Catalyst

by S. J. Kincaid

  Tom grew confused. “I don’t understand—”

  “Thomas Raines,” Vengerov said, “I’d like to formally offer to sponsor you as a Combatant. Will you fly in the name of the Obsidian Corporation?”

  The offer took Tom totally off guard. Obsidian Corp. never sponsored Combatants. At least, they never had in the past. And no one got an offer of sponsorship this early in Upper Company. Tom had barely been trained.

  “Naturally,” Vengerov said, “you’d need to perform other services for the company, as all Combatants do. In our case, it wouldn’t involve publicity slots or commercials.”

  Tom recovered his capacity for speech. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Something very similar to what was tested in your loyalty simulation.” He drummed his fingers on his pool cue. “You see, we anticipate resistance from some quarters once Austere-grade processors go public. Useful individuals such as yourself could be a major asset. I do hope to get to know you better.”

  Tom felt his heart grow hard. Useful. Vengerov’d be painfully disillusioned if he ever put Tom to the test there.

  “I feel we already have a working relationship,” Vengerov said. “This should be one step farther down a path we’re already treading.”

  Tom knew he had to be careful here. He tried to think about how to refuse without outright refusing. “I have to . . . I need to . . .”

  “To think about it?” Dalton said with a laugh. “You’re lucky anyone’s considering you!”

  Vengerov’s eyes moved to him calmly. “Dalton, wait outside.”

  Dalton obeyed. He shut the door behind him.

  Vengerov weighed the cue in his hand. “Forgive the interruption, Mr. Raines. I know you two have a less than amicable relationship.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Dalton Prestwick sees me as the ladder he’ll climb to prominence, and perhaps I shall be. His fatal flaw is his inability to cloak his fervent desire to use anyone who could be of assistance to him.”

  Tom would’ve named a lot of other things as Dalton Prestwick’s fatal flaw.

  “Though perhaps that’s to his benefit in the long run. Flaws and vices are exactly what you’ll need to cultivate if you wish to amount to anything in this world, Mr. Raines.” Vengerov’s pale eyes fixed on Tom’s. “If you seek greatness, then you’ll require the patronage of someone like myself, and I only support deeply flawed men and women. They always remember what they owe to their patrons, and if they don’t, they can be reminded quite readily.”

  He made no effort to hide from Tom the ease with which he knocked the remaining balls into the side pockets. Tom found himself thinking of all the politicians he’d heard of over the years busted for being perverts or pedophiles, thieves and criminals. Flawed people. He supposed those vices that made them so flawed also made them easier for men like Vengerov to control, to destroy, if need be.

  A true, unimpeachable leader would be too strong to tear down, after all.

  “So if you’re offering to sponsor me, then what’s my fatal flaw?” Tom wondered.

  Vengerov reared up. “You aim far higher than you can reach, yet you don’t seem to understand that. You don’t aim higher than I can reach. You also don’t seem to understand that.”

  “I’m way taller than I look,” Tom said, intentionally misinterpreting him.

  Vengerov’s eyes slid to his, like some unblinking reptile’s. “But no brighter or you’d have accepted already. You may leave now and think over this offer.”

  It felt like being dismissed by an emperor . . . one who’d just called him stupid. Tom bristled inwardly, but he kept his face carefully neutral as he backed out the door. He was bright enough not to show the way he felt now.

  HE FOUND VIK and Wyatt lounging by the grand piano in a corner, just off the expanse of glass floor. Yuri was playing a tune Tom’s neural processor identified as Moonlight Sonata. Tom could’ve played it, too. The music had been planted in all their neural processors at first install; sometimes when processors malfunctioned, they were instructed to hum or tap out the keys of the song to test whether all was in order again.

  Tom tugged at the collar of his shirt, feeling like it was in danger of strangling him, and spun around to survey the mass of executives in their finery. If Vengerov was going to offer to sponsor him, Tom still had a way to get out of it without being insulting: he could get counteroffers.

  That meant schmoozing.

  That would be unpleasant.

  Just then, Tom heard a faint whisper.

  “Look around the room.”

  He jumped, and whirled around, wondering who’d said that. He didn’t see anyone near him, and his eyes roved over the crowd of executives. A prickling of unease moved up his spine. He hadn’t imagined it this time. He was sure he’d heard someone! A moment later, a glint of light across metal flashed outside the window.

  Tom’s gaze riveted to what looked to be a machine gliding up silently in the blinding sunlight—a slim triangular contraption Tom’s neural processor identified as one of the DHS’s Corday-93 assault drones. They were no bigger than briefcases, innocuous looking at first glance but utterly deadly.

  “Look,” Tom said to Vik, grabbing his arm, pointing to the drone.

  Vik followed his gaze as the Corday-93 outside glided soundlessly past the window, circling around toward the other end of the reception room where the bulk of the partygoers were.

  Another flash of metal gleamed with sunlight, then another, and Tom felt a wave of apprehension as all three Corday-93s converged. He headed across the room, gazing outside, watching them move into formation.

  He had a bad feeling about this.

  Then the first Corday-93 opened fire.

  The cadets sprang into action before any of the executives did, years of training simulations having prepared them to react in a split second to a new threat. Tom dove to the floor, Wyatt, Vik, and Yuri all hurling themselves behind the grand piano as the massive windowed wall of the reception room shattered.

  The Corday-93s soared in through the rain of shattered glass, and Tom raised his head, threw an urgent glance toward the Praetorians—sensors buried beneath the heavy coats. The assault drones blasted all three of the guard machines to pieces before any could activate.

  Screams split the air, and Tom grew aware of the surreal sight of men and women dressed to the nines swarming like frantic animals in any direction they could escape while the triad of drones mobilized into position over their heads.

  “Oh no,” Tom heard Vik murmur.

  And then light flared out from all three Corday-93s—pinpoint lasers so blindingly bright, Tom had to throw up a hand to shield his eyes. He missed the moment Hank Bloombury was shredded. He looked up in time to see Gordon Rivkin, an executive at Nobridis, sliced into two. More white lights whipped out, blinding flashes, and Tom recognized Alana Lawrence of Epicenter, dropping dead to the floor. Then Sigurdur Vitol himself was shrieking in terror, dashing out from the crowd, sprinting into the glass-floored area where Tom and his friends were.

  Tom knew he had to stop this before they killed someone important to him. He fumbled in his pocket for his remote access node and popped it onto the back of his neck, intending to interface, to find his way to these drones and take control over them—but Vik suddenly seized him, herding him into a corner with him.

  Sigurdur Vitol rushed past them across the glass floor, two Corday-93s advancing on him, his feet slipping across the pane overlooking the gushing torrents of water below him.

  For a moment, Tom met the panic-stricken blue eyes of one of the most powerful media moguls in the world—the son of the CEO who’d bought all five of the major media companies, whose family’s newspapers and websites had propagandized the public long before the Coalition took total control of the world.

  The Corday-93s fired at the floor, splintering it beneath his feet.

  A rain of glass shattered, spilling Sigurdur Vitol into the raging water below th
em. The gushing white current swept the contents of Milton Manor toward the edge of the cliff. Tom caught a brief flash of the man’s blond hair and his flailing arms before he swept over the edge of the waterfall and plunged to his death on the rocks hundreds of feet below him.

  Tom grew aware of Yuri kicking off one of the firing arms of the nearest Praetorian. He caught on to his plan and held it still for him as Yuri ripped off the arm. Wyatt frantically fumbled with its wiring, trying to trigger it herself, use it as a weapon. She fired, sending a flash of light splicing through the nearest assault drone. The next Corday-93 shot it right out of her hands. They flinched, fearful that they would be next—but the drones ignored them. They ignored all the cadets. More weapons flashed out—always targeting executives.

  At that moment, Joseph Vengerov emerged from the stairwell below them. The two remaining assault drones changed course. Blood rushed in Tom’s head, certain he was about to see Vengerov killed.

  But the Corday-93s only circled him, never firing, and Vengerov surveyed them coolly, head cocked slightly. “You can’t kill me,” he challenged their operator softly.

  He must have been right, because the two remaining Corday-93s whipped off into the sunlight, leaving a hail of glass; the bodies of nine Coalition executives; and sizzling, sparking remains of Praetorians behind them.

  As everyone in the room stood there in utter shock—the cadets at having been completely untouched by the attack, the executives at seeing the most prominent of their number murdered before their eyes—Joseph Vengerov drew forward, gazing with an odd fascination at the remains of the drone, which kept flipping over and turning in circles on the floor.

  Like a striking snake, his hand darted out and seized the fallen Corday-93. The gesture betrayed the reflexes of a computer-assisted brain, but Vengerov seemed to have forgotten himself. He gazed at the machine as it jerked in his arms, and then with swift efficiency, he tore out some wiring and killed it altogether.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw Dalton Prestwick peeking out from the doorway to the stairwell, not daring to venture out. Lyla Martin spotted him and called, “They’re gone. You can come out, Captain Courage.”

  Dalton scrambled eagerly to Vengerov’s side. “You were extraordinary. You weren’t afraid of them at all.”

  Vengerov slanted him an icy, impatient look. “They’re my machines. Of course I don’t fear my machines. They would never pose a threat to me.” He looked at Tom, and a strange expression dawned on his face. Tom realized suddenly he still had the remote access node in his port. He reached up and snatched it out, trying to think of an explanation for what he’d planned to do—but Vengerov’s gaze slid away like he thought nothing of it.

  Suddenly, Dalton yelped, drawing everyone’s attention to him. He pointed a shaking finger at the wall in the hallway, where one of the drones had burned a message straight into the plaster.

  THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

  IS TARGETING

  THE WATCHERS.

  A grim silence lapsed over Milton Manor, with its shattered glass floor and dead executives, their blood trickling down the walls behind them.

  Tom’s hands felt cold and a dull pain stabbed behind his eyes.

  As Tom and his friends waited in the milky afternoon light beneath the shattered ceiling, a silent crowd gathered near the splintered glass floor where Sigurdur Vitol had plunged to his death.

  Everyone there agreed that it was a rather appropriate way for Sigurdur to go. He’d loved the park enough to take it for himself, and he admired Vernal Falls enough to build his own mansion straddling it. It seemed almost fitting he died in it.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SIGURDUR VITOL’S PARTY wasn’t the only Coalition site attacked by rogue drones. In India, Epicenter Manufacturing’s tower was attacked by a swarm of microdrones that burrowed into its walls, and then into the skin of the executives inside, killing CEO Pandita Rumpfa and several others.

  In the City of London, the chief shareholders of Dominion Agra, the Roache family, experienced their own drone onslaught. The other prominent victim was Boone Brabeck, the CEO of Harbinger Incorporated, controller of the world’s drinking water supply.

  The ghost in the machine had killed all of them within ten minutes of each other.

  By nightfall, the Corday-93 drones involved in the attacks were all grounded and recalled to the manufacturer—Obsidian Corp. After studying the software, the stunning announcement came: they’d been compromised by some unknown hacker with a malicious program that allowed them to be remotely controlled. No one knew when the code could have been planted in the machines. It was nearly impossible to hack so many active drones without detection, unless it was done from within a government server—or even from within Obsidian Corp. at the time of production.

  Several cadets ignored curfew and crowded Tom and Clint’s bunk, since they were both witnesses. Clint’s stories of his own heroism grew increasingly grandiose as more girls filled the rooms. Iman Attar came and sat by Tom, her warm arm pressing into his. She seemed to have forgotten all about their awkward conversation on the way over, and kept asking him about the drone his friends had taken down.

  Tom tried to answer her questions, but he kept thinking of the other ghost, shock pervading him. He’d only wanted to send a message with the ghost in the machine. He’d wanted to defy Vengerov, defy the surveillance state, defy the Coalition.

  Someone was using the persona he’d created to send a very different message now.

  MORE EXECUTIVES DIED.

  Prince Hanreid Abhalleman, CEO of Nobridis, and his CFO, Lee Welch, were in a suborbital plane where the hatch popped open, flushing them both out into the vacuum of space. In the Pacific Ocean, self-guided Fawkes missiles were spontaneously launched from a US carrier. No one had shot them; they’d shot themselves and the military couldn’t track them. No one knew where they were going—until they hit the car of Cote Carney, CEO of Lexicon Mobile, and the house of Ina Illarionova, CEO of Stronghold Energy.

  One even hit Reuben Lloyd’s lone yacht. The ironic part was, the man had taken his yacht out to stay off the grid until the ghost in the machine was apprehended. His death was the one that really spooked the executives, because the ghost had located his yacht in the middle of the ocean. They all had yachts of their own they’d planned to retreat to if the situation with the ghost grew too perilous. Now their plans had to change.

  And again, all over the internet, that ominous message appeared:

  THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE

  IS TARGETING

  THE WATCHERS.

  Obsidian Corp. was forced to recall all the Fawkes missiles they’d sold over the last few years, but on the news, even in the hallways of the Spire, Tom began hearing the questions.

  “What’s wrong with Obsidian Corp.’s hardware? Why is this ghost hacking it so easily?”

  TOM GREW PARANOID as the death toll mounted, CEOs and high-level executives dying off at a rapid rate. Some of the ghost’s victims proved to be world power players who’d carefully maintained their anonymity to all but their favored politicians—until the ghost killed them.

  Every time people talked about the ghost in the machine, Tom felt like he was being watched. It made it hard to concentrate on anything. He failed his tests in civilian classes, the standard eleventh-grade curriculum, because he’d been too antsy to focus on the material he downloaded the night before.

  Out of desperation, he tried to follow Blackburn’s advice to “go be sixteen.” It helped that Mezilo had relaxed the restrictions on cadets after the loyalty test. Tom finally went out with Iman for real. As it turned out, the Holocaust Museum was not a great place for a first date.

  “I keep thinking about all those murdered children,” Iman Attar said sadly as they walked outside on the windy street. “Those shoes of c
oncentration camp kids are haunting me. They were so tiny.”

  “Wanna get a burger or something?” Tom asked her.

  “I’m not really hungry after that, Tom.”

  Tom realized how callous he’d sounded. Given his brand-new reputation as a psychopath after the ethics simulation, he knew he needed to backtrack.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Tom said. “It’s not like I saw the Auschwitz stuff and worked up an appetite. I was already thinking about burgers way earlier in the day, long before we came here.”

  Iman stared at him.

  “But I wasn’t like, thinking of burgers the whole time we were in there, of course,” Tom added quickly. “I was mostly thinking about the murdered children, like you were. And the adults, too. And everyone who died. I mean, I guess I covered everyone when I said adults and children, but still . . . It’s bad.” He tried to think of something articulate to say, and settled with, “I think genocide is wrong. Very wrong.”

  Iman frowned. “Uh, yeah.”

  “I was kind of stating the obvious, huh?”

  “Yes,” she said dubiously. “Just a bit.”

  Tom stopped talking. He looked straight ahead, realizing that this was not going very well. Earlier in the day, he’d been sitting at a table with Wyatt, Vik, and Yuri, reveling in their freedom to hang out in the mess hall together again now that Mezilo was satisfied with cadet discipline and easing some restrictions.

  Yuri suggested Tom spend time with Iman in the Pentagon City Mall, which brought terrible images to mind of waiting while Iman tried on shoes. Vik suggested using what he called “the alluring eyebrow maneuver,” waggling his eyebrows at her one at a time, and then proposing an evening in Iman’s bunk. Tom couldn’t lift one eyebrow at a time, plus he didn’t want to get punched, so that was out.

  “How about the Holocaust Museum?” Wyatt suggested. “You should see it at least once.”

  Tom hadn’t been there yet, so he thought it might be a great idea. Plus, if he took Iman to a museum, she’d think he was intellectually curious.