From his forearm display, Prince pulled up a map that also displayed on Janet’s console. “Slight change of plans. Put us in the woods here.” He tapped the map to mark their landing zone.
Janet tapped back. “New LZ confirmed. Zip line enabled.”
An overhead zip line dangled out of a square hatch. Prince clipped into it and tugged twice. “Locked in!”
The gunship lowered into a small clearing. “You’re good, sir!”
Prince braced over the open hatch and dangled a boot. “This shouldn’t take long.” Tapping his forearm display activated ten small seeker drones, no larger than sparrows. They buzzed out of the gunship and sped into the darkness. His target, hacker Jason Herz, didn’t have a cellphone listed or any other device to track. All of this internet activity was encrypted so he had no reliable IP address to follow. What Prince did know was that One Nation had sent text messages to a cell tower in this area and Gray Altar’s surveillance aircraft had pinpointed every last person in the vicinity using infrared scans. Nearly all of them were identified. All his ten little drones had to do was race to the unknown glowing figures, scan their faces, and figure out who which one was the tool, Jason Herz. The last time Prince used this method, he located his target within ten minutes.
He blew a kiss to Janet. “Thank you, my love!”
“No interpretive dance on the way down,” Janet laughed.
Prince’s forearm display pinged. A seeker drone had already crossed off one person on the list of possible Jasons, showing, instead, a bro looking guy with a backwards cap speaking into a drive-thru menu with a car full of friends. Earlier intel traced Jason’s web activity to an apartment, but Gray Alter knew it wasn’t his. It only took a few minutes to establish a realtime connection with surveillance aircraft, tracking the movement of all ground activity in a tiny pixelated grid, but by then the local authorities had found the apartment empty. Only a few cars had left the apartment parking lot in the time between the police showing up and Gray Altar gaining access to the arial photos. Now all they had to do was look at the giant, flat scans of the neighborhood backwards, effectively reversing time, to track which cars had driven away. This drive-thru bro was the first of the cars.
“This shouldn’t take long.” And with a graceful hop, Prince slipped out of the gunship’s belly and down, zipping along the cable to the grass. Boot pressed into the soft ground. He disconnected the cable and watched the gunship silently veer upward, the only sound was the wind-slashed leaves and creaking branches. It was always beautiful to see such a large machine maneuver so nimbly. Black on black.
Lingering in the LZ threatened to expose him. Prince consulted his forearm display as he trotted into the trees, seeing that two more possible Jasons were identified as normal civilians. He walked on, under branches and the cover of darkness. This was the mundane part he loved. Stalking. Alone with his thoughts. Imagining himself in the space he was about to be—a panther among house pets. Sometimes the only challenge was finding mercy in the performance.
A minute later, the James River appeared, a place he had swam many times with friends, drinking beer and lounging on the large lilypad-like boulders. From here he stood, he could see four inner tubs and a cooler on the shore. By holding his hand to his brow as if he might be blocking the sun, his forearm display activated a night vision screen that projected underneath his palm. Two pairs of swimming bodies appeared warm inside the river. Sets, he thought, though he had no evidence of this and these four people were most likely college students or older. Their laughter echoed into the night.
When Prince closed his hand, the night vision screen dissipated.
He walked the shoreline, waiting for the remaining seeker drones to report back. The University of Richmond’s campus was close by and he could see joggers and dog walkers enjoying the warmth. Prince leaned a palm against a tree and closed his eyes. Another ping showed that another non-Jason was located. An older man in a tank top. Prince looked to the sky though there was no way he could see the seeker drones or even the high altitude surveillance aircraft.
Impatient, he kicked at the dirt. “Ugh. C’mon.”
If Jason Herz had gotten away…
This only made him more anxious and the more anxious he got the higher chance there was for him to overdo things. Prince kept his eyes closed and tried to clear his mind, but the faces of Penny and Sam kept appearing—not the images from the videos, but their actual faces from that night—their terrified and shaking mouths—arms and legs and chins that shivered with dread. It thrilled him to know that he was getting closer to them. The image of their faces, two teenage girls, this proportionally passive image compared to all the horrible things he had done and made other people do, this image was causing him to quiver. To weaken. A sensation he hadn’t felt in decades. This excitement, both comforting and suspicious, dazzled him. The strange sexualization of knowing that the only two naturally born twins on the planet had almost murdered him. How, oh fucking how, had they gotten off even one shot?
Another ping opened his eyes.
His forearm display blinked. Jason Herz Identified.
The faces of the two girls vanished from his mind.
“You got your man,” Merrick radioed. “Or men. Just make sure you get the right one.”
“The right two?” Prince said, tapping his forearm to make the unsuccessful seeker drones convene back to him.
“The what?” Merrick said.
Prince tapped again and the two larger attack drones in his backpack beeped to life. “Never mind.”
“He’s about a mile from you,” Merrick said.
Prince crouched and the two drones sprang out of his pack and onto the ground, bouncing like grasshoppers on their collapsible legs. Seconds later, their rotors unfolded and spun, lifting them into the air. Both drones unlashed cords that lowered. Prince clipped into them and pulled to secure the lines. “I’ll fly.”
Flying suspended from two multi-rotor helicopters wasn’t his idea of secure travel. His exposure to the public was also a negative, but his cloaking technology made him virtually invisible at night. Distances over a few miles would have been out of the question. His weight stressed the lifting capacity of the drones as it was.
Programmed to rise simultaneously, the drones gently lifted Prince’s feet off the ground as he set their speed to 20 miles an hour. He sailed over Lake James where the swimmers didn’t take notice. Neither did the pedestrians or drivers he hovered over.
On his display, the successful seeker drone transmitted a video of James Herz standing by a beer keg inside a large, minimal room. It was hard to see, but he was talking to more than one person and nodding with a stiff and smug grin.
“Hackers,” Prince said as the ground grew closer.
“Looks like some kinda party,” Merrick said through his earpiece.
The old man was an expert at stating the obvious.
His could see the building now. The parking lot surrounding it.
Prince tapped his forearm for the drones to place him and he unhooked himself as his boots touched the asphalt. He was happy to be in the far corner parking lot of an old auto body. Cars and trucks with liberal bumper stickers filled the few spaces. None of them were new. From the shadow, he could see that there were more bicycles than automobiles lined up by the back door where people were hanging out. The blunted thumps of bass boomed from inside.
One by one, the seeker drones buzzed to his location. Prince programmed them to surround the building, marking exits while the attack drones flew high enough for no one to detect them. Less than a minute later, Prince had a detailed map of the exterior with pin for over two dozen people, including Jason Herz and his UpSet twin. A few of the seekers had managed to crawl onto windowsills to render a partial interior map. The picture sharpened.
Much of the space was sleekly designed. Midcentury modern furniture surrounded a large, old wood burning stove. The kitchen was oversized with industrial appliances, copper pots over the six
burner range. Prince wondered if this was where all of Jason Herz’s bitcoins were going—an off-the-grid compound for partying and internet piracy.
“Time to,” Prince said, walking and tapping a few more times on his display, “get…” walking faster, one more tap, “…dark.” He couldn’t see the effect they had, but the two attack drones started blocking all cell and wifi signals in and out of the place—a total blackout.
In college, there was an art to party crashing. He and his friends had prided themselves on showing up uninvited, empty-handed, and flexing a brand of confidence that onlookers envied. If they liked the host, they might only guzzle all of their liquor and try to steal their girlfriends. If they thought the host was a lower-class infiltrator to their elite circle, then he and his friends would shit in the tanks of their toilets, piss in ice trays, harass every single girl there, all while sucking their liquor bottles dry. TVs were tossed from windows. Rival school flags burned in bathtubs. He had once head butted drywall because the house was out of Jaegermeister. Legend.
Approaching the refurbished auto body with its reclaimed barn wood trim and tin roof, noting solar panels and an elaborate rain catcher, Prince felt the same conquer’s pride. Who were these dopes?
He unholstered his pistol and leveled it at the back door where a few people were smoking. Looking around him to see if anyone was approaching, Prince aimed his optical sights on the largest male and fired. Nothing more than a pop and hiss from the barrel. A tranquilizer dart stuck to the man’s chest. He only had a few seconds to look down at it as his friends did the same. One of them laughed. The man slumped to the ground while Prince fired three more darts, landing them in the neck of a short Asian woman, and one each in the chest of two African Americans who looked to be a couple. None of them were Sets, to Prince’s disappointment. He jogged past them as a man opened the back door. The music’s volume spiked.
“I’m not getting any reception all of a sudden,” the man said to someone behind him.
Prince was close enough to feel the beer spray as he fired a dart through the man’s plastic cup and into his jugular. Falling forward, he gave Prince a look of recognition and then lowered himself to the ground, the weight of his palm cracking his cell phone.
With every person pre-targeted by the seeker drones, no one could hide. One seeker flew past his ear and started scanning every square foot of the interior. Jason, he knew, was in a back room with a few other people. To his left, he shot from the hip and nailed two women in the shoulders. They slumped forward at the long folding table they were sitting at like two exhausted moms at a bake sale. One of their limp arms slid a cashbox onto the floor. Coins bounced and rolled.
Someone screamed.
Prince turned to the noise and fired at the first figures he saw. He tried his best to pop shots at chests and backs, sparing faces, knowing his targeting software automatically lowered his aim if he raised his StiffArm too high. Men and women standing by the large kitchen island all sulked to the floor. More people to his right were sitting on a patchwork of rugs, also smoking weed. Letting his arm go slack, Prince sprayed the group without aiming, peppering the shag pile as much as the thighs and arms and breasts on it. Brass shell casings rang like tiny bells on the floor. A man tried to stand as a dart pierced his arm. His legs buckled, sitting him back where he started. A pair of twins smacked heads as they passed out. Prince laughed. He laughed more than he had since he woke up from his coma. He laughed as he spun and fired across the old auto body and nailed people scrambling for windows. They toppled like drunks. Three more behind a couch. One on her knees, begging with tears. He laughed as a huge guy barreled at him with a thick cutting board in his hands and laughed as he fired one, two, three darts into the guy’s chest.
The guy collapsed facedown, the cutting board chopping him in the cheek. Prince winced at the sight, mockingly.
Outside, one attack drone lowered to guard the exit.
The other continued to monitor the area and block all digital signals from leaving or entering.
“Gray fucking Altar!” someone yelled from a bedroom.
Someone else was crying.
Prince wanted to announce himself, maybe demand that Jason Herz surrender, but there was little fun in that. He strutted into a bedroom where potted plants surrounded a loft bed. Five darts for five cowering partiers. Prince popped another dart off at a hanging fern, shattering its pot.
His display showed no one in the adjacent bedroom.
Prince hurried into a back room, past a kiln and beer brewing equipment. Three closed garage doors let in light from outside. A heat signal on his display showed that someone was waiting for him behind a washing machine.
No weapons were reported in the scan of the interior so Prince felt comfortable picking up a clay jug and pitching it onto the top of the washer. A warbled metal bong echoed through the room. Shards crashed down. Jolted, a young man charged Prince with a baseball bat faster than he thought possible, but not fast enough to swing. Prince fired. A dart struck the man in the center of the throat, making him gasp and flip sideways. Prince backed up, firing again, hitting the man’s ass as he wilted onto the dusty concrete.
The bat clacked and rolled away.
“Smash it,” he heard someone whisper. “It’s blocking our signals.”
“It’s probably not the only one.” another man hissed.
Prince hurried toward the sound, pistol leveled.
Through a doorway, he could see into a space that might have been an old break room. The large window was covered with band posters, but there was no door and he could see a man swatting at one of the seeker drones with a shovel.
“We gotta go,” a man whispered.
“Where? Fucking where?” the other said.
Prince sidestepped so he could aim into the room. “Don’t leave so soon, guys.”
Both of them froze. The shovel clanged to the floor.
“Oh shit,” one man said.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Prince hushed, raising his free hand. Now he could see both men standing next to each other, hands in front of them as if to show they had no weapons. They both looked the same, as he expected. “Which,” it pained him to say it, “…two of you is Jason?”
Both men grimaced and exchanged glances.
“What did you do to everytwo?” the Jason on the left said.
“You can’t do this!” the other Jason yelled. “Do you know who the fuck we are?”
Prince tightened his grip on his pistol.
“Right now,” he said as calmly as possible, “I’m trying to figure that out. One of you is Jason Herz and the other is some over-the-counter knockoff.”
“Fuck you!” the left Jason said.
“A good one though, you look good,” Prince added. He assumed the one that just swore was the fake Jason. Maybe.
“The smartest thing you can do is leave,” the right Jason said, shaking. “Now.”
Prince unsheathed his dagger from his hip and kept his pistol aimed on the Jason-not-Jason on the right. “If you tell me who’s the real Jason, I won’t cut either of you.”
“You have no idea, man,” the right Jason said. Prince watched his mouth open and close in his sights.
Prince chuckled. “I obviously don’t. You dudes look exactly the same.”
“This isn’t a joke!” the left Jason cried. “You killed everytwo out there!”
“They’re only sedated,” the right Jason said.
“Okay. DickSets. Listen to me,” Prince turned his pistol on the left Jason. “I can tranq you both right now and start cutting off thumbs. Whoever walks up first is going to talk first. I guarantee it.” He shot a round between them, making a dart ricochet off the white brick. “So…”
“Fascist scum,” the left Jason mumbled.
“Shhh…,” the right Jason hushed and Prince knew now that he was the real Jason. His other copy on the left wasn’t a coding prodigy and international hacking star. He wouldn’t be
calling the shots in the Set relationship.
“I don’t get it, guys,” Prince said. “You two, you’re good looking dudes. Why the twin thing? Is it to score girls? I mean, if it’s that, I could kinda get it. You could dress up like each other for a party or something.” Prince curled his lip and snickered. “But this? Fucking disgusting.”
The two Jasons looked at each other.
“You come in here, shooting innocent people…,” the left Jason said, voice quivering.
The right Jason looked at his UpSet and said, “Kev…ugh…” and froze.
Prince aimed at the left Jason—now Kev—and fired. A dart hit his cheek and pushed it in like a soft balloon. Kev or Kevin or whoever he was had a few seconds to express panic before he toppled to the floor.
“No!” the real Jason yelled, crouching and holding his UpSet. “No!”
Prince aimed at him. “Man, he’s just some guy that looks like you. What the fuck?”
“Kevin, c’mon.” Jason shook him.
“He’s gonna be out for a while. There’s no side effects. Well, he might not want to be your friend anymore when he finds out you’re in prison.” Prince holstered his pistol and held the back of his fingers to his mouth to whisper, “He’ll need to find another Jason. Sorry.”
Jason looked up at him. “You Gray Altar…”
Prince stopped him with a wagging finger. “Don’t say anything you might regret.”
Jason sneered. “What do you want?”
The shift in tension tickled him. Now Prince was in full control.
“We know you’ve been helping One Nation post encrypted videos,” he said.
“That’s not illegal,” Jason was quick to say.
Prince crouched and pressed the tip of his dagger into his gloved fingertip, twisting. “It is now that they’re a terrorist organization. You know that right? They’re terrorists. As in a group that kills innocent people.”
Even though his chin quivered a little, Jason’s face was smug. “I wasn’t aware of that when I worked with them.”
The dagger’s sharp point spun a tiny hole in his fingertip.
Two Girls Book 2: One Nation Page 11
