The Secretary made his decision and broadcast it to his surviving Captains. "Captain Davies, you are now in command of the entire group. Keep your ten-man Team intact. Leave two troopers on the flanks as scouts, join the remainder of the other two teams into one Team, have them speed up to get ahead of the Captain. Captain Booth, you will assume the role Team leader of different groups as the situation warrants.
In four miles, you'll see a large depression, a bowl shape. You get the high ground and stop them in the middle of the bowl. You should have a clear shot and be able to knock one out before they break for one flank or the other. Make sure your people know they are not to take out the Captain. And note, when they break for the flank, you are to let them go.
You will order your flanking scouts to move away and not engage. Understood?" said Carpenter
"Yes, Sir, understood. Force them to stop in the bowl, go to doubling up to knock out one man, not the Captain. Flankers to retreat when they break," repeated Captain Davies.
Your weapons are at full power. Good hunting, Team Leader," said Carpenter.
"Thank you Sir," said Captain Davies.
Carpenter gave a short series of hand motions, the screens changed to show Captain Davies eye feed on his main screen and he heard the orders clearly given. ""Flanking teams, leave two scouts behind, separate from Captain by one-quarter mile. Others, go full ahead, join in four miles on the far side of the mapped depression showing on your systems. Flanking scouts immediately retreat if approached. I repeat, flankers immediately retreat if approached."
Carpenter smiled as the overhead view on his secondary screen showed the Team movement as they drew ahead of the Captain . They'd be able to take the positions he'd planned.
"Switch to live view, and send to main city channels in ten minutes," he ordered his broadcast Team.
He thought for a second, then added, "Advise Corporate of impending action."
26/05/2167 16:00:00
"Captain, ghosts to right flank have disappeared."
Followed almost immediately by, "Ghosts to left gone too."
Then "Correct that Sir, we have two ghosts at one-eighth mile on the right," followed by the same correction from the left flank.
"New tactic, people, they're setting us up for something. Flanks pull in to fifty-yards, point and rear stay out. Keep awake people, this is the second phase where they whittle us down a bit, delay us or wound us in some way," said the Captain.
"Point, go to max speed for one minute or until ghost contact. Extend search capacity as far as you can. Report back every 15 seconds. We need to see if the main attack is coming from the front or back. Go."
"Rear - do the same. Drop back until contact."
The minute stretched out until almost the last second, when the point reported back, "Captain, troopers dead ahead, stationary, ten of them approximately one-half mile ahead."
"Right, ten ahead, ten to our rear and two on each flank. Point, return, maintain fifty-yards. Rear close it back up, maintain fifty-yards as well. Heads-up people, there's shit about to come down the pipe. We stop here for a break."
The Captain looked at his maps, aware the suit feeds sent everything he did back to the Secretary. Fok. Our options are limited here. We get to go north or south and that's about it. North is to the damn swamps and grasslands. South is even hillier and rockier than this. Good news is we can ambush better. Bad news is so can they. Can't win a fight with my nine against their ten and if we hesitate, that rear group will push us into the front and we'll be fighting twenty of them. That's not good. Decision-point time is almost here, he thought taking a sip of energy drink from his suit systems. Now how the hell can I surprise them?
"Gentlemen, let's take a slow walk forward for a few minutes, keep me advised about any position change from the rear," he ordered.
Five minutes passed with silence and slow but deliberate action out in the field, as the Captain and his Team walked between the two larger forces.
Hell, Davies' flanking and rear troopers are closing up and that depression ahead looks like a kill zone, the Captain thought. He smiled. I'll bet the Secretary is waiting for the audience numbers to peak and start to fade before he does something. Must be getting really close to that about now. He'll be chomping to attack but holding off until the last minute to prolong those numbers, he thought.
I don't have much time to decide north or south. Hell, there's no sense going north into those swamps. I've been bitten by more mosquitoes than I want to think about already. He raised an eyebrow at the thought. Plus, I'd love to set some ambushes of my own if that's possible, he thought.
Making up his mind, the Captain suddenly ordered, "Full suit power, full attack speed, teams of three as standard exercise, maintain fifty-yard width distance between teams in one broad line, due South. Spread out, concentrate fire on singleton targets. Go! Go!"
And within seconds, three teams had formed to turn south. They ran towards the rolling hills and rocks with a kill zone that was one-hundred-and-fifty-yards wide.
Ah, we lulled them with that pacing. Good. It worked, thought the Captain as his Team swept down onto the two flanking scouts. Got you to come a bit too close didn't I? he thought.
"George, Smythe, with me, focus on the left one. Sergeant, Jackson, West take the right," he ordered. "Fire when in range."
It was a brief firefight, the two flanking troopers were caught by the six attackers and their suits couldn't protect them. They died quickly and silently.
"Our man is down," reported the Sergeant.
"Ours as well," replied the Captain
"Team, straight south, close it up, running together as a group for the next five miles," ordered the Captain.
The Captain and his men swept south towards the rock fields and steep hills.
26/05/2167 16:15:00
The Secretary's communication channel lit up and he could see it was the Chairman calling but so was every other pain in the ass. He shut down all incoming calls to order, "Sky-Sec, bracket Captain's group, four level-B missiles from the drones, distance from the group fifty yards. Bracket them. Now."
All monitoring screens changed to the drone point of view to show four missile smoke trails across the sky. The views broke in multiple panes as the overhead views continued.
"All Security troops, swivel for camera shot to due South," and as one, the remaining twenty-two troopers turned due south to follow the missile vapor trails and subsequent explosions on either side of the fleeing troopers. These views were added to the main screen views as well, and the city paused to watch.
The Secretary stood, walked to a secondary screen showing audience betting patterns and smiled. The battle itself produced massive viewer numbers and the betting odds of the Captain's survival started to rise. His missile strike immediately drove the odds of his success down to zero. The numbers made it clear, nobody in the city expected them to survive that level of attack.
Carpenter smiled, did a fist pump and turned to smile at Corporate headquarters.
"Connect me with the Chairman," he ordered.
26/05/2167 16:18:00
Even with his suit at full protection, the Captain felt the ground shake, saw the smoke plumes and understood the message. He had annoyed the Secretary in a major way and this was the return message. Missiles certainly have a way of communicating simple truths. Bastard is sending a clear message, he owns me and the Team. Got the message boss, he thought. Got the message.
I wonder how much I can veer back east toward the safe zone before he fires another level-b he wondered? He smiled and thought, let's test that out for a bit. He sprinted to the front of the line to lead and moved their course three degrees eastward. Every time he came to a choice in pathways he always took the easterly choice.
I think I'll try another few degrees in twenty minutes he thought. No sense pushing our luck. And I have to take point because I don't want to tell my guys. That would be broadcasting it to that bastard. Leading by example I think
they called it at command school, he chuckled.
His troops followed at intervals to ensure the entire group wouldn't be snared in a single ambush.
He wondered how far away Davies and his people were and what they were doing. Going to find out sooner or later he thought. Probably sooner, like right about dinner time.
Pictures and vids of both groups through the increasingly hilly ground and narrower trails were broadcast to the city. While everyone understood this was now a break period, not a single person disconnected from the show but left it running in the background or alternate system views.
07:06:2167 18:08:00
In the Techno Warrior with friends, Jake went white when he saw the missile shots on the shop vids. The exclamations from his friends and others nearby made him inwardly cringe, and he hoped the server still protected him. Fok.
"You are safe for now. Remember to control your biometrics and your physical appearance," said the reassuring and now familiar voice.
The excited babble around Jake was repeated in every gathering in the city as people absorbed what had just happened. The Captain had just reduced the chase teams by two more troopers and the fight intensity had increased tremendously. There was a palpable sense of relief and excitement that maybe, just maybe he'd succeed.
The missile strike immediately crushed any hopes or expectations. For most of them, this was the very first missile strike they had ever seen and the camera shots of debris, flame and smoke had them buzzing. There was no way anybody could survive that amount of raw power. The crowd quieted.
Jake and his friends each made eye contact around the table confirming their mutual dissatisfaction in as subtle a way as possible. They knew who was watching for any signs of rebellion and they knew how it was done. As the silence of the crowd gave way to the noise and possibilities of being young and having more to drink, Jake hunched down in his corner seat to control his breathing and other biometric readings but swore to himself. Fokking computer, fokking father who gave it to me.
He was oblivious to the physical signals he was sending to the watching cameras and analytic software.
07:06:2167 19:15:00
"Mr. Secretary Sir, I have data you'll want to see right away," the Lieutenant's message scrolled across his feed.
"Come," said Carpenter.
A few seconds later the Lieutenant hesitated at the open door, but then, head high and eyes straight forward, marched across to the Secretary's desk, came to attention, saw the Secretary's frown, took a deep breath and said, "Sir, several points. First city population hormone checks are off the charts. We have warning signals from several different parts of the city but mainly in the entertainment area where the young people are partying. They clearly approved of the Captain's strike and disapproved of our using missiles.
But Sir, as before we have to evaluate the entertainment district separately, the data down there is so diverse it can't be trusted without some form of confirmation. We're following up on all those who pushed through the upper limits and will have confirmation as soon as we can get them out of the district. There will be a ton of false positives there just because of the drinking and the age of the group. I've ordered a full biometric evaluation but we'll also be combining it with facial and body language data from the video feeds we installed earlier."
He rushed on before the Secretary could react, "Sir, I can also report the new search parameters have started identifying people who are not our target. We've eliminated one-quarter of the target group and the speed has increased as the search servers focus more and more on those remaining. We have real progress. It's still too early to estimate a time for sure Sir, but we have moved forward in a positive way. We'll get him. Particularly if he makes a small mistake or two, we'll get him."
The Secretary watched the young man carefully as he finished his short speech and held the young man's gaze without responding. He then smiled in spite of himself and nodded.
"Good work, Lieutenant. Remember, keep this search and its results between the two of us. Dismissed."
After the young man had left, the Secretary leaned back to think about this. He was getting close to somebody who could work the Servers anonymously. It was just a matter of time now. When that anonymity and server control was combined with his troopers, there was nothing he wouldn't control or influence. But first he had to prolong the Chase another few days to get full control of the servers.
"Sky-Sec, should the Captain veer southeast towards the safe zone, drop a missile directly in his path, distance one-hundred yards. I don't want him hurt but I don't want him turning. And advise me immediately. Understood?"
"Yes Sir."
It was time to call it a day, Carpenter decided. Tomorrow would be much, much better.
08:06:2167 07:27:00
<6t94whp>:"There are two massive demands on the system. The first is a search already mentioned. They're running a negative effect search but we've created issues to delay it. Possible identity tags for us are being fixed as we speak. We should be safe enough. But I can't figure out the second program yet. It is guarded at an insanely high security level. I have no idea who could do that but whoever is doing it, he's impressive."
<6t94whp>: "That's unfortunately correct - he may not be. But we knew that going in. It's the best chance we've had and likely our last one to change anything meaningful. We talked about this. Remember?
But as for the search, the initial parameters looked for larger patterns so the program was set to fix them first. We're that first pattern. This second search is working on both large and small patterns in a smaller group. The newbie may be picked up before the repair software gets far enough. It depends on how much of a trail he's left. It's an interesting race, if the software can correct the patterns before Security finds those patterns, we're all safe. If not, we should be safe but our new friend is likely caught.
The new Lieutenant is adept at his job. Only access the servers when it's absolutely critical and reduce traffic between us."
The meeting shut down.
08:06:2167 07:35:00
"Mr. Secretary, I need to talk to you for a minute."
Thirty seconds later, Lieutenant Chambers marched through the door, snapped to attention in front of the desk and smiled.
"Sir, last night, I took the liberty to run a search for anomalies around the latest incident. It was outside the big one but decided I'd target young people under 25, male, with good computer skills," Chambers said and paused.
"Mr Secretary, we may have him."
Carpenter sat up straighter, locked eyes with the Lieutenant and said, "May?"
"Sir, these things aren't 100 percent but the reliability is at 67 percent accuracy levels. It's close enough to tell you, to give you a heads-up. If the followup checks confirm these results, I should receive a ninety-plus percent confirmation within an hour at most," said Chambers.
"The only people to know this are the two of us. Correct?" asked Carpenter. He raised
one eyebrow and cocked his head without breaking eye contact.
"Yes, Sir."
"Good work, Lieutenant, I can see a huge bonus and promotion coming your way if this works. Let me know the minute you have an acceptable level of confirmation," said Carpenter.
"Yes Sir," said the Lieutenant who then saluted, turned, and marched out of the office.
The Secretary smiled to himself, leaned back in his chair, locked his hands behind his head and swiveled to stare out over the city. This will be fine, just fine he thought.
08:06:2167 07:40:00
"Gentlemen, it's a new day out there so shake your boots out," said the Captain. His suit had adjusted his hormone levels bringing him out of a deep sleep, his first since he started running. He stood looking over the troopers as they woke.
A chorus of groans was all the response he got.
The sergeant stood first. "Not going to smell very nice in this suit in a few seconds," said Sergeant Price. He grinned at Fraser.
"Don't want to know and you get your ass downwind," said Fraser pointing. He returned the grin, and the Sergeant never moved. Maintaining eye contact, Fraser shook his head and moved a few paces away to continue looking at his Team.
Fraser watched the men push themselves up, come to awareness as their suits adjusted their hormone levels to full wakefulness. One by one, they lifted their visors, stood and walked to stand in front of him. When they were all assembled, he began.
"Gentlemen, I've been thinking and I welcome your thoughts. We have a choice, we can keep running and try to get to the safe zone. But how many of you believe we'll make it there, or whether Carpenter will honor that if we do? Bastard is just as likely to take us all out inside the zone as outside.
Flee or Kill: The Future Of Reality TV (Future Forward Book 2) Page 15
