At least the woman had bothered to speak to her. Half the residents had stayed in their homes or shouted at her from behind closed doors when she tried to tell them that the Southlands was coming. They were more concerned that she was violating their privacy than the impending invasion. The other half set their dogs on her or had their kids throw rocks.
Deciding that the outlying areas were made up of ardent and completely intractable individualists, Gabby rode back into town.
She found Mouse sitting on the curb in front of the antique shop. Red liquid dripped from her chin. At first Gabby thought it was blood, but then she saw the exploded tomatoes splattered around her.
"Be thankful they were soft. I got hit with rocks," said Gabby.
"They didn't want to hear a word I had to say. Not one wanted to watch the hologram. Not one!"
Mouse's exasperation came through the volume of her voice. Gabby got off the bike and sat next to Mouse, putting her arm around the diminutive girl. Strangely, Gabby didn't feel as bad about the townsfolk not responding to their cries for help as she had in the countryside.
Maybe she hadn't really expected them to rally around a pack of kids barely ready for University. Maybe she was just glad to trust Mouse again. Since the revelation about Celia's condition, she saw the dynamic of the group in a different light.
No longer was Mouse trying to steal Michael from her, forcing her to admit that she did have feelings for him. Now she was merely providing a shoulder to cry on about his sister, not that he could speak presently, but they'd untangled the first half of his virus. She hoped they could finish it off in the coming days.
Or maybe she was responding to Mouse not looking like the Coder, though the time spent had confused the two in her head. As Mouse continued to complain about the reluctant citizens, Gabby found similarities between her accent and Mr. Johnson, but passed it off as an after affect of the Coder skin.
Eventually Michael and Milton found the two girls sitting on the curb.
"Any luck?" Gabby asked.
Milton the street walker shook his mane seductively. "Nothing for the plan though I did get four date offers. One was a woman, but unfortunately she had a wart the size of a thimble on her chin."
Gabby restrained the urge to roll her eyes. "Did they give reasons why they didn't want to help?"
Milton leaned against the light pole, stretching his right leg out seductively.
"Let's see," he said, tapping his fingers as he counted, "one they didn't believe us, two they didn't care, three if they did they would just leave and not bother with fighting or four they didn't trust us because Jaxon wasn't involved."
"I thought for sure we'd get at least a few," said Gabby, "and then I thought we could build on that number."
Mouse shrugged. "We thought so too, Gabby. It was a good plan."
"We had the recording of the spy plane in the presentation. If they'd just watched it, they would have known the truth."
Gabby kicked a rock across the street and shoved her hands under her arms.
"They cling to an ideal that doesn't match reality," said a voice from behind.
They all turned around to find a pale man with chopped black hair, wearing an olive green jacket and carrying a backpack over his shoulder like a practiced traveler.
"And how do you know?" asked Gabby.
"I've been through these parts time and again," he said. "To most Freelanders, freedom is a hopeful ideal to work towards, but for the citizens of the Double Eagle it's a right they will take to the grave if necessary." And before anyone could ask his name, he nodded his head and said, "Damon."
The Frags repeated their names briefly. "You seem familiar," said Gabby, scrunching her forehead trying to determine the resemblance.
"Don't know why," said Damon with a bright grin, "I don't stay long enough in one place to get to know anyone, though if you had to pin me down, I'd say I come from a place near the Old Colonies."
"Still..." Gabby shook her head. "So why did you say what you said?"
Damon swung his backpack off his shoulder and pulled an apple from a side pocket. He crunched into the red skin and spoke with a full mouth. "I overheard your spiel and I've heard what the locals have to say about you. They're more concerned about you trampling their rights to ignore the world than the Southlanders." Damon chewed a few more times. "Though I think the Liberty Hotel owners are doubly mad at you, since you ran off their only clients with all your talk. Everyone from somewhere else had more sense and got the hell out."
"Then why are you still here?" she asked.
The other Frags eyed Damon with suspicion, though Mouse kept glancing at the others.
"I'm waiting for someone." Damon grinned. Pieces of apple skin were stuck in his teeth.
Gabby tilted her head at Damon. "Are you sure I don't know you? Have you ever been to the GSA?"
"You're Gamer kids?" Damon slapped his knee and took another bite. "And what the hell do you think? No one gets in or out of that land. Though I suppose someone, or some four must have gotten out if you're not projections and actually here talking to me."
Damon winked and took another bite despite his mouth already being full.
Milton moved closer to Damon and leaned over in an obvious come-look-at-me fashion. "Do you think there's a way we could get through to them?"
Damon nearly spit out his apple when he glanced at the comely blonde Milton.
"Don't think I don't know what's under that lovely skin, boy. Though I've done stranger things in stranger lands." Damon winked at Milton.
Red flushed Milton's cheeks and he backed away from Damon.
"But no, I don't think you can get through to them," said Damon. "You best be taking your own advice and get the hell out of town."
Gabby slumped down onto her heels. "We're waiting for someone, too."
A curious twinkle shone through Damon's eyes as he glanced at Mouse. Mouse was oblivious as she was cleaning mud off her shoes with a stick. Heat rose to Gabby's face. She didn't like what that glance meant. Stranger things in stranger lands sounded a lot like a pervert. The kind they'd gotten away from at the Flock.
"I think it's time you left," said Gabby. The other Frags looked to her. They hadn't seen what she'd seen.
Damon took another bite, mumbled something that sounded like a farewell and headed up the street towards Liberty Hotel.
"What was that about?" asked Milton.
"I didn't like him."
"How come?"
Gabby shrugged. "Gut feeling." She didn't want to frighten Mouse by telling her what she saw. "But I have a new idea. It probably won't work, but we have to try our presentation one more time."
And also she didn't want them to be split up any longer. She didn't trust Damon. He could be a pervert or worse, a spy for the Southlands.
Gabby had them set up in the middle of the busiest street, which was about as busy as a cul-de-sac in the GSA. There was no market or center square.
The Frags synced four separate versions of the hologram presentation on the four corners of the intersection. Passerbys could turn off public viewing and ignore the presentation, but they couldn't easily ignore the Frags yelling warnings at the top of their lungs, all of them but Michael, who jumped and beeped at the top of his lungs.
"The Southlands are coming!"
"The invasion nears!"
"Prepare for invasion!"
"Stand together or be taken apart!"
"One by one equals one and done!"
As the afternoon wore on, no one came near the intersection, though citizens did pause from a distance and stare for a minute or two. Gabby wasn't sure if they were just configuring their interfaces to block them, or actually watching the presentation, but she had an optimistic heart that at least some were watching.
When night fell, she pushed the Frags to stay longer, but both Mouse and Milton's voice had given out and even Michael just beeped and buzzed occasionally. They returned to the Liberty Hotel, ignoring the g
lares from the owner as they trudged up the stairs to their room.
The exhaustion from the fruitless day claimed them so completely, they didn't even work on the viruses or set watch for the next day. The Southlanders weren't supposed to arrive until the day after. There should be time still to rally the town, to get the information from Jaxon, to wait for Celia and Drogan, to get out of Double Eagle if it came to that.
There should have been time. So they didn't set watch.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gabby awoke in the dim twilight of her room, wearing her clothes from the previous day and smelling burning diesel. Mouse's leg was jammed into her side and it took a minute to untangle from the blankets and carefully step over the dark forms on the floor until she stared out the window.
The window squealed. Mouse rotated over facing Gabby and smacked her lips. Gabby leaned out the opening and inhaled deeply. An oily taste coated her tongue. There could be any number of reasons why someone was burning diesel in the early morning - it was the Freelands after all - but Gabby knew she'd never be able to sleep without checking it out.
Without waking the others, she crept out of the room and went to the roof. She rubbed her arms to warm them in the chilly air. She regretted not grabbing a heavier shirt before coming up.
The coming light of morning exhaled its pale breath on the horizon. Gabby cast her gaze south, wishing the Double Eagle allowed traveling by projection. Then she could send her presence through the cameras and check the surrounding countryside for signs of the Southlanders. They weren't supposed to be this far north yet, but maybe she'd miscalculated, or there was more than one force. All the reasons why she was wrong came back to her in that moment.
But she heard nothing and saw nothing and was ready to dismiss it as nerves and head back down to the room when she saw the polygon shapes rip from invisible pockets around the town. The visual constructs were the same things Gabby had seen the day the Frags first showed her the wall and how the GSA could hide reality.
The Southlanders were hacking the Double Eagle. Which meant they were close, maybe even within the town limits. A bottomless pit formed in Gabby's stomach. They were too late.
Gabby watched a moment longer as the polygons morphed buildings into empty spaces and empty spaces into buildings. The transformation happened as if an invisible giant was blowing up balloon buildings in one breath and sucking down others in another.
The Southlanders were hiding the cityscape under illusionary terrain. Their conquest would be simple as half the citizens would probably knock themselves out running into hidden buildings.
The rat-a-tat of distant gunfire spun Gabby around. The fire fight was coming from the wrong direction. Someone was resisting them, but it was in the north. Which meant the Southlanders had them surrounded.
Gabby envisioned what they'd done. Probably pushed through both nights to reach the town before the populous could be rallied and then split off into the countryside to round up the divided Double Eaglers while hacking the system to throw the whole geolocative reality off.
It's what Gabby would have done. Or what she should have assumed the Southlanders would have done. She shook her head as she ran back down to the room.
The other Frags were awake and gathering gear in hurried fashion.
"We heard the gunfire," said Milton.
Gabby smiled. Maybe they would get through the day.
"We have to get out of town before they move in," said Gabby.
"We can't leave yet," said Mouse, bouncing from foot to foot.
"Why not?"
"Celia and Drogan."
Gabby moved to the window while running her hand through her hair. "We'll have to head the direction we think they might be coming and hope for the best."
"What about the virus?" asked Milton. "I don't mind looking like this, but what will happen when we leave the town? How will you carry us when our systems completely shut us off from reality?"
"We'll think of something. Throw you in a wheelbarrow or something. We just can't be caught here."
Michael beeped and Milton shrugged. They made it to the bottom level without incident.
"Mario!" Gabby said under her breath as she looked outside. "I forgot something. They hacked the geo files for the town. Nothing is as it seems out there. Ideas anyone?"
The others were clearly checking their files to see what they could do. Gabby kept watch, expecting troops to come streaming down the street any moment.
When Michael punched her in the arm, she almost turned around to slap him. She caught a brief thumbs up before his hand was blurred out.
"I think he figured it out!" whispered Mouse.
They found a file he pushed to the local networks that jammed the geolocative spaces into their default positions. Gabby applied the hack and the buildings outside in the dimly lit street moved around like giants playing games.
"I think that worked," said Gabby and the others nodded.
An explosion from a street over concussed against the window. "They're in the town."
"We don't even have any weapons," complained Milton. Michael beeped in agreement.
"Will these work?" said Damon from the back doorway. He had a semi-automatic weapon hung over his shoulder and a compact pistol dangling from his fingertips. A couple of lengths of iron pipe leaned against the wall.
Gabby grabbed the gun, noticing the hesitation from Damon as she pulled it from his fingers. The others grabbed the pipes.
"Shame you don't have more weaponry."
Damon glanced toward the street. "Which direction you headed?"
"West," said Gabby. "The Southlanders have encircled the town. I figure it's the best chance for getting away." She kept it to herself that she hoped they'd find the Caterpillar that way, because she didn't want Damon to know. Despite the offer of weapons, she didn't trust him.
"They hacked the town," said Mouse in a timid voice.
"Already got it." Damon winked at her and Mouse visibly shrunk.
"Let's go." Gabby led them out the Liberty Hotel. They hugged the wall, circling toward the north and then west. Halfway around, Gabby crouched when the sounds of engines approached.
Two vehicles advanced from the west, headed directly into the sun which had just peeked above the horizon. Gabby heard a shout.
"Go back! Go back!" she yelled, pushing Milton on the shoulder.
Bullets sprayed the area Gabby had just left, spitting chunks of bricks and dust over them. As they circled the corner, Damon knelt and returned fire to cover their escape.
They rushed back into the Liberty Hotel before the vehicles could come around. "To the roof! We need to see where the Southlanders are."
After a frenzied run up the stairwell, Gabby half expected a hovercraft to be waiting to gun her down. Once they'd confirmed the skies were clear, they circled the roof, scouting the troops now streaming into the town.
"Two half-tracks and a platoon on this side," yelled Milton.
Mouse glanced over on her side. "Another two platoons' worth going from building to building over here."
Damon stood in the middle, scowling at nothing in particular. Gabby caught a hint of familiarity from his stance, but couldn't put her finger on it.
The Frags watched as the Southlanders assaulted the city. They spied men, women and whole families being dragged from their houses and shoved into covered trucks. Gabby wanted to rush down and stop them, but she knew they were massively outgunned.
As the sun broke completely from the horizon, they watched a fire fight on the west side of town. A group of townies in military gear broke from a warehouse and ambushed a platoon. They cut down the Southlanders in short order before moving down a side street.
Gabby and the Frags cheered the resistance, but their excitement was quickly squashed.
"Look over there," said Mouse, "those troops are responding to the ambush."
Milton pointed to a second group converging on the resistance fighters. "They're going to get
caught between those two."
The Double Eagle group, oblivious to the movements of the Southlanders, kept creeping down their street as if no one knew they were there. Gabby resisted the urge to shout at them to move.
Everyone but Damon watched the two groups catch the resistance group in a side street and cut them down in crossfire. Damon just stood in the middle of the roof biting his thumb, lost in thought. When Damon caught her looking at him, he turned his back on her.
I need a memory buff! I know I know him!
Hoping to distract herself so the answer might come to her, Gabby made herself watch the troop movements. She also hoped to determine a clear pattern so they could escape.
The aerial view of their movements tickled out memories of her Algorithms class back in the GSA. After a couple of minutes of watching, it came to her.
"They're using mathematical searching patterns," she said. "Maximizing their coverage of the town for the number of troops they have."
"Good," said Damon, crossing his arms, with a playful smirk lurking on his lips. "Then calculate our escape."
"It's not that easy." Gabby shook her head. "It's easy to see that they're using a pattern, but I can't reverse engineer it without more data."
"Pity."
"But it does tell me one thing," she said.
When they all looked to her, she continued. "They have a LifeGamer on their side running the battle. Everything they're doing is straight out of our gaming strategy classes: information warfare, maximization algorithms, the geolocative hack."
"Then what good does telling us do?" The sudden coldness in Damon's voice triggered a memory. Gabby examined Damon's features closely, imagining him with a different hair cut. Gabby opened her mouth to say something when a tiny scream erupted from below.
Three blocks over, the massive form of Jaxon could be seen standing in the street firing two automatic weapons into an oncoming vehicle. The vehicle wobbled from side to side before crashing into a building and bursting into flames.
Frags Page 15
