Skyler Grant Anthology

by Skyler Grant

  That was useful.

  "What about defensive skills? Dodge and acrobatics?" I asked.

  "Nothing stops you there. With your agility you could probably utilize them very well. You've the pretty thing going for you, too," Ismene said.

  I didn't like that—but then again, I did. With a divine charisma I'd have some powerful abilities there, if I chose to use them.

  "Magic?" I asked.

  "Nothing stopping you, and with your intelligence you'd be good at it," Ismene said.

  Perhaps even some sort of combat magic. That would make up for a lot of lost ground with those missing weapon skills.

  "So how does this work?" I asked.

  "Liberty will let you know when they have a mission for you. When they do, you answer. Anyone on the Network that wants to live vicariously through your skin is going to be able to. They'll share all your senses and experiences," Ismene said.

  I really didn't like that invasion of privacy. I'd learn to deal with it. "My thoughts?" I asked.

  "Private. I will also be able to keep a private channel open with you. I'm not too eager to announce to anyone that I still exist," Ismene said.

  I didn't blame her. I wish I still had that luxury.

  "Do I get a paycheck?" I asked.

  "A nice one, with bonuses depending on how positively viewers respond to you and your completion of mission objectives. Why?" Ismene asked.

  Money had never mattered to either of us before.

  I'd need it though. I wasn't going to ask Liberty for protection while inside the Network playing their scenarios. I still didn't trust them. I wanted my back watched by people I trusted at least a little. Those people were going to demand a paycheck. I just hope they took the news about me now being "Persephone" well.

  93

  "You're a fucking idiot," Diva said.

  It was going about as well as I'd have expected.

  "It seemed the right call at the time," I said.

  "A mysterious voice from nowhere says to agree to give up every claim you might have to any sort of inheritance and you listen to it? You got played. You got scared and you got stupid, and let someone walk all over you," Diva said.

  I had told them everything except the parts about Ismene. My friend wanted her existence kept as much of a secret as possible and I could honor that.

  "Now someone calls you in before a desk, you know that ain't going to end well. Way I see it, Miss Persephone didn't have any choice to do what she did. ‘Sides, it kind of worked out, didn't it?" Sparks said.

  "A share of Olympus in exchange for some shitty sponsored hero gig? It didn't work out at all. It isn't even like she is a good goddess. They gave her second string and she jumped on command," Diva said.

  "It is what it is. I know you had visions of a large paycheck, but that isn't going to happen and maybe it never was. I will be paid though, and I need someone to watch my back when I'm in there. Same arrangement we've had. I'll help you on your missions and put my skills to good use, but now you get some extra," I said.

  Diva didn't look particularly mollified. In fact, she looked like she wanted to strangle me.

  "Persephone failed to mention that as a sponsored hero she also has real Network access," Masque said smoothly. "We can use that. Keep up on the latest news. Keep aware of where the real jobs are."

  "Don't call her that. It's not her name," Diva said, although it looked like she was giving ground.

  "Would be awful nice to have someone on the inside," Sparks said.

  "It had to be Liberty," Diva said, and her disgust made me wonder if that was really the source of her objection.

  "Not a fan?" I asked.

  "You don't know what it is like. I guess you're going to. Liberty loves their idols, loves their stars. They raise them up and they wring every last drop of life and energy and hope out of them. Then, if you slip up even a little, they prove the one thing they loved more than idolizing you is tearing you apart," Diva said.

  I didn't care. Let them come. Liberty wasn't my real enemy. This whole sponsored hero thing was just a means to an end. Someone had destroyed my home and taken my family from me. Someone had violated the Treaty of Detroit in a massive fashion and for twenty years had gotten away with it. Whoever had enacted that believed they had destroyed Olympus, but Olympus wasn't dead so long as one Olympian still stood and was still fighting.

  "Olympus wasn't assets on a sheet. Olympus was the people of the corporation and a culture that admired beauty, strength, and fairness. I have my share of Olympus already and they've just given me a platform to prove it," I said.

  "Fuck me. You want to pick a fight," Diva said.

  "They started it. I am going to finish it," I said.

  Diva stared at me with her jaw tense and the rest of the group was silent.

  "Specters," Masque said, interrupting the moment.

  "Not following that," I said.

  "We needed a new name. Lancers don't really fit, not anymore. We agreed, we don't much want to be the Diva's. We play it up, your newfound fame. Persephone and her band of specters," Masque said.

  "Dead men walking. Kind of like that," Sparks said.

  "She's not in charge," Diva said.

  "Don't know if we ever picked to put you at the head of the table. You were second under Lance, doesn't mean you take his place," Sparks said.

  "Do you want it?" Masque asked me.

  That was a big question. It was an uncomfortable question. I barely knew these people and yet they were now the closest things to friends and family I had. Independent Contractors, little better than the barbaric ranks of the unemployed. But what I'd just seen in the Network suggested that either Corporate behavior had crumbled in the last twenty years or my views had always been a bit idealized.

  "You're better with a team," Ismene said in my head.

  "You've got a private channel into my skull?" I asked.

  "Not just in game. Remember, I built this body from the ground up. Just wait until you see some of the combat enhancements now that I'm awake," Ismene said.

  I could worry about that later. Ismene was right, I was better when I had people to look out for and people to look after me. Of course, perhaps I still had one.

  "My old squad. I know it’s been twenty years, but most of them should still be active," I thought.

  "I'll try to find them," Ismene said.

  "I want it," I said, finally giving Masque her answer.

  "Vote is for leadership of the team then. We've two candidates who have put themselves forward. Diva and Persephone. Anyone else want to throw their name in?" Masque asked.

  The others were silent. Hammer shook his head.

  "By seniority with the team then. Diva?" Masque asked.

  "Fuck this shit. I'm voting for myself, of course," Diva said.

  "I throw my vote to Persephone. We know she has the skills and with her connections we can go to a whole new level. Hammer?" Masque asked.

  "Diva. We've worked with her for a long time and we know she always has our backs," Hammer said.

  "Except for when she's trying to blow them up. Sparks?" Masque asked.

  "Persephone. The mystery surrounding her might get us all killed, but I've never been able to resist poking at bears," Sparks said.

  "That makes it a tie. Last vote belongs to Persephone," Masque said.

  "She isn't really a proper member of the team, much less our leader. You can't really count her vote," Diva said.

  "You extended the invitation yourself and she accepted. Persephone might be new, but she's already gone on a mission with us as part of the team," Masque said.

  "I agree. Persephone deserves her vote. If she doesn't get it, I'll switch mine," Hammer said.

  Diva scowled, but nodded.

  "I vote for myself," I said.

  "Then Persephone is our new leader. Anyone object to the team name of Specters?" Masque asked.

  Nobody did.

  "Then it is so," Masque said with a broad smil
e.

  "We going to have an issue with this?" I asked Diva.

  "You mean, am I going to walk? No, I love this team and the people in it and you did save my cousin. I think you care too much about the corporates and not enough about the money. Lance could be the same. I'll just be twice as loud," Diva said.

  I hadn't expected this turn of events. Life just kept throwing new twists at me. I simply had to stay strong and not let them overwhelm me. Put one step in front of the other and keep moving.

  "Then you're my second. I trust you to keep me on track," I said.

  Diva nodded and she wasn't alone. The others looked a bit relieved, they must have feared how that would go.

  "For the rest of you, I'll try to live up to your trust. It's true what I said, Olympus wasn't just a place, but an idea. I know none of you signed up for the whole culture, but you've got a bit of it anyways. Whatever we do, we're going to change things for the better," I said.

  "Starting with corporate sabotage and a lot of explosions," Diva said.

  That wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

  "That is our existing contract," Masque said.

  "The same one that had us sabotaging that factory?" I asked.

  "Exactly. Before that, we collapsed a mine. This last job should be the end of it and we get our last payment and the completion bonus," Masque said.

  "Which is the best payday we've ever had," Diva said, a little doubtful.

  "That worries you, I take it?" I asked.

  "Lance got the contract through an old friend. He trusted them, but I'm always wary of a paycheck that is so large," Diva said.

  I could understand why. Independent Contractors were disposable commodities and when done with a job that a corporation might wish to keep secret, people were sometimes disposed of.

  "If we agreed to the contract, we'll carry it out. We'll watch our backs when it comes to payday," I said.

  Again I got nods. Leadership so far was going well. I hoped it would stay that way.

  94

  The Pharosa garage took up an entire city block and was three stories high. The roof was devoted to hover-vehicles and aero-flitters while the bottom floors were devoted to trucks and a few heavily armored combat vehicles used to ferry executives.

  We were looking at it now through a drone that Sparks was controlling from a rooftop a block away. It wasn't looking good.

  "This was supposed to be a simple in and out," Diva said.

  Diva had already said that once, echoing the words was like a mantra hoping to make them true. It wasn't working.

  Two combat mechs patrolled the block around the garage and each floor seemed to have a guard detail. It was an absurd level of security for what should be a low-level target.

  "Think this is because we took a few jabs at them already?" Sparks asked, as he moved the drone to get a better focus upon one of the combat mechs. At roughly ten feet in height it wasn't of Pharosan manufacture. The aquila prominant on the side proclaimed it the property of Roma. The mech carried two auto-cannons that would be able to chew through most lightly armored vehicles with ease, and against softer targets would be unstoppable.

  "No. They outsourced security to Roma. That’s costing them a small fortune. They won’t have done that just because we hit a few other targets lately. How specific was our client about this job?" I asked.

  "We're to hit this warehouse. They wanted an explosion taking out the top level within a period of two hours that starts in about ten minutes," Diva said.

  That settled it. Such a narrow time-frame was because something specific was going on tonight. Pharosa had upped their security accordingly. It would have been nice for our client to give us a heads-up that this would be the case. With some warning, we could have brought some heavy weapons along that might have been able to get off a shot at the roof.

  "Ideas?" I asked.

  "Those mechs are going to have full sensor suites built in. You won't be sneaking inside. I know the social angle didn't work last time, but it is our best option. I can establish Pharosan credentials and get access," Masque said.

  I had to admit she had a good point about stealth being less of an option. Those were sentry bots and their entire job was to pick up people going places they weren't meant to be going—and upon finding them to tear them to shreds.

  "Get me up close and I can try to hack my way into one of the mechs. Turn their own guns against them," Sparks said.

  I liked the sound of that, but Roma knew its business. "Won't their systems have defenses?" I asked.

  "They will. Encrypted protocols regularly cycled from a central server. Harder to pin down than a pig in mud, but I reckon I got a fair shot in our time," Sparks said.

  I still didn't want to go killing corporate employees left and right. I was only a contractor for Liberty and so side operations like this wouldn't actually reflect on the corporation. They still reflected on me and whatever else I was, I had to maintain that sense of honor.

  "We load a truck with explosives and slam it through the front door," Diva said.

  It would lead to a massive loss of life. It also had its risks.

  "The mechs will cut it to shreds," I said.

  "They don't have time as close as they are. They can cut the truck to shreds, but we can still get the explosives where they need to be," Diva said.

  "Without precision placement of charges? Do we have enough to make it work?" I asked.

  "No. We'd take out the ground floor, but the upper two might be fine. Most of that force has an exit," Hammer said.

  That was what I was afraid of.

  "You're going to have that same problem with the mech. Those rounds are meant to cut intruders to pieces. You can't even get that thing up to the third floor, much less wipe out what is there," Diva said.

  I was surrounded by people making good points about why nothing we could do would work.

  "I can help to penetrate their system. Sparks won't even know I'm there," Ismene said.

  "Diva is right. For all the firepower that thing has, it can't apply that force where we need it," I thought back.

  "Are they generating power on site or ferrying in batteries from elsewhere?" I asked.

  They were Pharosa. Given their focus on energy weapons and shielding, their power requirements would be steep.

  Sparks tapped away madly on his tablet. "Local battery storage located in the basement."

  Good. That was good news. That meant there was a lot of potential energy there. The great thing about potential energy was the great big explosion it made when it became kinetic.

  "Won't be easy getting to them," Diva said.

  "And they're held in a matrix meant to stabilize them," Sparks said.

  "You listening to this?" I thought to Isemene.

  "I'm listening. They won't have an AI, nobody does these days except for the collective. It won't be easy, but if we can get access to that system I should be able to destabilize it," Ismene said.

  "If you do, can you set off an alarm?"

  "Softy. That will clear the place out in a hurry. It will also draw heat," Ismene said.

  "We only kill them if they don't give us a choice."

  "We're going to do it," I said. "We won't be using the truck for an explosion. Diva, can you get a smaller vehicle loaded with explosives?" I asked.

  "Can. But it won't take out those batteries," Diva said.

  "We're not aiming to. It's to take out one of those mechs," I said.

  "On it. We've got enough with us to pull that off. Let me go steal us a car," Diva said, and she took off at a run.

  "Sparks. Be prepared to destabilize that system. We're going in a vehicle to within range of their local network right after we blow the mech," I said.

  "Miss Persephone. I thank you kindly for thinking so much of my skills, but it ain't likely that I'll have time," Sparks said.

  “I trust you,” I said.

  He wouldn't be doing it alone. I couldn't tell him that Ismene would
be assisting him, but with her behind the efforts they should be able to penetrate much faster.

  "We'll need to keep the infantry off our backs while we're doing this," I said.

  "We've got a heavy gun. I even loaded up on energy-sappers after last time," Hammer said.

  Energy-sapping rounds still wouldn't instantly penetrate those shields, but each shot would drain it far more than a normal bullet.

  "If you're gunning, who's driving?" I asked.

  "Don't want to take a turn behind the wheel?" Masque asked.

  "Grew up on a space station. I walked," I said.

  "I can be behind the wheel. I'm pretty good," Masque said.

  "Pretty crazy," Hammer said.

  Crazy would do. Crazy was needed.

  The gasoline-powered engine of the car Diva had stolen roared. It was a relic from another age, beautifully maintained and obviously the beloved possession of someone of means. It was also packed full of explosives.

  When the mech ponderously walked around the block to enter the intersection the car accelerated. The autopilot had already been set and it roared forward. The Roma mech responded incredibly quickly, swiveling and sensors taking a moment to identify no friendlies before the cannons opened fire. Metal shredded and was torn apart, and a fireball rushed towards the mech. Reaching its feet the explosives in the car detonated and a massive fireball surged upward. Shards of metal rained through the air and the mech staggered backwards to collapse on its side, crushed inward.

  Masque hit the gas and we raced towards the building. Armed guards surrounded in blue energy shields were already rushing out. Hammer opened up with our top cannon. The anti-energy rounds glowed a brilliant red as they began to pummel across the shields, causing them to ripple and deform. It forced the guards do something they rarely had to do. Take over.

  The truck shook as we took an energy blast. The bold and the well-positioned guards could still get off shots. Hammer had replaced the armor damaged in the last fight and the new armor weave had some energy-dampening properties of its own, but there was still only so much that could be done. We couldn't take many shots from the energy rifles.