Hollow

by Lee Doty

  “What is he doing?” Smith asked, stunned.

  “Trying to get our attention.” Hawkins said shaking his head slightly, “He’s been doing it for about a minute now.”

  “Put me on the lobby’s display.”

  “You are not going to talk to him!” Hawkins turned to face her more fully, “This might be a ruse to locate our leadership. We know they’re tech savvy. Maybe they’re going to use some nerd tool to trace you here. You saw how the Iron Dragon zeroed on your right away…”

  “Dr. Hawkins. Please do it now.” Smith said, her voice filled with a quiet, final authority.

  “I do not like this.” Hawkins muttered, but he was already bringing the lobby’s display online.

  After a few seconds, another small window opened on Hawkins’ display, it was a view from the console’s camera showing Dr. Smith as she leaned forward on the desk. Hawkins nodded.

  “Yes?” Smith asked, her manner open and polite.

  On the screen, the dragon stopped waving his arms, bringing them down to rest lightly on his weapon, which hung from a single point head-and-shoulder sling on his right side. “Are you real?” he asked with no trace of irony.

  The question caught Smith off guard, and she tried to keep the consternation off her face as she thought furiously. She knew that the next few moments were absolutely critical. She had an opportunity here to hopefully see who was turning the wheels of the mysterious machine arrayed against them, but she had no idea what the rules of this game were.

  “Real?” She asked mildly. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you exist?” the dragon asked, motionless. “Are you a simulation?” Smith realized that he had been entirely motionless since he had stopped waving his arms—not just standing still, but completely motionless. It was unsettling. There are many subtle cues that humans give each other: motions and shifts in posture, little changes in facial expression that can indicate mood or intention, or at least indicate sameness—that the other person is like you, made from the same types of strengths and weakness, with the same fears and uncertainties. This dragon’s stillness practically radiated a preternatural certainty. He was a statue of an ancient, scarred god.

  “Okay,” Smith said, putting an expression of quiet contemplation on her face, “Yes.” She gave him a small nod, “I exist.”

  “Prove it.” The statue of patient death said, only lips moving.

  “If this is some elaborate ploy to get my social security number, it’s not going to work.” Smith said with a small smile.

  “Humor?” he asked.

  “An attempt.” Smith replied.

  The dragon seemed to be struck with a sudden inspiration, “Do you know of children.”

  “Yes…” Smith said uncertainly, “I’ve heard of them.”

  “Do you have children?” he asked, voice flat.

  She shook her head slightly, “I never married.”

  “Married?” he asked.

  “Yes. I never met the right man.”

  “For what?” He asked, still no irony detectable.

  “To get married and have children.”

  “You get married to have children?”

  “Most people do.” Smith glanced sideways at Hawkins, he looked as dumbfounded as she was trying not to look. He muted the microphone, “You are not about to have a birds-and-bees talk with this dragon, are you?” He unmated the microphone.

  To the dragon, Smith said, “Yes. When a man and a woman love each other, they get married. They start a family, they make children.”

  “They make children?” the Dragon said, incredulous.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” Hawkins muttered, “you are!” He was so shocked that he’d forgotten to mute the microphone. Smith gave him a sharp look and he covered his face with his hands, half a gesture of abject embarrassment, half to prevent the crazy laughter that was tightening his throat, causing his shoulders to shake with spasms, making him feel dizzy, as he couldn’t reliably breathe without giving voice to the laughter that pressed in on him.

  On the screen, the dragon moved. He put a contemplative hand to his chin, “Children have a mother and a father. I know this.” He said to himself, pausing, then he looked back up to the screen, “How are children made?”

  Hawkins manic giggles were audible through both of the hands that he had clamped over his mouth. His eyes were moistening with unspent tears, wide and helpless before the giggles that were wracking his body.

  “Dammit Hawkins!” Smith said, her voice tight with exasperation, and then she broke wide open. Maybe it was all the stress of having their highest security installation under massive assault, perhaps it was the trained killer that had escaped her restraints to try to murder her ten minutes ago… who knows, maybe it was menopause again, but Smith dissolved into uncontrollable giggles, then howling laughter.

  Hawkins lost the grip on his mouth and barked out between peals of laughter, “I think… I think he… I think he’s breaching our… research installation… to find out… oh help me Jesus! …to find out where… where babies come from!!”

  Smith, still laughing helplessly, punched him dead in the face. It was not a good natured tap. It broke his nose and knocked him and his chair over, spilling him to the floor, stunned.

  Smith tried to shake her hand out, wincing. She was sure she’d just broken something in her hand as three of her fingers were numb and the pain from hand and wrist was debilitating. It was enough for her to get a toe hold on sanity and bring the manic laughter mostly under control. She clutched the broken hand to her chest, then turned her attention to the monitor again, “Sorry.” She breathed out, chuckles subsiding, “Sorry… about that… I’m not sure what just happened…”

  From the floor, Hawkins rasped out, his voice hoarse, still laughing helplessly, “Now there will be… baby dragons… Heaven help us, they’ll… they’ll cover the world.”

  Smith turned and kicked his upturned chair and he subsided into mostly silent laughter, but she could still hear it, huffs that interrupted his breathing, and each sound was an invitation to the mania in her own mind. She turned back to the monitor again to find the dragon smiling. It was an odd smile, not like a machine would simulate a smile, not even like an adult would smile… it was cherubic, child-like. It was a pure and honest indication of a primitive and pure amusement. It shocked her enough that the temptation to laugh finally, mercifully departed. “You are real.” He pronounced, “I have no idea what was so funny, but there is no way a machine programmed that. It was funny—like Tom and Jerry.”

  Smith’s mouth didn’t drop open, but only because of a herculean act of self-control. “Now that we both agree that I’m not a simulation, how can I help you?” she asked.

  “You are holding my teammate. Is she alive?” The dragon asked.

  Smith nodded, “For now.”

  The dragon’s smile evaporated and his face returned to the mechanical stillness he’d worn originally. “Kill her and I will kill you all.” He said, voice filled with a cold certainty.

  “You misunderstand.” Smith said, holding her hands up in a placating gesture that caused the fire to flare up from her now swelling right hand and brought a wince of pain to her face again. “Your teammate is in no danger from my people… one moment, I need to show you.” Smith turned from the screen, “Nelson!” she shouted, get over here, I need you to patch the feed from the lab into my outbound video stream!”

  Nelson was staring at her. Everyone was, their shocked gaze moving between her and Hawkins, who still lay sprawled out on the floor next to his upended chair, giggling silently. For the first time Smith realized that the lab had been completely silent for a while now.

  “Back to work!” she said, her voice ringing with authority. “Nelson! Move!”

  Everyone returned to their work, and the low buzz of hushed conversations again filled the lab. Nelson jogged over to Smith, righted Hawkins’ chair, and sat down at the terminal. After a few more seconds of work, the window holdi
ng Smith’s image dissolved into a view from the biomechanics lab. On it, four doctors and three more medtechs bustled around the dragon secured to the table.

  “What are you doing to her?” the dragon asked, voice even, but hard.

  “Trying to save her life.” Smith replied, “Your people put something in her blood—we think it was millions of small molecule-sized transmitters—constructs that sent that pulse, the signal to begin your attack.” Smith paused, letting the dragon watch the doctors work, “But those machines dumped a massive dose of toxins into her blood. We think the machines were meant to kill her as much as they were meant to signal you.”

  Smith waited a few more seconds, then she motioned to Nelson and her image again took the place of the scene from the lab. “We are trying to save her.”

  “Why?” the dragon asked. “I’m assuming she tried to kill you.”

  “That she did,” Smith said with a small smile, “but we need information. We need to know why you are hurting people, why you are stealing technology, who you are.”

  Smith left the question unasked and the silence lengthened out for an uncomfortable moment between them.

  “She won’t be able to help you.” The dragon said, something coloring his voice—sorrow? “None of us know why we do what we do… other than the lies.” His face changed slightly, brow furrowing, eyes softening, lips pursing slightly, “None of us know who or why we are.”

  The dragon was silent for a moment, “Except me.” He said finally. “I’m the person who is going to help you save her.”

  “Why?” Smith asked, looking for the deception, trying to deduce his true motives.

  “Because she is my teammate.” He said, steel in the words, “Because I am,” he paused, “I was made for that purpose. To save her, to give my life for her. Maybe it was a mistake of my creators. Maybe it is my defiance, my fault, my—choice.”

  The dragon jerked his head in a quick shake, “There are two more four-man teams coming in. By now, they have breached the building. We have the tech to breach your installation to its core.” He said with an air of certainty. “They are coming to kill you and as many other people as they can, they are coming to leave this installation in rubble and blood.”

  “What are you going to do?” Smith asked.

  “I am going to kill them all.” The dragon said, then he turned on his heel and strode toward the door.

  “Wait!” Smith shouted.

  He halted, then turned to face the camera again.

  “There is a kill switch in each of your heads.” Smith said, “If your… if your command realizes that you are acting against the other teams, they will kill you with a remote signal.”

  “You know this how?” The dragon asked.

  “We took one out of your teammate’s head.”

  “Then I die. I will not fail her.” The dragon stated and turned to go again.

  “Wait!” Hawkins croaked, pushing himself into a sitting position “On the other side of those doors is a long metallic hallway… you came through it on your way in here.”

  The dragon nodded.

  “It’s an EMP device. We use it to prevent unauthorized tech from entering or leaving the lab. We were actually hoping that it would set off the kill switch in your head when you went through.”

  “Thank you.” The dragon said with the first hint of irony Smith had heard from him.

  “But it didn’t kill you, obviously.” Hawkins continued, “But it more than likely disabled your kill switch, along with any other electronics on or in you. Make sure your team passes through it if you are going to act against the other teams. The EMP may kill them if it sets off the switch in their heads, but I think it’s their only chance.”

  The dragon nodded, “Keep your people out of the way.” He said and strode from the room.

  Nelson closed the channel and Smith turned to Hawkins, who was just now getting to his feet, leaning on the desk for support.

  “And you,” she said sternly, “are lucky I’m not armed.”

  “Nice straight right, chief.” Hawkins muttered in subdued apology, “I have no idea what happened to me there. I think that dragon punched me harder than I thought, and then that whole thing with the dragon facts of…”

  “Let’s just hope that the next time we’re trying to stop a world-ending crisis nobody makes a fart noise,” Smith favored him with a weak smile, “or you’ll be useless.” She gave her head an exasperated shake, “Have someone look at your nose.”

  “Sorry, chief.” Hawkins said, “Same for your hand, Rocky.”

  ***

  Forty two miles away from the OSI’s Virginia headquarters, behind an ancient truck stop on the interstate, a dirty white Peterbilt tractor with a weathered brown refrigerated trailer was parked in the farthest row of idling long-haul trucks. The tractor’s weathered, yet functionally maintained appearance gave the impression of long use by a professional, yet not particularly fastidious, owner-operator. The logo on the cab’s door was for A&B Trucking, a mid-sized co-op of independent truckers that operated mostly in the East and Midwest. The refrigerator at the front of the trailer purred quietly in the chill night air.

  Inside the tractor, the privacy curtains were pulled as if the driver were in the back of the cab, sleeping. In fact, the driver and another agent were in the back of the full sized cab, actively monitoring the police band, as well as the area surrounding the truck with a number of cameras concealed on various points of the innocuous tractor and trailer. Each was dressed in the simple denim, cotton and leather of American truckers, their personal weaponry limited to 9mm Glock pistols in inexpensive, yet functional concealed holsters. The guns were kept purposefully dirty. The glocks would fire full of mud, and the nonprofessional level of their maintenance was just another piece of the elaborate camouflage both the truck and its operators wore. Heavier weapons, from assault rifles to RPGs to a single stinger surface-to-air shoulder fired missile, were available in concealed bins in the cab. The hidden weapons were meticulously maintained and of the highest quality.

  Two SUVs and one small utility van spread throughout the parking lot also held two agents each, all camouflaged like the men in the cab of the semi.

  Behind the cab of the Peterbilt, the humming refrigeration unit was actually a concealed generator, powering the communications and other high tech equipment inside the trailer.

  Four men sat at a cluster of consoles on a single table near the center of the trailer. The Falcon handlers managed their teams, supervised in turn by their handler, who stood near a large tactical display near the front of the trailer.

  “Phoenix is still dark.” Cleric Bai said, monitoring the tactical display. “I reactivated their low-band telemetry after we were sure the installation’s systems were incapable of reacting to it, but they’ve not yet reestablished radio contact.”

  Cleric Yuen looked up from his screen briefly, “Delta has been in contact for almost ten minutes now.”

  Cleric Liu glanced at Bai, brow furrowing with concern, “Same for HoldFire, twelve minutes ago.”

  The fear asserted itself again, and Bai had to reinforce his outer façade of serenity with some distraction. He decided on sarcasm. “Yeah, weird.” He said casually, as if discussing an odd call in a baseball game, “You heard from FatalError yet, Lee?”

  Everyone laughed, except for Lee, who gave Bai a sour look.

  “Gentlemen.” Xian said it quietly, but the word brought an instant and tense silence in the close space inside the trailer, “I counsel you to greater focus.”

  They all knew that people would likely die tonight. Not just Falcons and more OSI agents, but here, in this truck. Bai didn’t like Lee’s chances at all, his last two missions had only been qualified successes, and he’d just lost his entire team to a… dare he think it again? He risked the small grin he knew it would cost and completed the thought: “fatal error”.

  The smile came, but Bai had his back to their handler. Of course, the hilarity of ironi
c team names aside, Bai was trying desperately to keep his nerves under control. The fundamentals of this assault had been his idea, so both his fortunes and likely his life were on the line. Other than FatalError, the assault had been textbook perfect and the other three teams had breached the installation. Still, Phoenix had not checked in and though telemetry told him that they were near the center of the building and nearly directly over Ash’s position in the underground installation, they had not reestablished the radio command link or the video feeds from their helmet cameras when it had become safe to do so.

  Phoenix was the best of the four Falcon wings working on this mission by a large margin, and the four teams working this mission were the best in the world. Bai liked to take credit for that fact whenever possible, but he knew it had almost nothing to do with the job he was doing as the team’s Cleric. They just worked: their individual skills and abilities were amazing, even among the elite abilities of any Falcon team, but the real advantage was how they worked together. They were more independent than any other team, more innovative, more instinctively perfect in action—and more insubordinate. If they were out of contact long after the other teams had reconnected with their command structure, it was likely because their situation mandated it, because it made their success more likely—because they were working some improvised plan as they had done so often in the past.

  It was going to be okay, Bai reassured himself silently, Phoenix would pull through like always. And then he’d use the kill switch, they’d die and he would move up into management. It was going to be okay.

  And then the telemetry feed from Crow flat-lined.

  The fear again crested over his internal discipline and he felt for an instant as if he were falling, a tingling coursing up his spine and numbing his fingers on the keyboard.