He looked at the goggles again. “I need to distract myself,” he thought.
He stood up and put on the headset. Within seconds, he was in Soldier World, looking at accounts to hack. One thing caught his eye immediately. The biggest prize he had ever seen. Available right now to gamer AlabamaGerErDone, who was offline.
“I’m not offline any more, baby,” Maxime said, as he hacked into the account.
It was Drone Commander. He accepted all of the settings and began playing. There were four drones in an empty field that began rising from the ground and moving in an attack pattern.
Maxime reflected on the prize money. It was more than he owed Joey. If he won the mission and got the money, maybe Joey would trade it for his life.
Problem: the money won’t be in my account.
It would go to AlabamaGetErDone, whoever that was. But Joey was pretty good at hacking into things. Maxime could tell him tonight and maybe he could steal the money before AlabamaGetErDone even woke up. Then nobody would be the wiser.
As the drones flew over, Maxime saw an Interstate sign. I-24. That was the same Interstate that ran through Nashville. Why would the mission be anywhere near I-24? Usually they created worlds that were in other countries, sometimes even other planets.
He had sixteen screens in front of him as he stood on the platform. Each screen represented a different drone from four different camera angles. Right now, they all looked similar because the drones were flying around the same area in the same direction.
But Maxime had played the game enough to know that once the action started, there was way too much going on to keep track. That’s why he needed the AI software to verify a target and present it to him. Sometimes there would be one target screen after another for seconds on end. He had to physically move his hands in a specific gesture and then confirm the shot with his other hand. It was weird and kind of stupid, but he had gotten the hang of it.
Maxime changed the view on one of the drones to be infrared/thermal. He could see living things as the drones flew at night. Women and children and dogs in their houses. Some people sleeping, others sitting in their living rooms.
The mission screen said that there were fifteen minutes until they would reach the target. It was quite long. Most of the games Maxime had played before on Drone Commander had been one or two minutes of setup travel.
Everything about this mission seemed off. He sat in his chair and waited for the time to pass. He wondered if the real AlabamaGetErDone would log in and ruin the prize opportunity. At one point, he even took off his goggles and had a drink.
And then the drones arrived. There were about twenty or so little houses with people in them. Maxime put all of the drones on IR/Thermal mode and found it pretty simple to shoot the people. The drones split up and each drone went after five or six houses. Maxime could see the people trying to hide under tables or beds. He took all the easy shots first, one after another. He was confirming a shot every two or three seconds it seemed. When there was finally a lull in the action, he looked up and saw that he had forty confirmed kills.
“Pretty active cell,” he said. Most of the games he had played had been fewer than twenty people.
Two of the drones left the area and went to another target that was three minutes away. The other two stayed back and went for the people hiding under beds. With the IR sensors, it was really easy to see the people. Maxime had the software wait until it could find a good head shot. The two drones would go to one house at a time, hovering around different windows, trying to get the right angle. They had cleared over half of the houses when it became obvious that another tactic was needed.
Maxime had done this enough times that it was second nature. He found the largest window and shot selected points until it crashed down. Then he directed the drone to fly into the house. Because these houses were so small, there was only one window on each of them that was big enough, and there was very little room to maneuver once you got inside.
But it was enough. Most people panicked when the drone started to enter and they made a run for the door. At that point, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Maxime cleared all of the houses, and had 58 confirmed kills on his screen.
The two drones began following the other two toward a second target area. Maxime wondered how many targets there were.
He got a quick drink of water but didn’t take his goggles off. Which was a good thing, since the drones arrived outside a large one-story building marked as target two.
Maxime directed the drones to shoot out the largest window and put all of the drones back into normal vision from IR/Thermal. He could see a house that looked pretty normal. The interior reminded him of houses in Tennessee, which was weird.
He shot an old woman in the head as she ran away from the first drone. He saw some women running toward a door that went downstairs. It looked like a basement of some kind. He shot every one he saw, but several people got away. He looked at his ammunition and saw that he was a little low on all four drones.
How am I going to get down this basement?
He had played other versions of the game in situations like this. Each drone had a small number of special explosives. He jumped into the 360 degree view of the first drone and looked all over the building. Everybody on the first floor was dead. The basement was hard to see, but he thought that there might be a vulnerability in the floor. He directed the second drone outside through the window. With the first drone, he positioned his shot for the special explosive. He pinpointed an area on the floor and launched the floor mine.
If this drone was like the others, he had about ten seconds, so he quickly maneuvered the drone back outside through the window. Sure enough, ten seconds later, there was a large explosion. He flew back in and looked around. The tiled floor had a big hole in it with visibility into the basement. But the hole wasn’t big enough to fly through, and the people in the basement were hiding somewhere out of sight. It looked like a big basement.
He set the crosshairs again on the tile floor, right next to where the hole was. He needed a bigger hole. He shot the special explosive and navigated out the window.
BOOM!! The first drone was out of special explosives so he flew the second drone in through the window. Around that time, the two other drones arrived, and he directed them to fly around the area to make sure that no one was escaping through any other exits.
With the second drone, he used one more special explosive. He was pretty worried about how many more targets there were, since he was running low on all ammunition now and would likely not be able to fly much longer with the battery packs he had.
BOOM!! The third explosion was the charm. He was in.
This basement is incredible.
Cubes, grid setups and beds were everywhere. He found ten or so people in one corner and shot three of them. The others scurried away, through the basement.
By this time, the second drone was in the basement and both drones were bringing up targets left and right. He registered five more kills in six seconds.
I’m on fire.
He found another corner filled with people and took out one after another for almost a full minute. This was the most active cell he had ever been inside. He looked around the basement and didn’t see anyone. He jumped into both drones and checked the basement in 360 degrees. Everybody looked dead.
Experience told him to verify each body and make sure that nobody was faking a death on the ground. He started flying from body to body.
And that is when one of the outside surveillance drones alerted him to two people. He saw the man in his crosshairs and started to confirm, but then he stopped.
Oh my God! Thomas?
The man’s face changed into something else, but then changed back. It looked exactly like Thomas from the grid camp and then it looked like another man, a foreign man.
What the hell is going on?
Something is his stomach already knew the answer. He felt an emptiness not felt since his parents’
death. A profound sadness washed over him. Suddenly he remembered seeing the signs for Interstate 24 and thinking that the surroundings looked familiar.
He realized that what he was seeing was no game. He looked at the screen and saw 94 confirmed kills and started to cry.
The tears blurred his vision and made it difficult to see, but he could tell that both drones were waiting for him to pull the trigger. One drone pointed at a woman and the other pointed at a man that Maxime knew in his heart was Thomas. He watched them blurrily through tear-soaked eyes as they got in a car and began driving. The drones were both blinking red, prompting Maxime to pull a trigger that he refused to pull.
Just before pulling the goggles from his face, he saw the prize money being awarded. The mission was half complete and he would receive half the money. To get the other half, it said, he had to continue pursuing the final two people and take them out.
Maxime took the goggles off and placed them gently on the floor. He sat on his bed and wept.
58
“OH MY GOD, oh my God, oh my God,” Thomas was panting, as he stared down a combat drone that was about to take his life as it had taken so many others.
“In the car,” Julia was screaming frantically.
Thomas realized that the drone was hesitating. Maybe it was out of bullets. Whatever the reason, he opened the car door just like they had practiced and jumped in. The car was parked next to their newly built basement escape. There were three different escape routes programmed in by Julia, following Tito’s advice. She hit the first button and fell to the floor of the car.
“Get on the floor. I’m going to try and shoot this thing,” she yelled.
Thomas obeyed, but was hysterical. “I can’t believe it. All those people.”
Julia maneuvered the drone sniper into position. Through the lens, she could see the combat drone in front of them. Software identified the drone and the primary area of weakness and put up a red crosshairs icon. “This may be loud,” she said, and pulled the trigger.
BOOM! The car shook. The drone was hit and began falling from the sky.
“Got it!” she screamed, elated, and started turning to find the other one.
“We need to take the other route,” Thomas yelled at her. “We have to drive over to the tiny houses and warn the others. I have to warn Alexander.”
“It’s too risky. We need to get out of here.”
“No! These people saved me. We have to help them.”
He changed the navigational route and the car began turning.
“Cover your ears,” she said.
BOOM! The car shook again.
“Got the second one,” Julia yelled. “Let me see if there are any more.”
Thomas thought about their ammunition. They had eight anti-drone weapons and two anti-policecar weapons. With Julia’s two shots, they would be down to six ADWs.
His adrenaline was running wild. He watched the navigation screen as they moved a few minutes away from Alexander’s house. He thought of all of his newly formed friends and felt a muted pain. He would cry for them when they were safe. Right now, all he could feel was his heart beating out of his chest.
“I don’t see any more drones,” she said, and took her eye off the lens. She looked at Thomas and then embraced him. “Oh, baby. Oh my God, I can’t believe this has happened. How could they be so cruel.”
“We have to save the others,” he said.
Julia looked at the navigation system. “Oh, Thomas, you changed the route?” She was about to change it back but thought otherwise. “You’re right. We need to warn them. I was too panicked before. We have to help them.”
He held her tightly. “It is so terrible, but we aren’t out of this yet. There are probably drones at the other houses. We have to use the weapon. You have to be watching for them.”
She wiped tears from her face. “Yeah,” she said, and went back to the ADW.
It took a few more tension-filled minutes to get to the site. As the car approached, Thomas noticed that the first house had its window shattered.
“NO!!” he screamed. The car slowed, and he opened the door to run to the house. He wasn’t wearing his wig, but none of the ordinary precautions mattered anymore. Julia got out and ran after him, as he pushed the door open and screamed in agony.
When Julia reached him, he was standing over Alexander’s bed, weeping. The house was disheveled, with broken windows from multiple gunshots. Alexander had been shot twice in the head and his sheets and pillows were covered in blood.
“He was a wonderful man,” Julia said. “What has happened to him is horrific, but we have to go or the same will happen to us.”
“Everyone here has been killed because of me,” Thomas cried.
“They were killed because of evil. And if we can escape, we can publish this evil to the world. If they find us, we will not be able to tell anyone.”
“Take pictures,” he said.
She pulled out her phone and turned it on. “I’ll take some pictures here, and promise me that we’ll leave. I’ll take more pictures as we drive. You have to put on the wig and stay down. If they have satellites on us, they’ll get the car and be tracking us.” She began taking pictures of everything.
“OK,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They both ran back to the car. Julia made a cross in front of Alexander before running out behind Thomas.
Once in the car, she was back on the ADW and Thomas was lying on the floor with the wig on. The car was taking the programmed route that they had worked out with Debbie. It was all old country roads, first into Alabama and then into Georgia.
Julia saw no more combat drones as the car drove them out of Jasper.
PART SIX
WITCH HUNT
59
SUSAN WAS SITTING while Stephanie paced the living room of the safe house in Jasper. They were waiting for the call from Emily. Both women had their hair in protective nets and were wearing gloves. No evidence of their participation could be left behind.
There were two vans parked in front of the small house. One was a navy blue Nashville police van which could carry the four drones; the other was nondescript and white. The white van, like the safe house, had been setup by Harriet at the DOD. Inside the van were ten HazMat containers, each holding enough acid to consume fifteen bodies. It was going to be an ugly night.
On top of the normal stress Susan expected from a job this nasty, Stephanie was losing her nerve. Ever since Susan had told her that she expected more casualties, Stephanie had become unhinged.
“How many people are we talking about? It was bad enough when I thought it was one or two people.”
“Calm down,” Susan said. “It will be whatever it is. I’ll deal with the bodies. You just need to help with the clean up.”
“My agents said there might be sixty people in those buildings. I need to know how many people you think are going to die.”
“Listen, Stephanie. This is what happens in black ops. You should prepare yourself for the possibility that they are all dead.”
Stephanie squealed. “No! No, no, no. I didn’t sign up for this.” She paced around the room.
Susan tried to be understanding, but Stephanie’s anxiety was troubling. Too much was riding on this mission to have a loose cannon.
This bitch is gonna lose her shit and expose us all.
“Listen,” Susan said. “Look at me.”
Stephanie looked at Susan’s face.
“We’ll get through this. It will be awful, but I’ve dealt with this type of situation before. We’re professionals. We do what has to be done,” Susan said the last sentence sternly.
“I don’t know if I can,” Stephanie said.
Susan sighed and was wondering what to do next when the phone rang. It was Emily.
“Is it done?” Susan asked.
“We had a complication,” Emily replied.
“What do you mean?” Susan said angrily.
“First of all, this is
a total massacre. I don’t know how we can ever do something like this again.”
“I agree,” Susan said.
“What happened?” Stephanie asked. Susan ignored her and turned her back. She began walking in the other room.
Emily continued, “Secondly, the gamer did pretty well and took out 94 people, but…”
Susan was listening intently. 94 people. This was so much worse than she ever dreamed. “But what? Finish the sentence.”
“But the guy must have gone to the bathroom or something. He stopped on the last two people. A man and a woman. And they got away in a white Ford.”
“Did you get the plate?”
“Yeah, I’ll message it to you now. The car was old and looked modified. If you go to the satellites now, you should be able to track them.”
“I don’t have satellites within 500 miles of here. There couldn’t be any video evidence of this,” Susan replied.
Stephanie began following after Susan. “What is happening? Why are you ignoring me?”
Susan turned and looked at her, covering the phone’s microphone with her hand. “Stephanie, shut up for five seconds. Let me finish this call.” Then back to Emily. “Go ahead.”
“Well, can you put sat surveillance on the area now? I don’t have many details on the car or the two people.”
“I can’t use sats for this. Remember that the scene still has to be cleaned up. Send me the images of the two people and the car. Use the private channels.”
“No problem. What else?” Emily asked.
“Does the gamer need to be handled?”
“We can’t do that,” Emily said with surprise. “You promised me that we would never do that again. This guy doesn’t know anything. It was late. Maybe he got tired and went to bed.”
Susan thought about it. “Monitor all of his activities for the next three months. I want to be sure.”
“I can monitor what he does on Soldier World, but you have better surveillance capabilities for everything else. I’ll send you his details.”
“OK. I have to make another call now.”
Escape The Grid: Volume 1 Page 26
