“I still don’t like your crew being involved.”
A new voice joined them, Maria’s. “He didn’t have a choice, jefe, and neither do you. Are you ready to try again?”
“Yeah, Mike,” Spencer said, “you did great that time! I saw the whole holo, must’ve been at least a second or two before your feet hit the floor.”
Finally. “Actually that’s great news. I know exactly what to do now. Let me have another address.”
It was all about balance now, and this new try was much easier. For the first time in far too long, Mike opened his eyes, and what he saw wasn’t the inside of a sack.
The four of them stared at him anxiously, Spencer and his three assistants. When they realized it was for real this time, they all started whooping and hollering like crazy. The logos on the construct boxes in the small room were familiar.
“Is this the back of a StimBucks?” He’d stopped counting how many realms he’d destroyed when they passed a dozen. “I’ve been blowing up StimBucks realms?”
“Relax, Mike,” Jen, the blonde, said as the rest of the team worked on controls he couldn’t see. “We’re using them because Chun cracked their point-of-sale protocols forever ago.”
“It wasn’t that hard,” Chun said. “Dad took me to work one day and left me alone with their corporate network. Anyway, no, nobody’s hurt. There must be millions of these things all over the place. We’ve only blown up closed ones, and really only two for real. The rest were simulations.”
“Those were simulations?” They could’ve, well, actually they did fool him. “You guys are officially employees of Warhawk once this is over. I’ll think up titles later.”
“Mike?” Tonya asked in the van.
His feet immediately hit the floor of the realm. Fortunately, Spencer’s team vanished long before the wavefront hit them.
He reconnected, gave more specific instructions to the girls, then sent Spencer out to implement phase one of his plan.
“Mike, you still with us?”
He’d forgotten he told Tonya her check-ins helped his timing. He took a deep breath, and then another. This weird organic connection was still growing, and whatever passed for protocol handshakes was slow. His jaw didn’t want to work right.
Kim asked, “Mike? Please, are you okay?” Her voice cracked a little.
“No, guys, I’m fine. I’m more than fine. I’m—”
Kim snapped, “Mike!”
He laughed inside. Kim must be feeling better. That zero to seething happened at about normal speed. He needed some way to let them know what was going on though. He first knew this phoneless connection was possible last night.
“What I was trying to say, Kim, is that I can actually joke now. You know, like when we were in the grocery store parking lot?”
Their relieved laughs told him they got the message. Kim asked, “Are they still so bad they’ll make our eyes cross?”
Now that he thought about it, his eyes did have trouble tracking things that first time. “No, nowhere near as bad as that anymore. They’re getting really funny now. Like when she told me I was average, she was just being mean.”
The van stopped, and the door opened. He lost synchronization again and vanished from realmspace.
“Mike?” Spencer called. “Mike?”
Chapter 66: Aaron
Jenny and Ray, the two agents even more junior than he was, were the only ones out of the hospital today. When he remembered the DD’s words, he realized this was probably going to be it. Aaron was supposed to be a glorified library assistant, and now he’d ended up a kind of Special Agent in Charge. He actually thought of the title in capital letters.
He’d asked them to meet in the park a few blocks away from the office. Trayne’s message had defined a new kind of paranoia for him. Someone who commanded those kinds of resources could have their entire headquarters bugged. That’s what Aaron would’ve done.
Ray asked, “What the hell is going on?” The three contractors from the Firing Range were standing next to him, nodding to each other. They weren’t qualified, not really, but he needed as many cleared people as he could get.
“I don’t know,” Aaron replied, “but it’s all really wrong. First the deputy director informs us we’re off the case, and then,” he said, turning to the lab tech, “JoBeth, are they still gone?”
The lab tech’s eyes glazed briefly. “Yep. Completely gone. It’s like they never existed.”
“And now,” Aaron said with a finger raised, “watch this.”
He shared his message space, and not five seconds later, there was a note from the DD reminding them they “had been informed” they were off the case.
“What the hell?” Ray asked. “Since when does a deputy director get involved when a contractor searches for anything?”
“And, shit, that wording,” Emilio said. “‘You have been informed you are officially off the case.’”
“Ray,” Aaron asked, “any luck with the shackles?”
“Nothing. It was like they drove out of the DC Jail, turned left, and vanished. We can track those things from space.”
Jenny lifted her hands. “This only happens in bad action movies. We’re the goddamned FBI. Who can roll us?”
Aaron replied, “I think this guy might.” He shared Watchtell’s sales pitch with the team.
When it was over, JoBeth said, “But that doesn’t make any sense. Watchtell’s just the chief of the Rose Foundation. What does that have to do with taking over the EI? How do we know any of it is even real? The President was in that audience!”
“Real, hell,” Ray said, “I’m not completely sure it’s even a crime. Well, a federal crime, anyway.”
“No,” Aaron said, “it may not be. But this is.” He shared the message that had landed in his personal queue on the way over.
THE RED KING HAS ALICE, THE RABBIT, AND THE MOUSE. THE CARDS CAN HELP YOU FIND THEM. IS THE HATTER INTERESTED?
A contact address finished the message.
“What do you think?” Aaron asked them all.
“I think I’m getting damned tired of being jerked around,” Emilio said. He seemed to be enjoying his temporary deputy status a lot. They all stared at him. “What? Oh, the chubby Chicano can’t call this? Well, obviously I’m too brown to understand what’s going on, but I think whoever that is just provided us with our first lead in a new kidnapping case.”
Chubby, brown, and nerdy made no difference. He was right. Aaron returned the call voice-only from his end and shared the connection. A smoky window opened up in their perception, and a broad smile gradually swam into view.
“How fine you look when dressed in rage,” it said as the rest of a scruffy cat slowly formed behind the teeth. “Your enemies are fortunate your condition is not permanent.”
Aaron had memorized Park’s notes. There was only one person who’d actually been with Rage recently. “Cut the crap, Spencer. Do you know where they are?”
The construct became even more surreal as its confident mien and articulate English voice changed to those of a nervous Southern teenager. “Um… oh, hi, Agent Park? How’d you know it was me?”
Park was regrowing a leg and wouldn’t be out of the hospital for at least a week. Aaron tweaked the privacy settings so Spencer could see them.
“What the shit? Who the hell are you?”
“We’re the ones who have to rescue your friends. Do you know where they are?” In that moment, Aaron discovered confidence was mostly being sick of it all and running on two hours of sleep.
The cat flinched. “Okay, no, we don’t know where they are right now. The Rabbit, oh, fuck this, Mike sucks at names. Anyway, I’m in contact with Mike, but they had hoods over their heads, and now they’re stuck in some stupid room with the lights off. He’s asked if you guys can get ready with, well, do you guys have access to anything like a strike team?”
Aaron’s stitches still ached. Jenny had an eye patch and a bone knit covering her left leg. The fireball had burned Ray b
ald and half of one hand was in a regrowth splint. Donny, JoBeth, and Emilio were a trio of civilian nerds who weren’t any more qualified than they had been fifteen minutes ago. Aaron was supposed to be chasing dusty records for an eccentric who hadn’t been in the field in years. He knew nothing about Mike, and there wasn’t time to find out.
“We can work something up,” he said.
Chapter 67: Watchtell
Even though he could’ve manifested directly on the stage, Watchtell chose to wait in the wings of the realm’s theater, just as if it was in realspace. A far softer version of the murmurs that he heard in his grand coliseum rumbled around him like the faint edge of a distant storm.
All the years of work, the tireless preparation, the endless campaigning was finally paying off. Even Rage couldn’t stand in their way now that she was safely on ice. Her capture and subsequent appropriation by Sidereal-assisted agents of Blacksteel Rose Private Security was the cherry on top of the confection of his dreams. There would be no escape from his labs this time around, of that he was certain.
It was finally over. No more covering up the accidents, bribing government regulators, or hiring the kind of cleaners that worked with bleach and plastic sheets. The families of those unfortunates naturally received full compensation, but the cost was alarming. It was now at an end. Real justice would be possible. The robber barons and polluters would finally be brought to heel, the innocent no longer beholden to their greed, protected by the newly unbound power of their governments.
As he walked out, the applause from two hundred people was polite but subdued. They had all taken giant risks to make this project work, and the sudden jump in the timetable had unsettled them. No matter. Success had a way of breeding forgiveness, and this project would succeed beyond any of their wildest dreams.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Matthew began, pleased at the way the crowd lit up as he spoke. Charm always had its uses, and Watchtell practiced the trade as an expert. “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. We have worked so long for this. Without the brilliance of your leadership, your deft shepherding of the foolish, we simply would never have reached this moment.” He paused for the applause to subside. “Three years ago, we had a vision.”
The speech was really just a shortened and reordered version of the original sales pitch they used to recruit all these presidents and prime ministers. Summaries never hurt, though. Repetition was sometimes necessary for people who paid others to remember for them.
“And so,” Watchtell concluded, “after all our efforts, we stand at the foot of this bridge. Some foolishly lose their rafts in the current it crosses. Others still crash from high cliffs, all of them trying to reach the far bank of prosperity. Only we few had the vision and the sense of justice required to build this bridge.”
As the applause rose, Watchtell gave the private signal to raise the platform. Once it had majestically lifted into view, a spotlight covered it with a white circle. Its top was flat and wide, like a miniature podium. It was a humble beginning for a revolution of justice.
As intended, the music that had been softly playing rose to a crescendo while he walked up to the switch. Giant maps of the world spun into being over his shoulders. The lines dedicated to the final push were just outlines right now, but that would change in mere seconds. There was a faint, pulsing circle over the area of Virginia where the factory was located. All the lines met, or rather started, there.
As rehearsed, Matthew lifted the cover. Waiting for the precise moment was exquisite. It all came down to this. The instant the music switched from the heights of anticipation to the rattling march of action, he pressed the button.
The lights didn’t come on. Nothing happened.
After a second went by, he pressed it again.
The display didn’t change a bit.
He pressed it a few more times in rapid succession.
The lack of a response beat its way into his mind as reality became unhinged from the presentation. After an agonizing, terrifying eternity had passed, Matthew felt the sticky warmth of blood under his realspace thumb, now rubbed raw against a corner of his desk. Faces in the crowd went from wonder to confusion to outrage as they realized this was not supposed to be happening. The music broke apart and crashed to a stop.
The silence extended long enough for someone to clear their throat. The screens meant to track their triumphant progress winked out of existence, replaced by a single message as music from an old pop song boomed into the theater.
NICE TRY, MATT. NOW CALL ME, MAYBE? —A. R.
Chapter 68: Spencer
Once Mike had briefed everyone on this part of his plan, the Phoenix Dogs had all gone nuts. He entered the realm and flinched when the protocols brought the sound up.
“A-AH-AHHHHH-AH!” The old guy, Paul, bellowed it out again, and then the other six joined in singing the rest.
“Damn it,” Spencer yelled above the din, “what the fuck is that?”
Paul’s face broke into a giant grin. It only made the horned helmet on his head more ridiculous. “It’s the ‘Immigrant Song,’ boy! Zeppelin!”
Like that was supposed to mean something.
Paul clapped him hard enough on the shoulder to make him stumble. “We’re going a-Viking, lad! Raids! Loot! Pillage!” The rest of the team shouted their approval.
Chun’s voice rang out behind him. “And you, sir, are out of uniform!”
She thumped a helmet down on his head. He’d only just set foot in the realm, and people were already beating the crap out of him. Then his avatar changed. He turned and briefly appreciated the outfits his team had picked out for themselves, and then felt the breeze over, well, everything.
“A loin cloth? That’s all I get?”
Their eyes glinted with the promise of a lot more than just a pat on the back later.
“With that 300 avatar on? It suits you,” Jen said.
They stood in a vast space, lit only by a giant bonfire Mike had seen fit to provide the realm. A huge stone wall stretched to infinity in front of them, pierced by a single enormous door. Paul banged on it enthusiastically with the hilt of his sword, making the iron bars that formed it ring impressively.
“Open this now, you English pig-dogs!” Spencer couldn’t place the accent, probably because it only existed in Paul’s head.
Again, they all shouted in approval, this time banging various shields against a motley collection of swords. Their leather, fur, and plate armor completed the look, spoiled only by the bandoliers of grenades across their chests and the exotic assault rifles slung on their backs. The superweapons Kim brought out of Pride’s Lair were back in play.
Mike’s hologram swirled into being beside the fire. “Sorry, folks, not much time. Okay, just like we planned, four teams. Spencer’s people, the New Machine? They open doors and reset any weapon and damage contracts. The Phoenix Dogs do the rest.”
He motioned them all to be quiet. “You guys have the keys I made for you?”
Spencer and the girls waved glowing constructs that reminded him of button-encrusted conductor’s baton.
“Good. And the bags?”
Everyone held up small sacks that opened into a protected infinity.
“Excellent. And when you reach the end?”
They all pulled out big chrome-plated balls and yelled together, “When you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend!”
Mike pumped his fist once. “Yes! The Dogs take point once a door is unlocked.” He waited briefly for the war cries to die down. “Remember to head for the doors on the opposite side. We already know what’s just beyond the gate. Now, Godspeed and good hunting! Raiders!”
Spencer’s ears buzzed painfully as Mike’s voice swelled to fill the echoing space. “ARE YOU READY?”
Even over their whoops and yelps, the gunshot-like reports of the portcullis’s locks echoed as they rammed open. The door ground its way upward, increasing speed as it went. The moment they were able to fit their h
orned helmets underneath it, the teams bellowed one final war cry and went running as fast as they could. An entire private realmspace, huge if Mike’s maps were any indication, was now open because he’d connected it to the wider EI. Thank God for patch cords.
As instructed, they split up. Spencer’s group headed toward the high-security zone on his left. They ran right across the first connected realm, which seemed mostly to be virtualized labs and a generic office building.
“Spencer!” Paul yelled from the front of their group. “Key!”
He rushed forward, waved the baton over the firewall door, and then pressed the key combination that flashed to life. A wall of light melted away from the door like plastic under a hair dryer.
Spencer flinched as Paul cut loose with another war cry. For an old dude, he sure was loud.
“Well done, lad! Now stand aside and let me work.”
Mike’s key constructs were only good for unlocking the quantum-encrypted lower protocols that secured the spaces between realms. When Spencer had asked what good that would do them if the door constructs stayed locked Mike just smiled and said, “You’ll see.”
“Clear!” Paul shouted as he motioned everyone behind cover.
The detonation blew the air out of his lungs as flaming bits of construct disintegrated as they arced over his head. He’d spent hundreds of hours in combat realms and had never experienced something that violent. It came to within a percentage point of knocking him offline completely.
Paul was good. Very good.
Spencer clambered over the desk he’d hidden behind and stopped cold. Paul had ripped a hole into the next realm big enough to drive a truck through. He couldn’t have used more than an ounce of explosive construct.
“How much of that stuff do you have, Paul?” he asked as they ran into a different sort of lab space. They all dumped constructs into Mike’s bags as fast as they could.
“It’s not about how much, it’s about where.” Paul stretched his bag’s mouth over a cabinet taller than he was. He yanked it down and the cabinet disappeared inside. He moved to the next one.
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