by Mel Odom
Getting into NovaTech's outer cybernetic perimeters wouldn't be easy, but she knew she could do it.
Provided she masked herself and her surprise packages as something that looked both intriguing and passive.
With access to the same vid-feed as Ironaxe was getting by virtue of the fact that Villiers was feeding it to the VaulTek CEO, Archangel knew even before Argent had suggested it, that Villiers and Lanier would try to access the aud-feeds coming from the VaulTek sec forces. She disguised herself in a string of audible communication data from one of the verbal reports a field op was giving of the sat-link's destruction and the ensuing chase of the person or persons responsible, compressing herself till she blended in. As the communication went along, she went with it, hurtling through the Matrix.
The hard part was keeping herself and the compressed data together as they bounced through the sat-link systems back toward Boston.
The first line of security was the Boston System Access Node. The datastream Archangel was part of surged toward the SAN. As she got closer, she recognized the white IC surrounding the SAN. It was represented in the Matrix as a huge, disembodied hand wrapped tightly around a phone booth.
Sleazing her way through the Boston SAN was simple. Any serious decker had a dozen different passcodes to any LTG SAN on any given hour. She flashed the pass-code and went into the Boston LTG as a matter of course, sliding right between the huge fingers.
Without warning, the datastream she'd made herself part of jaunted into a huge cylinder of light wrapped around the heart of a collapsed star. Suddenly, Archangel felt as though she was ten times heavier than what she was accustomed to. She fought against the panic that filled her, making herself stay masked and encrypted.
All light went away in the tunnel and the datastream's speed picked up dramatically. Archangel stayed aware, knowing she could still jack out at this point any time she wanted to.
The tunnel ended abruptly in front of her, slamming into the exploding star construct that represented Nova-Tech in a rushing torrent of color. The barrier IC ahead of her took the shape of a plastiglass gargoyle rendered in tri-D against a wall of plastiglass bricks. The datastreams on the other side looked tantalizingly within reach.
Archangel kept herself relaxed as she hurtled toward the open mouth of the plastiglass gargoyle. Barrier IC wouldn't accept the deception program she was using to slide by in the datastream. She had no choice but to attack it and hope for the best.
As she rose from the datastream, stretching out into her full persona, movement to her right drew her attention. She turned to look, spotting a neon blue kimodo dragon hurtling across the intervening cyberspace.
She knew instinctively that it was another decker launching an attack on the barrier IC.
The kimodo dragon slammed into the plastiglass gargoyle at full speed, grinding to a halt as the barrier IC held up. Before the dragon lizard could pull back to safety, the plastiglass gargoyle wrapped its arms around it.
From the way the system was set up, after traveling through the light tunnel, Archangel knew she wasn't at a readily accessed path to the NovaTech construct. Her ruse had gained some ground.
Flipping through her attack utilities, she pulled out one she'd only started working with, thinking under the circumstances it might work fine. She flew closer enough to the barrier IC to see her own reflection in the plastiglass gargoyle's eyes. In the Matrix, her icon was a green, winged woman.
She extended a hand and released the attack utility. Instantly a frost formed over the barrier IC, blurring the plastiglass gargoyle's features. When the attack utility completed its job, the elven decker slapped her hands against the barrier IC in a deliberate off-rhythm.
The barrier IC shattered into a million gleaming shards, leaving the path open ahead of her.
"Who are you?" the freed kimodo dragon demanded, turning to face her. Its great, snapping jaws were open, revealing plastimetal teeth with serrated edges.
"For the moment." Archangel said, "I'm an ally."
The kimodo dragon's eyes narrowed in angry distrust, but it kicked its feet and swam through the area where the barrier IC had been, following the same datastream that Archangel had come in on. Apparently it had a time problem too.
Archangel believed she already knew who the kimodo dragon represented, but she tagged it with a track utility in the form of a gold ring around one of its feet.
"You son of a slitch!" the dragon lizard exploded, turning in on itself immediately. Its clawed feet pried at the gold ring, trying desperately to pull it free.
Suddenly, a lightning blaze of blue-white seared through the space between Archangel and the dragon lizard. Immediately, the other decker forgot about the track utility locked around its leg and got set to deal with the black IC coming up in the form of an Ares sentry drone.
Archangel saved the information coming back through the track utility, trying to ferret out who the other decker was and where he or she had come from. She flapped her wings, gaming speed, using up one of the slow utilities she had at the ready on the black IC. The slow utility went to work immediately, taking shape as a large fishing net that wrapped around its target, dropping the sentry drone's speed by half. But the intelligent movements, not quite as smooth as a real program's, let the elven decker know the sentry drone wasn't black IC after all, but a NovaTech decker taking the field.
Already on the attack again, dodging the blue-white electrical beam that burned past her, Archangel unleashed a black hammer utility that smashed into the NovaTech decker. The results were immediate. The utility traced the decker back to the real world and rendered him or her unconscious. The sentry drone persona faded, leaving only a few electrical sparkles floating in its wake.
Moving swiftly, Archangel seized the floating specks in one hand and used another track utility on the residual connection. Though the decker was off-line, his jack-point into the Matrix was still open.
Archangel followed the track utility, sleazing her way into NovaTech's outer perimeter with ease. The kimodo dragon was on her heels, gnashing at her wingtips with its huge jaws as it tried to close the distance.
She only stayed for a quick trip through the decker's CPU, then used the route open to her to lock in on the sat-link interface through the LTG. The construct for the sat-link interface was a shimmering emerald triangle filled with a single glowing yellow eye.
By the tune she reached the sat-link, the kimodo dragon had been identified to her by the track utility as an Asian Fuchi decker.
In the datastream outputting to the sat-link over Pueblo again, Archangel unloaded the surprises she'd packaged into her deck. The hog utility was candy-coated in a Trojan Horse package that scanned like perimeter definition requests from the NovaTech computer.
As soon as the sat-link programming gulped the hog utility down, the triangle blinking the utility into its eye, the programs Archangel had designed for the deck virus went ballistic and nasty. In nano-seconds, the hog utility filled the sat-link program up with a self-replicating code that overtaxed the deck's active memory and started the collapse of running utilities.
The kimodo dragon swam up out of nowhere, its giant jaws distended as it tried to gulp Archangel down.
The long pink tongue in its mouth suddenly shot out, coiling around one of Archangel's wrists, letting her know she'd been tagged with a track utility herself.
Instead of attacking the track utility, the elven decker used a relocate utility. As she' d hoped, the dragon's tongue stuck to the sat-link construct as her relocate utility shoved it off onto the closest target.
The track utility the Asian Fuchi decker was using would ensure that the hog utility spread in that direction as well. As an added incentive, she slaved the hog utility to the track utility already attached to the kimodo dragon.
Stepping back from the Asian Fuchi decker struggling with the NovaTech sat-link construct, Archangel put her hands together, accessed her deck, and jacked out of the Matrix as black IC from Vill
iers's cybernetic defenses swarmed the position.
59
[Chip file: Argent
Security access:******—23:06:19/10-14-60]
UPLOAD CONTINUED Location: Seattle Safehouse (recorded at a later time) I kept watch out the window, standing guard over Archangel's prone body while Harrison Dane and the Travers twins unleashed a drekstorm over the warehouse district. The twins had been busy since they'd hit Pueblo armed with packs filled with boomjelly. I'd forgotten how truly destructive they could be when properly motivated. Dane's sniper skills added to the bodycount and the general confusion.
Even though the Ingrams weren't long-range weapons, the smart-link and move-by-wire systems I had helped me account for more of Ironaxe's stormtroopers. And they did have a vested interest in the building where Archangel and I were.
Peg kept up a steady conversation inside my head, wanting to know what was going on although she was as privy to the conversations as I was and had a clearer picture due to the sat-link she monitored from the drone Wakiza Summertrees controlled above us. My answers were short and distracted. I was too conscious of the retina chron counting down the time. The schedule was too tight to allow any lost time.
"Argent." Archangel's voice sounded weak, hoarse.
I turned to face her, seeing her slip the fiberoptic cable from the datajack at her temple. I looked the question at her, not bothering to put it into words.
"Their systems are down." she said. "I took out Villiers’s and I believe I got Nakatomi's at the same time.
He had a decker in the system who was trying to break through into NovaTech." She let the fiberoptic cable retract into the deck's housing, then stored it in the protective case. She draped the case across her back.
I accessed the commlink and called for Summertrees. "We've got a green light at your end."
"I read you." Summertrees answered back. "Give me the go."
Looking back out at the streets winding between the warehouses, I saw the area where the Travers twins would have to put the truck they'd commandeered. "Jesse." I said over the telecom.
"Here."
"Showtime." I said.
Bullets drove me back from the window, but I remained close enough to watch as Jesse pulled the big GMC Bulldog Step-Van into position in the middle of the street. He and his brother had stolen it earlier in the day, then set it up for the op now. The motion attracted only a handful of Ironaxe's sec guards. Jesse and Jason caught the secmen in a crossfire as Jesse cleared the Bulldog. Jason covered his brother from the shadows of a nearby building.
A heartbeat after they reached relative safety, the Bulldog became ground zero for the biggest explosion of the night. They'd used most of the boomjelly they'd brought for the shaped charge they'd put under the truck, placing it so that the blast would be directed downward. Evidently they'd tapped some of the VaulTek security teams' ammo stores during the last couple minutes and added to what they had on hand.
The blast sent a minor earthquake through the immediate vicinity.
When the smoke cleared, a gaping hole cut through the street. I didn't have any doubts that it had broken through to the mine tunnel below. Using the maps Peg had found in her data searches, I'd located the mining tunnel closest to the surface that would be big enough to do what we needed it to do.
"Summertrees." I said over the telecom, "you have your go." I didn't bother looking up. I wouldn't have been able to see the Skytruck or the Devil Rat that came tumbling out of the cargo hold. Laveau and Summertrees would accompany it down.
Turning to Archangel, I took the lead and we beat feet out of the room. Before we made the second landing, one of Ironaxe's secmen put a grenade through the window, firebombing the room. The heat of the blast crawled down over us.
A small knot of men met us at the door, assault rifles naked in their fists. I covered Archangel with my own body right before they opened fire on us, knowing that her reflexes weren't quite back on-line.
Whatever she'd faced in the Matrix had taken a lot out of her.
Bullets smacked against the Espirit armor, but only two of them cored through to flesh beneath. One of them did a through-and-through on my right thigh, and the other penetrated but didn't pass through my back somewhere over my right kidney.
I ignored the pain, dropping the Ingram from my free hand and snagging an armor-piercing grenade from my equipment vest. Yanking the pin and slipping the spoon, I arced the grenade into the middle of the men.
"Grenade!" someone yelled, but his voice was lost in the ensuing explosion that robbed the warehouse of any other sound.
Dead men blew in all directions. Even before the dust settled, I had the Ingram back in hand. I went on down the stairs, firing into two men I saw still moving before they had a chance to bring their weapons up.
Blood leaked down my back and my leg under the armor, forming a sticky barrier. I paid attention to both areas, testing for any weakness that might throw me off later, but both of them were numbing up well and stayed responsive to the demands I was putting on them.
"The Devil Rat is on target." Peg said into my head. "ETA is a minute seven seconds."
Striding over the dead men, I glanced out into the street and spotted the Chrysler-Nissan Patrol-One security vehicle parked in front of the warehouse, the engine idling. The driver saw me coming, bringing up the Colt assault rifle at his side. The ruby aiming laser skated across the faceplate of my helmet.
UPLOAD TO CONTINUE
60
[Chip file: Argent
Security access: ******—23:08:22/10-14-60]
UPLOAD CONTINUED
Location: Seattle Safehouse (recorded at a later time)
I put a pair of rounds between the driver's eyes, then reached in through the open door of the Patrol-One and spilled his corpse out onto the street. I reached back for Archangel, helped her climb inside the Patrol-One's forward cab. If there were still men in the rear compartment, we were separated from them and they couldn't get to us.
A quick scan of the controls familiarized me with the vehicle's handling. Patrol-Ones weren't just Lone Star or law enforcement vehicles; they were used in security and military ops around the world. I'd used them myself on occasion.
Shoving the stick into gear, I put my foot on the accelerator and surged forward. The four-wheel-drive caused all four tires to bite into the street with banshee shrieks. I accessed the commlink. "Laveau."
Her voice came back, filled with the sound of wind whipping by her helmet as she fell to the earth. "Yes, cher." As a voudoun priestess, she didn't go in for cyberware because it took away from her Art. But the Espirit helmet and BattleTac gear brought her on-line with the rest of us.
"I need to know where those DNA samples are being kept." I took the next corner hard left, downshifting and pegging the accelerator again to fight for traction. The Patrol-Ones had beefed-up suspension and handling, but they still behaved like ungainly beasts if they weren't treated properly. And I wasn't treating this one close to proper.
The DNA samples were important to the exfiltration. With them, Ironaxe's mages could still track Sencio and her group. Even if we escaped now, it would only be a stay of execution.
"I have worker loa out looking for them now, cher. We should know in moments."
"Get back to me." I said. "Andi?"
"I'm here." she answered, her voice sounding more hopeful than it had before. "What the drek are you doing? That hole just marked our position for Ironaxe's fragging sec teams!"
I heard the suspicion in her voice, and was only mildly surprised. Andi had called me because there'd been no one else she could believe in more. She just couldn't believe the way she used to. "Transport's on the way." I told her. "Keep your people back until it arrives."
"There's no way we're going to make it back through the plex. If Ironaxe's people don't get us, there are others."
"Stay put." I cut the wheel hard right, avoiding a van full of sec guards who figured out that I didn't belong on the t
eam. Then I called out to Dane and the Travers Twins, telling them to get set for the rendezvous. It was Jesse and Jason's job to keep the street pit clear.
The van pursued me, closing the distance. I watched it in the side mirror.
"Give me a machine pistol." Archangel reached out to me.
I slipped off my right Ingram and passed it over. She wasn't chipped for the weapon, but with the autofire it was capable of and as close as the target was, she didn't need to be.
The Ingram chattered in her hands as she hung out the open door, one foot on the running board. Even though the van was armored and carried bulletproof glass, the driver pulled over to my side of the street.
We roared through the vacant warehouses.
Plucking a high-explosive grenade from my vest, I pulled the pin and slipped the spoon, then ticked off two seconds from the four-second delay fuse on the retina clock. I released the grenade and watched it bounce from the street behind me. Before it could bounce again, the van was on top of it.
The resulting explosion ripped the van's chassis to pieces, taking one tire off completely and squirting it across the street. The van slewed, then rolled and turn over, skidding to a spinning stop on its roof.
I closed on the pit area. If there was no other choice, we'd abandon the idea of getting the DNA samples and try for them at another time.
Then I spotted the Devil Rat sliding through the air in front of me, a few blocks from my position but still airborne. The huge black cargo parachute belled above it. Tracer-fire lit up the night, tracking the APC's descent.
"Argent, cher." Laveau called.
I saw her in the air above the Devil Rat, following it down expertly with a paraglider. "Yes."
"I have found de DNA samples, cher. My worker loa have only just gotten back to me."
"Where?"
"I do not know de location, cher." she told me in a strained voice.
