by John Conroe
“That tests out as Cobalt-60,” Yoshida said, his tone bland.
The viewpoint swung around, moving over to see inside the open door into the building. Then it zoomed in, picking up something on the floor just inside. Sudden white light illuminated everything and the object on the floor became a massive metal foot, one that was attached to a giant Spider that lay slumped on the floor, now almost completely illuminated.
“I got it?” I said as I realized the CThree was defunct. The image moved slightly, side to side, changing the shot enough to see a little of each side of the dead drone. A small entry hole was visible on its left side, a bigger-sized hole blast out the right side.
“Yes. Looks like you got it.”
Chapter 39
He let me out of the room and I got a chance to call home and tell Mom I was alright, even though my call was closely monitored by Sergeant Rift.
Then I got pulled into the Strike Force operations room to watch Yoshida and a team go in on the Quad to pull out the Spider. Specially suited troopers retrieved as much radioactive material as they could scrape and package up, and then applied a fast-drying impermeable containment foam to the rest.
General Davis observed the proceedings with a group of his officers while on the other side of the room, watching me as much as the screens, were Agents White and Black.
Nobody spoke to me, nobody said good job, nobody acknowledged my existence. In fact, they were so dedicated to ignoring me that I was like a ghost in the room. Or maybe an elephant.
An hour later, I was shown to guest quarters and left to my own devices. So I slept. When I woke, my AI told me it was a little after nine in the morning. My hosts had curtailed the amount of access my virtual assistant had, leaving me with no ability to call, text, or email my family and Astrid. I could play virtual reality video games or check bank account balances as well as read and watch the news, but I couldn’t tell the ones I loved that I was alright.
That last bit was pretty interesting. All the headlines were about the Zone and escaped killer drones. The media had learned of the units recovered under the city and in the drone hive. The stories clearly painted a picture of dangerous killing machines manipulating city and corporate systems. There were numerous statements from government officials trying to simultaneously calm the waters and redirect public anger at Zone Defense. General Davis was quoted a great deal and blamed even more—especially by Congressman John Numer, who was grandstanding all over the City and Washington.
Then I found a live White House Press Conference by the president, who forcefully backed General Davis and announced that the military, at his direction, had undertaken an array of responses to contain and get ahead of the situation. When the press wanted details, General Davis stepped up to the podium and outlined something he called the Skilled Operator Assault Program. SOAP, as he immediately shortened it, was apparently a new program created at his command to train and equip the most skilled and experienced special operations commandos in the US military to successfully infiltrate the Zone, hunt down and kill off drones, using loyal US military drones as aerial K-9 units. That was all good, but then he quoted drone kill counts in the thousands and announced the successful elimination of two of the Spiders as well as the elimination of all of the infiltrator bots. It was a wonderful-sounding tale of government competence that stood tall for all of three minutes. Right up until a reporter asked over what time frame those kill counts had come, and how many were attributable to the caches recently recovered by Team Johnson on Zone War. Davis brushed the question off on the grounds of sensitive information, but it was too late because the sharks smelled blood in the water.
Another reporter asked if the general was taking credit for my kill of Lotus, using my name right in his question. This caused at least two others to ask what role Zone War and Gurung Extractions had played in any and all of the program’s successes. When Davis scoffed at the idea, the reporter projected a video clip holographically right over his own wrist, showing an indistinct outline of me from behind with a crystal clear image of Rikki flying overhead.
At that point, the president stepped in front of Davis to thank the press and walked out, effectively ending the conference.
Me, I was still stuck on the image of Rikki flying protectively above me. I asked my AI to kill the newsfeed and turned back to examining Rikki. I had multiple backups of his software and maybe, just maybe I could find a Berkut airframe, get even better computer components, and rebuild him. Now that I didn’t have to keep him a secret and I had some capital, I could go all out on equipping him with the best of the best. Too bad Harper wouldn’t be there to help me, but I knew she was long gone. With one of Rikki’s chips. Probably to use his recordings. I plucked the last two chips out and hid one in my boot and taped the other to the inside of my black web belt, using a piece of electrical tape almost the same color.
We had discussed the most likely outcome of our mission before we ever stepped into the Zone. The day before going in, I had been hit with a bolt of guilt and had told her that she couldn’t come with me. That it would completely blow her cover. She had just nodded and said of course it would blow that cover, but she had others. Then she proceeded to lay out how she felt about my little mission. That her mother was the reason the Spiders were so deadly and so unilaterally focused on the elimination of humankind. That she had her own cross to bear and it wasn’t up to me, in any way, to decide what her personal honor and conscience demanded. That she had thought of little else since she got out of the Zone. She had been… well… fierce.
So I knew she had activated steps and plans she’d already had in place. Moved assets and personal items to somewhere else. And I knew absolutely nothing about those plans because my own outcome was most likely going to be intense questioning and likely under a truth scan, which while not yet admissible in court had nonetheless recently become standard protocol for military intelligence. No more torture. Just hook up advanced brain scanning equipment, ask your questions, and read the responses. Far more effective than the old lie detector approach, and extraordinarily difficult to mentally defend against. The powers that be were going to find out about her. But they would have a damned hard time tracking her, a point she’d proven by simply walking out of Zone Defense without a trace.
My door suddenly opened and a squad of Zone Defense guards entered the room, eyes hard and hands on steel batons and Taser wands.
Right. Time for that interrogation.
The squad marched me at a fast pace through the complex, down multiple levels, and into a large conference room somewhere in the building I had never been before.
Agents Black and White, along with their boss, who I had learned was Deputy Director Timothy Fountain, held center stage at a big table, along with three white-jacketed technician types. Major Yoshida and his Estevez shadow were off to one side, while across the room, leaning casually on a chair, was NSA Director Weber. A compact, complex-looking device sat in the middle of the big table and a view screen on one wall showed General Davis’s unsmiling face looking on from what looked like a seat on a jet.
“Ah, Mr. Gurung, so glad you could join us,” Agent Black began.
“Black, White, time to get your interrogation continuing education credit for the month?” I asked.
White raised one eyebrow, Black smiled, and the deputy director looked ready to blow a fuse.
“You are facing extraordinary charges of treason, wiseass. Your very life hangs in the balance. Your attitude could make or break you,” Deputy Director Fountain said.
“Is that how it works, General?” I asked, turning to the projection on the wall. “I train your super-special SOAP people, kill your Spiders and, oh yeah, provide thousands of dead drones for you to claim credit for, and you reward me with death?”
“Be careful, Ajaya. You took an unknown agent into the Zone and exposed all of our networks to her,” the general said.
“Yes to the first part, no to the second. Yoshida exposed yo
ur network. If you had simply left us alone, we would have exited the Zone without going anywhere near your networks. Hell, we probably would have gone back in and hunted down the last Spider for you. But the major, who seems unable to get anything done without me, had to swoop down and haul us here. Here, where all of your forces couldn’t stop one young woman from casually walking out of the building, leaving you with nothing. Less than nothing. In fact, I bet she erased all images of herself on the way out. While you were trying to run her background, she gave you all a master class in network manipulation and ripping through cyber security measures. And now she’s out there, somewhere, with who-knows-what kind of incriminating secrets about Zone Defense, your ineffective programs, and the Zone itself.”
Oops. Maybe a bit much. The room had gone deathly still and even Director Weber was now sitting straight up and paying attention. Too late to back down now.
“So let’s get to it. Hook my up to your brain reader and let’s take a deep dive into the real history of the Zone.”
Double D Fountain had gone killer cold instead of looking ready to freak out. Now he turned and spoke to the three tech types. “Get out.”
They fled, no other word for it. They just about flat-out raced from the room.
Meanwhile, Yoshida was staring at me, and when I met his eyes, he made the tiniest side-to-side motion of his head. Nope. Too late, Major.
“You seem to be offering things up rather freely, Ajaya,” Agent Black said.
“Sure, why not, Agent? Your little truth machine will get there eventually anyway. I’m just tired of all the waiting. So let’s move it along. In fact, why don’t you get to the part where you explain how my family is at risk, how you will kill me, my sisters, my mother, and my grandmother to cover your secrets. Why wouldn’t you? How many citizens have you already killed?”
I was tempted to say three hundred sixty thousand, but some measure of self-preservation stopped me. I had a solid chance of getting out, but there were things my mouth could say that might take it too far to recover.
Both Black and White were frowning now, and Yoshida was focused on me like a hawk. DD Fountain started to speak, but Yoshida held up his hand forcefully and stepped forward.
“You have an edge, Ajaya. What is it?” Yoshida said.
“What the hell are you talking about, Major?” Fountain asked.
“You can say what you want, Deputy Fountain, but Ajaya is by far the most skilled in-Zone operator to enter Manhattan. He has survived the most dangerous place on earth for years on end because he is careful, crafty, and always has an edge or two. This isn’t bravado. Ajaya has a plan and he is extremely confident about it.”
Fountain took that in, opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it and looked to Black and White. The two agents nodded, agreeing with Yoshida.
“My edge, Major, strolled out of your facility and disappeared into thin air. I have no idea what she scavenged from here, but she had plenty of video storage of what we went through in the Zone, cleaning up part of the mess you all created. I imagine that a big slug of it is currently going viral as we speak.”
“Who the fuck is she?” Yoshida asked.
“That’s her story to tell, which is also part of my edge. But I will tell you that you were only partly correct—I might, in fact, be the most skilled operator to enter the Zone, but I’m not the most skilled to exit it.”
“What does that mean? What the fuck does that mean?” Fountain asked.
“It means she was raised inside the Zone. She knows its secrets. Well, most of its secrets. Nobody knows what the Spiders were up to, not completely. But she knows your secrets and way more importantly, she has proof. And as you’ve been so thoroughly shown, she can penetrate cyber security better than you all can.”
“You realize you just made her the most wanted terrorist in the world, don’t you?” Director Weber asked. His voice was matter-of-fact, his eyes interested in my response. More like a college professor than the head of the NSA.
“Ah. Director Weber. I didn’t expect you, but it’s nice you’re here. I was just in one of your old stomping grounds. Actually had no idea about that till we were already sitting on top of it. Pretty cool building, that Long Lines, if a bit stark. It’s curious that the remaining Spider was hanging out inside it, isn’t it? I mean, there’s still power in that building and a really nifty satellite uplink that Harper tells me is pretty high-end. What could a Spider CThree do with an NSA uplink? I bet the internet is wondering about that right now.”
Weber’s mildly curious look turned to something else, something cold and deadly. He touched one side of his eye with his left hand and flicked his right-hand fingers through empty air.
On the big screen, General Davis was looking off camera and his face was going through different expressions of anger, dismay, and maybe something that was akin to anxiety.
“There’s video out,” Davis said, still looking offscreen.
Black and White exchanged glances, then simultaneously activated iContacts. Yoshida just stared at me, arms crossed, face locked down.
Fountain, apparently not wearing contacts, turned to the wall screen. “How bad is it?”
“There’s video from their trip through the Zone, condensed. Shows the 33 Thomas building, their climb up the stairs, the roof of the building, then gets to the roof of Hudson Street with the Spider, the micro bombers, their identification of the radioactive material. I’m seeing the shooting sequence now. This must have all come from the Berkut’s video recordings. I’ll scan ahead,” Davis said.
“There’s also video from our own Renders. Showing the dead Spider and our recovery actions,” Agent White said, still watching, as his eyes were glowing red.
“It’s pretty complete. Got vid of the encounter with the Spider in the Thomas Street building stairwell, and their flight back off the island,” Davis said.
Weber walked to a corner of the room and touched his ear, making a call. He stood stiffly, back to us, talking, his words too soft to hear.
Fountain gave me a glare and walked out of the room. Agent Black turned off his contacts, leaving his partner to keep watching.
“You think this is enough to protect you?” he asked, his voice curious, like we were discussing my quarterly business plan.
“This? No. This just makes it a tiny bit tougher for you to simply make me disappear. It refutes much of the White House press conference, or at least throws much of the claims into doubt.”
“What else do you have, Ajaya?” Black pushed, voice still deceptively soft.
I thought about it. How much to say and when? We had covered a bit of this in our preplanning, but we had agreed that the situation would be fluid and I’d have to play it by ear.
Was it time to reveal her mother’s identity? No. If I gave that to them, they would have time to create a smear campaign to discredit the doctor’s name and history. Harper had her own plan, and the released videos were just the first step. She needed time to plant and layer the rest.
“As I mentioned, we have pretty much the complete history of the events leading up to Drone Night,” I said.
“Fiction. Conspiracy theory. My grandmother could discredit that,” White said, his red eyes going back to brown.
“Really? That good, is she?”
Deputy Director Fountain came back into the room. “The vids were released across thirteen initial channels, then another thirteen sites an hour later. They’ve already gone viral across the planet. Harper Leeds worked as a software technician and consultant, specializing in drones. Over the last two and a half months, she worked for seventeen companies, including Flottercot Productions and three of the major network affiliates, modifying and hardening drones. The videos released on all of these channels simultaneously, during advertisement breaks between live segments,” he reported, his expression sour. “Weber will know what can be done, if anything.”
Director Weber had turned slightly to listen to Fountain while still on
his call. He turned back and finished speaking, then came back around to face all of us.
