The Astral Hacker (Cryptopunk Revolution Book 1)

by Brian Terenna

  “We were aware of that possibility, which is why the director sent me a new Evo with a backdoor installed. We’ll be able to cut through your defenses before you can do anything.”

  Another wave of dread hits me. No…. They’ll turn me into a puppet, a zombie. I won’t exist anymore. “I’ll locate and patch the backdoor before you can use it. You can’t win,” I say, but who knows if it’s true. At least, I’ll have a chance, no matter how small.

  Bosu shakes his head with a mock frown. “The director thought of that too, so we decided not to risk it. We’re going to soften you up first. I’d like to see you beat us after this.” He looks to the side as if he’s mentally contacting someone through his Evo.

  Thirty seconds later, several guards carry a reclined metal chair with clamps and wires.

  Bosu gazes at it, his sociopathic smile growing. “I wanted to use classic torture like I did for Americus, but I was overruled. This will hurt even more, though.”

  This is my last chance to escape, I realize in a flash. I won’t even be me after this. I’d normally want to plan for hours or even days, but there’s no more time. I lift my legs and drop my weight. My arms twist in pain, but the guards lose their grips at the unexpected move. I grab for the nearest guard’s dart gun, but the other guard pulls me back. I whip around and backhand him in the face. He stumbles but keeps hold. The first guard seizes my arms before I can strike again. I scream and thrash around in their strong grips. Bosu chuckles as they force me into the chair.

  I struggle, trying to free myself until one of the guards presses a button. Metal clamps secure my arms. I kick his shin. He grunts and then forces my legs down and clamps them too.

  Like a rabbit cornered by wolves, I’m in full panic mode. My eyes dart around the courtyard as I look for anything that could save me.

  “This machine won’t do any physical damage, but it will convince your mind that you are in intense pain,” says Bosu as he attaches grape-sized brain-interfaces to either side of my head. “Now brace yourself. This should be fun.”

  The guards step back, and Bosu programs something into a panel on the chair. Shredding pain slices through me. I seize and twitch, incapable of anything else. After a moment, it cuts off. I slump forward, dazed and unable to form a single thought. After a while, I manage to suck in two shaky breaths. I’ve endured pain my entire life, but this was much worse than anything I could imagine.

  At least, I’ll only have to go through it once before they take me over. There’s no way I could patch a backdoor in this state. I held out hope, no matter how slim, until now. The realization shatters my resolve, and my hope vanishes like smoke in a hurricane. Ever since I lost my sister, I’ve forced myself to be strong, to never break. Now, it’s over.

  “How did you enjoy that?” asks Bosu.

  I say nothing, too fractured to speak.

  “Well, you’ll be happy to know that I’ve decided to do it forty-nine more times before installing the Evo. I’ll see you shortly, slave.”

  No! Diablo, no. That’s it then. I’ve entered the final hell.

  The chair sends a second wave of blinding pain surging through me and then another and another.

  The cycles of unbearable pain and release hit me again and again. After each time, I can barely remember my name. Somehow, I just manage to keep count.

  Forty-eight. Pain. Forty-nine. Pain. Fifty.

  A guard walks toward me. All the others are gone. He holds a tiny device in his hands, the device that will end my humanity. The Evo.

  The chair sends a final wave of rending pain through me. I gasp and seize. After it stops, I open my eyes to see the guard next to me. He secures my head with one hand, and his other approaches my temple with the Evo.

  “No,” I manage to groan, but it doesn’t slow him. I desperately ready myself to rebuff their mind hacking, but I can barely focus. I try to twist my head away, but I have no strength.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see the Evo only inches away now. No. No. No. My heart flutters wildly, my mind screaming.

  There’s a bang, and the guard’s hand disappears in a spray of blood. He clutches at his wrist, howling, his face a mask of agony. There’s another bang, and his head explodes.

  CHAPTER 22

  THE PLEDGE

  Still dazed, I blink my eyes, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. Alexander lowers his smoking sniper rifle and sprints forward. Sunny bounces in a backpack that he wears. Nav runs next to them, her hand cannon ready.

  At first, I’m elated that they lived, but my mood quickly crashes as I realize what’s about to happen.

  Nooo. I failed them. Although my brain is still fried, I manage to say, “It’s a trap.”

  Alexander motions his hand down. “We know. We’re prepared. And don’t worry about reinforcements coming. We jammed their communications.”

  Relief flows through me like magical rejuvenating energy. And as if I’m reborn, my pain evaporates, and my spirits soar. What kind of insane plan does he have?

  “Where’s Americus?” asks Nav.

  My stomach drops. In my pain-induced haze of last night, I could almost pretend I didn’t mercy kill him. Now, I have to tell Nav. I swallow, feeling sick again. “He’s dead.”

  She deflates. For a second, it looks like she’s going to cry, then fury ignites in her eyes and burns away her sadness. She scowls and jerks her head around, her hand raised like a claw, looking as if she wants to rip off heads.

  I want to hold her and take away her pain. Instead, I sit uselessly, trapped in my chair. I doubt I could stand anyway.

  Alexander’s jaw drops, his face draining of color. “He’s dead?” he asks as if he doesn’t believe it’s possible. He shakes his head. “No.”

  Nav growls low.

  It snaps Alexander out of his disbelief, and he grits his teeth before saying, “They’ll pay for this. Here, you’ll need these.” He puts ear balls into my ears and activates them. “Sit tight and recover. We’ve got his.”

  The guards pour out of the buildings, many more than I thought were here, at least forty or fifty.

  “This is for Americus,” yells Alexander. He throws a pouch that’s the size of an ammo box at his feet.

  The guards raise their guns.

  “Caesar,” he says into his q-link. “Let’s do this.”

  The pouch expands into a transparent wall that’s ten times its size and has a small slit in the middle.

  The guards open fire, sending scores of bullets at my friends. The bullets push into the shield, but rather than doing any damage, they drop harmlessly to the ground.

  Sunny jumps out of Alexander’s backpack and raises his hand to the slit in the shield. Green lasers shoot out of it. The guards cover their eyes, groan, and scream as the weapon blinds them.

  A dazzler. Nice Sunny. Alexander must have told him.

  Alexander shouts, “Americus. Americus. Americus,” as he slips his sniper rifle into the slit.

  Each of his powerful shots blows guards off their feet as it ruptures through them. Most of them scatter, running back into the safety of the buildings.

  One blinded guard smashes into the side of the building in his attempt to escape. Others run toward us to get around the bullet shield. Sunny’s dazzler burns their eyes while bullets from Nav’s massive gun punch holes into them.

  As the guards flee, I imagine the turrets targeting my friends at any second. Their bullet shield would be no match for the powerful lasers. I glance up at the turrets, feeling sick, but somehow, they’re inactive.

  The Liberator Drone hums as it activates on the top of the nearby roof.

  Oh no.

  “Cube,” Nav says into her q-link. “Access that drone and execute the program, Fae is a Genius.”

  “Failure,” says her q-link.

  The drone’s four rotor blades spin to life as it lifts into the air.

  “Cube, execute variant C.”

  The drone speeds toward us, its missiles threatening.<
br />
  Just one of them would kill us all. I stare in horror as it prepares to fire.

  “Success,” says Nav’s q-link.

  The drone stops and hangs in midair.

  Relief floods through me. It was clever to make variations on my program. “Nav, Alexander, get me a q-link and get me out of this chair.”

  Alexander finds the release buttons and hits them. The clamps disengage, and he hands me a q-link.

  I slip it on my wrist, my hopes soaring. Oh hell yes. Now, they pay. “Download operation software, Chim. Password D7LR21B85.”

  I rip the brain-interfaces from my head and stand from the chair, shaky at first, but then with more stability.

  “You’re injured, Fae,” says Sunny as he scans me.

  “I’m fine. They treated the injuries.”

  Nav’s gaze trails from my black eyes to my bandaged forearms and then over my bruised body. “Oh my God. What did they do to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just give me a chance to get them back.”

  She nods, looking hard. Her drone aims at the building that half the guards ran into and launches a missile.

  A fiery explosion erupts into the sky, and the building collapses as smoke and dust plume into the air. A burst of heat and small fragments pelt my bare skin, but its destruction energizes me.

  Nav swings her drone to target a second building. Before she can fire, the building’s door flies open, and a guard fires a rocket. Nav gasps and directs her drone sharply upward. The rocket follows and hits its target.

  Her Liberator drone explodes in a ball of fire and a loud bang.

  A wave of wind strikes me, and I stumble to the ground, pain wracking my body. Nav and Alexander duck down just as flaming pieces of the drone bounce off our bullet shield.

  Alexander jumps back up, and his sniper rifle bangs as he shoots the guard.

  Troops exit the buildings, looking to get back into the fight. They fire on us, but their bullets fall uselessly at the base of the shield.

  I don’t have a gun to fire back, but I have something better. “Chim, access the turrets.” When I tried to escape, I didn’t have time to take them over, but now I do.

  My friends return fire as guards try to flank our shield.

  It takes me a moment to focus, but when I do, I quickly find what they updated in the code. I make a small change to my program and power up my newly-controlled turrets, then designate us as friendlies and the guards as targets. Now you see what happens when you threaten my friends.

  Brilliant red rays of light streak from the turrets and burn guards in half. They scream, their bodies smoking as they fall. Several dart behind cover and fire back. One man who’s still exposed raises his gun.

  A laser vaporizes his head. He stands there for a moment, looking like a dying zombie from Silent City, then drops. The rest of the guards run back into a building.

  Now let’s end this. “Nav, Alexander, keep watch on the buildings in case anyone fires from inside where the turrets can’t reach. I’m going to hack an Obliterator suit.”

  I access the code and begin my attack. No other guards dare to show themselves as the minutes pass. Eventually, I find the weakness and execute my program.

  “Chim, open the cockpit.”

  “Boss,” says Alexander. “Can I pilot it?”

  “Sure. Get in. I’ll hack the other one.”

  A guard darts out from a small door near the other Obliterator suit and hops inside of it. The suit stands and rotates to Alexander. My laser turrets fire on it but have no effect.

  Diablo! “Alexander, fire your rockets at it.”

  “I don’t know how,” comes through my q-link. “I’ll fight it hand to hand. It won’t be able to shoot rockets at me then.”

  He charges and dives on the other suit. They tumble and spin several times until they collide into a concrete wall, dust flying up around them.

  I access the other suit’s firewall and start my hack. “They’ve updated the code. I’ll need some time,” I say to Alexander through my q-link.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him,” says Alexander.

  Just then, the other suit flips Alexander’s around and pummels him with powerful blows. How long do I have before he rips open Alexander’s cockpit and smashes his skull?

  I’m working on a breakthrough when I see Americus lying dead, a hole between his eyes. Is that going to be Alexander next? Despair ripples through me, and I start to panic.

  The other suit grabs Alexander’s and tosses him. Alexander’s suit flies twenty feet and slams into the pole, cracking it. My eyes widen.

  He doesn’t get up. The impact probably knocked him out…or maybe even killed him. I lose even more control. I know that I need to keep hacking, but I can’t.

  “Fae, Fae, what are you doing?” shouts Nav. “Why did you stop hacking?”

  The other suit fires a rocket at Alexander. I gasp, frozen in place. Nav flips around our bullet shield and pulls me behind it. Sunny dives down. The explosion envelops our shield, but the flames don’t touch us.

  “Fae, send me what you have so far,” says Nav. “I’ll finish the hack.”

  I manage to send it as I stare at the explosion cloud surrounding Alexander. The smoke clears to reveal his cockpit blown off. Alexander lies there burned and motionless.

  The monstrous Obliterator suit charges toward us with long strides, my laser turrets still firing on it unsuccessfully. The suit tosses the bullet shield away and raises its arm to crush Nav.

  She doesn’t react in time as the suit slams down on her.

  My eyes widen in horror, but somehow, the crushing blow passes right through her.

  “Cube.” Nav’s voice comes from thin air a few feet away from her holographic lookalike. “Shut down its guns, release its grip, and open the cockpit.”

  Nice, a vanishing, one of our favorite tactics in Silent City.

  The suit opens, revealing a stunned guard inside, who fumbles for a weapon.

  Nav appears, grabs him with her enhanced arm, and tosses him upward. The screaming man spins like an Olympic diver, and a turret laser burns him in two. The pieces of his body thump on the ground.

  I run to Alexander. His clothes are scorched, his hair is partially burned, and half his face is red and blistered. His right eye is ruined. The sight of his injuries hits me like a boulder.

  “Sunny, check him for life-signs.”

  “He’s alive. Pulse fifty-five, blood pressure—”

  “I don’t need his vitals. Nav, do you have a med-kit?”

  Nav rummages through her backpack and takes one out. Alexander’s eyes flutter, and he groans in pain. Nav finds the tranquilizer and sedates him. She then takes out scissors and cuts away his shirt while I peel it back. The smell of burned flesh floats by me, and angry red blisters cover most of his chest, right arm, and stomach.

  “Oh my God,” Nav says. “This must hurt like crazy.”

  Hell. “What do we do with burns?” I ask. “Wash them?”

  Nav shrugs.

  “No, that’s not necessary,” says Sunny. “There should be burn patches in the kit. They’ll cool his skin, kill his pain, and accelerate his healing. They also have antibiotic cream to prevent infection. Cover every burn.”

  “What about his eyes?” asks Nav.

  “His right eye looks severely burned. Cover it,” says Sunny.

  “Sunny, keep watch on the buildings while we treat him,” I say. Luckily, we have time since my turrets control the courtyard.

  Just in case, Nav and I grab the bullet shield to protect us, then quickly apply burn patches. My stomach is twisted with anxiety, and my nerves cause my hands to shake.

  When we’re done, Alexander is closer to a mummy than a man. I wring my hands.

  “Let’s get out of here,” says Nav. “It’s time to run.”

  I don’t move. “We won’t get far unless we take them all out.”

  Nav frowns and adjusts her headband. “They killed my fathe
r and should die, but the suit won’t fit inside the building. There are probably thirty more guards in there. We have a car waiting. I think we can elude them.”

  “I agree with Nav,” says Sunny. “It’s better to run now that we have you.”

  “No. If we leave them, they’ll contact others immediately to hunt us down. We have to finish this.”

  Nav shakes her head. “But—”

  I hold up a hand. “I have my q-link. I can do this with low risk.”

  Nav looks uncertain but nods.

  “Help me put Alexander in this other Obliterator suit for now. I’ll mark it as a friendly to the turrets.”

  We heft him inside.

  “Come on, Nav. I’ll need your help with this next part.” I stride toward the building the guards ran into.

  “I’m coming too,” says Sunny.

  I wave for him to follow. After today’s rescue, I’ll never deny him again. We enter into an empty hallway, which runs for twenty feet and then turns.

  Doubt creeps into my stomach.

  I clench my jaw and force it away, but my bruised face aches with the motion. My program to control the Evo worked perfectly when I tested it back at the base. They will not be able to resist me.... I’m pretty sure.

  After I hack one, could the others update before I can corrupt them all? Maybe. I had better modify my drone networking program to work with Evos. Then I can do it all at once.

  “Nav, Sunny. Guard this corner. I need time.”

  I begin to alter the program.

  “Do you need help, Fae?” asks Sunny. “I’ve been improving my coding skills.”

  I didn’t know that. It’s funny that my Foster Buddy wants to help me create a program to hack Evos. Americus wouldn’t have liked that. “I can do it. Just watch for guards.”

  He nods, and his stun baton pops from his wrist, only it’s different now with some type of barrel. Looks like he upgraded himself again.

  The programming flows quickly and naturally. My mind is sharper, expanded by my urgency and purpose.

  A guard runs around the corner, his gun lowered. Nav shoots, her cannon roaring. The bullet punches the man back against the wall, ripping a gaping hole through his chest.