Borough of Bones

by John Conroe

  I rubbed the side of my neck. It did sting. “I’m guessing that Weber’s thing wasn’t really all that. Last I checked the news, things had calmed down.”

  “Yeah, got no comment on any of No Such Agency’s doings, but I will say I highly doubt anything has calmed down. If anything, it’s just going to go straight up from here,” Yoshida said.

  “And it’ll be hauling you up with it,” Black said. “You wanted credit, you got it. Hope you enjoy it, kid.” With that, he turned and walked out, the tech and most of the guards following him. That left Yoshida and a single trooper, who I suddenly realized was Corporal Boyle, looming silently by the door.

  “Sorry it worked out this way, Ajaya. I think that in this case you backed them into a corner,” the major said.

  “I’m guessing this will all be blamed on me somehow?” I asked.

  He gave me regretful smile, one that didn’t accept any responsibility, then clapped me on the shoulder with his granite-hard hand and walked out, leaving me with Boyle.

  The tall, gloomy corporal gave me a nod. “Us troops always get the shit, Ajaya,” he said, holding out a hand toward the door.

  I took the hint, stuffed Rikki and my notes into my pack, and swung it up on my back before stepping out the door. It took me that long to register his words. He was including me as one of the troops. Despite the stress and fear of having a bomb in my neck, being tracked, and now hearing I was going to somehow be the government’s fall boy, his inclusion hit me somewhere deep inside.

  “They wouldn’t let me give you your weapons back,” he said like it was somehow his fault.

  “I didn’t think they would. Gonna miss that little Honey Badger though. Sweet gun.”

  “Sarge Rift is taking care of them for you,” he said, leading me down the hall. Like I would ever be back.

  “Kayla wanted to come but the major said no. Bunch of the others are pissed, but what can they do? What can any of us do?”

  Now I was feeling bad for him. “Hey, Boyle, don’t worry. I’m alive and out of the Zone. The rest is all fluff.”

  “You’re tough, Ajaya. Like iron. Lost your drone and your nice guns and got a bomb in your neck and you’re getting crapped on by the brass when you completed your mission and all that. It just sucks.”

  “Yeah, well, if I understand the major, the suck factor is only going to get worse before it gets better. If it gets better,” I said.

  “Yeah, a serious increase in suckage is normal for every mission. But it will get better. The team is betting on you. The sneak and peek people you taught mostly feel the same too. You’ve survived everything the Zone could throw at you… you’ll get through this too.”

  We were at the main doors by now. I turned and held out my hand. He shook it, then stepped back, came to attention and saluted me—and held it. Suddenly self-conscious, I snapped off a salute back, if only to get him to recover. A couple people around us gave us funny looks, but Boyle ignored them. He gave me a nod and turned on his heel, walking back the way we had come. Still catching stares, I turned and headed out into the night.

  Chapter 42

  “Welcome to a special edition of Zone War. I’m Cade Kallow and your host for this extraordinary and completely exclusive interview with a young man at the center of global controversy. Ajaya Gurung, welcome.”

  “Hi Cade,” I said, sitting on his right side.

  He looked at the empty seat to my right, a mournful expression on his face. “No offense, Ajaya, but I much prefer our chats when they include my all-time favorite guest.”

  “Yeah, I much prefer to have her sitting by my side too.”

  “Rumor has it that there is trouble in paradise?” he asked.

  “My relationship with Astrid is just that Cade, my relationship. I’m not here to talk about that.”

  “I know, I know, but in the interest of keeping the Zone War audience from being distracted by her absence, I thought we should at least touch on it. What I understand is that you two are taking some time?”

  “That’s accurate.”

  “I also understand that she was unhappy with your last incursion into the Zone, or more accurately, your choice of partner for that incursion,” he said, immediately holding up a hand toward me. “And Ajaya, I say that because your choice of partner is totally on topic for tonight’s interview.”

  “Astrid’s feelings about me and my actions are totally hers, Cade. I would never discuss them without her present to represent her side of it. Every relationship is two-sided, and both sides are equally important. But if you wish to discuss Harper and my last incursion to the Zone, that’s fine.”

  “Okay, Ajaya, totally fair. Let’s get right to it. Over the last few days, the amount and extent of internet disruptions globally has exceeded anything ever seen in the history of the internet. And you’re at the center of it.”

  “Because the government says so, right?” I asked.

  “Well, in fact, yes. The White House specifically named you, as well as an individual they say goes under the alias of Harper Leeds.”

  “So the network outages occurred at a time when I was being interrogated by Zone Defense, the Department of Defense, and the NSA, simultaneously. And yet I somehow knocked out massively hardened corporate and government AI networks all over the planet without having any access at all to the web?”

  “The White House statement was that you bore responsibility in conjunction with a terrorist named Harper Leeds, an individual who appears in videos with you that were first released to various news agencies, including this show. Video that later was forcefully inserted into paid advertising slots. Hundreds of them. And I understand the lawsuits are already piling up?”

  “What do I bear responsibility for, Cade? Appearing in the video? That’s absolutely true. All of that footage was real. We penetrated the Zone, set up a sniper hide on top of 33 Thomas Street, which is also called the AT&T Long Lines building, staked out the internet access hub at 60 Hudson, observed a Spider CThree, observed hairspray bombers being loaded with radioactive isotopes scavenged from Manhattan hospitals, directed fire into those aerial bombers before they could be exploded by Render drones in the jet stream above Manhattan, and fired a round that ultimately ended one of the two remaining Spider CThrees in the Zone. Yup, that was me. And the additional footage of Zone Defense soldiers recovering the dead Spider and cleaning up the radioactive spill was real too.”

  “You’re saying you should be counted a hero, not a villain?”

  “I don’t care for the title hero, Cade, but I do care that I carried out a mission given to me by Major Cal Yoshida of the Zone Defense Instant Response Strike Force, to hunt and kill the Spider that was controlling the escaped drone infiltration units, which I also helped hunt down and kill. Also, the only reason Zone Defense knew there was a possible escaped drone problem was because I brought it to their attention. So I’ve personally killed two of the three Spider CThrees and yet Zone Defense and the White House wants to tar and feather me for internet disruptions caused by NSA attack programs.”

  “Whoa, Ajaya, let’s take a second and work through all that. There’s a whole lot in that statement to unpack,” Cade said. “The White House has not refuted your kills on the CThrees, but they do say you and this Harper disrupted the internet. Now you claim the NSA is involved?”

  “Sounds like the makings of a conspiracy theory when you say it like that, Cade. But it’s not a theory, it’s a fact. Harper released video to protect me. We were picked up by Zone Defense when we were on the Brooklyn Bridge, which you saw in the footage. Zone D had no reason to forcefully grab us other than they were butt hurt that I took someone into the Zone that they didn’t know. However, I was given enormous leeway in handling my missions when they hired me in the first place, first to train those SOAP soldiers, then to hunt escaped bots, and finally to hunt down Spiders. But they couldn’t hang on to Harper, and she released video to keep them from doing anything permanent to me.”

  “Per
manent? You’re suggesting, Ajaya, that they would, what? Kill you?” he asked, incredulous.

  “To cover up what I know, yes. And they still might at any moment. If you get sprayed with blood from the bomblet in my neck before this interview is over, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “What? A bomb in your neck? Ajaya, this… this…” He looked completely incredulous.

  “Sounds crazy? Sure. Do you have that EMF detector I requested you have?”

  “Yes?” he said, still shocked. He turned off camera. “Dave, can you bring it over? I’m going to have our technical expert, David Young, operate this electromagnetic frequency detector because he’s the expert and I’m just the …”

  “Eye candy?” I asked. Despite his shock at the direction we had gone, he laughed a bit at that.

  “Funny guy.”

  Dave the tech guru came over. He was short and wide, bearded, and looked exactly like a tech expert might look.

  “Hold it by my neck. Here on this side,” I said.

  “It’s definitely getting a reading,” Dave said. He waved it across the rest of me, then came back to the side of my neck. “Yeah, nothing else on his body, but there’s something under the skin right there,” he said, reaching out a finger to poke.

  I pulled away. “Good way to lose a finger, Dave. It has a grain of high explosive attached. According to my interrogators, it both sends out a tracking signal and receives one, likely from a drone somewhere outside this building at this moment. X-rays, attempts at surgery, or loss of the drone signal will set it off. As it’s sitting on my carotid artery, I won’t survive that explosion. But it is detectable without danger by an EMF device.”

  “Dave, you’re absolutely sure there is something there?” Cade asked.

  “Yes, and if you look close, Cade, you can see the tiniest lump. It emits a signal, but I can’t attest to explosives,” Dave said.

  “Thanks, Dave,” Cade said. Dave nodded and retreated off camera. “Ajaya, that only proves you have a radio chip of some kind in you neck. It doesn’t prove an explosive. You understand what that means?”

  “Yes. People will say I put it there myself. Listen, Cade, I’m not here tonight because I think I’m going to convince anyone of anything. The people I’m up against are the global masters of controlling public opinion. They’ve had decades to practice.”

  “Dammit, Ajaya, every time you speak, you give me six new questions. Let’s stick to the main points—why are you here… if not to change opinion?”

  “The same reason that Harper released those videos and then convinced AI platforms to send out the secondary videos: to keep the true architects of the Drone Attack from burying the truth and, more importantly, ignoring the massive danger we all face right now.”

  “Jeez Ajaya, you cannot keep doing that! How can we get anywhere if you lob bombs left and right?” he asked, completely exasperated. “True architects?”

  “Tell you what, Cade. Why don’t I just give you a summary and then you can pick and choose where you want to go?”

  He held out both hands in a go-ahead motion.

  “So, back when I sniped those Tank-Killers, the ones that were trying to trap the Johnsons, I rightfully should have died attempting to escape. See, I made it down the elevator shaft, through the tunnel, and out on the street, but what I never told anyone else was that a Tiger was just a few meters from stepping on me when someone else intervened. Kind of ironic, huh? I mean, I intervene to save the Johnson Clan and someone else jumps in to save me. Basically, an unarmed girl threw a brick at the Tiger and then escaped it. That girl was Harper, although I didn’t know anything about her at the time. I dug around and found stories of sightings of a young girl in the Zone. Later, I tracked her down. Harper grew up in the Zone, Cade.”

  He just stared at me, eyes wide, speechless.

  “Yeah, it’s kind of a lot. My personal AI, who is monitoring this program, will now send the files we collected on the earlier sightings of Harper to your AI, Cade. Yours and Trinity’s.”

  He stared a second longer, then touched the side of one eye. He looked off into red-eyed space for a few moments, then focused back on me.

  “I can confirm that you sent me files that appear to be articles,” he said cautiously. I think he was just starting to realize that this interview wasn’t going anything like he had imagined.

  “Yeah, let’s let Trinity look them over and have her people check them out. Trinity, that’s going to be really important in a few minutes,” I said, turning to look where she was sitting off camera.

  “Ajaya, I feel like I’ve lost complete control of this interview,” Cade said, maybe just a bit shaken.

  “It was never yours to begin with, Cade,” I chided him with a smile. “Now, where were we? Oh yeah. It took me some time to track down the girl in the Zone. She was like a ghost, coming and going as she pleased, avoiding killer drones at will. I say that literally, Cade. Harper uses her will to confuse drones and hack AI systems.”

  I held up one hand because I could see overwhelming disbelief on his face.

  “Let me explain. Harper’s last name isn’t Leeds. It’s Wilks. She’s the only daughter of Dr. Theodora Wilks, an artificial intelligence genius who was employed by the New York Stock Exchange to keep their automated trading systems safe, secure, and running like a top. That’s a matter of record,” I said, turning back to Trinity with a raised eyebrow.

  “We’ll check it, Ajaya,” Trinity said off camera but loud enough for it to make it on air.

  “Now, Cade, Dr. Wilks was also an early leader in applied neuroprosthesis, devices that allow humans to interface with computers. In fact, she was years and years ahead of her time. Her very best work was done with her daughter. And her expertise made her a natural target when the people behind Drone Night needed to have the mechanical leaders of their drone army upgraded and improved. And Dr. Wilks had just been diagnosed with an incurable, ultimately terminal disease. With no family, she was under huge pressure to get the treatments she needed to slow the disease as well as set up her eight-year-old daughter to survive her eventual death. In short, she needed money… lots of money. And she had no idea what the Spiders would be used for.

  “On the eve of Drone Night, the people who hired her attempted to kill her and left her for dead. They didn’t know her daughter was there at the Exchange, hiding. Wilks survived and they stayed in the Zone because life outside the Zone was more dangerous.”

  “But we killed the terrorists,” Cade said.

  “Did we? Oh, we killed the crap out of some terrorists, but not the terrorists. See, back at that time, the country was divided more than at almost any other time in its history. Divided over politics, religion, ideology, sexual orientation, the haves versus the have nots, and so on. You know, you lived through it. But there was a group of people who were well placed, who were tired of waiting for their chance at the top, who came up with a way to bring it all together.”

  “You are honestly telling me that you think Drone Night was some kind of false flag event?” Cade asked, totally incredulous.

  “Who benefited from Drone Night, Cade?”

  “No one! Absolutely no one!”

  “Really? What about the handful of people who had shorted the market with crazy prescience? At that point, the richest people were the owners of the FANG companies and other technology innovators like them, but immediately after, it was a whole new group. Look where those people are today.”

  He was angry now, so angry I worried that his ability to continue was shutting down.

  “Don’t bail on me now, Cade. We’re getting to the good stuff,” I said.

  “This is absurd! Do you have proof of any of this?”

  “Me? No. Harper? Yes. Which is why she’s out at large and I’m here with a bomb in my neck.”