Cold War Rune: A Virtual Reality novel (Rune Universe Book 2)

by Hugo Huesca

  There we go. This is all the backup I’m going to get. At least Francis wouldn’t be risking his life.

  Since I was here, I may as well gear up. I even tossed my dirty, messed-up clothes in the trash-can and took a quick bath. Why not? The more time I spent here, more chance the right people would take notice. The water splashed clear against my body and reached the floor more mud than water, carrying dirt, dry blood, and sweat. My wounds burned like they were ripped open all over again. The salve that Derry used wasn’t like Rune’s nanobots. This stuff would take time, and I could see new, fresh blood flowing down from my arms and legs and down the drain, mixed with enough water to make it pinkish. Well, the pain woke me up. Filled me with new energy in a way the fear couldn’t, prepping my body for a fight, if it came to it. When it came to it.

  I’d passed eight minutes inside the apartment. I changed into a fresh hoodie and sneakers without bothering to dry myself first.

  “Well, nothing more I can do here.” Wasting more time felt wrong with the image of Mom being held somewhere. Somewhere dark, perhaps, and cold.

  I closed the apartment door behind me and the darkness of the corridor welcomed me back. I glanced down its length and shook my head. There was something else I could do.

  The door to Doyle’s was closed shut. But it lacked the security mine had. No scanners, no reinforced frames. It even lacked an electronic lock. For the first time in my life, I thanked the government for their expense-saving philosophy. I couldn’t pick the lock (I didn’t know how), but I was a Script Kiddie. I knew more tricks to skirt around a closed door than any law-abiding citizen could ever imagine.

  So I used a time-tested technique. One that didn’t need a burner Berry.

  I kicked the motherfucker right beneath the lock with my healthy leg. The synthetic wood—more plastic than anything—creaked, and bent softly, but it retained its shape. So I kicked it again. This time, I left a sneaker-shaped depression on the door’s surface, but it was resisting me.

  What did people say about violence? That it never solved anything? But that was only if you weren’t using enough, right?

  So I kicked harder, and it bent a little more.

  Kick, kick, kick.

  In the end, the door’s hinges, the weakest part of the entire ensemble, were the first to give up. The door simply fell to the floor with a hollow sound. Bent, but undefeated.

  The place appeared the same as it had the last time I was here. The empty beer cans were still in the same spot, the trash around the surveillance equipment still looked like it was trudging a fine line between sloppiness and high-tech boredom. Nothing I could see in plain sight was suspicious. I mean, nothing clued me in that Martinez was a spook, even already knowing she was.

  So, Doyle must’ve been clean. It was only a hunch, no evidence to support it—other than his name not being in Caputi’s list, that is. I briefly wondered what had happened to the man. Any chance he was still alive?

  One problem at a time, Cole. The equipment was still laying around. Martinez simply hadn’t returned to the safe house, not even to pick up what looked like tens of thousands of dollars in tech.

  Well, all the better for me. I sat in front of a slim computer with an ancient keyboard streaked with chip-grease fingerprints. A couple keystrokes showed it was password protected. The password itself was locked to the agents’ biometrics, so it wouldn’t be easy to crack with my normal scripts. Still, I rummaged through my backpack in case I had made an oversight. Only things strong enough to bypass Bureau’s encryption would brick the computer, kind of like a poor man’s EMP. No dice.

  Isn’t the computer itself secured somehow? Most pieces of sensitive equipment were proofed against thieves, which made scripts necessary in the first place. Things like GPS tracking, but also silent alarms, hidden micro-cameras…

  My fingers danced atop the keys, not daring to press them yet.

  This is what you want, right? To get someone’s attention. If they’re not looking yet, this’ll nudge them in the right direction.

  So I banged the keyboard as the screen prompted for a password. I randomly inputted different words (all of them very nasty) over and over again. Seconds later, the computer went into anti-theft lockdown. Somewhere, someone would receive an alarm and they’d be looking my way soon enough.

  Let’s be as visible as possible until then.

  There was another thing I could do, a little insurance. It was the computer that gave me the idea. If Keles was coming to me, and he paid little attention to his security… Well, at least I could try to encumber him a bit. I grabbed my backpack and got out one of my burner berries.

  The battery inside that thing would last for a long time, but I only needed it for tonight—the sooner the better. I took one of the brick scripts and loaded it with practiced motions. I added a timer of ten minutes to delay the script’s activation. With any luck, if I ended up in a jail cell and it somehow wasn’t secure enough, I could just walk out of there. I’d done it before, with a bit of help from one of the best hackers in the States. Perhaps I could steal his mojo.

  I left the complex with the heavy steps of a man willingly walking towards the firing squad.

  The street was as empty as I left it, but darker. Like a wolf’s mouth. I couldn’t even see the moon, but it wasn’t like San Mabrada’s sky was the best spot to star-gaze. The cold breeze passed around me over and over and made me shiver. I looked up again.

  My brain caught up with my eyes one second too late. Yes, it was too dark. Because something close and black was flying in the middle of the street. High enough to cover the sky and tower over my head. It made no sound at all.

  Welp. I had wanted to call over Keles’ people to negotiate. Negotiations were underway.

  The powerful lamplights of the stealth chopper shone directly at me and the night became day for less than a second, and then I could see only white.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Don't leave me hanging

  Several pairs of hands grabbed my arms and restricted me. Unseen men pushed me against the chopper’s cold surface. More hands caught me and pushed me inside, as voices shouted all around me, barking orders and commands that my stunned brain couldn’t begin to register.

  Get a grip, Cole. I told myself. Focus, or you aren’t getting out of this one.

  I felt, more than heard, how the stealth chopper gained altitude and built speed. This time no car-drone came to my aid, but no one was shooting at my general direction either. Someone did secure a belt across my chest and shoulders, though. Then handcuffs at my wrists. Steel, not the plastic alloy the police liked to use.

  My vision was out of commission. I began blinking furiously, trying to shake away the after-images. Black against white.

  Was anyone talking? It was weird, no one had done anything to my ears, but human senses worked in strange ways.

  Slowly, my vision cleared. I was in the middle seat of the spacious interior. The chopper was designed for stealthed troop drops, and several human shapes were sitting at my sides or in front of me, with a bunch more standing in between. I felt recovered enough to speak.

  “So, I heard you wanted to meet,” I said to the shapes. Martinez or Keles or Dervaux or whoever. “Well, here I am. I’d like to present a complaint about your transport services, though. I think flashbanging your guests is a dick move.”

  “You tend to blow things up if not flashbanged, though,” came a woman’s voice. Martinez. She sounded tense and distant. I blinked hard until I spotted a body with her hair and height. She was standing in front of me, to the left. “Or so I’ve been told.”

  “That’s more or less our modus operandi.” Another voice. A girl. Melodious, with a tad of know-it-all she had never managed to lose. “There’s no kill like overkill.”

  Irene was sitting opposite side to Martinez. Her frame appeared tiny against the steel fuselage, and frail. Her eyes were as hard as said steel, though, and focused on me. Hard and unreadable. Auburn hair and
green eyes and a pale face.

  There was no Keles anywhere. Only Martinez and Irene and a boatload of soldiers that I swore I’d seen before…

  I had seen them before. In fact, to my right side…

  “Even you?” I asked Doyle. He looked very alive and very geared-up in his paramilitary suit. “Is this the turncoats anonymous meeting?”

  I should have known, I thought bitterly. With all that had been going on, I had never had time to stop and think. No bodies, no missing agents, no Bureau investigation. Every single one was on Dervaux’s payroll?

  My gaze ended back on Irene and our eyes met. Her expression remained unchanged. “This is what you’ve been doing this entire time? These folks I think I understand, but you?”

  “You don’t get it, Cole,” Irene said. “The work we’re doing here is important. Game changing. It will shape humanity’s future, and it’s almost done.”

  “So you work with terrorists and whatever the fuck Dervaux is? That’s the future you want to see?”

  No change in expression. Nothing I could read. Her poker face had always been much better than mine.

  “Keles is a necessary evil. You’ll notice he didn’t kill you when you met? I told him not to. Part of the deal. He’s just a tool.”

  “He almost killed me, you know that? During the fake raid. He ordered his people to shoot so he could revive me later. Was that part of the plan, too?”

  “That… was a mistake. He never should have been there. He wasn’t supposed to harm you at all.”

  “Well, he didn’t hurt me as much as my ex is doing right now, that’s for sure.”

  Now I could see her lips tremble slightly. Might have been the wind, but it told me all I needed to know. I reclined against the seat and turned to face Martinez and Doyle.

  “So, you changed sides? Went from playing at being the good guys to being the mooks of a terrorist?”

  “We work for Dervaux, not for Keles,” Doyle told me without looking up. “Now don’t be an idiot. If your little reunion is over, shut the hell up until we’re at the base. We’re prepared to drug you if you resist.”

  But only if I resist? My brain was racing as fast as it could, eager for any kind of information that would help me make sense of things. At the same time, I wasn’t planning to let them reach their hideout.

  I was surrounded by eight armed people, not counting Irene. All of them could easily take me down in a straight fight… I wasn’t about to lie to myself. My only shot was hoping they’d underestimated me.

  “What do you want with me?” I asked. “The drones. The stealth helicopter. The creepy Keles cultists. This seems like a lot of effort only to get at me.”

  Doyle smiled without mirth. “Not everything is about you, boy. You’re only backup for Monferrer. Dervaux’s plans concern the States; they wouldn’t rely on a street rat.”

  “She wants to sell the most dangerous invention since the atomic bomb,” I said. “Fantastic plans for a cartoon villain. How in hell do you not think of yourselves as minions?”

  “Let me use my fat stacks of money to dry my tears,” Doyle said. Martinez, though, wasn’t talking at all. Her face was tense and her gaze focused outside the window, like she was trying really hard not to punch her partner.

  More or less like I felt. Not many things I’d love more than to erase Doyle’s smirk from his face. Not yet, though. If I made my move before being sure, I’d be at their mercy. More at their mercy, I mean.

  Back to Martinez. “It never made sense,” I told her. “You two could’ve turned me in at any time when I was in the safe house. Why wait?”

  She didn’t reply, but Doyle was happy to rub it in. “Why not? You were always the backup. We had you right were we wanted: under surveillance. The drones flying the streets were meant to throw the CIA off of their game. To chase shadows. When it was time to bring you to the fold, we got you out of the FBI’s clutches. You fought back, so Martinez had to bring your dear mother into the equation.”

  And it would’ve worked if it weren’t for John Derry. I thought I had been giving them the slip all year long. Dervaux obviously played the game on another level. She merely looked at me as an achievement, not her main objective. And her main objective was…?

  “You leave her out of this,” I told them. “Or else…”

  “Or else what?” asked Doyle.

  Yes, Cole, or else what? You can’t threaten to jump out, you’re tied down. And if I’m only Dervaux’s backup, I have no leverage.

  “Where is my mother?” I asked, letting a note of defeat slip into my voice. “What have you done with her?”

  Martinez sighed. “She’s fine. Being watched by our people, not Keles’. If you play along, you’ve nothing to worry about, I promise you.”

  “That makes me feel so much better,” I spat out with my teeth clenched. If I wasn’t handcuffed, I might have tried to attack them, even if it would’ve been idiotic. Just to make a point.

  But Martinez was right. Cuffed or not, I’d have to play along.

  “So, backup. For what?” I turned to face Irene, who wasn’t shying away from my furious gaze, unlike Martinez. “What do they want with you? Besides being a manipulative bastard, that is. I don’t think I could replace you if that’s your job description.”

  At my side, Doyle was having the time of his life. “This is golden,” he laughed.

  We both ignored him. “I guess there’s no harm in you knowing. It’s not like we plan to keep it a secret in a few hours,” Irene said. “The Sleipnir Foundation is further along with the construction of the Device than you may think, Cole. The design comes with a trigger requirement. A failsafe, we think, but we’re not sure why it’s there. It’ll only work with people who were there during the Signal unlocking. Like me.”

  Okay. What? You were in the building alright… But you weren’t even connected to Rune at the time… Oh.

  Oh. You beautiful smart-ass.

  I would bet my ass she had forgotten to mention this little detail to the Sleipnir Foundation. Dervaux had no idea I was the only person who could press their “Doom Button” or whatever it was they had built. Irene had been covering my ass this entire time. I honestly couldn’t even fathom how she had convinced them to trust her in the first place. It was genius. The scheme of a century. Dervaux was screwed from the beginning and she didn’t even know it. The Device was useless… without me.

  I wanted to laugh and punch the air in triumph. Instead, I nodded in defeat and pretended I missed the hidden meaning behind her words. “I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

  I silently thanked whatever mysterious alien civilization thought of that failsafe, whatever their real motives. And I also thanked them for not making it an easy-to-find failsafe or I’d have spent the entire year locked away in new-Guantanamo, or Caputi’s house, whichever was worse.

  Now I knew why I was here. Dervaux was getting ready to launch her Device; she was even going to sell the plans to earn back what she spent. She was going to have her cake and eat it. And she was covering her bases, now not even fully trusting Irene to cooperate. With me here, Dervaux could use me as leverage against my girlfriend, or simply replace her altogether… I guess there was a reason Dervaux had once been so powerful.

  Then it hit me. I had made that happen… Even called them to capture me. All Irene’s work down the drain… But what else could I have done? They had my mother.

  A rational mind would sacrifice a single person if it saved millions. If the Device did what Beard suspected, yes, millions would suffer. Dervaux could probably rule the world, as insane as that sounded. If I were a rational person, a Spock and not a Kirk, perhaps I should have remained hidden…

  Yeah. No. Fuck that.

  Irene’s green eyes never lost track of mine. Calm and steely. Probably trying to tell me something. Perhaps, “What the hell? Get out of here!”

  Or maybe hoping that I hadn’t jumped into the snakes’ den without a way out. In my backpack, my little burn
er Berry was churning away, ignoring everything except its automated task. It was doing the only thing it was born to do. Deliver a script, and then shut itself down forever.

  I glanced up at the fuselage of the helicopter. My script wasn’t strong enough to punch through military firewalls. It was simply not possible, I doubted even someone like Roscoe could do it. Still, I had no idea if this drone was military or not. Even the Sleipnir Foundation didn’t have infinite money. If their firewall was vulnerable in any shape or form… But I had no way of knowing. I had to take a leap of faith.

  Burn, Berry, burn.

  I only had a torch. Let’s see if it could get rid of a couple snakes.

  I laughed aloud. The adrenaline made me sound like a shrieking madman. “That’s a hell of a confession, Irene. I’m a bit surprised you’re making this so easy.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Irene.

  “You all really thought I would just let you capture me and be done with it?”

  “Uh. Yes. That’s literally what we just did, asshole,” Doyle said.

  “You’ve been behind at every step of the way,” I said.

  “You know we’re trained to spot when someone’s bluffing, right?” he said.

  “Not bluffing. Think about it. That time with Keles? You thought I was done for, right? All those soldiers, and yet I managed to get away. Remember? I even brought a sniper team with me.”

  I remembered the exact words of Keles that night. Derry had fought them so fiercely they thought they were under fire by an entire team. With any luck, they hadn’t found out the truth was that a paranoid ex-CIA was on the run and on a roaring rampage of revenge.

  Doyle and Martinez exchanged a confused look and my chest almost visibly swelled with hope.

  Press the advantage. Don’t let them recover.

  “I even knew you were traitors. I knew how to call you, remember? The computer in your apartment. Why else would I have gone snooping around?”

  “Because you made a living stealing intel for money, you piece of sh—” started Doyle.

  “Wait,” Martinez shut him up with a wave of her hand. She gave me a look. “We do wonder how you managed to escape from the raid.”