He sighed and his gaze drifted to his rifle. “Even with the contract hanging over me, I would be my own free man again in under a decade if I worked things right. Then, life ended up differently than I expected. I already told you I came in as a marksman, then became an ace in my second year, was contracted to the military, and climbed the ranks. When I finished, I decided that I was better suited to helping create the next great soldiers than being one.”
“You never wanted to go back?” Kaiden asked. “You could have helped. Maybe if you were there, the gang—”
“My name isn’t really Sasha Chevalier,” the commander stated quietly. “I changed it because I wanted to get as far away from my roots as possible. It was Cesaro Vega.”
“Vega—that means your brother was Galo Vega, then?”
He nodded. “Then you know what happened to him…his passing.”
“Yeah, I do… Sorry.” Kaiden was genuinely remorseful.
“I’ve made my peace with it. He would have wanted to go down fighting,” Sasha stated. “But it made me realize that the gang life wasn’t necessarily long-lived. If I had gone back, it would have been to break the whole thing up. But with our philosophy and how tight-knit everything was, even back then, I knew I would only cause damage. I’m sure most of the members would have carried on no matter what I did, but they would have been separated, which would have only made things harder. So, I decided it was better to be hands-off.” He looked at Kaiden with sadness in his eyes. “I guess that only delayed things in the end.”
The ace tried to block the memories out. “So I was a pity offering, then?” he questioned. “You heard a member of your old gang was coming by, so you had a chance to make amends?”
“Not entirely. I knew you were coming, yes. I decided to observe you and give you the same offer I had if you proved yourself. As for the fight, you proved that you were a capable fighter and, at the time, something of a punk. But you were at least one with somewhat upstanding values, even if you dealt with them in a rather crass way.”
“Oh, I’ve come so far.” He snickered despite the ill mood. “That kid that I helped, was he a plant?”
“No, actually. I was surprised that Hargrove took it upon himself to make the offer. If anything—if my explanation has you doubting yourself—you should take that as a sign that your place here was earned by you alone.”
Kaiden thought about it. “Yeah, I guess that does help.” They both froze and listened to a rumbling sound above them. “It looks like they made it through the turrets.” He grabbed his rifle. “Should we get up there?”
“We could.” Sasha shrugged, stood, and walked to a panel on the wall. He tapped a couple of keys, there was another rumble and the sound of laser fire, then everything stilled. “Or I could activate the next line of turrets.”
The ace looked at his rifle before he placed it down and kicked his feet up once more. “How many more do we have?”
“This line, one other about one hundred yards along, and a few protecting the bunker itself.”
He stretched his arms and folded them behind his head. “Do you have any more stories to share? I ain’t got any cards on me.”
Chapter Twenty
“Cyra?” Chiyo called as she entered the mainframe room.
“Over here, Chiyo,” the professional infiltrator replied. “You made it here fast. I’ve prepped as much as I can.”
She walked over to the main console where Cyra worked off several holoscreens. “What have you found?”
“Not much more than what I said on the call,” she explained and turned two of the screens off. “I sent my EI in to try to see if I could create a path for us before we headed in, but it doesn’t look like it’ll do much good. Even she can’t seem to make heads or tails of it. Whatever the device was made with, the program is something unto itself.” She closed the remaining screens and shook her head in exasperation. “When we head in, our EIs won’t be able to help us all that much, considering that they need to be our link for the suite to work properly so we aren’t stuck in a computerized limbo.”
“I understand,” Chiyo acknowledged and her eyes glinted with determination. “But I will still join you. For now, this is our best course of action.”
“Right, but if this doesn’t work, we’ll need to abandon the plan or get caught up ourselves. After that, we’ll have to think of something else, but it will take much longer.”
“That’s time Kaiden doesn’t have.” Her ocular contacts flared to life and glowed in her eyes. “I’m ready to begin.”
Cyra nodded and her eyes soon adopted the same glow. “Professor, Chiyo and I are preparing to initiate our suites. I’ll try to keep the channel open while we’re in there.”
“Agreed. When you get your bearings, inform me of what you see. I’ll do my best to help you from here, but this is new territory for all of us,” he responded.
“Understood.” The lead infiltrator nodded before she turned to her companion. “Let’s get in there.”
The two women focused on the mainframe screen and their bodies stiffened as their tech suites initiated.
When she entered, Chiyo saw nothing but small lights, odd shapes, and emptiness between. She looked down—her first mistake because there was no floor beneath her. Various bizarre lights tumbled or spiraled around the void. “This is…the mainframe?”
“Not exactly.” Her companion drifted toward her. “I’ve been in the mainframe a few times, actually. It usually looks like a giant grid with buildings to represent different functions and system coding floating around. It’s actually relaxing given that it’s a mental projection of a super-computer.” She spun and studied the sight before her grimly. “This is…not so soothing.”
“Where do we begin?” Chiyo asked as she looked around. The entire experiment now seemed rather daunting. “I can’t see a target that we should be—agh!” Both infiltrators clutched their heads as spasms of pain coursed through their minds. Bile stirred, something that Chiyo had never felt even during the most strenuous use of her suite. “Something’s wrong.”
“Everything is wrong,” Cyra muttered and drew deep breaths in an attempt to steady herself. “The suite creates a landscape projection when we use it, so it’s easier for our minds to except, but this…I don’t know, void is the best it can do. It’s harder to accept and we’re getting feedback as a result. It’ll only get worse the longer we stay in here.”
“That’s troubling.” The student groaned and shook her head. “We really don’t have that much time, then.”
“Maybe less than I thought,” the other woman agreed.
Chiyo floated deeper into the void but found nothing that she could use. “Usually, there’s some sort of terminal or object that would be the target of the attack, but I can’t see anything like that.” She squinted to peer at the lights. “Perhaps we might find something in the lights.”
“Maybe, but I’m not sure if we can actually interface with them. I think they are simply there like distant stars,” the lead infiltrator surmised. “Let me check in with the professor.”
“Professor, are you there?”
Laurie continued to observe the screen that displayed Kaiden and Sasha while he attempted to maintain what was left of the Animus system. “I can still hear you, Cyra. What do you see?”
“Darkness and pretty lights—well, maybe not pretty. More like bizarre. But we can’t see anything that looks like a nodule or target.”
“It may be fairly deep within, depending on security and the scope of the corruption. You may have not been able to get very far when you entered.”
“Agreed, but we don’t know which way to go. We’re not on any normal plane. Chiyo and I are simply floating around in here. Not to mention that we were affected by feedback only a few seconds after we got in here. I’m not sure when the next wave will come and how long we can hold up against it.”
The professor grimaced. Everything was simply done as they thought of it, and he’d been t
oo preoccupied to have given this idea much more than hasty initial thought. However, this could turn out worse than even his already significant fears. “Can you send out a scan? Perhaps that could—”
“I just tried. It only scans a few feet ahead and our EIs are using most of their power to keep us stable in here.”
Laurie’s hand balled into a fist and he uncharacteristically pounded it into the panel beneath him. “And you can’t establish a visual link either?”
“No, sir. I’m not sure how you can actually hear me on your end, but I can barely hear you on mine.”
He sighed. For the first time in a long while, he was at a loss. He looked at Kaiden on the screen and then at his body on the table. “Dammit,” he whispered. “I’m sorry Kaiden, Sasha.” His expression bleak, he spoke into his comm link. “Cyra, I don’t wish to potentially lose anyone else, so if you can’t find anything within the next few minutes, you need to—”
“Hold on, Professor. Chiyo said she sees something.”
“What is it?” he asked, and a faint trace of hope returned. Anything was better than the nothing they currently had.
“It’s a light of some kind…no, this one is very different.” Cyra looked to where Chiyo pointed. What had, at first, seemed to be a small speck of golden light among the multitude of gibberish had now grown in size. No, she realized. It hadn’t grown but instead, it moved closer.
The sphere brightened as it rocketed toward them.
Cyra drifted back to move out of its path, but her companion remained in place. “Chiyo, we don’t know what that is. You need to get back.”
The student simply waited for the orb to careen toward her. The lead infiltrator wanted to haul her out of the thing’s path, but the light reached her before she could move. She held her breath but there was no impact. Instead, the light stopped and now hovered in front of the girl.
The brightness seemed to dissipate before a line formed and extended far into the distance. Chiyo motioned for Cyra to follow. “Come, this will lead us to our target.”
The other woman was shocked. “Did you do something? Do you know what that is?”
Chiyo looked back, her eyes bright again. “I believe so, but what it is right now is our best chance.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Gin slid down the ravine and rolled at the bottom of the hill onto a load of gravel and rocks. The abandoned outpost had possibly been a hunters’ lodge or a training ground back when the Academy was a mixture of Animus and practical training. Either way, it would do for now. He needed to make repairs to his cloaking device and armor and possibly energize his shield generator if he could.
He scrambled off the stones and stretched. That big bastard was much quicker than he’d thought and rather limber for a man who looked like a mountain with a beard and appendages. He took a few steps before he studied the hill. Seeing nothing there, he switched to thermal as an extra precaution. Still, there appeared to be nothing there but a few birds overhead. He had lost his pursuer, then.
His journey into the camp took him past a large building a few stories tall. A quick glance through a window revealed that the inside had been ransacked, possibly by scavengers. If that was the case, he wouldn’t be able to do much there. At the very least, though, with the few tools he had on him, he could make simple repairs and perhaps get his cloak working again.
At a rustle behind him, he drew Macha and ducked low as he looked at the rocks that had fallen from the pile, probably jostled by his landing. Still, he had underestimated his foe already and wouldn’t make the same mistake again so soon. He crept closer, circled the mound, and froze at a quick movement. A shadow was illuminated briefly by the moonlight.
A knife fell into Gin’s free hand from his gauntlet and he cast it quickly at the shadow. He heard a shriek, but it certainly wasn’t human, and he walked over cautiously. The rabbit twitched with the knife still in its stomach. What a waste. He couldn’t even eat it since the blade was coated in poison.
An odd whistling sound like something in motion was followed in the next moment by a sharp prod into his back. He leapt to the side and rolled behind the cover of the tall building. Cloaked by the shadow, he fumbled and managed to pull the object out. The spike was silver with small indentions in it—ornate carvings resembling those you would find in modified Yokai pistols like the one he used to… Wait a minute.
Oh, that clever son of a bitch.
“Get out here, Gin!” Wolfson roared. He had abandoned his stealth now, but it had served him well.
The killer pocketed the spike in one of the compartments on his legs and peeked around the corner. The head officer stood about seventy-five yards away, holding his rifle in one hand and Gin’s old pistol in the other.
“Did Kaiden give that to you?” the killer called. “Did you bring it along for poetic justice?”
“I keep it on me because it is a good weapon,” the giant retorted and his gaze settled on his adversary’s head that peeked out from behind the large building. “One we designed, I should add. I guess it’s merely happenstance or karma that it’ll help to finish you off.”
Gin fumbled behind him to feel his generator. The low buzzing already confirmed that it was damaged. The spike had gone clean through so there would be no energy available. All in all, a damn good shot and he’d admire it more if it wasn’t so inconvenient. He unlatched the generator from his suit. It could still serve a purpose for now. “How did you catch up so quickly? Did you see through the holograms with a special setting on your visor?”
“Your holograms may be able to copy anything on your person, but they don’t leave a trail or footprints or kick up dust. It’s easy to identify the fakes in a forest, even at dusk.” Wolfson now stood only a dozen yards or so away and held his rifle ready. “As for catching up, I know these forests better than you ever will. This used to be where I trained my students when I headed up the military training.” He held the trigger down to charge a bolt of energy in his barrel. “But don’t think that will make me hesitate to destroy it to kill you.”
“I like someone who will stand by their convictions.” Gin chortled and the head officer heard something buzz from behind the wall. “I’ll stand by mine and continue to live.” The killer lobbed something at his adversary and Wolfson fired to gouge out a chunk of the corner of the building before he jumped back. The device the killer had thrown exploded in a large white burst. Wolfson slammed a fist against his chest to activate a personal shield as the blast engulfed him.
He was blinded by the light and the energy reading on his visor warned him that the shield wouldn’t hold for much longer. Acting instinctively, he brought his arms up, charged through the blast, and pushed out to the other side in the same moment that his shield disintegrated. As the explosion collapsed on itself, it released another burst of energy that struck the large man in the chest and brought him to his knees. He thrust off the ground and forced himself up as he moved his hand to his rifle, then realized he must have dropped it when the explosion detonated. It lay in pieces and he cursed under his breath as he put the Yokai away and drew his hand cannon.
Moving quickly, he made his way to the building and scrambled in through one of the windows. Gin wouldn’t risk a cross-country chase at this point. Now, it was cat and mouse. Wolfson paced slowly to check each room. As much as he wanted to simply fire at random, even he knew that to bring the building down would kill him. Worse, he also knew he couldn’t be sure it would do the same to his adversary. He was in the killer’s domain, and in a cramped, darkened area, he was at a disadvantage.
A stinging pain pierced sharply through his shoulder blade. He grunted and yanked the blade out. The giant spun and fired, struck the wall, and caught a quick glimpse of a foot as the killer bolted into a room. Wolfson lurched in pursuit, flattened himself against the wall beside the door, and jerked forward to fire blindly into the room before he thrust inside. No one was there but a hole in the ceiling led to the next floor. He fired a coupl
e of shots. While it didn’t seem like he hit anything, a thump confirmed that Gin was up there.
He wondered if he should pursue. The killer was more agile than he was, and Wolfson’s armor was cumbersome in tactics like this. He scowled when a wave of dizziness surged over him and took a step back to steady himself. He hadn’t lost that much blood—the knife, dammit!
A pouch on his belt stored a vial of green liquid which he hurriedly retrieved and opened. It was merely a normal healing serum, but it would hopefully keep the worst of the symptoms at bay for a while. He swallowed it hastily, threw the vial aside as he vented his hand cannon, and left the room to find the stairs. They proved easy enough to locate and he paused at the bottom when a message popped up on his visor. “Not now, you damn—” A map displayed as well with a small yellow dot that moved closer to his position.
Wolfson could keep Gin there long enough. He strode forward, closed the vent on his gun, and held it aloft as he ascended to the next floor. Another thump from above suggested that his target planned to lead him to the top. Well, he would meet the challenge. He continued the ascent until they were on the fifth and final floor. His ears strained into the silence for a moment but heard nothing except the wind and insect noises outside. He crept cautiously along the corridor, although his attempt at stealth didn’t help much to mute the thud of his armor.
As he looked inside one of the rooms, a crash behind him made him spin instinctively. Broken shards indicated that a jar or cup had broken in the room opposite him. Three objects pierced his side one after the other and he grunted as he raised his weapon and fired, Gin rolled under the blast and it sailed through the window. He aimed with a Yokai and fired directly at Wolfson’s head. The head officer raised an arm to block the spike, although it embedded itself into his arm through the armor.
Animus Boxed Set 2 (Books 5-8): Revenant, Glitch, Master, Infiltration Page 36
