by S. T. Moon
She settled into her seat and tried to rest. The crew chief closed the side door once he achieved altitude. He was considerate enough not to bother her during the long flight back to 6Corps headquarters.
* * *
Nothing had changed while she was gone. The perimeter of the compound was patrolled by armed guards, long with drone patrols on the outer perimeter and surveillance cameras at every major intersection on the internal street system. Several of the towers looked like decorative facades but were in fact made to conceal automated guns and ground-to-air missiles.
“Standby for touchdown.”
She nodded. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Frank Oden was waiting for her when she disembarked. One of his men took her travel gear. In the past, this would have made her feel like a VIP. Now she wondered if they were going to search her belongings. Technically, Oden was her subordinate. She fully expected him to use his temporary rank to make her uncomfortable.
Something was wrong. The expression on his face was too smug.
“Good afternoon, Frank.”
He hugged her, something he’d never dared in the past. They weren’t hugging friends and after a particularly distasteful encounter last year, she really didn’t want him touching her in any way, shape, or form. She endured the gesture, stepping back the second he couldn’t pretend offense.
“Victoria, we have a lot to catch up on. As soon as you’ve recovered from your trip and settled in, let my staff know and we’ll schedule a meeting. I’ll fill you in on the changes at 6Corps and Red-C.”
“That would be great. Can you give me the thirty second version as we walk to the terminal?” Victoria asked.
He smiled. She knew she was in trouble.
“For starters, there is no more 6Corps or Red-C,” he said. “More importantly, they made my new rank official.”
Victoria wondered what is new rank could be. He’d been the Senior Agent in Charge, SAC, for Colorado until temporarily filling her job as the SAC Northwest Region. If she’d been reinstated, she would have assumed he would be returned to his job in Colorado. But that wasn’t a new rank. If he’d been promoted into her job permanently, that still wouldn’t be new. She really hated his word games.
“I’m all ears,” she said.
He stopped and faced her, spreading his hands like a vaudeville performer introducing the main event. “Meet the new SAC, North America.”
Her jaw dropped. He started to chuckle, apparently satisfied with her reaction.
“Of 6Corps or Red-C?” she asked, hoping he’d left 6Corps to join their rival company.
“Yes,” he said. “The merger hasn’t been announced publicly yet. A lot can happen during a year.”
No shit, she thought.
“You’ll answer to me now.”
* * *
Victoria woke the next morning not sure what to expect. She regretted not crushing Oden and his career when she had the chance. If she tried to report his sexual assault now, he would make her look like a vindictive rival. No one would believe her. She fantasized about Breaker breaking the man’s arms and legs. The images left a sour taste in her mouth and changed nothing.
Whatever happened, she had to avoid being alone with him. He wasn’t a big man, slightly shorter than she was, but he was extremely strong and a lot tougher than he looked. Rumor had it he was a hell of a scrapper and held several advanced martial arts certifications.
She got to the briefing room to find a dozen other people waiting. Oden walked right past her when he arrived, five minutes late. He went to the front of the room, near the podium but not restricting himself to it, and addressed his subordinates. “Everyone, welcome Victoria Mayer back—or is it Victoria Breaker now?”
She shifted awkwardly as everyone looked at her. “Mayer.”
“Ah, good.”
What the hell does that mean?
Polite laughter rippled through the crowd of middle managers.
Her phone rang. She tried to ignore it, but even when she killed the ring tone, it vibrated in her pocket.
“You might as well answer that,” Oden said. He addressed the others. “Victoria’s been away for a while and probably doesn’t know the new rule on communication devices during the daily briefing.”
Victoria tried to step away from the crowd for privacy. “I’m in a meeting.”
“You’re the boss. Give your cronies something to do and step outside to talk to me,” Breaker said.
“I can’t do that. It’s a long story.” She pressed the phone against her ear and covered it with her free hand, uncertain how much the curious crowd could hear. Her body language gave them more than enough fuel. Men and women snickered, which made Oden happy.
“What are you talking about?” Breaker asked.
“Frank Oden is my new boss,” she said.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll explain it later. Really can’t go into it right now.”
Silence on the line.
“Breaker?”
“I’m here.”
“I have to go.”
“Okay.”
“I love you. Call you later,” she said.
He returned the sentiment. She thought it sounded forced.
“Now that we have our Miss Mayer back, we can discuss the new management structure of Red-6. Everyone review and sign your non-disclosure, non-compete contracts. We will move on to performance evaluations and new assignments. Some of you will hold positions that are nearly identical to your pre-merger employment. A few will be laid off or furloughed. All decisions will made at the company’s sole discretion. There will be no appeals,” Oden announced.
CHAPTER FOUR
Victoria’s Team
“Special Crisis Management, SCM,” Oden said.
Victoria was glad her new peer group had been dismissed. She still wasn’t sure how far she’d fallen or why. She considered applying for a transfer to Irene Vail’s office, but wasn’t sure how the woman fared the corporate shake up. Probably like a gold plated goddess of good fortune, she thought.
“What’s the matter, Victoria? Cat got your tongue?” Oden said, sitting on his desk with one leg dangling casually.
“I’m reading the job description. Wouldn’t want to mess up on the first day, would I?”
He stood and edged closer to her. “You’ll be fine. As it happens, you were selected for this position for a reason. You have experience with the Death Angel Project. Were you able to watch the news during your wilderness vacation?”
“I’ve been following the crisis in D.C.,” she answered. “You don’t need a special agent to destroy that thing, you need a team of commandos.”
Oden turned back to his desk. “My thoughts exactly.” He pushed the intercom button. “Chelsea, send in Samuel Abel.”
“Who is Samuel Abel?” Victoria asked.
“A special agent for Red-6, one with specialized training in Team level military tactics. He’s assembled a team that should be more than adequate to take down this monstrosity. With analysis of the KC incident and your firsthand experience, this will be a straightforward search and destroy mission.”
“I saw helicopters blow it to pieces,” Victoria said.
“Edited footage. Took a lot of processing power to overlay acceptable images during the seven-second delay built into live broadcasts,” Oden said.
Victoria wanted to scream and throw things at the man but kept her expression neutral. “Of course.”
“The Death Angel, which, by the way, we refer to as the mechanical construct when addressing media outlets, crawled away. This model is capable of self-repair and healing.”
“It modified its own design since K.C.,” Victoria said.
Oden looked like he wanted to argue but didn’t. “Yes, and that’s a problem. If the public believes there’s a self-aware, AI powered killing machine on the loose, there will be riots in every corner of the grid.”
“Yeah, what a bunch of panic-mongers. What
could go wrong with a self-modifying, self-healing, killing machine rampaging through a major population center?”
“Don’t be a sarcastic bitch, Victoria.”
I’m going to kick you in the balls, Oden.
“Lieutenant Abel, meet Victoria Mayer,” Oden said as a fit man in his thirties knocked and walked in.
Samuel Abel wasn’t tall, maybe a few inches taller than Victoria. He sported a dirty-blonde crewcut and what was probably a farmer’s tan that accentuated his gray eyes. She thought he looked tough, almost too intense for the environment. She wondered idly why his dark blue combat fatigues had no insignia.
“For this type of mission, we’re operating with a paramilitary command-and-control structure,” Oden said.
Victoria nodded.
“Serving under Lieutenant Abel is Sergeant Timothy Bailey in charge of Red Team, and Sergeant Tricia Ledeen in charge of Blue Team.”
Victoria waited patiently as they introduced each member of their teams. The unit wasn’t large enough to be a military platoon but was a very big team for law enforcement purposes. Two of them made a greater impression than the rest: Joseph and Uriah Randall.
“Are you two twins?”
Joseph answered with a smile. His eyes danced with good-natured vitality. “We get that a lot. Uriah’s a year older. I gave him a head start since he’s not as smart as I am. Or as good-looking.”
“Or as talented,” Uriah finished.
She gave an obligatory laugh. It looked like a good team, but there was something unnerving. She’d never seen any of them before. Where had they come from? Had Oden loaded her down with second-rate operators from the far corners of the grid? Or were they all Red-C agents? She doubted this last possibility based on the assumption she would’ve seen at least one of them during her career, either in person or during an intelligence briefing.
It was like they were ghosts. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing in the world of special operators.
“So what do you think?” Oden asked.
It was just like the pretentious asshole to put her on the spot. He probably read her expression and knew what she was thinking before he asked the question.
She stepped up, putting Oden slightly behind her and out of mind. With luck, the small insult also endeared her to the team. “I was just thinking I’ve never met any of you. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Their parade-rest posture was perfect. Not one of them reacted to her gibe. If she had insulted any of them, no one showed it.
Lieutenant Abel took a moment to look over his team then said to her, “We’re a lot like you. Brilliant, talented misfits getting second chances.”
“Fair enough,” Victoria replied. “We don’t have a lot of time to prepare for this mission. I want everyone on the training field in one hour. We’ll put together three plans, memorize them, and train them until they’re second nature.”
“What if those are the wrong three plans?” Sergeant Bailey asked.
“No plan survives first contact,” Victoria replied. “Consider the next couple of days a team building phase.”
“You have one day,” Oden said.
“Two. We need one for team building and one for equipment check out,” Victoria said.
Oden’s face turned an angry shade of red and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he tried to punch her.
She turned to Lieutenant Abel. “You have your orders.”
* * *
They arrived in D.C. via two long-range assault helicopters. “Do we have fuel to loiter for a while? I’d like to get a better view of the city.”
“We’ve been watching the city on live feed since we left the Colorado office,” Sergeant Bailey said.
“Yes we have,” Victoria said. “Now we’re here and I want to see the terrain firsthand. Video doesn’t get everything. For example, I didn’t expect the smoke would be this thick.”
“We can do one loop of the city, then it’s deploy or head back,” the pilot said. “The next phase of our mission is to refuel in case you need a pickup.”
Lieutenant Abel said, “We won’t need picked up. We’re going to own this thing.”
Victoria didn’t disagree out loud.
Their insertion points were on opposite sides of the downtown plaza. The plan called for them to deploy into nearby buildings and set up security. Once they had a beachhead established, they would communicate by line of sight infrared radio transmissions and select one of their ops plans.
Helicopter One touched down. Victoria deployed with Sergeant Bailey’s Red Team. Lieutenant Abel deployed with Sergeant Ledeen’s Blue Team. The first stage went perfectly. They encountered no resistance and no surprises from the local population. The rampaging Death Angel had thrown the entire city into chaos. Contrary to the predictions of experts, there had been widespread looting and senseless acts of citizen on citizen violence. The common belief was that this type of behavior was at least a hundred years behind them.
6Corps and other environmentally conscious corporations had saved the planet and ostensibly changed the way people thought and behaved.
Victoria was less surprised than her peers. A year off the grid caused her to doubt the propaganda of her childhood.
She took her position near the front of the building they’d occupied. “I have eyes on Blue Team. Comms, make contact and obtain a situation report.”
Nearly a minute passed.
“Sergeant Bailey, what’s the holdup?” Victoria asked.
“My comms operator says the smoke is interfering with IR radio.”
Victoria shook her head. “That shouldn’t happen. The smoke isn’t that thick. We reviewed our equipment specs during day two of our team indoctrination, and that isn’t supposed to be possible.”
“Agreed,” Sergeant Bailey said. “We’re switching to standard radio frequencies. Make a note to have the infrared radio equipment checked after the mission.”
Victoria scanned the plaza with a pair of binoculars. It was disturbingly vacant and it made her uneasy. She remembered watching the initial scene with Breaker. There had been thousands of people panicking right here. The plaza was still littered with detritus from that scene: tipped-over trash cans, lost shoes, broken glass, and what looked like bloodstains and possibly scorch marks. Wind gusted through the emptiness, causing trees on the boulevards to sway. The fountain was either turned off or broken.
“Do we have a location for our target?” Victoria asked.
“Yes, ma’am, we have it. Less than a kilometer from our current position and heading this way,” Sergeant Bailey said.
Victoria got on the radio to Lieutenant Abel. “Our intelligence on the target is accurate. It’s stayed close to the breakout zone. Our secondary mission will be to determine why. Let’s move to contact and contain.”
SAC North America, Frank Oden, broke into the channel. “This is a search and destroy mission, Commander Mayer. Do not deviate from your orders.”
“Contact and containment is a necessary precursor to destruction of the target,” she said. “We know what we’re doing, sir.” She checked the locations of her people. “Red Team will lead. Blue Team will move on a parallel course approximately one hundred meters behind Red Team. Sergeant Bailey, take us out,” Victoria said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Victoria maintained her position in the squad-sized team. Movement at this stage in the operation was easy. She had time to think. For some reason, she focused on the differences between this paramilitary, law enforcement unit and an actual military squad. In the military, they would address her as ‘sir’ even though she was a woman. It was a strange and archaic custom, but she missed it for some reason.
“Give me an update on the target’s location,” Victoria said.
Corporal Peterson, the sensor specialist, hesitated. “I’m getting interference.”
“Blue Team, what’s your read on the target’s location?” Victoria asked.
Blue Team sensor sp
ecialist Nathan Poe said, “One hundred meters directly ahead of your position.”
“I’m not seeing it,” Victoria replied.
“No visual,” Sergeant Bailey said. “Point, you should be seeing target.”
“Yes, sir. I have it approximately one hundred fifty meters ahead.”
“Sergeant Bailey,” Victoria said with one hand over her radio mic to be sure she didn’t accidentally transmit. “Please note that we’ve already had multiple equipment malfunctions. One sensor failed entirely and the other is glitching.”
“Roger that. I’ll include it in my report.” He didn’t sound happy.
“Fortunately for us, that’s not gonna matter once we have it in visual range.” She checked Blue Team’s location and found them exactly where they were supposed to be. “Blue Team, advance along a parallel course, and prepare to flank the target.”
“Blue Team, moving to contact on left flank,” Lieutenant Abel said.
“I’ve got a double reading,” Peterson said. “That’s why there was a false location. There’s one a hundred meters ahead of us, and a second tango one-fifty meters out.”
“Red Team actual, to Blue Team. We have two targets. Repeat, two targets, one hundred meters and one hundred fifty meters,” Victoria broadcast over her radio comms.
“Roger that. We have visual on first target. Engage or move to second target?” Abel asked.
“Continue. We need them both or this whole mission is a waste of time. We synchronize our strikes and you will maintain a blocking position if either of the targets run,” Victoria said.
Seconds passed like hours.
“Oden to Red Team Actual,” Oden said, his voice on the channel amplified higher than everyone else.
“Red Team Actual, go,” Victoria said.
“We have new intel. Our analysis team has determined that the targets were staying close together to appear as one unit to our orbital surveillance. Plan and prepare for three targets. We are sending two additional teams to support your mission. They will arrive in fifteen minutes,” Oden said.
