Promethean Files 2: The Prometheus Gambit

by Andrew Dobell

  ‘That is correct,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Okay, so, as you’re aware, I have been able to de-register the nanobots within all of you. I’ve stripped them of their Corporate overrides to allow them to continue to function without the worry that the Corporations will turn them off when they discover who we are. Now, that is becoming slightly more difficult as the software is being updated and the data I have on them and how to de-register them is slowly going out of date. Worst case, they could roll out an update tomorrow that completely changes everything, and means I can’t de-register them anymore with the information I took from Psytech when I left.

  ‘In reality, we probably have a few weeks left, maybe, before we need new data for me to do the procedure. But this got me thinking. If we could somehow de-register all the nanobots in the world at the same time, this would be a huge setback for the Corporations. The threat of turning off the bots would be gone, so no more blackmail, no more insurance for everyone to pay. We would have delivered a powerful blow to the Corporations. So, I looked into it. I realised I can’t be the first to have thought of doing this, and it turns out I’m not. People have been trying to hack the nanobots for decades. Ever since 2073 when the bots were made subject to insurance and were no longer free, people have wanted to reverse the process or somehow get free from the system. Hacking your own bots, or the bots of another person is difficult, but with the right precautions and knowledge, it’s not impossible. Hacking and de-registering millions of bots at the same time, however, that takes skill. Skill I do not have.

  ‘The main issue is that four main Corporations create the nanobots, and they’re each slightly different. They have different programming, and it means that creating a computer virus for all four is complicated, to say the least. Most attempts in the past have focused on one of the brands and ignored the others because that’s the most likely road to some level of success. There have been some close calls, when the nanobots of say, Nobori, have nearly gone down, but although these four Corps are usually bitter rivals, this kind of hacking and virus creation is dangerous to all of them, and it has brought them together in the past to defeat the attempt.

  ‘The closest anyone has got to hacking all of them was done by a man we only know as Janus, and it was attempted only last year,’ Xenox said. ‘Somehow, he managed to crack a good amount of the programming needed and came close to succeeding, but it seems as though they had a traitor in their midst as they were attacked by Corporate forces shortly before their virus was ready. Only Janus managed to escape with his life, and he’s currently on the run.’

  ‘I’ve heard of this Janus guy. He’s a bit of a legend within hacker circles,’ Dion said.

  ‘Do you know him? Can you get in touch with him?’ Xenox asked.

  ‘No, I’ve only heard the stories of his exploits. There’s a man in the USA who’s running the information wars out there called Animus, he’s mentioned in passing on his podcasts that he’s met with Janus, and the way he’s described it and how he’s not really bragging about it makes me think it’s true. Also, the USA would be a perfect place to disappear,’ Dion said.

  ‘And do you have any contact with Animus?’ William asked.

  ‘No, but I know someone who does. She’s a friend, her name's Karla, and she’s a good friend to Animus; helps him get the information about the war out to the public. She would be the place to start,’ Dion said.

  ‘And do you know where she is?’ William asked.

  ‘Salt Lake City, sir,’ Dion said.

  ‘Salt Lake City? That’s right on the frontline, isn’t it?’ Gibson commented.

  ‘Where else would a war correspondent like Animus be? Karla stays near him, so I think they’re both going to be there,’ Dion said.

  ‘Can you get a message to her?’ Xenox asked.

  ‘Of course. I believe she’s embedded with the DUA forces out there running their technology and lines of communication. I’m sure I can get in touch. I spoke with her just the other day,’ Dion said.

  William looked up at Xenox. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It sounds promising. I think it’s the best lead we have,’ Xenox said.

  ‘This plan, it sounds incredibly audacious. Are you sure it can be done?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know,’ Xenox said. ‘Others, like Janus, came close. But everyone previous was either lone hackers or recidivist groups without any support going alone against the Corporations. Some of them do amazing things. The Corporations are always getting hacked, some attempts are more successful than others, but it’s possible. If we can get the right people together with the right knowledge, bring them here, have them cooperate with the backing and financial support of the government, I think we have a real chance of doing this,’ Xenox said.

  ‘We would be announcing our presence to the Corps, though, and they are bound to come hunting for us after that,’ William said.

  ‘Surely, that was always going to happen though?’ Frankie said. ‘We can remain covert in the details, in our operations and location, but the Corps were always going to find out about us at some point. At least, this way, we strike a real blow against them in the process.’

  William turned to face her more fully. ‘So, you think you can do this?’

  ‘I’d like to try,’ Frankie said.

  William looked at the others around the table.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ Gibson said.

  ‘Sure, I’m game,’ Veronica said.

  ‘Absolutely, sir,’ Cole added.

  ‘Hell yeah,’ Dion chimed in.

  ‘Well, it looks like it’s a unanimous vote from us. I’d want the PM to sign off on this first of course,’ William said to Isaac. ‘What do you think?’

  Isaac pressed his lips together in an approximation of a smile, but one filled with doubts and incredulousness. ‘I think it sounds crazy, audacious, and utterly mad, but I love it. I will talk with the PM, but you have my support and authorisation to start preparing for a trip to America. I take it that’s where you will be going first?’

  ‘Sounds like it,’ Xenox said.

  ‘Then I wish you luck,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Dion, send that message, let’s see if this Karla is where we think she is and set up a meeting with her. Everyone else, make your preparations. It sounds like you’re heading into a war zone.’

  2.06

  Frankie sat in the back of a refurbished military transport plane that the Foreign Minister had commandeered for them and would be theirs to use going forward. It was a mid-sized aircraft with the ability to carry a specially adapted flyer in the back. The whole team had come on this mission, including the director. Once they had the approval of the Prime Minister, they were in the air just a couple of hours later and flying to America.

  Frankie had sat alone and done her best to relax before they landed in what she felt sure would be a very chaotic situation.

  Most of the others seemed to be too twitchy to get any rest, though. Only Cole and the director seemed calm.

  She wasn’t surprised. Heading into a warzone like this would worry most people. They’d been flying through the Democratic Union of America’s airspace for a couple of hours, keeping north of the Confederate States and the other territories to the south where they did not have permission to fly.

  But they were now finally making their descent into Clearwater Airforce Base, north of Salt Lake City, and after a few more moments, the plane bumped down onto the tarmac and taxied to a stop off the runway. The base was under DUA military control and was considered a safer place to land than the city’s airport, which was right next to Chinese territory.

  Frankie got up from her seat and gathered her things, pulling on her body armour, webbing, and checking her weapons. Some of the others had already finished their checks and were looking a little worried about what they would find once they got into the city, but Frankie felt quite calm, which surprised her. She guessed it had something to do with her cybernetic body, though and
its lack of real adrenaline and such.

  ‘Okay, gather round guys,’ said William. ‘Let’s go over the plan one last time. Firstly, this is a war zone. Keep your weapons ready and be on the lookout, even when you’re in DUA territory. Now, the Democratic Union forces have given us access to one of their flyers. One of their doll’s will fly you into the city to the base that our contact, Karla, is working at. Frankie, you’re leading the team as always, and you’re taking Gibson, Veronica, Cole, and Dion with you. Karla has requested that Dion be there at the meeting, which is the only reason he’s going with you. Dion isn’t combat trained, though, so you must keep him safe.

  ‘You’re to meet with Karla, and, hopefully, she will get you access to Animus, who in turn will direct us to Janus, who might not even be in America, for all we know,’ William said.

  Frankie smiled to herself and gave a slight shake of her head. When it was put like that, this whole thing sounded ridiculous. The entire mission, the whole idea of finding this hacker rested on finding and working with two people who, for all they knew, were lying about the contacts they had. Still, even though the whole thing felt utterly crazy, Frankie found she liked the idea of it being a long shot. Which, when you thought about who they were fighting and the control the Corporations exerted on the world around them, just felt right. Any plan to deliver any kind of meaningful blow against the power of the corporations would involve long odds and a high possibility of failure.

  ‘I know how that all sounds, but Dion has assured me that his friend can get us to Animus, and has also confirmed that Animus does indeed know Janus. Myself and Doctor X will be waiting here and monitoring the mission and the wider situation on the ground. If something happens we think you should know about, we will be in touch,’ he said before he seemed to withdraw into himself for a moment. Seconds later, he turned back to them. ‘I have just been informed that the flyer is waiting outside for you, good luck,’ William said.

  Frankie led her team out through the back of the plane, past the docked flyer in the back of the aircraft, and down the ramp onto the concrete outside. A short distance away, a dull green coloured flyer, similar to the ones used in Neo-London with its twin rotors where the wings on a plane would be, sat waiting; its engines already idling.

  ‘Any of you been in a war zone before?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Does Neo-London’s Undercity count?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Surely, that’s more deadly than a war zone,’ Veronica quipped.

  ‘It’s not far off, from the way Gibson talks about it’ Cole answered.

  ‘Remind me when we get back to London, Cole, I’ll introduce you to some Jacker Gangs I know,’ Gibson retorted.

  ‘Oooh, yes please, they sound so cuddly,’ Cole shot back with half a laugh.

  Frankie listened to the banter of her team, enjoying their upbeat, if nervous, tone as she approached a soldier who was waiting for them.

  ‘Miss, welcome to America,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘Would this be our transport?’ she asked, nodding to the flyer.

  ‘That is correct. If you would like to follow me?’ he said and started to walk towards it. ‘You must really want to meet with your contact in person to come out here to the frontline if you don’t mind me saying so,’ the soldier said.

  ‘Needs must, soldier, needs must,’ she said, not willing to talk about the details of their mission with anyone outside of their group. The truth of it was that Karla would not give out sensitive information over the Net. She insisted that they meet with her in person, that way she could check that it was indeed Dion she was talking too and not have to worry about her message being intercepted. ‘So, what’s the situation here at the moment?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘The Chinese have half the city, and it’s been like that for a long time. The frontline to the north and south of the city moves back and forth, but it all hinges on Salt Lake. If we lose this city, we probably lose all of Wyoming, maybe the Dakota’s as well as we’re squeezed out by the Chinese to the west and the Confederates and Mexicans to the south.’

  ‘So, are you managing to hold the frontline?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Yes. For the most part. The frontline is the river, giving us most of the city. They have broken through a few times, now, but we keep pushing them back. Like I say, it’s crucial that we hold this line,’ the solider said. ‘Here we are, miss, the doll will take you to your meeting point. It is likely that you will take some enemy fire on the way over the city. It shouldn’t be anything to worry about, though. Good luck,’ he said and walked off.

  Frankie turned to her team. ‘All right, let’s get this done. Let's go,’ she said, and they all walked up the rear ramp of the flyer.

  Frankie walked up to the doll, noting its armour coating was a dark matt camouflaged green and tan, quite the opposite of the gloss white doll’s they had at A.C.T.. ‘Do you know where you’re going?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘I have the coordinates that you gave to Military Command. Is that still where you wish to go?’ the doll asked, pointing to a readout with the coordinates on it and a digital map of their destination.

  Frankie checked it, making sure it matched up with the details she had from Karla. ‘That’s right, yes, thanks,’ she said and moved back to sit with her team.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Frankie said as the doll gunned the engines, making the flyer lift off. Frankie watched out the window as the ground sank away, but not too far before the flyer started to speed forward. The doll kept the aircraft low, skimming over the rooftops of the houses below, many of which were either partially or entirely destroyed. They had been fighting the war with the Chinese for years now, and much of the landscape in the contested territory was little more than a bombed-out landscape. The majority of the residents had left, fleeing the fighting and leaving the city for the military to use as they needed.

  Seeing the city like this saddened Frankie, America, formerly the USA, had once been the Leader of the Free World, but its involvement in World Wars three and four had cost it dearly. Now, the country was a mess of occupied territory and balkanized states that had been in a state of upheaval and war for nearly fifteen years with no signs of it ending anytime soon.

  Instead, Europe and the Far East had taken the place of the former US as the leading nations in the world, with Japan and the UK being now known as the Leaders of the Free World. Frankie wasn’t sure about that, though. To her, these multi-national Corporations were the tyrannical leaders of the world, which was most certainly no longer free.

  A minute later, the landscape below them grew ever more urban as they entered the city limits. They were heading south, and as Frankie looked out the right side of the flyer, she could see billowing smoke, fires, tanks, gun emplacements, rocket launchers, and even troopers moving about below them. The whole city looked in a terrible state with craters and bombed out buildings everywhere.

  Passing to the east of the city centre, the flyer banked around the remains of the skyscrapers in downtown Salt Lake and started to move south-west, towards the frontline. The flyer dropped lower, skimming the higher rooftops, trying to keep out of sight of the enemy.

  ‘We’ve got incoming,’ said the doll over the intercom suddenly. Frankie took hold of her seat belt and planted her feet on the floor at shoulder width a second before the hull of the flyer was peppered with hits from hostile gunfire.

  The flyer seemed to weather it for a few seconds until a series of bangs that didn’t sound like bullet hits resounded through the aircraft.

  Frankie didn’t like the sound of that.

  The flyer suddenly pitched left and dropped, losing altitude.

  ‘I’m putting her down. We’ve lost power to the left side rotor. Brace for impact,’ the doll said calmly through the flyer’s comms.

  Frankie and her teammates just held on, and there was an eerie silence in the flyer for a few seconds as everyone braced for the inevitable impact t
hat was to come.

  The flyer hit the ground with an endoskeleton rattling boom that jolted Frankie in her seat. Had she not been strapped in she would have been thrown across the inside of the flyer, but, as it was, she stayed where she sat and registered what would have been some nasty bruising damage in a human body.

  The flyer skidded across the ground with a high pitched metal whine until it came to a comparatively gentle stop against the side of a building.

  Bits of rubble and stone bounced off the fuselage while dust was kicked up into the air until the whole flyer settled into stillness and silence.

  ‘Everyone okay?’ Frankie called out.

  ‘Yeah,’ Gibson said. ‘If by okay, you mean battered and bruised. Ugh.’

  ‘I’ll survive,’ Veronica answered, with groans of her own.

  ‘Dion?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Oh, never better,’ he said brightly, before lowering his tone. ‘Shit, why did I come here,’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘Cole?’ Frankie said to him.

  Cole smiled at her. ‘Aaah, just like the old days,’ he joked.

  ‘You’ve done that before?’ Dion asked.

  ‘Oh, yeah. I’ve been in hundreds of crashes,’ Cole said, sarcasm evident in his voice.

  Dion didn’t answer. He just frowned and looked suitably sheepish.

  ‘Pilot, did you survive?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘I am operable but damaged. We have landed just a few hundred meters from the meeting location. I shall stay here with the flyer as I will slow you down. I suggest you continue the rest of the way on foot. We are close to the frontline, but in DUA territory, so you should not run into any significant resistance,’ the doll said.

  ‘Understood. Okay, guys, let’s move out,’ she said and moved to the back of the flyer where the entry ramp remained closed. She gave the door a solid kick, making the broken, jammed door fall open. Light flooded into the flyer, revealing a ruined street with debris from the damaged buildings scattered about the ground and burnt out cars laying here and there.