Social Faith

by Damien Boyes

  Call me if you want it back.

  I strip a frame off the scan I made of Amit’s bedroom, wipe the metadata, flip it to the new tab, attach it to the message and spend fifteen minutes spamming it wherever I can find. Not a lot of feeds accept low-rep connections these days, but there are enough. If Eka really does have his fingers as deep into the link as it seems, he’ll see it.

  Nothing left to do now but wait.

  I don’t think it’ll be long.

  ***

  SysDate

  [20:02:11. Sunday, April 28, 2058]

  My detour to the automart gets me to work an hour late. I step off the bike just in time to see six cruisers and all four station TACvans come screaming out of the parking lot, their bumpers tight.

  They bounce onto the road and split into two groups, one heading east and the other west. They’re followed almost immediately by the turbine whine of the two double hoppers pulling up over the station’s roof, running-lights blazing against the overcast sky, and shooting off in different directions. Seconds later all four single hoppers rise and shriek off after their big brothers.

  Something big is going down.

  I race through the station doors but no one’s at reception. The duty area is nearly empty. Yellowbird’s leaving the briefing room, head down, moving fast. She’s staring intently at a tab through a vizr, and I have to jump aside so she doesn’t slam into me.

  “Fin!” she yelps when she finally notices me, and flips up the screen. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Where’s your tab? I’ve been pinging you like crazy.”

  I didn’t want anything to lead back to me so I’d powered it down just before I sent the message to Eka and hadn’t bothered to turn it back on. “I switched it off.”

  “Holy fuck, Fin. Hell of a time to pull an AWOL.”

  She’s talking fast, partly excitement and partly fear. I keep my voice even, try to calm her down. “What happened?”

  “Galvan’s sweeps went crazy. Picked up the your little girl cypher in fifteen places. All at once.”

  “What do you mean, ‘all at once?’”

  “See for yourself.” She taps at her tab, flips it around to show me a five-by-three grid of SecNet stills: each one a young, pan-ethnic female face with high cheekbones and dark hair. They’re from different angles and with different hairstyles and make-up, but they’re the same face. The first cypher. The one from the Market.

  She’s all fifteen of them.

  “When?”

  “About a half hour ago. All of ‘em. All at once.”

  “No shit,” I say, and feel a satisfied smile pulling at my cheeks, quash it by dragging my hand over my mouth before Yellowbird notices.

  I did this.

  It all went down a half hour ago, right about the time I posted my message to Eka. This is no coincidence. Eka is running cover for Xiao and the second I call him out, his protection drops?

  I’ve spooked Eka. That’s the only explanation. Xiao probably doesn’t even know he isn’t shielded anymore. He’ll still be thinking he’s protected. “Where was Galvan heading?”

  “SecNet had a live track on three of the cyphers. Two entering a drone yard up near the airport and the other in the Market. Galvan and Special Agent Doyle took a hopper to the drone yard with a Standards team and a TAC back-up just behind. Brewer and the other teams went to the Market.”

  “I’m going to help Galvan.”

  “Uh-uh, no way,” she says, stepping around to put herself between the exit and me. “He said specifically that if you bothered to show up for duty you were to stay here.”

  I’ve got my bike out front but I’ve been riding for hours and the battery is drained. “Are there any cruisers left?”

  “There isn’t a bicycle left.”

  “Then I’ll hitch.”

  She holds up her hands, one of them still clutches her tab. Fifteen sets of identical eyes stare out at me. “Fin, for your own good, stay here and help coordinate. You’re in enough shit as it is. If you disobey another direct order, you’re going to be in for more than desk duty. They’ll have your badge.”

  “I don’t report to him.”

  “The Inspector put him in charge, she’s on her way in now.” She puts her hand on my arm.

  “I’m going,” I say, shake loose and brush past her, headed for the exit.

  “I’d advise remaining in the station, Finsbury,” the AMP coos in my ear.

  “Galvan’s not ready for this. It’s his third fucking week on the job. He’s not quaified to lead raids on cyphers.”

  “Agent Doyle and the Standards agents are on point. Galvan will co-ordinate the Service’s participation from the rear.”

  If Xiao’s cyphers are amped up on Eka’s Revv, it doesn’t matter how many agents Standards throws at them. There aren’t enough.

  Galvan needs me.

  “I’m going,” I say and head toward the doors. The AMP remains silent.

  “Fin, don’t.” Yellowbird says, takes a step to follow but doesn’t come any closer, calls after me instead. “Think about what you‘re doing—”

  The station’s doors cut her voice off. There’s nothing to think about. I’ve been chasing this—these—cyphers since my first day back, when no one else knew they existed. If it weren’t for me tracking Eka down and flushing him out, they’d still be invisible.

  I call a Sküte and it pulls up to the curb forty-five seconds later, tells me the ride out to the airport will take a half hour. Unable to do anything else I climb in, spread my tab and follow the team’s progress through the Service’s internal feeds.

  Galvan and Special Agent Doyle arrive at the drone yard ten minutes later, but even with the Service and Standards overrides, the hopper isn’t able to land directly inside. The yard’s within the airport’s no-fly zone, and landing would require shutting down air traffic, which isn’t going to happen without a warrant, which will take time.

  The drones aren’t even allowed within hovering distance, they pop off the hopper and prod the no-fly barrier like floating dogs on chains.

  It’s eight on a Sunday night but the drone yard is still bustling, the whirring of turbines droning like a hive of mechanical bees. Heavy lifter drones fly low in the sky, specially permissioned to operate under the airport’s airspace. They skim five or six metres above the yard, unloading and ferrying cargo between the large haulers for smaller drones to pick up and exit the yard for delivery around the city.

  Automated haulers, with compact sensor domes instead of driver cabs, wheel in a loop, in and out of the gates, ferrying shipping containers to and from the airport and the nearby highway. There might be a person or two in the front office, but other than that whole yard’ll be deserted.

  A perfect place for invisible people to hide.

  Galvan starts the process to shut the facility down, but Doyle stops him, doesn’t want the cyphers to know anything’s changed if they don’t already.

  I call up a satellite map of the area and review it while Doyle and Galvan run the hundred meters from the hopper to the primary gates.

  The yard is huge, four city blocks of containers in constant movement between short- and long-term storage, through the loading and unloading docks. The action sticks primarily to the perimeter of the yard, large branching lanes for vehicular access, and less near the centre, where the space between the containers squeezes down to high narrow canyons.

  There’s no sign of the cyphers. The sweep caught them entering the yard and hasn’t seen them leave, but there’s no SecNet beyond the walls and the front gate. By the time we get a DroneSense warrant, this’ll all be over.

  The cyphers could be anywhere in there. Or already gone. Slipped out the back or inside one of those containers.

  The Standards van arrives moments after Galvan and Doyle reach the gates. They must have left immediately after the cyphers popped, didn’t wait for orders, didn’t wait to link up with the Service
teams, just piled into their transport and raced north, riding the highway shoulder, sirens wailing through the traffic. That’s the only way they’d have made it there so fast.

  Four heavily armed federal agents in combat enhancement suits erupt from the back of the van, with the Standards AMP inhabiting a top-of-the-line lawbot bringing up the rear. Doyle stands straight and scans the immediate area, barks the agents into position—two on either side of the gate, two more back by the van on overwatch. His team is agitated, ready to move, eager for a fight.

  I know how they feel.

  One of agents locates the security sensor on the lot entrance, warns the group away. That’ll be their way in. Doyle flicks his head at it and the tech agent opens a pocket on her leg, draws out a tool and starts jamming the camera.

  Galvan doesn’t even attempt to issue orders. He hangs beside Doyle and tries to look involved.

  The Service tactical officers and cruisers full of constables arrive next, flood out of their vehicles and gather behind Galvan who’s nodding as he receives his orders from Doyle. The tech agent at the gates snaps her tool shut, motions the all clear. There won’t be any early warning.

  The teams quickly sort out their roles. The constables back off in their cruisers to opposite ends of the access street to contain civilian traffic. Half the TAC officers scout around the outside of the facility, while the other half stay behind to create a perimeter at the entrance. Standards heads in through the hacked gate, their weapons raised.

  They start at the outer edges and work their way in, spectral enhancers active, watching for movement and heat. The yard is dark, lit only by the ambient glow of the city reflecting off the leaden sky. Drones and haulers work day and night and use DroneSense to see, so the lights only turn on for maintenance or emergencies.

  The agents move slow, staying out of the safety shutdown range of lumbering haulers while methodically clearing the external rows of containers. Finding nothing, they enter the high, narrow walls of long-term storage.

  The place is deserted, quiet except for the din of activity around the perimeter and the intermittent shriek of aircraft soaring overhead, landing lights casting harsh shadows across the darkened lot.

  I finally arrive and pull up to the cruiser blockade just as an agent signals contact from inside the yard. He’s near the center of long-term storage, containers packed high and tight, with some passages less than shoulder-width apart. The contact is a motion trace, no visual, but the signal’s too big to be an animal and too small to be a drone. Has to be one of the cyphers.

  What’s the cypher doing out in a drone yard in the middle of the night?

  The tech agent pulls a trio of spherical mini-drones from a pouch on her waist, waits for the next plane and tosses them high enough to clear the stacked containers. The motion triggers thin blades to extrude from the spheres and they begin to silently spin, spread apart and triangulate a 3D picture of the immediate surroundings to the tactical feed.

  The picture reveals a maze of ISO containers, corrugated plastic in various colours, each roughly fifteen metres long, two and a half wide and tall, with swinging doors and heavy latches on each end. The targets have positioned themselves in an area with the containers arranged in what looks like a big capital H from above, with the two narrow vertical strokes running along the lengths of four containers, and the fat horizontal line across the short edges of six containers on each side.

  The cyphers are wearing street clothes, jeans and jackets, and each positioned at opposite ends of the wide-open area where the short horizontal part of the H meets the two vertical lanes.

  They’ve got assault rifles held causal but ready, the guns huge on their petite skyns, and they’re sweeping back and forth, from one side of the long corridors to the other, covering both avenues of approach with a minimum of movement. Whatever they’re guarding, it’s in there, somewhere between them.

  And it looks like they know we’re here.

  One of the drones pops as a cypher shoots it out of the sky, creating a blind spot in the 3D picture.

  There’s no direct way to come at them, not in the short term anyway.

  The airport eliminates the possibility of an airborne assault.

  The corridors are too long to traverse unnoticed, and the narrow metal passageway becomes a shooting gallery, no cover at all.

  They’re too far back into the perpendicular corridor for a sniper headshot.

  A pincer movement down each corridor would create a cross-fire.

  The lawbot, maybe. Drive a lane and provide cover while the agents follow. But I’m not sure who I’d put my money on: a Revved, Past-Standard cypher or Standard’s AMP in a lawbot.

  The agents spread out, positioning themselves two-by-two at the bottom of each long corridor, timing their movements to the roar of jet turbines to mask any sound.

  I’m slipping under the tape at the gates, still watching my tab, when one of the cyphers catches an agent dashing across a corridor into cover.

  The cypher snaps her gun up and puts bullets in the asphalt at the Agent’s feet and retreats before anyone returns fire.

  Doyle puts his head down, confers with the AMP, and they quickly come to a plan of action: the AMP is going to run in and take them out.

  Best possible option.

  Won’t be enough.

  With its armguns cocked at its side, the nimble bot sprints silently up a lane toward where the cyphers are holed up. As it approaches the cross-lane, it crouches and throws itself into a low sideways skid, one leg outstretched, weapons raised, moving fast, presenting a small target, ready to acquire and disable the cyphers as soon as they’re in view.

  As the bot’s leg clears into the wide lane, the cyphers hit it with two precise shots, knock it off-balance as it slides into view.

  Before the bot can recover, the cyphers open fire, put bullets in the bot’s joints, disabling the weapons and destroying its sensors and cameras. As the bot struggles to rise, one of the cyphers strides up and finishes her clip into its cranium, glances down the corridor at Doyle, and steps back into cover.

  This pisses Doyle off and his ho-rah mindset takes over. He flicks his fingers out at the two Agents on the far corridor.

  He’s sending those men in to die.

  I want to yell at him, tell him to back off now, but I’m still too far away, still working through the maze toward them.

  The agents break cover and slip into the narrow passage, moving single file, one high, one hunched low, weapons at their shoulders, eyes fixed down the sights, ready to drop the cypher should she so much as peek out.

  But the cypher doesn’t peek—she dives, weapon raised, and fires mid-air. Puts a round square in the centre of the lead agent’s vizr, snaps his head back and probably breaks his nose as the face shield compresses to absorb the force of the shot.

  Now upside-down, continuing through a roll, the cypher banks two more shots off a container to ricochet around the falling agent and slam into the side of the second agent’s weapon, disabling it before he can get a shot off in response.

  She finishes the roll and comes to rest on one knee, shoulder pressed tight against the corridor wall, weapon up, watching the Agents try figure out what happened while they fumble a retreat.

  This takes slightly more than a second, three perfectly placed shots that put two agents out of commission without seriously injuring either of them.

  Once the two agents have cleared back out of the corridor, the cypher rises and side-steps into cover. Doyle’s growl is clear over the feed.

  The front of the wounded agent’s uniform is streaked with blood but his vitals are strong. One of his teammates has his helmet off and is applying first aid. The agent with the ruined weapon is staring at it, rolling it back and forth in his hands.

  I’m still thirty seconds away, moving fast as I can, threading through the tight spaces between the containers while keeping track of where I am and following what’s going on at the same time.


  There’s no question the cyphers are Revved. Even Standards, with all their training and gear, can’t handle someone who can see the future. Not like I can.

  There’s a shot in the darkness and another one of the tiny drones explodes in the air. The tab’s overhead image shadows out as the line of visibility cuts to one.

  Galvan has moved up behind Doyle.

  “Fucker,” Doyle barks, and extends his hand to the agent nearest him. “Conks.” The agent pulls two small round grenades with digital timers from her vest and drops them in her commanding officer’s hand.

  Doyle sets the standard six second fuse and maximum yield on both, starts the timers, spins and backhands them in the air down the corridor.

  “Fire in the hole,” he yells as they tumble through the air, their digital readouts counting down.

  No more games for Doyle. When in doubt, use explosives.

  I break into the slight clearing where the agents have positioned themselves and pick up speed.

  A cypher steps out into the lane, fires twice, and with two precise shots knocks the grenades back the way they came.

  “Incoming,” I yell, and Galvan looks up just as I grab him by the shoulders and half-carry, half-push him out of the kill-zone, away from Doyle and the other two agents now scurrying to get out from underneath the returning grenades.

  They detonate a second later, driving me into Galvan’s back and both of us to the dirt.

  My ears are ringing and it’s hard to breathe, but I’m intact. I flex and everything seems to respond. Doyle and the two Agents behind us wouldn’t have been so lucky. Their armour would have protected them from the worst of the blast but the shockwave likely ruptured their eardrums, maybe an organ or two. Definitely knocked their insides around.

  I roll off Galvan and sit up, fighting to replace the air in my lungs the blast sucked away.

  Behind us the agents are barely moving. Doyle took the worst of it. He’s slumped, motionless, just outside the corridor entrance. He wasn’t wearing a helmet. Blood is streaming from every hole in his head.