Sulan Box Set (Episodes 1-4)

by Camille Picott

  “Gun!” Nate yells, voice insistent. “Listen to me!”

  There’s enough panic is his friend’s voice to once again cut through Vex. Why isn’t he sending messages through the watch Axcent like they usually do? Gun mutes the volume, but doesn’t remove the Vex set; if he leaves the site, he won’t be allowed back in. The mouth of Imugi’s mask continues to move, but Gun can’t hear anything being said.

  “What is it?” he asks Nate.

  “The firewall,” Nate bursts. “It’s the same architecture we saw at Claudine’s birthday party.”

  Gun’s blood runs cold. “What?”

  “Remember how I told you it was a patchwork of firewalls and intrusion detection systems all knitted together from VHS kids?” Nate asks. “Well, the patchwork code is identical to what we saw at the party.”

  “But . . .” Gun struggles to incorporate this information into his preexisting worldview.

  “There’s something else,” Nate says. “Remember that MAC anomaly the Dread Twins found?”

  Gun remembers. The string of numbers with BB5 at the beginning. BB5. Something about that tickles the back of his mind. Why does it seem familiar?

  “It’s the MAC for the device controlling the auction site,” Nate says. “Gun, the Winns are the League. They’re selling their own people!”

  Gun’s vision blurs as the impact of Nate’s words hit him. The Winns are the League.

  It all unravels before him with frightening clarity. It’s so obvious, so brilliant. How had he missed this?

  The Winns created the ultimate unification for the United States: a universal enemy. With that enemy in play, their business has done nothing but reap the benefit. Their profits are through the roof and the entire country sees Global Arms as a hero.

  More importantly, the country’s defense contract is up for renewal. Global Arms is garnering positive press with many League attacks. They’re on the forefront of everyone’s mind.

  This is a marketing and PR campaign unlike any Gun has ever seen. Even from his position, he can’t help but marvel at the brilliance.

  Claudine even flaunted it right in his face at her birthday party. BB5. “Bald boys suck,” she’d said to Gun.

  It hadn’t been an insult. She’d been bragging.

  He’d been correct in guessing the 5 stood for an S, but it took him until now to link it with Claudine. BB5 was the MAC address for the League computer. That explained why it only showed up once in the Global data log; it wasn’t supposed to be used for Global work. Someone got sloppy, or perhaps had been in a hurry. It was meant to be used exclusively for League work, just as it was being used now.

  It had all been right in front of him. He’d been too stupid to see it.

  “BB5,” Gun growls. He slams his fist against his knees. “I need you guys to find the exact location of Sulan’s whereabouts. And get Kappa on the line. Tell him to load up an EMP bomb.”

  “Bro, are you sure this is all a good idea?” Gun can’t see Nate’s face, but the hesitancy in his friend’s voice comes through loud and clear.

  Gun has never been so sure of anything in his life. “I’m going to help Sulan any way I can. Tether to my Vex connection and get to work.”

  “You’re the boss,” Nate says, muttering a few other things about lovesick idiots.

  Gun ignores him, cranks the Vex volume back up, and unmutes his avatar. Every part of him narrows with concentration and focus.

  “And now,” Imugi says, “it’s time to enter the auction room. I wish you all the best of luck.”

  Gun readies himself. The Winns are the League. They have Sulan. They’re going to sell Sulan. Or try to, anyway. Gun won’t let that happen.

  Whatever it takes, he’s going to get her out of there. And no matter what, she can’t know the truth about the Winns. It’s the sort of information that gets people killed.

  Shoulders squared, he follows the other avatars into the auction room.

  16

  Infiltrate

  The auction site transfers him automatically to his assigned seat. Luckily, he’s near the front, where Sulan will be able to see him. He chose the Frog Man avatar with the hope she would recognize him.

  When Sulan and the others are brought into the auction, displayed on a rotating dais like cattle, Gun wants to rip down the Vex site with his bare hands. When Imugi enters and begins the auction, Gun finds himself wondering about the person behind the avatar.

  Could it be Reginald Winn? Or even Claudine?

  He dismisses the idea. The Winns would never expose themselves unnecessarily, not even behind an avatar mask. No, there’s someone else behind the mask.

  As Gun joins the bidding fray, he vows to find the real-world person behind Imugi. Whoever it is will pay for what’s being done to Sulan.

  “Gun!” Nate shouts in his ear.

  Gun grits his teeth as his attention is split between Vex and the real-world. “What?” he grinds out.

  “We’ve got a hook into their firewall! We need a distraction.”

  Gun snaps fully back into Vex. In those few seconds, the bids climbed to nine hundred million. It makes his temper boil to see all these rich jerks trying to buy his Short Stuff.

  Nate needs a distraction? Gun will give them all a distraction.

  He stands. “One billion.” He lets his voice boom.

  In the gap of stunned silence, he raises his arms and releases the Twains. Hundreds of tiny frogs pour from his tuxedo sleeves, filling the auction room in a hopping cloud of green and black. When they start detonating and lighting avatars on fire, Nate shouts, “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up! The avatars are cranking up their personal firewalls. The League site is struggling to keep from being flattened.”

  Gun smiles without humor. Nate wants chaos? He’ll give his friend chaos.

  • • •

  Twenty-two minutes later, Nate crows, “We have it! We have their location! Deploying the EMP bomb.”

  Gun stands amid the wreckage of the auction site. Imugi is dead. Sulan and her friends are safe, for the moment.

  Gun restrains himself from snarling at the merc boy who clearly likes Sulan. All that matters is Sulan’s safety and the merc boy is nothing if not an asset. The EMP bomb will give them all a chance to escape.

  “Get ready,” he tells her. “Wherever you are, get out of there. You know how to find me.”

  The last thing he sees is Sulan’s dark eyes. He allows himself a full second to dwell in their depths. Then her Vex link is fried by the EMP bomb. As she disappears from sight, he yanks off his Vex set.

  “Pacific Ocean,” Nate says, answering Gun’s unspoken question. “She’s several hundred miles offshore.

  “Drones,” Gun replies. “Do we have any drones in their vicinity?”

  “Deploying drones from San Francisco base,” Lox says. “Estimated time of arrival is twenty-two minutes.”

  “Flying speed?”

  “Eight.”

  “Crank them up to ten.”

  “Not advisable,” Mage says. “That will eat up the batteries and cut down your recon time.”

  Gun grinds his teeth, knowing Mage is right. “Satellite imagery,” he snaps. “Get me live footage.”

  Several silent seconds pass as his team works. Nate flicks the tablet, throwing an image up on the screen mounted behind Gun’s desk.

  “This is all we can get of the area,” Nate says.

  On the screen is a big, blurry blotch of dark gray.

  “They have a cloaking device,” Mage calls from the tablet. “It’s blocking imagery for a two hundred mile radius.”

  Gun slams his fist on the desk. “Damn it. I need to see what’s going on! Will the drones be able to transmit when they arrive?”

  “Unlikely,” Nate says. “They’ll be blocked by the cloaking device.”

  Gun slams his fist against the desk a second time. He glares at nothing in particular, pacing up and down. If only his ornithropter could get him to Sulan. But the trip
would take him at least eight hours, and by then he’d be of no use to Sulan.

  Nothing to do but wait for the drones. He did not like recalling the number of times he almost lost Sulan.

  He continues to pace, replaying the battle with the Leaguers in his head: Sulan, charging through the orange cloud of Mortality like an Olympian heroine, not caring the Black Tech made her mortal in Vex; her fight against the Leaguers with the merc boy, the two of them catching the Leaguers by surprise with Mortality and taking them out; and Sulan firing her gun into the monstrous neck of Imugi while Gun brought his knife down into the creature’s skull.

  She was so brave, so strong.

  “Oh, no,” Nate says. The Dread Twins let out a string of curses.

  “What is it?” Gun spins toward the computer screen on the wall.

  The cloak has been deactivated. An image coalesces on the screen, the gray blur burning off like fog. In the darkness is flickering orange that sends Gun’s stomach into his feet.

  “Zoom in,” he orders.

  The screen blurs as the satellite image is enlarged. The initial image is pixelated. Seconds pass while the satellite relay focuses, at last giving Gun a good look at the scene below.

  It’s a giant metal freighter ship. A big hole has been blown in the hull, arms of flame lapping at its edges. The ship lists on its side, taking in great gulps of water.

  Something glints in the light of the fire, bobbing in the water. It looks like a large, man-made object, though it’s difficult to make out the details.

  “What’s that?” Gun points to the glint. “Zoom in on that.”

  Could it be Sulan and her friends? Did they get to a life raft, or perhaps find a minisub for escape? He wouldn’t put it past her to pull off a stunt like that.

  The image resolves. Gun blinks, trying to make sense of what he’s seeing. It is indeed a minisub. The interior is smudged and indistinct in the gloom, but he makes out someone moving inside. He sees a flash of black hair and pale skin. Could it be—?

  The image blurs over. The screen is once again filled with a gray smear.

  “What just happened?” Gun demands.

  “Another cloaking device was activated,” Nate says. “Or maybe several devices. The radius has grown to five hundred square miles.”

  “Damn it.” Where is Sulan? He refuses to believe she’s on the sinking freighter ship. She has to be in that minisub. She and her friends would have activated the cloaking devices to cover their escape.

  “Find all the nearest land masses and deploy drones.” If Sulan is in the minisub, she has to surface somewhere. She’ll need land. “If you see even a hint of the minisub, notify me immediately.”

  “Where are you going?” Nate asks.

  “Not me,” Gun replies. “We. My father needs to be updated.”

  Nate makes a face. “Don’t you think my skills are put to better use here?”

  “Yes, but my father won’t see it that way. Either come with me now, or come in five minutes when he sends for you.”

  Nate peels himself out of the chair, reluctance obvious in his face. He falls into step beside Gun, the two of them heading toward the elevator that will carry them to William Anderson.

  17

  New Assignment

  “He’s what?” William Anderson’s roar could flatten a refugee camp.

  Gun faces his father’s with a stoic expression, keeping his anxiety for Sulan behind a carefully constructed wall.

  “Reginald Winn is the League,” he repeats in a flat voice.

  Anderson lets out a wordless shout of rage. His arms sweep across the top of his desk, sending everything crashing to the ground. Several sculptures shatter as they hit the floor. A computer tablet lands on its side and cracks.

  “Tell me everything again,” Anderson snaps. “Wait, get your mother and sister first. They need to hear this. And you!” This is directed at Nate, who freezes with his hand on the door of Anderson’s study. “Don’t even think about leaving. I need you here too.”

  Nate flinches, caught in the act of trying to sneak away, and backs away from the door. Gun gives him an I-told-you-so look.

  Once Margaret, Maia, and Maia’s assistant, Tracie, have all been roused—none of them pleased about being woken in the middle of the night—Gun recounts all the information he’s gathered over the past few months, ending with everything he saw and learned at the League auction earlier this evening.

  By the time he’s finished, Anderson’s face is ruddy with rage. “And you stayed for the auction?” he demands. “Why didn’t you come to me immediately with this intel?”

  Gun looks his father in the eye. “My friend was in trouble.” He uses the word “friend” on purpose. He could have used “contact” or “inside source,” but he doesn’t. “I did what I could to help her.”

  “Your friend.” Anderson scoffs.

  “William,” Margaret admonishes. “Our son is fond of this girl. Don’t diminish or dismiss that.”

  “Fondness doesn’t serve any useful purpose,” Anderson says. “Fondness delayed a vital report for over an hour.”

  “But he got a location,” Maia says. “Gun found out where the kids were being held.”

  “And wasted an EMP bomb.” Anderson scowls. “Do you know how much those things cost?”

  “God, you’re insufferable.” Margaret elbows her husband. “Will you give it a rest?”

  “Give it a rest? Reginald Winn is about to pull off the coup of the century! We can’t use any of the evidence Gun gathered. All it will do is prove Anderson Arms had a representative at the League auction. That could get us thrown in jail for treason!”

  Margaret turns her back on Anderson with a huff. “Son,” she says, “you will let us know if any of the drones locate your girl?” Her voice is sweet, but there’s a hard edge to her words. She’s doing her best to soften a tense situation, but she’s not immune to its effects.

  “Of course.” Gun straightens. “I’m going to go back to check them now.” He’s nearly to the door, with Nate in tow, when Anderson stops him.

  “Son.”

  Gun stops, but doesn’t turn around.

  “From now on, your mission is to find admissible proof that Reginald is behind the League. Discontinue all other projects. I want every waking minute of every day spent finding a way to bring down Global. Hell, I want you working on this problem in your sleep. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.” As if he would do any less with Sulan out there in danger.

  • • •

  She’s gone.

  Gun stares out the window, watching the noon shadows shift on the leaves of his mother’s fruit trees. His eyes are grainy from lack of sleep. His head aches and he can barely think straight.

  Forty-eight hours of searching. Satellite footage, drone reconnaissance, constant surveillance on all Vex sites where Sulan might go. None of it yields a thing. He even sent drones to the perimeter of the cloaked area to do sweeps along the water. A few had infrared capabilities, but they captured nothing but the darting forms of sea life.

  It’s like the world swallowed her whole. Is she even alive? Could she have died in that explosion?

  She can’t be dead. She can’t be.

  He watches the footage over and over. Studies every inch of it. He enlarges the minisub, but can’t discern anything beyond the smudgy outline of a dark-haired person. If it is Sulan and her friends in the minisub, they have somehow evaded his searching.

  “Come on, bro.” Nate sets a sandwich on the windowsill. “You have to eat.”

  Gun ignores him. His insides feel twisted up.

  “Have you heard the rumors?” Nate asks. “There are reports popping up all over Vex saying Imugi is dead.”

  “I’ve heard them.” This might be significant if there was a chance Reginald Winn was dead. But Gun knows better. What’s the big deal if the hired pawn behind Imugi was killed? Reginald and Claudine are the ones who need taking out.

  “Wanna
spar? I bet I could give you a good ass kicking right now.” Nate grins to show he’s joking.

  Gun doesn’t smile back.

  Nate sighs. “All right, bro. I get it. I’ll give you space. Just—”

  A sudden high, shrill beeping cuts him off. Both Gun and Nate swivel toward the tablet sitting on the desk.

  “My Vex sweep.” Gun lunges for the tablet. “It found something about Sulan.”

  He grabs the tablet. He taps the screen, connecting it to the larger monitor on the wall.

  Reginald Winn’s onocle face smiles out at them. His olive green cowboy hat is cocked to one side. Gun’s mood sours even further at the sight of the man.

  What would the world think if they knew what Reginald really looked like? He wasn’t the trim, elderly gent portrayed in Vex. He is a fat, blowfish of a man who can—and would—swindle a starving family out of their last meal.

  “Global press release,” Nate says. He’s on his own tablet now, fingers flying over the screen. “Almost two million viewers are watching.”

  A headline scrolls across the top of the screen. It reads, Imugi slain by Global teens.

  Sulan. Gun clenches his fists. If Reginald hurt her, Gun will tear Global apart with his bare hands.

  “My fellow Americans,” Reginald says, “I come to you tonight with the news to make your hearts sing. I come to you tonight with news of Imugi’s downfall.”

  Gun spends the next five minutes watching Reginald spin the tale of four kidnapped teens’ daring battle against the League. Sulan, Billy, Taro, and Henrietta. The four of them not only escaped captivity, but retaliated against their captors and killed Imugi.

  Sulan’s face flashes across the screen. It’s a Vex simulation, not her true face. It’s too smooth, too lifeless to be the real face of his Short Stuff. He should be relieved she’s alive, but the situation makes his temper boil. Sulan doesn’t deserve to be treated like a show pony.

  “The man is good,” Nate says. “First he kidnaps his own people. When they escape and manage to kill his head guy, he spins it into a Global PR wonderland. He might be the brother of the devil, but you have to admit he’s brilliant.”