by Nick Thacker
The drone took the hit and tried to keep flying, but it toppled and sank low enough to catch the corner of a computer monitor. The small impact was enough to send it veering off-course, and it crashed into the bubble-lined wall in the corner of the room. Reggie aimed carefully and shot two more times, hearing both rounds ping into the drone’s outer hull.
“One down,” he said. “Any idea how many more?”
“No,” Mrs. E said, “and I don’t think that one saw us, so we should still be safe for the time being.”
Reggie realized what she meant. The drones were controlled by a central computer system, all flying either a preset pattern or individually guided by the computer. It was a hive mind of sorts, and each individual entity was responsible for sending data back to the command center. If the drones were outfitted with any sort of camera — and he had no doubt they were — they would be attacked as soon as they were spotted.
Until then, however, they were invisible.
“Okay, so we wait it out a little longer,” he said. “The Chinese and the drones have their hands full, but that won’t last forever.”
“And we’ll still be no closer to the only way out of here,” Kyle added.
“Man, I’m sick of these tables. I’m sick of this station,” Reggie said. “Can we get by them?”
“Maybe with a smokescreen. Look.” Reggie followed Kyle’s outstretched hand and finger to the opposite corner of the room behind the tables. There was a thin layer of haze — smoke from the last hour’s battle — collecting and rising to the ceiling. A drone was flying through it, but it did not appear to be flying a preset route. It was making a small figure-eight in the air, not firing.
“I think it’s blind,” Kyle said. “The smoke must have an effect on it. It’s basically just hovering in an evasive pattern, hoping no one sees it.”
“Well I see it,” Reggie said, lifting his gun. He popped the drone with a single shot, sending the small machine down and into the ground. It actually exploded when it landed, a small, minuscule explosion of metal and gears.
“Okay,” Mrs. E said. “That is what we should try.” She turned and looked around the level. “The smoke is all over the room, and the drones are having to come in close to see their targets. If we stay to the outside, and try to move in the densest smoke, we might just make it.”
Reggie and Kyle nodded, and all three began sliding toward the edge of their makeshift wall. “Besides,” Reggie said. “I’ve got this guy to use if anything wants to take me on.” He patted his weapon, simultaneously checking the magazine.
It’s going to be close, he thought. He smiled. “Ready?”
They were at the side of the room, and the shouts and gunshots from the Chinese forces were underscored by the patter of the return fire from the drones. Reggie wondered how the enemy force was doing against the machines, and thought back to their own encounter with the quadcopters.
They had been inside a moving vehicle and were still outgunned. Only Hendricks and Ryan Kyle of his team had made it out of the attack alive, and even then it had taken very carefully aimed shots and lots of firepower to bring down the drones. In a smaller area, with drones and smoke and men all confused into one blob of chaos, Reggie had to think the machines had the upper hand.
All the more reason to get out while we can.
Mrs. E led the charge, and suddenly Reggie was running full-speed along the side of the level. He hurdled tables and chairs, dodged smoking computer equipment, and pressed forward to the exit. There were no soldiers between them and the door to the stairwell, and the smoke did seem to be blocking the drones’ view of them.
He heard one of the soldiers shout an order in Chinese. He didn’t speak a word of the language, but something told him the man had spotted them all and had ordered his team to engage.
He ducked instinctively, a hail of bullets striking the wall above him, right where he had been running a moment ago. Kyle and Mrs. E did the same, but Reggie heard Kyle scream as he fell.
The younger man had fallen not on his own will, but because he had been hit. Reggie nearly tripped over him as he stumbled forward in his half-crouched position, but he lunged at the last second, landed, then spun around to face the soldier.
“Keep going,” Kyle said. He was straining to talk, his teeth refusing to separate, and Reggie could see his jaw clenched together to mask the pain. He quickly assessed the young man, finding the blood pooling around his stomach and side already spilling out onto the floor.
“Let’s just…” Reggie thought about the situation. Mrs. E joined them but provided cover fire and forced the Chinese back to the opposite wall of the level. The drones’ numbers had been diminished, but Reggie saw at least three more circling the Chinese team, keeping them company.
“No,” Kyle said. “Don’t be an idiot. I’m not leaving this room. I’ll bleed out in less than —“
“You’ll bleed out a lot slower if you shut up,” Reggie said. “Let me help you.”
“Give me your gun,” Kyle said. Reggie looked down at him again, examining the kid with fresh eyes. He really was too young for this, too young to die as an unknown in a battle that had never happened in a place that had never existed.
“You got family?”
“Everyone has family. But mine stopped feeling like family about twenty years ago.”
Reggie nodded. “Okay, well…” he stopped. What are you going to say? You tried this ten minutes ago, and couldn’t figure out the words to —
“Save it,” Kyle said. “Give me your gun and a chance to give you a head start. I’ll at least get three or four of the Chinese guys, guaranteed.”
“Wanna bet?”
Kyle smiled. He reached out his hand, waiting for Reggie to grab it. The movement caused the young man severe pain, but he kept it extended, trembling the entire time.
Reggie clasped it and shook. “You take out four of these guys, or I’ll shoot you.”
“Deal.”
Reggie turned to leave the room, ensuring first that the Chinese were still occupied, when Kyle spoke again.
“Red.”
Reggie frowned at the use of his real first name, then remembered being ‘outed’ by Mr. E before they’d embarked on the journey. “Yeah?”
“I’m not… I’m not supposed to say anything, but tell… tell Joshua I would have followed him anywhere.”
Reggie frowned once again, and felt Mrs. E’s hand on his arm, pulling him away.
“Later,” she said.
He nodded, finally prepared to leave the room — and his teammate — behind.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
The computer system was not, in fact, secure. Or if it had been, the soldiers had already successfully logged in and bypassed the measures to access the terminal. Julie stood in front of it now, side-by-side with Colson, and they both peered at the user interface. Joshua stood facing the opposite direction, unwilling to be attacked from behind like the previous users of the machine had been.
“You understand the interface?” Julie asked. The computer featured a typical operating system layout, with a taskbar and menu bar at the top and bottom of the screen, but the status windows and alert boxes that were open were indecipherable to Julie.
“Just a bunch of numbers and letters,” Colson muttered. “But I’m sure we can piece things together.”
“Well we don’t have a lot of time for piecing things together,” Joshua said. “Whatever’s left of the security team isn’t going to just let us in. As soon as the system figures out it’s being tampered with, someone up there will find out about it.”
“Someone like that guy from Level 2,” Julie said. The man had disappeared into the depths of the base, but they all knew the truth: no one left the station easily, and even if they did, where could they go?
“Yeah, I’d wager he’s around here somewhere.”
“You think he’s the one in charge?”
“He’s the one the security force was answering to, but kn
owing what I do of the company’s infrastructure, he’s just a middle-manager type. But there’s also a Chinese team somewhere in the station as well, and my bet is they’re looking for this computer terminal as well.”
“Yeah, what exactly are they after?”
“Probably whatever Mr. E wants us to find. Which I think we’ll be able to find on this computer. Something about that body farm downstairs, and the server farm up here.”
“Like how they’re able to get the brains hooked up in tandem, while keeping them alive.”
“Like that.”
“Well,” Colson interjected, “it’s going to be a bit harder than that. Your man will want proof, and most likely the raw data files from whatever is being sent through those cables. Best I can figure, that information alone is worth billions. It can be reverse-engineered from there, and the rest is just figuring out the mechanical.”
“So what’s the problem?” Joshua asked.
“The problem is that the raw data won’t be just one file, it will be millions — possibly more. I can see the files and folders being created here, on the screen…” he pointed, waiting for the others to nod. “And all of it won’t be small enough to just stick on a hard drive, even a big one like in the laptop we gave Ben.”
“So we can’t just rip the hard drive out of this one?” Joshua asked, swinging his gun in an arc left to right around the back of the room.
Colson chuckled. “Sir, we would need the hard drives from every single one of these computers. The data here is in the millions-of-terabytes range, and there’s nothing big enough to —“
“Save it,” Joshua said. “I’m with you. Too much to bring home. So what do we do instead? I intend to deliver something of value to Mr. E., and I’m not leaving here without it.”
Colson thought for a moment, clicking through folders and files on the screen. Julie was again impressed at the man’s comfort level with computers, especially considering that she herself was quite capable with most software and interfaces.
“Okay, here’s something. I’ll start putting everything like this into a separate folder, and —“
“What happened?” Joshua asked, this time turning around to face the computer screen.
The screen was flickering, the windows and boxes all moving around randomly. Colson tried using the mouse to navigate, but the cursor was locked in place. “I… I don’t know,” he said. “I’m locked out.”
“Can you access anything?” Julie asked.
He pressed a few keys on the keyboard. “Just the one I was moving, it seems. And I don’t want to restart, because we’ll never gain access again through the security screens.”
“Okay, pull that file up,” Julie said. Both her and Joshua were waiting impatiently, hovering over Colson as he worked. The screen continued to flicker, but Colson opened the file from the list he had been working with.
“It’s a list of names,” Julie said. “Personnel list for the station? Maybe we can take this to the authorities, get the company —“
“It’s not personnel,” Colson said. “It’s… I’m not sure. I don’t recognize these names.”
“I do,” Joshua said. Julie and Colson stared at him. “I recognize that one, at least.” He pointed to the screen, and Julie gasped when she saw the name.
Jefferson, Roland.
The name was followed by a timestamp, and a string of numbers she couldn’t decipher.
“I recognize that name,” he said, “because it’s my father.”
CHAPTER SIXTY
Jonathan Colson was confused. The system in front of him seemed to be working against him, somehow countering his efforts with its own. It was like an intelligence, one that had a sense of humor, allowing him to get only a certain distance inside before it locked him out.
The list of names that included Joshua’s father’s was not the only file he had access to. He discovered that by clicking on some of the other windows, he could still access some of the local files in the server room, just not all of them. The system was allowing him to see some of its content, but hiding most of the important functionality about how the entire room had been architected.
It was frustrating, but he understood what the system was doing. It was blocking them from stealing the most important file structures: the information that Mr. E and the Chinese force wanted, and the entire reason they were here. It was a final security measure, and it had been enacted automatically when Colson tried accessing the inner network of these files.
“Your father is on the list,” Julie said. “He worked for the company. So are these other names of employees of Draconis Industries?”
Joshua shook his head while Colson highlighted Roland Jefferson’s name with the mouse cursor, then scrolled through the list. It was in chronological order, the names listed based on what the timestamp column displayed. He scrolled to the end.
Wynkopf, Igor.
Montgomery, Roald.
He felt himself grow cold as he noticed the last, final name that had been added.
Jonathan Colson.
There was no timestamp.
“No, this isn’t a list of Draconis employees, either,” Colson said, pointing to his name. “It’s a list of the people inside the drawers downstairs.
Julie put her hand over her mouth. “God, there must be over five hundred people on that list.”
“Near a thousand, actually.”
“Are they alive?” Joshua asked. His voice was lower, not shaking but evidently strained.
Julie looked at Colson for an answer. He shrugged. “Hard to say, Joshua. They — they’re not dead, I guess. Not fully.”
Joshua accepted this answer, but he considered it a moment before he spoke. “Is there… anything else?”
“I can’t access most of the important data that explains how everything is wired and connected, unfortunately. But I can get a few of these subfolders open, and —“
The screen went black.
“Colson, what did you do?”
“No — nothing,” he said. “I can’t… now we’re completely locked out. Even the mouse —“
A video began to play on the screen, and Joshua nearly fell down as he stumbled backwards. He swallowed a few times, and Colson watched his reaction for another second, then turned back to the screen.
There was a man onscreen, sitting at a table, speaking directly to the camera. The words were soft, but clear, emanating from speakers Colson couldn’t see.
“Joshua, I hope this note finds you well. I recorded it on the company’s server, so there is a strong possibility you will never see it.” The man paused. “But if you do, it means that you are here, in Antarctica. You are standing inside Draconis’ most visionary project, one that I have been involved with since before you were born.”
The video clearly had Joshua speechless, and even Julie was breathing slowly, as if not wanting to alert the video that it was being watched.
“When your mother passed away, I threw myself into my work, as you and your brother know. And I got in too deep. Joshua, the company is not what it once was. The leadership… it has changed.
“My job here was to get the station working at an operational level. The sheer number of man hours and money that has been funneled into this project is absurd, and I fear we will not ever finish. I also fear that the direction the company has taken will abandon me and my team here. We have worked for something that many thought could never be done, and that many more people thought shouldn’t be done. Some of those people are even on the project.
“Joshua, if you ever find it in yourself to forgive me for what I was not able to give, I will leave satisfied that my life was not completely in vain. I care for you and your brother greatly, though I understand how a statement like that must make you feel.”
Colson looked back at Julie and Jonathan, and was surprised to see that Julie was sobbing gently. Joshua was shaking now, a tremble in his hands and chin that Colson could see even from a few feet away.
“Your brother is a decent man, Joshua. I know I have stepped in past my authority to try to help right him, and that I have frustrated both of you for my efforts to correct whatever wrongs I may have committed in my past, but I ask you to forgive him. He is young, and rash, but there is value to that as much as there is in your leadership and sensibility. He will take direction slowly, but he is passionate and driven.
Roland Jefferson’s eyes flicked offscreen, then back again, focusing again on the camera. “I will save this in a file that will probably never be accessed by anyone at the company, but I’ve set it to load automatically when that file is opened. I do hope somewhere, at some time, you see this. I want you to hear it from me, directly, unencumbered by my mission here and your mission to defend the company from its enemies. Joshua, be well.”
The video transmission ended almost as quickly as it began, and the silence afterwards was striking. Colson tried to find some playback controls on the video, to rewind or start it over again, but there was nothing but the last frame of the video, stopped, a black border around it. After a few seconds of this, the video faded away and the screen returned to its flickering, half-frozen state.
“That’s it,” Colson said, “there’s nothing else.”
“My… brother,” Joshua muttered.
Colson had no idea what events had transpired between Joshua and his brother, but it seemed like Julie did. She leaned into Joshua a bit, holding his wrist — he wouldn’t let go of his gun — and she whispered something to him.
“It is my fault, Julie,” he said, his voice rising. “I shot him myself, remember?”
“Of course I do. But —“
“But nothing,” he said. “I was a pawn then, and I’m a pawn now. I’m just part of someone else’s game, and I always have been.”
Julie and Joshua stood there for a moment, neither speaking, and Colson turned back to the computer. There has to be a way to get inside this thing. He wasn’t a hacker, but he had spent his lifetime in front of computer screens. To him, they were a language, just like the programming languages he used daily, and he spoke this language fluently. Computer security, by design, was flawed — there was no way to keep people out of the system forever, save for turning the machine off and unplugging it from the wall.
