by Morgan Bell
“I can take it,” Philip asserted, trying to snatch it from his little brother.
“No, you can’t,” Sharon said, stopping him, “You didn’t have the nerve to ask me yourself.”
Philip gave her a contemptuous teenage glower and then the three boys were off to the escalator. Sharon loved seeing her boys, but she valued these breaks from them during the visits almost as much as she did the time with them. Her panel signaled that she had a message. Sharon began to wonder if it was their father checking up on her. She felt her neck tighten. Then she saw the message was from someone else.
Two minutes later the HDMP officer for the food court and fourteen customers were dead. Sharon Quaid died seven minutes later, blowing up herself and a data hub on the food court level.
∞
For the next few minutes Jamie wouldn’t let himself blink. Then finally he felt the nausea pass and everything seemed quiet and normal.
Drake popped his harness open and walked over to one of the windows. “He’s taking it easy on us. He’s going about 150-175,” he shouted over the sound of the engines. “This is one of the newest ones. It can go 475 miles per hour.”
“Operational limitations,” Blaise said over the intercom. “Not allowed to open this up to its full speed over populated areas. Not allowed to sustain top speeds for durations longer than necessary for engagements or evasions. It sucks! She is cherry and I would love to ride her out hard. But the only time they let me do that is out over the desert.”
Drake gave Blaise thumbs up and continued to look out the window.
Jamie noticed that his tablet was flashing at him. He opened it. There was a message. It read:
“Greetings Meat Puppets! Glad you’ve decided to come out and play. See you in Detroit. But don’t expect to escape it alive, my little lemmings. Regards, Cronus.”
Jamie reached the release catch on his harness and yelled. “Your tablets!”
The other team members’ tablets were flashing the message and heating up.
“Drake! Tie off and pop the door!” Blaise yelled.
Jamie gathered the tablets and tossed them to Drake. Drake clipped himself to a latch, hit the door release and threw the tablets out the open door as pressure pulled at him. Three seconds later there was an explosion behind them and a slight concussion from the force.
“Contact Command Center,” Drake yelled up to Blaise as he secured the door.
“That is a negative.” Blaise said. “Have to assume all channels compromised and that all tech communications ingoing or outgoing are affected. If we transmit, we may open up a channel for them to override us or base. What we are going to do is hope that we get to HDMP air support without further incident and then we are going to change our insertion plans. So lock in and grab your socks. We are going to mach 1.”
If the initial burst of speed that they felt following lift off had made Jamie nauseous, what he was felt now was like having the side of his head forced out his other ear. He was clenching his teeth.
“Tighten your stomach muscles and squeeze the cheeks of your ass together,” Rosen said to him.
“Why? So I won’t black out?” Jamie asked.
“Nah, Kegel exercises,” Rosen laughed.
“You are twisted Rosen!”
“It will pass in a second. Once we hit cruising speed, we will stop feeling this.”
Then there was a silent droning calm. “We have hit our cruising speed. Feel free to remain belted in. Our new ETA is an hour,” Blaise announced.
Jamie looked around the cabin. Marshall had been uncharacteristically quiet. Agents Ganos and Drake, who had been light and laughing before the tablets blew were now looking very tense. Rosen was Rosen; he was relaxing. Lieutenant Fenwick, who was second seat, was talking to Captain Blaise off the com. It was then that Jamie realized that he, Ganos, Drake and Rosen may have been exposed to the KVB virus.
∞
Chelsea Maccabee was running late for work. The morning had been a series of problems. Her home systems panel had shorted out, ordering food from three different vendors she never used and thawing the contents of her freezer. The calendar that preloaded her day and organized her files issued an error notice at three in the morning and informed her that the day was Sunday, October 7th 1917 and that she had an appointment in Petrograd. She ignored this information and doggedly continued her morning only to find - having completed one eye - that her makeup stylus had shorted out. The one eye made up and the other not was a problem she couldn’t just cope with. She couldn’t remove the makeup without the stylus. She added a detour to the pharmacy on her drive from Canton, Michigan into Detroit.
“Welcome to wellness Chelsea Maccabee,” the voice announced when she walked into the pharmacy.
Chelsea ignored the announcement and went down the aisle until she came to the section where they had her brand of stylus. She grabbed the package and went to the checkout to find, to her horror, that it was being managed by a person. The person, a twenty something female in the pharmacy’s scrubs was hand scanning and bagging purchases.
“What’s going on?” Chelsea asked a woman who was ahead of her in the line.
“System crashed and they had to use an older operating system. Something to do with a hub blowout,” the woman said.
Chelsea looked at the time and saw precious minutes go sailing by. If she called now she could register an exception for her work attendance. But it would require explaining about the tech failure at her home and the delay at the pharmacy. Which would then be recorded in her profile and have negative assessment qualities as it related to her conduct of her life outside of her work duties. Chelsea really envied people who could have breakdowns or just go insane; toss away all of their responsibilities and live their lives medicated and supervised by the federal government. She really wished she had that option. She was returning to the question of which action to take – to call in or take the attendance notation – when she felt her panel vibrate. She took it from her purse, terrified that it was her supervisor. She needn’t have worried. She accepted the communication. There was never an attendance or adverse performance entry made in her record.
Thirty seconds later Chelsea Maccabee, muttering, “Meat Puppet,” left the building, being told by the auto-greeter to, “Enjoy your wellness,” after disarming an HDMP officer and killing all of the customers and one employee in the store. From there she walked half a block and blew up the data hub that covered a seven block section of Canton, Michigan.
∞
Forty minutes later, the helicopter began decelerating, and Jamie felt a light floating feeling as they moved lower across Ohio, Lake Erie and finally the bottom corner of Lake Huron.
“We are going to be doing this old school,” Captain Blaise announced, before opening up a radio frequency.
He identified his flight and clearance to the control tower and Jamie could only hear half of the conversation. What he could make out was Blaise explaining patiently that he would be arriving. They would have a landing pad cleared for him and that they were to give him the approach path verbally. Blaise started to yell at one point, “That is a negative, you cannot up load vectors to us, tech is down. Repeat, auto navigational tech is down.”
“Then get your supervisor on or someone who passed their basic exam because this is basic stuff we are talking about here.”
There was another silence, followed by Blaise saying, “That is a date. Now me the approach, please.”
Blaise repeated the route to Lieutenant Fenwick who confirmed it and then Blaise signed off. For the next few seconds the City of Detroit flashed by and then miles of woods engulfed it where three quarters of the city had been turned under thirty years earlier. A stretch of broken highway that had been left over from the Michigan reorganization came into view. The now closed Detroit international airport became visible, with its abandoned terminals and acres of tarmac. Then, west of there, the new HDMP air support and command center came into view. Blaise made his ap
proach, and descended gently for a soft touch down. He powered down and Lieutenant Fenwick ran through the check with him.
“Grab your kits and let’s get,” Blaise said, climbing out of the pilot’s seat.
“Are we okay?” Drake asked, popping his safety buckle.
“I very much doubt it.”
“Why?” Agent Ganos asked, grabbing her kit.
“Because we are in Detroit,” Blaise explained, opening the door.
“Welcome to Detroit,” an officer holding a machine gun said. “Put your hands in the fucking air.”
CHAPTER 10
HDMP AIR COMAND, DETROIT, MI
“Who the fuck flies without guidance tech?” A six foot two, muscular HDMP air controller was demanding.
“Someone who knows how to do his job,” Blaise said. “We still got that date, you and me.”
“Right now,” the HDMP air controller growled.
“Stand down,” the HDMP commander barked at the air controller. “You,” he said, addressing Blaise, “were flying over mach 1 over populated areas from DC to here. You are in violation.”
Blaise pulled out a plastic card from his jacket and handed it to the commander.
“Fuck me. Really? Seriously?” the commander exclaimed, turning the card over.
Blaise remained silent.
“Cooper, Evans, the rest of you, get out of here, now,” the commander ordered.
When the other HMDP officers had withdrawn, the commander turned on Blaise. “I hate you fucking people.”
“My mother was French, sir,” Blaise said.
“Is that supposed to be funny?” the commander asked.
Blaise shrugged. “When someone starts saying ‘you fucking people,’ I think it’s kind of important that they know which ‘people’ they are singling out. Oh, and my dad was from Belarus.”
“You fucking spook, black ops types who come in here and tie up my men and my services,” the commander began to rant.
“Who else have you had here?” Blaise asked.
“A group of you came in four days ago. All gung ho and bossy,” the commander said.
“Do you have a secure line I could use?” Blaise asked.
“Yes, but -” the commander blustered.
“Fenwick, find out from the commander everything that team did, and acquired, and any other information you can. Agents Drake and Ganos, I want you to call your agencies and find out about any deployments or operations in Detroit. I’m really hoping this is just an operational cluster fox trot, but I’ve got a real bad feeling about this,” Blaise said, and went over to a grid line connection at the commander’s desk.
“Just run an iris scan and it will give you a secured line,” the commander said, conceding to Blaise’s authority.
“Thank you, commander,” Captain Blaise said. Then he dismissed everyone from the commander’s office so he could contact Cyber Central Command.
“Blaise, what the hell happened?” the general demanded.
“We were compromised. Our order tablets were hacked. Command Central system services have been hacked and for all I know the helicopters have been hacked. The order tablets exploded after giving us a message. The message was from some joker calling himself Cronus.”
“Cronus?” the general asked.
“I didn’t get to read the message. It was Baxter who saw it first,” Blaise explained.
“Cronus was the next name that came from the system assignment generator,” the general explained.
“Was that what Bocholt team was called?”
“No, they were team Albatross.”
“I have to ask you,” Blaise said. “Were there any operations sent into Detroit before us? Command here says there was one, four days ago.”
“No. Wait, let me check,” the general said. There was a pause. “No. Definitely not.”
“Drake and Ganos are checking their side, but I doubt anyone is doing anything without full disclosure here.” Blaise said.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we might be close to the source or at least someone involved with the outbreak. If they were here four days ago and the KVBs started showing up in the last twelve hours, it’s possible they were sent here to launch it.”
There was a silence. “Blaise, we just lost contact with team Albatross. Their systems show that they were just approaching Ohio.”
Blaise did not reply.
“If it can be landed, Captain Bocholt will land it,” the general declared.
“If he was alive that would be true,” Blaise agreed.
“Captain -” the general said.
“Albatross. It was a Cronus joke. Albatross is dead. While we, we are the lemmings. He’s letting us know that we are going to die next,” Blaise cut him off.
The door to the HMDP commander’s office opened. It was the HMDP commander, signaling to Blaise.
“You can’t possibly know that,” the general sputtered.
“General, I’ve got to go. The HMDP commander is about to tell me that my helicopter is on fire,” Blaise said.
“Exploded, actually,” the commander corrected.
“Close enough,” Blaise agreed. “General, I hope I’m wrong about Albatross and Bocholt. I will be in touch once we have established a secure vehicle.”
Blaise ended the call and walked out to the landing pad, as he could see no point in running. There wasn’t anything they could do now, other than watch the fire response team try to put out the fire that was raging following the explosion.
“Did you know this was going to happen?” the commander asked.
“No,” Blaise said.
“But you said -”
“We just lost another helicopter when you showed up to tell me about mine. I knew the other pilot. He wouldn’t disappear or drop off without a major event. So I guessed.”
“Who could do something like this?” the commander asked.
“I intend to find out,” Blaise told him. “I’m going to need your help.”
“What can I do?”
“Find me some pre-tech transport. I’m talking forty years or older.”
“That kind of stuff is in museums.”
“Then point me to a museum.”
∞
Ganos and Drake found Captain Blaise in the hanger near the melting remains of the black helicopter, with his kit spread out on a bench and a knife in his hand. His sleeping roll was shredded, his provisions were broken open and his equipment was laid out on the table.
“What are you doing?” Ganos asked.
“The other team was team Albatross,” Blaise said, not looking up from the tablet he was prising a power plate from.
“So?” Drake asked.
“Team Albatross is dead, missing over Ohio. About the time our bus blew up,” Blaise explained, the power plate finally popping free.
“I’m sorry,” Drake said.
Blaise looked up. “They’ve compromised all of our tech. We’re going to have to do this old school. Start stripping your kit of all tech. That means all power sources, RFID, taggers; anything that has any tech signals has to go.”
“How will we communicate or coordinate anything?” Drake asked.
“We will plan and be guided by our experience and good judgment,” Blaise smiled, reassembling his kit. “I’m going to get Baxter, Marshall, Rosen and Fenwick up to speed. We will meet back here in fifteen minutes. We’ve got a ride over to old Dearborn Michigan.”
“What’s over there?”
“If I’m really lucky? A 1965 cherry red Mustang and two black Ford Excursions, with tinted windows and bullet proof armor,” Blaise smiled, slinging his pack over his shoulder.
“And if you’re not?” Angie asked.
“A couple of Ford Escorts and a Pinto,” Blaise said, and headed off to HMDP command.
Fenwick was sitting at a data station when Blaise entered the HMDP command center.
“What do we know?” Blaise asked.
“The team that came in before us cleared out the armory, took a fully stocked urban combat unit that cyber command had here for operations, and that has a kill switch,” Fenwick said, reading off the monitor.
“Not good,” Blaise noted.
“So not one of ours?” Fenwick asked.
“No.”
“I’m trying to get us something comparable. I’m having HDMP move some equipment up from Columbus.”
“That’s fine. Let them know we will be waiting here for it,” Blaise said.
“Don’t trust the copter?” Fenwick asked.
“The copter is gone, blew up and melted down.”
“What?”
“Just confirm the equipment transfer,” Blaise said.
“Got it. They’ll be here in 12 hours,” Fenwick told him.
“Great, log out.”
“Okay.”
“Where are Rosen, Marshall and Baxter?”
“They went down to the mess hall to grab some provisions.”
“Get them and meet me out on the tarmac in five minutes. We’re all going to take a walk to clear our heads,” Blaise announced.
∞
When the four men arrived out on the tarmac, Blaise motioned for them to be silent and to put down their packs. He then motioned for them to walk toward him. He signaled for them to turn out their pockets. The men pulled out their com hand devices and turned out their pockets. Blaise gave a signal for them to put them down and walk to him. When the men arrived near Blaise on the tarmac he drew out his knife and handed it to Fenwick. He made a motion. Fenwick nodded and went back to the devices and disabled them. Then he went through the individual packs and began to remove tech. The three men stood and stared in shock as their kits were dismantled. Fenwick returned, handed Blaise the knife and waited.
“We’re clear now,” Blaise said.
“What was all that about?” Fenwick asked.
“All of our tech has been compromised. The helicopter blew while we were in the command center. The other team, Bucholt’s group, they were blown out of the sky near Ohio. I’m thinking it was the same hit we took except we flew faster so we were on the ground when it happened.”
