by Brandt Legg
“If we can just keep the wolves at bay,” Drast had said.
The Allies had access to secret-screens within the AOI system, and Drast hungrily consumed the most useful data he’d seen since he’d been AOI head of the Pacyfik region. As they walked the short distance to their destination, they continued to peruse the updates. However, the news was not good. It showed of a new threat, a group called the Trapciers, made up of Imps and incredibly advanced androids known as CHRUDEs.
“The Imps had been advising the Chief, but there are indications that they’re now acting independently,” one of the Allies told Drast. “And they aren’t helping the rebels.”
“There have just been three failed bombing missions,” another said.
“Three?” Drast asked as they walked briskly. “Can the Imps interfere with those weapons systems?”
Nobody knew, but everyone agreed that three failures in three different regions was not a coincidence.
“On one hand,” Drast began, “it exposes a potential vulnerability in the AOI. On the other, it demonstrates a dangerous power by someone. If it’s P-Force or the Trapciers, we’re in for a much longer war than the world can endure.”
They continued to debate the ramifications as reports of two more failures came in, closely followed by even stranger information. Twenty-eight AOI fighter drones had crashed in the past forty minutes.
“What the hell is going on?” Osc asked.
Drast stopped, looked up at the tall building in front of them, and said, “We’re about to find out.” The others followed him into the lobby of the Seattle headquarters of the AOI.
Inside the stark building, familiar clear walls with gold internal grids and visible KEL cameras made this like every other AOI headquarter building. They all knew the protocol. FRIDG scans and surrendering weapons. Only two humans would be on duty, plus three androids. Three walls were impenetrable, and lasers could kill any of them at any time.
Osc and Drast lingered by the door while the Allies stepped up to be scanned. After they were cleared through, one of them asked the guard if any other agents had arrived for the “Wolftrap” mission.
Unfortunately, the guard simply responded with an uninterested, “No.” The thin hope that one of the security detail might have been an Ally, was gone. They’d have to wait to see if things went better upstairs.
The Ally told the guard that they were there to meet with a specific agent, whom he named. Then he went on to explain that Drast and Osc, although he used other names, were waiting for informants and would stay at the entrance.
This all seemed fine to the guard. Their story was probably helped by the fact that the agent they were there to meet was the number two man in Seattle. Drast and Osc waited nervously as the Allies disappeared behind the gold grid glass. They knew everything they said could be heard, so they kept the conversation to basic war news and occasionally looked out for the people for whom they were supposedly waiting.
All the while, Drast continued to ponder the failed bombings and crashed fighter drones. He’d narrowed it down to either very good news, or very bad.
The Trapciers might have hacked into the AOI system, Drast thought. It’s a tall order, but they have been working with the Chief. They could have found a crack. They have an almost infinite capacity for calculations and data manipulation. That would obviously be disastrous since the next natural step will be for them to use the AOI weapons for their own aims.
He looked out to the street. The war had eliminated normal activity. Seattle’s densely populated suburbs had been hit with two Sonic-bombs.
However, it’s possible that Deuce Lipton has finally gotten off the fence. He may well have the technological means to wreak havoc with the AOI systems. Drast smiled. If that’s the case, and things go well upstairs, there might be a chance to win this thing fast.
After all the years and all the deaths, he hardly dared believe the end was in sight.
After twenty-five increasingly tense minutes, the Allies reappeared, and with just one sentence, Drast knew they were good. “The sheep in wolves’ clothing are torgon everywhere!”
Drast and Osc ran to the security gate and one of the Allies waved them through. The androids and human guards had been neutralized. Eighty-six “wolves,” AOI agents loyal to the Chief, were being moved to the basement holding cells built to hold twenty-four. But they would jam them in and decide whether to kill them later. If PAWN and the Allies won, then one day they might put captured wolves on trial.
When they reached the upper floor, Osc was stunned to see more than one hundred agents. “So you’re saying the Allies outnumbered the wolves here?” Osc asked Drast.
“Not normally. There are close to five hundred out on assignments or patrols. Most of them are wolves. It was arranged that way.”
“What happens when they come back in?”
“They’ll be killed in the lobby, like the security risks they are.”
Osc tried not to think about the lobby ambushes. It seemed so ruthless, but so did Drast’s shooting those men in Vancouver who had surrendered with their arms in the air. But he respected Drast’s will to win. The Aylantik had to go, and the AOI was the worst of it.
One of the Allies, who had come with them from Vancouver, told them that the takeover had been simple because Drast had planned it almost five years earlier. Osc was becoming more impressed with Drast by the minute.
“Five years ago?” he asked.
“I didn’t know I’d be here,” Drast said, “but I knew that whenever the revolution came, the only way we could win would be to take control of the AOI buildings, so I made sure it would be easy. All the AOI HQs have weapons checks. Meaning that even a few Allies could take over if they were armed. I made sure that all buildings in the Pacyfik region had a secret weapons locker on every floor, then worked it out so an Ally was in charge of each one. That’s how we took the building so quickly.”
Drast seemed pleased that it had gone so smoothly. He’d waited so long to see his plans come to fruition, and there were many days, especially over the past two years, when he hadn’t been sure they ever would.
“Seattle is a ‘Key,’ isn’t it?” Osc asked. The AOI had headquarters in almost every major city in the world, but there were only a few hundred Key-headquarters. In the event of natural disasters or unrest, Keys were meant to provide agents with weapons, supplies, and intelligence for up to a thousand-kilometer radius.
“Damn right,” Drast said, a bit of his old arrogance resurfacing as he assumed command of the facility. He’d single-handedly achieved the first major victory of the war. The rebels had secured a foremost tactical asset directly from the AOI.
A Key AOI building had months’ worth of food and water and thousands of advanced weapons. The offices’ INUs were also part of the emergency Scram network, a secret communications system that operated apart from the Field. Years earlier, Drast had done his best to make sure all the Key buildings in his region were staffed with as many Allies as he could get into them.
“The only weakness of Key buildings,” Drast said to Osc, “is that they are still susceptible to Sonic-bombs, but those don’t seem to be working so well right now.” He smiled.
“How long until the Chief finds out we’re here?” Osc asked.
“Hopefully, she won’t find out until I tell her.”
Chapter 60 - Book 3
After narrowly escaping from Zaverly, Grandyn and Fye had heard one of her henchmen screaming, and listened while he burned to death. His shrieks of agony echoed in the haunted forest. They could almost see his flesh melting. The horror was made worse by the knowledge that they’d missed the same fate only by a breath, and it could still await them. Then, in the silent aftermath, they’d heard something even more terrifying - Zaverly’s footsteps, coming fast.
Grandyn and Fye had run all night across a hellish landscape where fire fought the darkness and smoke filled their lungs. There had been too many close calls when lasers cut through t
he gray night. Zaverly, on an AirSlider, would normally have had the advantage, but her night vision had gone out, and the glitch slowed her enough to allow Grandyn and Fye to out-maneuver her on foot.
In the endless haze and choking air, it seemed that morning might come only in a burst of flames. Grandyn actually pictured an exploding sun burning everything he’d ever known. At times, between the near misses of Zaverly’s lasershod, when the adrenaline wasn’t pushing him on, he hoped for death. Some inner part of him imagining that dying would allow him to breathe fresh air again. Then training and something incomprehensible would thrust him forward.
At least Fye seemed to be improving. Grandyn marveled at her strength, and her ability which allowed her to heal herself even as they fled. They both needed rest. They’d been pushing so hard for so long, but Grandyn knew that getting through the night, even if they could avoid their pursuers, would be a miracle.
Then, in the endless hours before the sun was supposed to rise, it started to rain. Heavily. The monsoon helped save them from the flames, but the steam, the mud, and the cold rain presented more problems. They sloshed through the torrent until the sky, or what pretended to be a sky – a thing filled with smoke and steam, mist and fog, haze and clouds – began to lighten.
By the time the rain ended, they were exhausted. Dodging Zaverly and her one surviving henchman had been only one of their challenges, heaped on a pile of others. They’d had no food, no sleep, no visibility, no air, and were trying to get south in the face of a raging fire, only to find themselves lost in a forest that had suddenly become a muddy, flooding swamp filled with rushing gullies full of charred debris.
“Freeze!” a voice suddenly barked from out of nowhere.
They wanted to bolt, but they were drenched in the light of four AOI lasers.
We’ve escaped a lunatic TreeRunner and survived a night of the living dead only to lose it all to four grunges. Grandyn couldn’t believe it. What the hell are they even doing here?
“Look, boys,” one of the grunges said. “They sent us in here to scout for rebels, burnt out of their caves, and I told them it was a waste of time. But I was wrong.”
Two of the other grunges laughed.
“All this trouble for two wet rats,” one of them sneered.
Suddenly, one of them turned and shot. For a split second, both Grandyn and Fye thought the shot was meant for them, but it hit thirty meters to the left of Grandyn. The last of Zaverly’s henchmen fell from a tree, dead.
“A friend of yours?” the first grunge asked.
Grandyn just shook his head. The grunges had probably just saved their lives. He took it as a hopeful sign, but he glanced at Fye. She was faltering again. It had been too much; the night, the running, the almost dying too many times. He could tell by her face that she thought this was it. They were about to die.
“You dirt bags are with PAWN,” the grunge said, as if it weren’t a question.
Grandyn shook his head.
One of the other grunges was checking the henchman’s body. They were all looking around as if there might be more stragglers.
“Can’t you talk, maggot?” the grunge asked.
“We’re not with PAWN,” Grandyn said. “What’s PAWN?”
The grunge laughed. “’What’s PAWN?’ That’s funny. I guess that makes you’re a Creative, or maybe a Rejectionist. Being out here, perhaps you’re a TreeRunner. I don’t really give a torg. I just want to know where you came from, and where the rest of your litter is.”
Ffttt, ffttt, ffttt. Three lasers dropped three grunges. Before the fourth one, who was returning from the henchman’s body, could figure out where they had come from, another ffttt came from the mist, and he was also dead.
Grandyn was about to run, but Fye collapsed. Zaverly dropped a few meters in front of him. The grunges’ lasers’ lights on his chest was quickly replaced by hers.
“Grandyn, how nice to see you,” she said with a faux smile. “Don’t ever run from me again.”
“Let us go,” Grandyn demanded.
“I see Fye hasn’t fared so well in the night, but don’t worry. She’ll feel better once I kill you.”
“But you just saved us,” Fye said weakly from the ground.
“Yes. I’ve saved Grandyn Happerman, many times . . . too many. But that was the last one.”
“I don’t understand,” Grandyn said, still trying to figure out why this deranged TreeRunner wanted to kill him.
“I know you’re used to everyone saving you. Big important Grandyn has to be saved. So what? So he can save us all? Well you haven’t done a very good job, have you Grandyn?” She said his name as if it were a sound one would make before vomiting. “Have you seen the world lately? It’s on fire. It’s dying. Millions are dead, but for three years the rebels pinned their hopes on you . . . You! And you’ve done nothing except get good torgon people killed.”
“Listen to me,Zaverly‒‒”
“No! You listen to me. You are not important here. You don’t even look like a hero. You look like a failure. Like a scared loser running away from everyone. You’ve been running for three years, Grandyn. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid to die? I hope you’re afraid to die.”
Grandyn looked over at Fye. She still wasn’t moving.
“Oh, don’t worry about your girlfriend. I’m not going to kill her yet. I’m hoping she’ll wake up. I want her to see you die. I want her to know what it’s like to lose someone she loves. Does she love you?”
“She’s just in our unit. I hardly know her.”
“Ha! A coward and a liar. I’m not surprised. You’ve lied and hidden and run so long, you probably don’t even know what it’s like to be real anymore.”
“Why do you hate me?” He kept trying to find a way out, but the heat from the laser on his chest told him to keep talking. Time was his only hope, and Zaverly sure seemed to want to talk.
“I loved you once,” she said. “But, of course, it wasn’t actually you. He was a good man, courageous and strong. He didn’t hide behind others.”
Grandyn began to get the picture. She must have been in love with one of the Grandyn doubles that the TreeRunners had dropped in forests around the world to confuse and distract the AOI.
“I didn’t order those men to be used. I didn’t want that at all.”
“Shut up Grandyn! You lie too easily. ‘You didn’t want them to do that.’ Even if I believed you, and I don’t, it wouldn’t matter because here we are. And you’re still alive.”
“Zaverly, we’re on the same side. Turn your anger on the real people who murdered the man you loved: the AOI. They’re killing all of us.”
“The man I loved, he had a name. Do you even know any of the names of the people who died for you?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then name them. And if you name the man I’m talking about, I will let you go. How’s that Grandyn Happerman? Prove to me that you are more than a leech.”
Grandyn began quietly and slowly reciting the names of every person he knew who had died to protect him. It was a long list, and his ability to recall them was impressive. Zaverly kept count. The numbers shocked even her. She began to wonder if he was making them up. Once he said the sixtieth, she stopped him.
“How does that make you feel? That all those people dead only because of you?”
“It makes me sick. They keep me awake at night, and it makes me want to kill every grunge in the world, slowly, one at a time.” He glared at her as if she were keeping him from this task. Then his expression turned softer. “I’m not done. I’d like to name them all.”
She gave a nod and looked over at Fye, still crumpled on the ground. “Do it. You still haven’t named anyone I know, and I know quite a few who died for you.” She shook her head in disgust.
He went on naming names. He reached one hundred before he said anyone she recognized. Several were from the unit in the Amazon where she had been stationed. He got to the ones who’d saved him and Fye fro
m the Rogue River, then after a few more, the name “Beckett Connors” rolled off his dry lips. She held up a hand and stopped him.
“So you do know that you killed him. Another victim of your crimes,” she said angrily, as if hearing Grandyn uttering the name of her loved one was too much. Her eyes flashed with tears and vengeance. “You took him from me!”
He thought she was about to pull the trigger. Glancing at Fye, Grandyn tried to remember any details he’d read in the reports he’d requested from Parker. Every time someone pretending to be him died, he’d get their dossier and read about them, find out what had happened, try to keep it all straight until one day he might be able to help their families. To do something to appease his guilt. The chaotic world had not allowed that yet, but try as he did, Grandyn could not recall anything about Beckett. There had been so many, and now he was exhausted and worried about Fye.
I have to get her help, he thought. She might already be dead. He swallowed hard at that possibility.
“I’m sorry Beckett died pretending to be me,” he said. “I’m sure he was brave and true‒‒”
“He was,” Zaverly said, “and so much more.”
“Ask Parker. I begged her not to let people pretend to be me. It was her program. I tried to stop it.”
“You weren’t worth it,” she said, spitting on Fye.
Fye suddenly came to life, flinging a fist-sized rock. It caught Zaverly in the chest, and she stumbled backwards. It gave Grandyn just enough of an opening to lunge.
Grandyn and Zaverly struggled and rolled. Zaverly was a fit TreeRunner. Fye had used up her strength, and collapsed back to the ground. The eerie light, coupled with the drifting smoke and her weak condition, made her think it was all a bad dream. Seconds later, she heard the lasershod, ffttt, ffttt, and knew that one of them was dead.
