Animus Boxed Set 2 (Books 5-8): Revenant, Glitch, Master, Infiltration

by Joshua Anderle

  “Nice work,” Kaiden complimented and spun Debonair around his finger before he slid it back into the holster.

  The infiltrator looked around. “I don’t think they’ll work as a fall group anymore.”

  He laughed. “Hell no. Even an investigator who skipped four years of classes can tell there was a fight here. Still, they’ll be occupied with processing these guys rather than looking for us.” He swiped his hands along his armor to clean it as best he could. “We should count ourselves lucky the fight didn’t trigger any alarms.”

  “I try to not rely on luck,” she retorted crisply and hurried to the main terminal. “I uploaded a dead-zone command when I tinkered with the turret earlier. It disables alarms, so unless there was a large explosion, we should be fine.”

  “Oh… Well, nice work once again.”

  “Good thing she’s looking out for your ass.” Chief chuckled.

  “Yeah, I’ll take my earlier griping back if it’s not too late.” Kaiden turned his attention to one of the unconscious mercs, knelt beside him, and studied his armor while Chief began to scan. He traced his fingers along a very thin line in the underlay and immediately recognized it as disruption lining. As the name implied, the wiring masked signals and made the wearer almost invisible to cameras and other detectors. “Man, if it weren’t for the strength of the plating and the disruption lining, I would think this stuff was basic armor—with no accessories and no mods, this stuff is frugal.”

  “There are mods, but not in the armor,” the EI informed him.

  “Do what? Are they in the weapons?”

  “They do have a couple in their weapons—an advanced one too—but they have mods in their bodies.”

  His hand flinched. “In their bodies? They’re augs?”

  “Yeah. From what I read, they have mods for reflexes and increased mental ability. Although those have always been dubious, the reflex mods would explain how they were able to react so quickly.”

  “Yeah, these guys are better outfitted than most grunts we deal with,” he muttered. He unlocked the merc’s helmet it and removed it, then stared at the completely pale, blank face with no hair or eyebrows. Tentatively, he opened the eyelids. The man’s eyes were white, either from contacts or cosmetic surgery.

  “Man, that’s creepy.” Chief shuddered and the outlines of his avatar spiked in and out for a moment.

  “These guys don’t half-ass the untraceable thing, that’s for sure,” Kaiden stood and looked at Chiyo. “Have you had any luck?”

  “I’m in,” she stated. “I’ve found the file.”

  “Were they going for the same thing?” he asked, his gaze drawn back to the body by the oddness of what he’d found.

  “No. That’s what’s strange. It doesn’t look like they were downloading anything. They were uploading something,” she informed him.

  “Uploading? A virus?” he inquired.

  “Kaitō is taking a look while I get the data.” she looked away from the terminal. “But it was only partially uploaded, so whatever we find won’t be completed.”

  “Unless…” His thought trailed off as he walked over to one of the mercs he’d managed to shoot at the beginning of the fight. He knelt, frisked both bodies, and located a small drive on the second one. The device was triangular and didn’t look like it would fit in any slot that he knew of. He paused in his examination and looked at the helmet. While he wanted to simply have Chief scan it, he was too curious for his own good.

  He unlocked the helmet and hauled it off, and sure enough, it had obscured the same featureless head but with one major exception. This one had a device implanted along the side of his skull—a neurotech, he realized, someone with augmentations that allow them to interface with technology. The principle was similar to the technician’s suite but way riskier as they needed a special EI to use it without frying their minds and even then, it wasn’t a guarantee. He moved the head around and peered a little more closely. This one had considerable work done.

  Kaiden stood and stepped beside Chiyo. “Do you think you can use this?”

  She glanced at the device. “That’s a—” Her words failed as she recoiled and stared at the body behind her in surprise. She was clearly unnerved but after a moment, she turned back to the terminal and continued her work. “I’ve completed this. Let me shut it down and clean up.”

  “Good, we can finish here and be back in Seattle in no—” He spun at a sharp, ominous click. One of the mercs had come round, found his feet, and now aimed his gauntlet at them. “Dammit!” The ace grabbed his partner and hurled them both aside as their adversary fired a missile at them. The attack struck the terminal and exploded. Almost immediately, an alarm sounded. The infiltrator drew her pistol and fired successfully at the assailant. He stiffened as the shock struck home before he simply sagged, rolled over, and passed out again.

  “It looks like that was enough of an explosion to trigger the alarms.” Kaiden huffed irritably as he stood and offered a hand to his teammate.

  “I can’t use the terminal to turn it off now.” She gestured at the wrecked machine. “Obviously.”

  “Then, let’s make our exit, darlin’,” he declared, hefted his rifle, and rushed out of the room with her close behind.

  Chapter Three

  Kaiden slid along the ground and aimed at a reactivated turret that currently tried its damnedest to fry him. He fired Sire but had yet to change the core so delivered a bolt of electricity instead of plasma. It was enough to stun the weapon and he scrambled to his feet and drew Debonair to finish the job.

  “So, are all the turrets online now?” he asked as he powered his rifle down and opened it to exchange the cores.

  “Most were reset when the alarm went off,” Chiyo confirmed. “I still have control of the cameras, but without access to a central terminal, I won’t be able to keep them offline for much longer.”

  “We spent all this time and effort to come in stealthily and it goes up in smoke because of some ghoulish-looking idiot’s missile,” he muttered and snapped his rifle closed. A thunderous clanking sound indicated the rapid approach of a group of droids—Soldier or Assault units, probably. He prepared for the inevitable fight. “Do you think you can find out what we’ll have to deal with as we make our escape?”

  She readied her sub-machine gun and stood beside him. “From the initial look at the inventory and map, they have one thousand and sixty-two droids available in the building.”

  “And how many of those are combat-ready?” he asked.

  “They have one thousand and sixty-two droids available,” she repeated.

  He sighed when he accepted the obvious interpretation of that. “So, we should try our best to escape instead of taking them all on?”

  So you’re not worried about points this time?” Chief asked.

  “A score isn’t that impressive when it’s etched on a tombstone,” Kaiden replied and began to charge a shot while he leaned closer to his teammate. “Do you have a map?”

  “Of course, but all the normal exits are locked down, and my guess is that the defenses in those areas were the first to be reactivated. I suggest we look for a less traditional escape route.”

  The ace looked behind him to the device on his back. “I have something that could work. But we’ll need to find a window or something to bust out of.” The mechanical clanking drew closer. “I’ll hold that thought for now.”

  “Make sure you destroy them thoroughly,” Chiyo warned. “They shouldn’t currently be able to send their camera feedback to a cloud, but they can still record the footage to their own internal devices. If you don’t want anyone to know we were here—”

  “You know you don’t have to worry about that,” he chided playfully as the first few droids trundled around the corner. “Firing.” He released the trigger, the blast aimed immediately in front of the group. It exploded on contact and launched six droids to spiral into a clumsy heap.

  Chiyo began to fire as he ran closer to the def
enders. He counted fifteen in total in this wave. They were well-armored but were designed to withstand kinetic rounds. Two of those that were caught in his initial fire were now upright. He fired Sire in quick shots to eliminate three more. He jumped back as their opponents retaliated and managed a few shots as he retrieved a shock grenade. A mechanical broke from the group and dashed forward as a blade popped out of its arm. It managed only a few steps before it was felled by a barrage from the infiltrator.

  Kaiden hurled the grenade, vented his rifle, and backed away to avoid being caught in the explosion. The shock erupted and blanketed the droids in a field of electricity, but he frowned when this barely slowed the assault. He didn’t know if it was a dampener field he hadn’t picked up or a new upgrade, but it would appear he would need to rethink his gear going forward. The electrical weaponry seemed to have lost some of its effectiveness—a real pity, considering they were way cheaper to replace than thermal or nano grenades.

  The ace held Sire up with one hand and drew Debonair with the other to target two of the remaining droids. One fell without much resistance. The other, however, was quite stubborn, continued to stand through the barrage, and returned fire. Kaiden was able to sidestep a couple of blasts, but one caught him in the shoulder. A metallic crack indicated that his armor had shattered and although the pain was dulled, it was enough for him to flinch and drop the pistol. The loss was annoying but not disastrous as Sire had cooled enough by now.

  He slammed the vent closed and charged a shot. The two recovering droids had found their feet and joined the other tenacious attackers. He darted to the side and backpedaled away from the laser fire. The mechanicals pushed closer together for better aim as he retreated, exactly as he’d hoped they would. He spun quickly and pulled the trigger to deliver a strike to the droid in the middle. It was completely destroyed when it was enveloped in the blast, and the other two, already compromised, simply melted into ungainly heaps of metal from the residual energy of the explosion.

  Kaiden stood and walked to where he’d dropped Debonair while Chiyo eliminated the last of the droids. He retrieved his weapon and checked it for damage, then studied the defeated robotic mob. Of the fifteen, it looked like he’d accounted for nine in total? Maybe ten, but one of them had sustained damage from both his and Chiyo’s weapons, so call it a split.

  “Not bad for an infiltrator,” he commented as she walked over. Her sub-machine gun folded into itself as she put it away. “I also noticed the moves you displayed back in the terminal room. Have you put in some work?”

  “Steadily, yes.” She nodded and surveyed the wreckage. “I am at Nexus to further my hacking abilities and technological knowledge, but I know those are only two of the obligations of my class. I need to work on my stealth capabilities and my fighting skills in particular.”

  “The fruits of your labor are certainly showin’,” he complimented. “You claimed a fair number of those.”

  “I’m glad I could help, although if I may point something out…” She folded her arms and looked at his shoulder. “I might not have equaled your droid kill-count, but my armor is still intact.”

  “That’s because I was the more attractive target.” He chuckled and holstered Debonair. “In a metaphorical sense, but if you choose to take that as literal, then thank you kindly.”

  Chiyo shook her head, but he heard her laugh quietly over the comms. She looked at her weapon. “I don’t think I would have done as well without this. Thank you for providing it.”

  “It’s actually from Julio’s personal collection,” he admitted. “You’ll have to return it along with all the gear when we get back. If you like it enough you can try to buy it off him, but you should prepare to haggle. On the last gig, some of the others wanted to keep their stuff, and the prices he threw out were insane.”

  She shrugged. “It is nice, but I’ll let him keep it, for now. I don’t know when I’ll do another one of these.” She peered down the hall when they heard another wave approach. “Assuming we get out of here first, of course. You said you had an idea?”

  Kaiden nodded. “Yeah, but we need an exit point—preferably a window or fire exit or something that leads to the side of the building.”

  “There is a line of windows down the hall,” she said and pointed to the west. “But from that position, considering where the building is located, we would effectively jump off the edge of the station itself.”

  “That’s perfect, actually.” He nodded and a green dot flared on his map. “Come on.”

  When the duo reached the expanse of windows, they were locked down by metal panels. Kaiden gestured at the infiltrator to open them and she retrieved the seeker device. “I can open one at a time for a brief period. That should be enough, correct?”

  “Yep, but be prepared to jump.” He nodded, took a few steps back, and readied himself to leap through the window.

  “You have absorption mods in your armor or maybe a parachute?” she asked as she activated the override and the defensive panel began to retract.

  “Of a sort, but we won’t float down to earth, That would take too long anyway.”

  Chiyo sighed as she put the device away. “Do you have to be so cryptic?”

  “I suppose not.” More clangs and thumps confirmed the presence of droids close behind them. “But do you want to wait around for an explanation?” he asked and extended a hand.

  She shook her head and took hold. He rushed toward the window when enough of the glass was exposed. The two crashed through into a free-fall in the night sky, miles above the Earth. He activated the skyhook device on his back. A wire launched from the top of the device and a large balloon expanded rapidly from the tip. He pulled Chiyo in closer as their dropship flew in from above, snagged the line, and hauled them in.

  It took only seconds. He blinked in the air, and in the next moment, they were in the passenger bay of the dropship. “Neat trick,” his partner said, and he released her as she slowly pulled away.

  “Yeah, I’m glad it worked out,” Kaiden admitted and flopped onto the bench behind him.

  “You weren’t sure?”

  “It’s the first time I’ve used it,” he admitted. “Another of Julio’s suggestions. He said I should have one since we were going to a cloud city. I half-suspected that he simply wanted to make me buy something off him, but I have to admit it’s rather handy.”

  She sat on the opposite bench, removed her helmet, and her hair tumbled out as she placed the headgear down beside her. “You really couldn’t have simply found a mission where you needed me to shut down some trip lasers or something?”

  He took his helmet off and smiled. “You know that wouldn’t have been much fun.”

  “Hey, wanna take the wheel, buddy? I ain’t getting paid to chauffer,” Chief chided.

  The ace stood and rolled his shoulders as he made his way to the cockpit. “Yeah, yeah, hold your—” He paused for a moment as the door to the cockpit opened. “Wait, you aren’t getting paid at all.”

  “That’s what’s bothering you?” The EI chuckled. The two began to bicker as the door shut behind him. Chiyo exhaled a deep breath and stretched out. She did have to admit it probably wouldn’t have been as much fun.

  Maybe a little more relaxing, though.

  Chapter Four

  Detective D’Arcy studied the crime scene, and Lord, it was a mess. There were six bodies—if one could call them that—a heap of droid pieces a few halls down, and a destroyed terminal that was quite important to the company. Sections of wall and flooring had either exploded or melted, or were damaged in a variety of ways, and so far, no video or audio evidence could be found.

  Mondays were a hell of a drag.

  He continued his morose survey as other officers and Lexsys Corporation’s personnel security combed the room. A few of their technicians tried to salvage what they could from the terminal’s remains. Apparently, it didn’t have a standard backup as it was isolated from the main server room for a particular reason. Of
course, they made it a point to ensure that he wasn’t privy to that reason.

  A forensics officer approached one of the gory remains and the detective walked across and knelt beside him. The man scooped some of the evidence into a vial. “It looks pretty gruesome,” he muttered.

  “Right?” The technician sighed. “I know these corporate games are par for the course, but they are usually civil enough with each other.” He gestured to the dark muck inside the empty armor. “What were the other guys carrying that turned them into this?”

  Dario walked into Merrick’s office and placed a cup of black tea on the desk. The leader studied the report and didn’t appear to be happy at all. He wasn’t angry or depressed, but something had not gone as planned.

  “Care to talk about it?” Dario asked, sat on the edge of the massive desk, and sipped from his own cup. “We have several teams out and about right now. Which one messed up?”

  “The Lexsys team,” Merrick responded flatly. He looped his fingers through the handle of the teacup and brought it gingerly to his lips. He held it there without actually taking a sip. “They weren’t able to upload the spyware and tampering virus.”

  “Really, now? And after all that money we paid for specialized golems,” the other man grumbled before he casually took another sip. “I guess we can go back to the synthetic drawing board and fiddle around with the next batch. What took them out?”

  “Kaiden Jericho.”

  Dario stopped the cup midway to his lips and turned his head slowly to face the boss. “Really, now? How is it that he interferes with our work when we aren’t even targeting him anymore?”