health, current condition, and what hurt.
Eleven small punctures on my front legs and torso, and three across my back. Harper had yanked all the metal and the suit had slowed the flechettes way down, so he just disinfected and bandaged all the wounds. After that, he packed up and left, the armored soldiers in the hall letting him right out but firmly closing the door in my face.
Seems like I had been here before, maybe not this room, but held without explanation or even contact. My decision to go back to work for Zone D looked stupider and stupider all the time.
With nothing to do, I put my feet in one chair and leaned back in the other—and promptly fell asleep.
The door slammed open and I was just suddenly standing on my feet, arms raised, fists knotted.
“Look at this guy, Estevez—ready to fight anybody,” Yoshida said from the doorway, looking mildly amused. He was in battle dress uniform, the shorter Corporal Estevez standing just behind him.
I had no idea how much time had passed, and barely even remembered where I was. Stepping back, I crossed my arms over my chest and gave them both a level look. “Finally getting around to me, huh?”
He raised
both eyebrows, dark eyes boring into me. “Getting around to you?” he asked, as if trying the phrase on for size. “Yeah, I’m getting around to you. After saving your ass on the Brooklyn Bridge and dealing with your security breach, I’m getting around to you.”
“Save my ass? As I recall, we were doing just fine, hoofing it for the exit, when you all rolled up and basically seized us, then threw us in lockdown.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about that us. You brought an unknown civilian into the Zone on my watch, using my personnel to get clearance without proper background checks to handle my mission,” he said, moving up into my face.
“Yes,” was my whole answer. He waited, his eyes moving back and forth between mine, eyebrows moving up in an incredulous expression.
“That’s it? You going to rest on just an admission of guilt?”
“Yes. I’m guilty of executing the mission you assigned me. I’m guilty of proceeding with an absolute minimum of resources from you. I’m guilty of penetrating the Zone, stopping a dirty bomb attack on Brooklyn and firing on my assigned target, then successfully exfiltrating with absolutely no loss to you—just me.”
He frowned, briefly.
“What dirty bomb?”
“The multiple hairspray units that the Spider was equipping with Cobalt-60. I sniped the Spider and radioactive material so they couldn’t fly it out of the Zone.”
“No Raid Can has ever made it out,” Estevez said.
“Right, because Renders blew them out of the air—over the Zone—into the wind,” I said.
“Wait, hold up. What exactly happened in there?” Yoshida demanded.
“You don’t know? What have you been doing all this time?” I asked, still not certain of the time. The soldiers who had stuffed me in the room hadn’t let me get my AI from my locker in the ready room.
“We’ve been trying to figure out who your mystery girl is. Maybe you should start with her?”
“Didn’t you just ask her?”
“She said her name was Harper Leeds and gave us an address that’s in your building. When we run her prints, voice patterns, retina scans, name, Social Security number, all her data, it all comes up bullshit,” Yoshida said, eyes getting a little wild.
“So what did Harper say about that?” I asked.
His eyes bulged and a vein in his temple visibly throbbed in time to a very fast heartbeat, but he didn’t speak. Estevez gave him a sideways look, then turned back to me and spoke up. “We can’t ask her because she’s disappeared, you moron!”
The major turned and looked at him, eyes getting even crazier. I almost laughed. Almost. Something, survival instinct maybe, kept the laughter on lockdown. But I did back up and sit down in my chair.
“She just disappeared? Let me guess: You put her in a room like this but put the heavyweights outside my door and she just what? Walked away?” I asked.
“Who. The. Hell. Is. She?” Yoshida asked, taking a step forward with each word, which left him looming over me.
“She’s my Zone anti-drone specialist,” I said. “And now you see why. She just ghosted herself right out of your high-security military installation.”
“This is serious, Gurung. I’ve handled you with kid gloves up till now. I coddle your mother, I tiptoe around your sensitive ego, I let you get away with all kinds of shit, but not now. You brought a motherfucking security risk into my base and now she’s doing who the hell knows what for who the hell knows who.”
“Wrong. You brought her to Zone Defense. I just took her into the Zone. I would have taken her out of the Zone. But you’re the one who yanked us out and brought us here.”
He turned with a roar and punched the wall. It wasn’t a sheetrock wall either, but the concrete block one. His knuckles left an imprint in the concrete.
For a split second, I thought he was some kind of cyborg or something but then blood started to drip off his hand as he glared at me.
I decided to just stay quiet, but kept a watch on him in case he went hog-wild crazy.
After a second, the cray-cray left his eyes and he took a deep breath. Then he grabbed the other chair and sat down. His left hand came up and rubbed his face a few time, his right still dangling, still dripping blood. He took another breath and then looked around. Spotting a roll of gauze, he grabbed it and started to wrap his hand, very matter-of-fact.
“Let’s start at the beginning. Records show you entered the Zone this morning with your mystery guest. Walk me through every step of your time inside.”
For the next hour, I talked, explaining our infiltration to Hudson, the climb up 33 Thomas Street, the observation of the Spider, the radioactive isotope, my shots on target, and our mad dash out of the building, being chased by the Spider that was already inside the NSA or AT&T or whoever’s building it was. He listened without a single word or question while I described our run in the Tesla, the crash, and holding up in the muni building. I explained about Unit 19, and felt myself get distant and remote when recounting Rikki’s end. I even pulled the shattered airframe of my drone out of my pack and showed it to him.
When I got done, he just stared at me for a long time. Then he stood abruptly, turned on his heel, and walked out, Estevez trailing after him.
The door closed and I settled back for another wait, but just a few minutes had gone by when the door opened and another trooper brought me a tray with a big mug of tomato soup, a chicken salad sandwich, and a brownie along with a bottle of water.
I finished the whole thing in just a few minutes, but rather than sit back, I looked around for something else to distract me. And spotted Rikki.
My drone was still unwrapped and sitting on the side of the table, so after a moment, I pulled it closer to take a second look at his damage.
It wasn’t any better the second time, but I was way more thorough. Rikki’s CPU was toast, a fact made obvious by the bits of broken carbon fiber armor that had been removed. Something about that bothered me. A few seconds later, it hit: I had put all the pieces back in place. But when I unwrapped Rikki to show the major, they were out of his shell and sitting in the bottom of the bag. The bag that Harper had wrapped him in.
Taking a closer look, I spotted another issue. His housing wasn’t together. It looked like someone had pried his casing apart and then didn’t snap it back together. I pulled him open and looked inside. Immediately, I spotted it. Two gleaming black data chips sat in place in the custom holder I had installed. The third spot was empty. I looked his interior completely over. Nothing. It wasn’t bouncing around free inside him. It wasn’t in the bag. It was just flat-out missing.
Harper. She was the only one who could have done it. The only one who had the opportunity, back during those fifteen minutes I had slept on the third floor of the muni building. Why?
My door re-opened and Yoshida came back in, followed by Estevez and Sergeant Rift.
The major pulled the chair around backward and straddled it, eyes locked on mine.
He lifted his left hand and tapped his wrist unit with his roughly bandaged right one. Instantly, an image projected on the institutional white wall of the room. It was an exterior nighttime view of the upper levels of 60 Hudson Street, lit a ghostly green by night-vision equipment.
“This is a Render shot taken ten minutes ago. This the ledge where you witnessed the Spider?”
“One of the Spiders,” I said. “The other was already inside 33 Thomas. But yeah.”
The image moved in close and the AI running the Render highlighted a big portion of roof, as well as the side of the building, in red. Radioactivity readings appeared in the middle of the red area, the values climbing higher as the drone scanned the spot.
