by Ian Whates
All eyes focused on the man leading the assault. Mya for one noticed the visor instantly.
"An eyegee!"
Catherine looked at Benson with blatant suspicion. "I thought you were in charge of the eyegee unit."
"I was. Evidently I'm not anymore."
"Patch me into their comms," Catherine said. "I want to talk to that eyegee."
"No!" Benson shouted. Catherine looked at him, startled. "It'll give the gun's AI a route into your systems, and you don't want that, trust me."
She glanced at Leyton, who nodded. "All right, scratch that. Give me an open channel to the lobby area instead."
Interesting, Catherine trusted Leyton ahead of Benson, even though she barely knew either of them. Pavel had clearly failed to make the progress he would have hoped to.
"This is Catherine Chzyski, CEO of Kaufman Industries, addressing ULAW forces. I insist that you cease this unlawful action and explain yourselves." Her words brought no visible response. "I suggest we stay calm here before anyone is hurt. If you are willing to wait in the lobby, I'll be happy to come down and discuss matters with your commanding officer."
She might as well not have bothered speaking. The soldiers kept advancing without any attempt to reply.
"Well, I tried," Catherine muttered. She remained calm and focused, issuing instructions as if born to it. "Initiate security protocol beta. All security personnel deploy to the stairways. The lifts are inoperative. Give me general office broadcast.
"All staff please remain in your offices or at your workstations. Do not venture out into the corridors under any circumstances. You'll be notified when it's safe to do so again. Thank you."
"Now that you've done that, it might be wise to turn all your systems off and lock them down," Benson advised.
She stared at him as if he were mad. "And why would I want to do that when we're under armed attack?"
"For the same reason you chose not to open a channel to the eyegee," Benson replied. "They'll subvert your own systems and use them against you."
"Not these systems they won't."
Mya glanced at Catherine, realising she meant it. She really was that confident of KI's security. There was a greyness to Catherine Chzyski, but it wasn't the grey of anything faded, rather the sheen of toughened steel. Mya had made a point of studying the woman's official profile en route and so was aware of Catherine's formidable reputation as a hard-assed businesswoman, but only now was she gaining an insight into where that reputation stemmed from. Mya couldn't help but admire her.
"More personnel to the south... Damn!" Catherine looked furious. "They've blocked communication. I can't get through to our security or anyone else."
Perhaps KI's systems weren't so formidable after all.
Leyton was studying the images of ULAW troopers spreading like a black stain through the building's lowest levels. "Can you bring up the building's schematics?"
Catherine did so, to hover in the air beside the soldiers.
"How robust are the defences between here and the ground floor?"
"Very," Catherine assured him. "Enough to slow them down considerably at least."
"Good." Two red beacons had started to flash on the schematics, clearly alarms. "Because it looks as if we've got more immediate problems. Two more incursions, both on this level."
He looked to Mya, who nodded once. Neither of them actually said, 'just like old times.' "I'll take the nearer one," she said.
Leyton smiled. "Okay, then I'll take the other."
The pair of them were moving immediately, each picking up one of the habitat's security detail on the way out. The two KI guards stayed on station, protecting their CEO. That didn't come as a surprise; Kethi tagging along with her did. If anything, Mya would have expected her to go with Leyton. Anyone would think that Jim's new lover didn't trust her. Not that she cared either way.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Philip was glad of the chance to talk to his father away from the others. "So," he said, "what do you think?"
"A politician," Malcolm replied. "I've known many like Benson in my time and never trusted any of them. I'm not about to start now."
Philip could only agree. There was something almost too sincere about the man. Rather like this place, the bar that Malcolm had elected to bring him to whilst the corporeals filled their faces. Couples sat and nattered at tables, sipping drinks from tall glasses. Soft lighting, art deco styling and retro ambience for the soundtrack; the whole place felt upbeat and relaxed, nothing unusual about it at all. Which was weird in itself, bearing in mind most of the venues in Virtuality that Malcolm had taken him to.
"So, what exactly is this place?" he asked.
"Just a bar," Malcolm assured him with studied nonchalance. "A singles bar, if you like, where people come to hook up if they're looking to experiment with virtual sex, most of whom probably aren't all that single, at least not out there."
Philip stared at his father. "You've brought me to a pick-up joint?"
The older Kaufman grinned. "What else are fathers for?"
"Hi, guys," a familiar voice said, right on cue.
Philip had wondered how long it would to take Tanya to track them down. He somehow suspected Catherine would have alerted her the moment they quit the conference room.
"Fancy meeting you two in a place like this," she said, dropping into a seat beside Philip.
"We were just waiting for you," Malcolm assured her.
"Of course you were." She grinned.
Philip was actually pleased to see Tanya, particularly after the intensity of the morning's meeting, but he wasn't about to admit as much.
"So, what does a girl have to do to get a drink around..."
Tanya vanished. Not just her, everyone at the tables around them simply blinked out of existence.
"What the hell?" Philip looked at his father.
"I'm not sure, but it can't be anything good."
"...here?" Tanya was back. They were all back. Everyone in the room had reappeared as if they'd never been away, resuming conversations and flirting, laughing, seeming completely unaware of the interruption.
"Guys, why are you looking at me like that?" Tanya asked. "Was it something I said?"
"Not exactly," Philip replied. "You disappeared. You and every other avatar here; vanished for a split second and then reappeared, resuming exactly where you left off."
Tanya looked aghast. "Shit!"
"A virus?" Malcolm asked.
"Yeah, probably. Almost certainly."
"Attacking the library files supporting the avatars," Philip said, catching on. Virtuality was a huge undertaking. There was room for very little redundancy in the systems and logical shortcuts were inevitably employed. Templates were used for just about every aspect. Individual avatars were unique, for example, but at the root of each was the same basic human design, however outlandish the embellishments. All of them stemmed from a very limited number of files, there to provide the bulk standard basics which could then be varied and built upon according to individual taste. Interfere with the library files and you'd affect every avatar within a given vicinity, possibly within the whole of Virtuality, depending on the scope of the interference.
The same held true of buildings, trees, wine glasses. It made no sense to invent the wheel a million times over. Once you had a wholly effective design which worked at all levels of authenticity, practicality, function, lock it in and use it as the template for every other generically similar feature.
The logic of the process was impeccable. The only time you could really question it was on occasions such as this, when the system came under attack. The lack of redundancy made the whole thing potentially vulnerable. When your very existence depended on this world, that was a sobering thought.
"That shouldn't happen again," Tanya said. "I've just written myself into the hard drive."
Really? There was more to this girl than met the eye.
The tables went next. Around the room there was
consternation and angry shouts as drinks went crashing to the ground and couples who had been leaning on tables gazing lovingly into each other's eyes suddenly found themselves falling off their chairs. As before, the tables reappeared a split second later, in several cases materialising with legs and other parts emerging from startled people's bodies. It was a surreal sight which lasted only a split second before the affected avatars died and were kicked out of Virtuality.
"One thing," Malcolm said, his voice quiet amidst the confusion. "When all the avatars disappeared just now, I noticed that the guy in the blue shirt at the bar didn't."
Both Philip and Tanya turned to look, to see the man in question staring at them and smiling.
They ran down a deserted corridor, to take position at the next junction. The guard dropped down on to his belly, manoeuvring so that just his head and gun poked around the corner. He carried an efficient looking short-barrelled automatic. Mya didn't recognise the model, and guessed it was of habitat design. Kethi stood above him, half crouching, her own weapon levelled. Mya stood in the doorway of an empty office opposite, slightly more exposed, holding her gun right-handed and standing with her back to the office. She could only really target half of the corridor. That was fine. It was the other two's job to deal with the other half.
They didn't have to wait long. Half a dozen figures in full combat gear appeared at the corridor's far end. As with those currently storming the lobby they weren't wearing shimmer suits, the cowing effect of such a blatant military presence presumably considered of greater tactical advantage than the camouflage provided by shimmers. Nor did they execute their advance in accepted operational fashion - individuals checking each office, gun-muzzle first, while covered by their colleagues. They simply strode forward, ignoring the closed doors of offices on either side.
Mya could immediately see why. Leading them was an eyegee. She couldn't tell who it was at this distance, but knew that his gun would be whispering in his ear, telling him that all was clear. Surely the gun had to pick up on their presence any second now?
Kethi must have reached the same conclusion, because at that instant she fired. The man below her followed her lead and sent a stream of bullets down the corridor. Mya watched as the eyegee staggered, clearly taking a hit, but the body armour must have done its job, because he didn't go down. One of the troopers behind him wasn't so fortunate. His dark form crumpled in the centre of the corridor as his colleagues took cover in neighbouring offices. His unmoving form looked like some heaped mound of black rags, abandoned by the cleaning staff. Mya took careful aim and squeezed off a volley of shots, belatedly joining the firefight.
Return fire chewed up the frame of the doorway she was stationed in, forcing her to pull back, while the wall opposite was peppered with slugs. A cry from the far end of the corridor and another trooper went down.
Mya bided her time but she couldn't afford to do so for long. In the corner of her eye she watched Kethi and the guard. They were both fully engrossed in their efforts to stay alive, to kill the enemy before they were shot themselves. Good; this seemed as good a moment as any. Mya leant out to squeeze off a further round in the direction of the ULAW troops before swinging her arm around. With clinical precision she shot Kethi and then lowered her aim, shooting the habitat guard before he could react. Whereas Kethi dropped like a stone, the man was still moving, trying to bring his gun around. She shot him again, this time in the head, and the movement stopped.
She then crouched and pushed her own weapon out into the centre of the corridor before calling out, "Hostiles are down, repeat, the hostiles are down. It's Mya, and I'm unarmed."
Seconds later the three surviving troopers reached her along with the eyegee, whom she recognised as Tobias - a canny operative with a good reputation.
Tobias glanced at Kethi and the habitat guard. "Good work, they're both dead," he confirmed, relaying the conclusions of his gun's AI.
Mya nodded as she retrieved her own weapon. She glanced down at Kethi's body one final time but felt no regrets. Yes, Kethi had been responsible for rescuing her from Sheol, but not out of any sense of altruism. She had done so purely because it served her own agenda. The fact that her actions benefited Mya was merely happy coincidence. Mya had now removed Kethi for the exact same reason: it suited her to do so. Nothing personal. Expediency was king and gratitude didn't merit a look in.
As Mya led the way back to the conference room, an office door opened. She didn't hesitate but raised her gun and fired, without stopping to consider that had there been any sort of a threat the eyegee would have reacted before she did. She caught a quick glimpse of a young woman collapsing, a blossom of red staining her chest, and then she was past. There was no reason for this girl to die. She should have stayed where she was instead of putting herself at risk. Collateral damage.
Something Mya knew all too much about.
At first she hadn't believed it, hadn't wanted to believe it, but then she'd hacked ULAW's security systems and tracked down the recording of the mission. It had been taken via an eyegee's visor and stored by the gun's AI, as all missions were - an infallibly objective means by which to assess performance and effectiveness. Even afterwards she wondered whether the recording had been doctored, whether she was meant to find it, but that seemed ridiculously paranoid. This wasn't something that had been left lying around for her to stumble across, it had been filed and sealed under heavy encryption and a hell of an effort to get to. No, this was the real thing, she was sure of it; a recording of Jim's most recent mission. A triumphant success, of course. Except that at one point Jim had been forced to mow down two ULAW troopers in order to kill the man beyond them, who would otherwise have blown the mission wide open and killed them all. Collateral damage: necessary, unavoidable.
How was he to know that one of those troopers had been Louis, Mya's brother, the lynchpin of her existence?
Until she saw that recording she'd no idea that Jim was responsible or even involved, only that Louis was dead.
It wasn't Jim's fault; she knew that, logically. She'd have done the same thing in his place. Yet how could she possibly continue to love the man who had killed her only brother? She tried. Despite her hurt, her anger, the accusations she was desperate to scream at him, she tried. Never saying anything because her mind told her it wasn't his fault and because such a tirade would mean having to explain how she knew about the incident and likely lead to her losing her job. So she bottled everything up; the hurt, the pain, the fury. Instead she ended up yelling at him over other things, trivial things that didn't really matter but which gave her an excuse; until in the end she froze at his touch and couldn't bear the thought of being near him.
When it all became too much she left, without ever telling him why.
Tobias and the troopers hung back out of sight, leaving Mya to stride up to the conference room doors alone. The two guards must have heard the shooting; they were alert, with weapons drawn, but they relaxed subtly on seeing her and the muzzles of their guns didn't track her as she drew nearer. After all, they'd no reason not to trust her.
"Everything all right here?" she asked.
"Yeah," the one nearest her confirmed.
"Good," she said as she shot them both.
The conference room doors were locked. Tobias's gun, set to energy, had them open in no time. Within, they found Benson standing over the other occupants - Catherine Chzyski, Nyles and the engineer Kyle, all of whom were seated in a row, their hands placed on the table-top palms down. Pavel held a gun trained on the three of them.
"What took you so long?" her lover asked.
The odds didn't bother Leyton. Numbers were only relevant up to a point. His real concern was the fact that one of them was an eyegee. True, he had his gun back, but that was only half the story. Coming towards him now was the real deal.
He had one chance, and several lives including his own depended on his ability to take it. He needed to nail his former colleague before the gun's AI cottoned on
to how well equipped he was. As soon as they realised he had an eyegee's gun, no matter that it lacked the usual guiding intelligence, all hell would break loose.
Leyton thumbed the dial round to energy and took aim. Before he could pull the trigger, a wave of heat washed over him, the section of wall just above his head catching fire and melting, while the habitat trooper beside him cried out in brief agony and collapsed, his uniform and skin burnt away to reveal a grotesque display of seared organs and blackened ribs. The eyegee had used energy. Either they'd sussed him out far sooner than he'd hoped, or this man wasn't taking any chances.
Something flashed through the air towards him. Grenade! Leyton flung himself to one side, reflecting on the fact that they must have upgraded the guns again. His grenades had nothing like this range. It was also a timely reminder that only the best of the best were selected for the eyegee unit. This guy had beaten him to the punch.
The shell exploded, buffeting him in mid-leap, slamming his body into the far wall. Shrapnel sliced a line of agony up one leg and he lost his grip on the gun. His head crashed against something - floor or wall, he couldn't be certain. Consciousness started to fade, but he clung to it doggedly. For a few dazed seconds he lay there, trying to focus. The gun rested on the floor just beyond his outstretched left hand. He sensed rather than saw people approaching.
What would the eyegee's visor be showing him as at the moment? An amber dot? Not red, technically he wasn't armed so didn't represent an immediate threat. Amber seemed most likely; but the moment he touched the gun it would flare up to red and the eyegee would react. He had to make this quick and decisive, or he was a dead man.
One more deep breath, allowing the enemy to come one more step closer; then he moved, snatching up the gun left-handed and firing. Body armour, clothing and flesh withered away as the deadly energies ripped into the eyegee at the front of the group. Even before the man had fully collapsed Leyton played the beam over the three soldiers behind him, taking all of them out before they could get a shot away. Only then did Leyton ease up, forcing his reluctant finger to lift from the trigger. Only then did he move, dragging his aching body into a sitting position.
