Will hadn’t listened after that. But he took the backpacks with him for the return trip to the Cavern.
The disks inside resembled the compact disks Will remembered from his youth, though significantly thicker. He pulled out the small shovel in the bag and pushed into the soil at his feet. A few seconds later, he dropped one of the disks into the hole and replaced the dislodged soil. The cover-up didn’t require perfection. It would matter only if the disks were discovered and removed, or destroyed in their entirety over the next few hours. If they remained in place that long, discovery wouldn’t matter. Will moved two feet to his right and repeated the process, glancing up as the flecks of light projected on the visor moved. Each member of the team performed the same steps, gliding to the side to plant the next disk into the ground.
He patted the dirt down atop the last of his disks and glanced to his right. He spotted the slight disturbance in the ground where the nearest warrior had begun the planting exercise. Perfect. “Will Stark. Complete.” He spoke the words at a subvocal level, then listened. One by one, each member of the team reported in, doing so in a prescribed order, each waiting until his or her turn to speak. Will waited until the last person spoke and took a deep breath.
“Phase 1 complete. Move out.”
The flecks of light in his visor moved straight up and converged above the monorail station. The dots of light swayed with the light breeze that blew across the Island, and Will closed his eyes, hoping the breeze would carry from him the stress of the moment. He moved in silence with the others as they boarded the top of the monorail train for the thirty minute trip to Headquarters. It would be the last time the Alliance would travel in such a manner.
It was the last phase of the operation they’d conduct from the shadows.
The wave of unease hit him as the breeze buffeted him, unleashed by the rising speed of the train he rode. This was in so many ways his plan, the details given life by the greatest tactical mind the world had known. But though they’d executed the first few phases smoothly, pending eventual check-in from Ashley, he knew it couldn’t last. Portions would go wrong. The Aliomenti would react in ways they’d never anticipated.
Friends of his—including some aboard the train now—would die.
The sound of the wind hurtling past hid the sound of his guilty retching, dry heaves accompanied by tears. If he’d taken action years ago, if he’d eliminated the threats himself from the shadows with the technology he’d possessed decades and centuries earlier, none of this would be necessary. His failure to act would literally kill people.
He felt an invisible hand of reassurance, drawn to him by the deep emotion he’d emitted. He reached to his shoulder and grasped Hope’s hand, felt the comfort it brought. She alone knew of the guilt; he’d expressed it on many occasions in the final months and weeks leading to this day. She’d offered him comfort as best she could, but recognized no words would soothe his soul. He’d get comfort only when this war they’d initiated ended.
The train at long last slowed to a halt. They waited, anticipation mounting, as the human passengers disembarked. The flecks of light then flew up and away from the train again, ringing the Plaza surrounding the mammoth Headquarters monolith. Will checked his positioning against the flecks of light visible on his visor, ensuring proper spacing. He then pulled the shovel and first disk from the pack on his back and set to work. It was, he thought, like planting a seed for a giant tree. He, and the others digging in silence around the Plaza, would not be the ones who’d directly benefit from their work. It would be others, people who might never know their names or motivations, who’d owe their future safety, happiness, and survival to their work. It helped ease his mind of the unbearable guilt somewhat. At least some good would come of their work here today.
He felt a wave of nostalgia, remembering those who’d sacrificed everything to help them reach this point. The dozens of Alliance who’d toiled in silence, maintaining the secret of his birth, all so that he and Hope could meet and bear the children who’d rescue him and send him to the past. Those men and women would receive no thanks for their sacrifice. Will had gone to the distant past with his memory of their actions, scant though they were, erased from his mind. In many ways, it was the ultimate cruelty, to force those who’d benefit from your good deeds forcibly prevented from remembering those deeds. Yet they’d done it. Perhaps it was altruism. Perhaps they’d simply attracted to the Alliance people who’d, by their nature, step forward when the world needed volunteers for a thankless, dangerous mission. Perhaps it was practical, and they’d offered assistance knowing that Will’s survival and the births of Josh—Fil—and Angel were the key to their own altered existences. They’d fought for the right to be discovered in Will’s past and become part of the magical experience of life with the Alliance.
He wiped an invisible tear from his eye. He needed to save the reminiscing for the day when all of the fighting ended.
He tapped the dirt down atop the final disk. At this point, the only risk was the Porthos issue Hope had witnessed the day before. They’d discussed the issue in depth, and decided not to scrap this phase or alter it at this late date. It might destroy the effects of this particular phase of work—Will tamped down the dirt covering a disk and moved to the next spot—but the benefits outweighed the risks. They had their contingency plan in place. Hope’s quick thinking in having Porthos wipe the gel from his hands might make the concern moot, after all.
He needed to remain positive. It was all he could do. For the first time in centuries, they had no memory videos of the coming hours and days to tell them that the sacrifice and the risks would be worth it. They had no means to determine who would live and who would die. It was both terrifying and delightfully freeing, a true walk into the unknown. He suspected it was the reason he’d been outvoted on the cloning option; people wanted something other than a memory deciding their fate.
Will listened. One by one, he counted as each member of the team reported completion, letting him know that they’d completed tilling their own plot of land with the strangest “seeds” ever planted. He counted down, checked in with those running late. The “digging” phase was now complete.
He’d not heard from the thirty-first member of the team, though.
Will pulled the tablet computer from his pouch inside the expanded nanoskeleton and checked his communications link. It had been quite a feat getting their own private virtual data network running here on Headquarters Island, and a greater feat to keep it a secret from the prying eyes of the Aliomenti. The Aliomenti were likely to make the reasonable assumption that the Alliance would bring to Headquarters Island weapons for a physical fight. They’d thus have no reason to worry about an electronic form of warfare.
He checked his messages on the tablet and noted with concern the lack of communication from Ashley. He wondered if she’d hit a snag causing a delay… or worse. Will frowned. It wasn’t specifically necessary to wait for her to finish her task to unleash the first visible phase of the invasion, but moving on before her confirmation would waste a glorious opportunity to crush the financial empire of the Aliomenti.
He opted to wait a few more minutes to give her a chance. Ashley wouldn’t fail.
Another message popped up as he watched. Will read it and cursed quietly, a sound easily detected by the sensitive microphone he wore.
“Something wrong?” Hope, somewhere on the other side of the Plaza, had detected the deep concern in his tone.
He nodded, a gesture no one could see. “Very much so. Message from the Cavern. They’ve detected a fleet of armed submarines sitting outside the Cavern, poised and ready to attack.”
IX
ASHLEY FELT LIKE ALL THE air had left her lungs. She had the presence of mind to order her nanoskeleton to lift off the floor and avoid any collisions with the woman behind her, twisting around so she faced down. Ashley held her breath and watched as the woman walked.
She thought the woman paused for a fraction of a
second as she moved, just before reaching the spot Ashley had occupied seconds earlier, and she realized that her rapid ascent would stir up a light breeze. But in an environment like this, with cooling fans running at all times, it was easy to explain that sensation away.
The woman walked below Ashley and toward the operations desk. “Bernard? Is that you?”
Ashley exhaled slowly, keeping her breathing inaudible. The woman hadn’t seen or heard Ashley. She’d merely heard her colleague, Bernard, enter the data center room.
“Yes, it’s me, Juliette.” She heard the joy in his voice, and couldn’t stop the bemused smile on her face. A potential romance in the server room?
“That’s good. I thought I heard… something else.” Juliette reached Bernard at the operations desk, and her voice descended to a whisper.
Ashley shuddered. Perhaps she hadn’t gone unnoticed after all. She felt a silent vibration in the pack at her waist and ignored it. That would be Will, checking in with her. Ashley dared not respond, not until she better understood what Juliette noticed. The woman claimed she’d “heard something,” and Ashley wondered if the pause and inflection in her tone meant she’d “heard” Ashley’s Energy, despite all the efforts at Shielding. At this point, until the two workers dismissed their concerns, Ashley felt uncomfortable removing anything from the pouch and continuing forward with her task. Important as it was, she couldn’t be caught now, before she’d done her job.
She waited.
Juliette finally left five minutes later. Bernard walked her to the elevator doors. Ashley could hear the giggling as the pair conversed and feel the interest between the two IT workers. She rolled her eyes. They needed to reschedule their flirting for some other time. The invasion was now off schedule.
The elevator doors finally closed behind Juliette. Bernard watched, his face etched with longing for the woman just departed. He sighed, turned, and moved back to the operations desk. Within seconds, he was immersed in his work, and Ashley’s sensitive hearing detected the sounds of keystrokes.
Finally. Time to move.
She checked her hand to ensure she still held the Interceptor and hadn’t crushed it in the excitement just passed. It was there, and a quick check revealed that the device remained operational. She floated back down to the ground behind the equipment rack and attached the device to the network port on the rear of the server. Though it was constructed of clear plastics, the device wasn’t invisible. Human eyes might detect it if they knew what to look for, but she’d be safe if Bernard didn’t decide to perform a hardware check on this specific unit in the next few minutes.
That was a concern, since she was about to make him quite aware of this specific machine.
She nestled on the ground, resting her back against the cabinet, and pulled out her tablet computer. Will’s message was there, but she was so far behind schedule at this point she needed to get her process rolling. She opened the Interceptor app and executed several test commands to ensure the device worked. All status checks were positive.
She pulled another item from her pouch and stood, putting herself in close proximity to the back of the equipment. She felt the hot air pump from the devices contrasting with the cold air pumped at the machines from the blowers above. Data centers and computer technology had advanced in a significant manner. The Aliomenti increased their security, ironically, by using older equipment no self-respecting hacker in the present day even knew existed.
Ashley, however, was no ordinary hacker.
She put the lighter near the back of her identified machine and flicked it on, watching as the flame grew bright. The machines were heat generators, but she’d make Bernard think a problem existed if the internal temperature of the machine rose too quickly. The flame should initiate an alarm at any moment.
She heard the beeping sounds from the operations desk a moment later. She extinguished the flame and pulled a silent smoke vacuum from her pouch. She’d leave no evidence of a heat source outside the server generating an alarm Bernard would quickly think a false alarm. Once complete, she pushed the self-destruct buttons on the light and smoke vacuum, and both devices disintegrated instantly. All of her tools had self-destruct options. She could leave nothing behind, leave no clues as to what she’d done or why she’d been there.
In the distance, she heard Bernard curse above the sound of the coolers.
She sat back down against the cabinet, a bit too quickly, and reached for her tablet once more. The app showed Bernard’s keystrokes leaving the massive highway of cables for this specific machine, and she gave a triumphant fist pump as the tablet identified his user identification code and password.
She now had full access to the server and the entire Aliomenti network. Success.
She used the tablet to upload two software programs she’d written after a quick refresher course on a programming language not seen in most technology since the early twenty-first century. The first duplicated software she and Adam wrote two centuries earlier. It would transfer microscopic amounts of money at a time out of the most privately held Aliomenti accounts into a series of accounts owned by fictitious corporations. Those accounts would be swept instantly clean to other accounts. After dozens of such transfers, there’d be such a dizzying trail left behind that even the most resourceful investigators would throw their hands into the air in disgust and walk away. Adam had used the approach to empty the Stark family trust funds. Ashley would now do the same to the private accounts of the members of the Aliomenti.
If effective, it would hit the Aliomenti right where it hurt the most. With their cash reserves destroyed, they’d be forced to sell other assets… or risk exposure in an attempt to regain what they’d lost in non-human fashion. They certainly could do that. But the expectation the Alliance had developed in putting this plan in place centered on the idea of destabilizing the lives of the rank and file. Most were, by now, quite accustomed to possessing the type of wealth that never needed to consider costs. What they desired they owned, without fail and without delay. The destruction of those cash accounts, for even a few months, would lead to deep emotional traumas, the psychological equivalent of losing a limb. Or two. Some had argued they ought to stop the invasion with this and let the Aliomenti destroy themselves from the inside. But they’d recognized that Arthur’s brainwashing of all members of the Aliomenti wouldn’t permit true destruction, just a great deal of discomfort and paranoia. They’d need to disable permanently the top leadership, the Elites, or nothing she did today would matter.
The second program served a more immediate and tactical purpose. The virus she uploaded would disable outbound communication from the Island. Those working here would be able to communicate with others present at Headquarters, but efforts to raise the ninety percent of the Aliomenti who worked elsewhere would fail. This effort prevented the successful transmission of a mayday signal to those off Island. Some of the stronger Aliomenti might be able to reach others with telepathic messages, but the isolation inherent in this location would now work against the Aliomenti Elites. They were stuck with whoever remained behind.
She’d worked hard to make the code invisible. They needed to keep Headquarters isolated. Will’s army was all volunteers; he’d not be able to gather additional forces to his side. Arthur, with communication access to the world, could summon the entirety of his brainwashed organization to his side and order the extermination of the Alliance who’d so thoughtfully walked through his front door. The plan was sound, it reflected their values—that’s why they’d not just had Fil teleport in and raze the Island—and they’d identified most contingencies. But the risks remained. She almost sighed aloud. Fil-as-dynamite seemed a better plan and a lesser risk by far. None of them would sleep well for the rest of their lives, though.
She’d also insisted upon taking on this job alone with self-destructing tools and transport. One person had the best chance of succeeding without detection. One person caught here looked like an isolated effort, one that didn’t por
tend an imminent attack by the Alliance. If she was caught alone, they’d never know why she’d truly come here.
Ashley activated both programs after completing the code transfers. She logged into one of the shell bank accounts and watched, satisfied, as the balance grew at a slow but steady pace. The code worked. The longer it worked, the better.
She logged out and activated the self-destruct on the tablet. As she began to remove the network interceptor, her shoe caught on the slight indentation between the large tiles supporting the cabinet housing the server she’d just hacked. She stumbled lightly into the cabinet. The cabinet shifted, ever so slightly, and Ashley froze. Had Bernard heard the noise? She held her breath for several long seconds. Bernard hadn’t said a word. After several seconds, she decided she was safe. She pulled the Interceptor from the network port and activated the self-destruct mechanism, watching as the device evaporated.
Then she turned and floated into the air, gliding toward the elevator doors.
She needed to wait until someone—Bernard, perhaps, or the woman named Juliette he’d doted on—opened the elevator doors. Once they did, she’d float in the car and ride back to the main level and to freedom. If chaos erupted and news of the Alliance invasion reached his room, she’d teleport away, with no reason to mask her Energy against detection.
For now, though, she waited.
She watched Bernard work.
He pulled out a small binder, one with yellowed pages covered with pictures and words she couldn’t identify from her perch high above. His eyes and head moved as he read the words. Ashley noticed that his hands shook, as if the words disturbed him deeply. When he finished reading, he closed the binder slowly, silently. His movements were stiff and slow, almost as if he feared being noticed or heard. He rose from his chair and moved toward the elevator
Convergence Page 6
