The van stopped to pick Archer up.
He jumped in quickly.
“How high are we going to let it go today?” he asked, joining them in the truck.
“Well, my guess is that we go to one and half kilometers, because no one will be able to see it at that height with the naked eye. We'll be able to pick up the smallest blip from the helicopter with the relay amplifier.” Jeff was beginning to get enthusiastic. “Did you bring the recorder?”
“Of course I did! Do you take me for an amateur?” Archie answered irritably, and pulled the palm sized gadget from his backpack. “We'll record xwave files.”
“Cool!”
“What's up with you? Are you okay?” Archie turned to Pat, who was staring into space.
“I said something's not right with her! I've been asking her that too,” Jeff interrupted.
“It nothin'. It's just … this so called science center bothers me,” she said sceptically. “It's kinda … I dunno … something's not right. You know what I mean? I mean, what the hell are they doing there? I know that guy has some inventions, but the size of this place just seems wrong!”
The two boys looked at each other, reassuring themselves that there was nothing wrong with her, that she was her usual self.
Pat was their mental leader. She had an amazing facility for finding theoretical connections and was the one who put together the plans that they followed. She had the ability to convince others with the very rightness of her ideas and the two guys never doubted her.
Jeff needed this girl as she seemed to bring out the dynamism, energy and instinct that was the motivation for his actions. He was the leader in team planning and implementation. They were guided by the detailed scenarios in his head, and he always had a plan B and plan C. He could easily see through each problem and was ready to improvise as each situation demanded.
Archer was the technical genius, and saw himself as a soldier on a mission, serving the call of duty. It didn't matter what gadget he got his hands on, he always seemed to instinctively know what to do with it. He loved to automate anything and making machines capable of operating independently was his obsession. Because of his pedantic attention to detail and a certain level of paranoia, he always kept them safe. Jeff and Pat's company provided a fertile ground for him to develop these tendencies.
As they sped along the winding downhill road, tires squealing, they could see the city from above; the whole territory was covered in green areas as a result of the forced planting program the previous fall. Even the bases of the tower buildings were skirted in lush green.
*
Jeff's strategy demanded that they always approach their target from a different direction each time, to reduce the risk of detection. Today they drove in a larger circle than usual, and found themselves behind their objective. The four by four pickup was easily capable of traversing the heaviest terrain and they easily reached the more remote forest tracks via a muddy service track. When they arrived, Jeff got out of the truck and dragged the camouflage tarpaulin over the side of the vehicle overlooking the site.
Meanwhile Archer prepared the relay amplifier, plugging it into the recording device, then he checked the cameras on the helicopter. They had fixed five cameras to the helicopter. Four were used mainly for navigating when the helicopter was out of visual range. All of the cameras sent images, but their intelligence images were obtained from the miniature high-resolution camera that was fixed on the belly of the helicopter.
While the two boys were dealing with the equipment, Patricia poured herself a cup of coffee and started slowly sipping it, thinking. In the distance, the grey outlines of the science center buildings could be seen, with two darker skyscrapers rising from the middle. The roofs of each tower were divided in halves by platforms and several connecting bridges interconnected them approximately in the middle. Patricia observed the territory through binoculars. The full extent of the center from this distance was considerable, and she discovered more multilevel security along the borders of the complex.
“Well … with the new fuel mixture we can get an extra 25 minutes, and with the relay amplifier we'll be able to extend the range by three kilometers. We also have significantly improved recording capabilities as well,” Archer listed the improvements he'd made since their last mission.
“Sounds cool,” said Jeff. “Okay, guys, listen up! The plan is as follows: we will put the Eastern tower under surveillance, the one on the left from here. According to our calculations the top platform could be somewhere between 950 and 1,050 meters from the ground. We need to get higher than that, appropriately 1,500-1,600 meters. Blue Thunder can get into position within 8 minutes, and the return time is less, let's say within 5-6 minutes. So, if all goes well, with one and a half hour running time, and roughly 13-14 minutes travel time plus 2 minutes for refueling, we have a total of fifteen minutes down time to take into consideration, which is a lot,” said Jeff.
Pat and Arch nodded in agreement.
“All we need is fifty thousand euros and the problem is solved,” Arch murmured.
“But we don't have that kind of money…. How 'bout increasing the size of the fuel tank instead?” suggested Pat.
“I'm workin' on it,” said Arch.
“Okay. Are you ready?” asked Jeff, turning to Arch, who was making some final adjustments to the helicopter.
“Yep, sure am. This little birdie's gonna fly,” said Arch, gently putting the helicopter down on the ground. He flipped the remote console strap over his head and flicked the ignition switch. A short cough and the twin engines buzzed into life. As soon as the motors had warmed up they switched automatically into stealth mode. Jeff stepped over to the monitors set up in the back of the truck, checked the image transmission, then pushed the record button.
In Arch's hands the little helicopter responded to every command, shooting out above the open area like lightening, then straight up, rapidly gaining altitude. On the monitor screen they could see the thicket – that they were hiding in – quickly recede into the distance. After a few minutes the helicopter was out of visual range and Arch was relying on the monitor screen for navigation.
Blue Thunder reached the target altitude and raced towards the target, blurred images of the ground moving underneath with sparse low-level mists breaking the monotony. After few minutes the sharp image of a skyscraper appeared on the screen so suddenly that all three of them jumped in surprise. Smiling at each other in satisfaction, they peered at the high-resolution images.
Arch recorded the coordinates and switched on the auto adjust, allowing the helicopter to keep its position, compensating for wind direction and up drafts. Pat picked up the lens controller. Moving the tiny joystick forward, she zoomed in on the structure. They stared at the extreme close ups of the platform surface, but despite the image stabilizing mechanism, the picture was still a little wobbly from such a big distance.
“No worries. I'll adjust the image in the workshop and everything will be crystal clear,” Arch told them.
“We don't really need such close up images, do we? It pretty unbelievable that we can see everything so clearly,” said Pat in amazement.
“Look! On the track! I can see some movement,” said Jeff. pointing to some small spots.
Pat carefully adjusted the lens, zooming in on the test tracks that were running near the towers. These tracks – carefully surrounded by the building units – had been cleverly camouflaged, hidden from unwanted eyes.
What seemed to be small bubbles were negotiating obstacles in a model city environment. A little further, on rougher terrain, figures in white coats were testing other bubbles.
“What do you think they could be?” asked Jeff.
“They're probably vehicles equipped with the new drive,” suggested Pat, “although from here we can't see what's underneath them. Let's go back.”
They were refocusing the camera towards the highest tower platform, when the picture was obscured by the blur of a huge helicopter.
Pat changed the camera angle to get a better view. There was probably only one hundred meters between the two machines, and the drone helicopter was buffeted by the wash from the larger rotor.
They flew higher, too high.
“Oh, shit! This could be a trouble!” said Arch, with a worried frown. “I'm losing contact!”
“Then take it lower! But be careful …. Look! That helicopter's landing now so there won't be so much turbulence,” Jeff reassured him.
“I'll try to stabilize the image,” said Pat, adjusting the camera control. “I think I've got it.”
“Look, this really isn't good!” Arch was getting nervous.
“What's wrong?”
“We have to bring it back, now!!!” Arch was beginning to shout.
“No, not yet! We can't! Look, they're getting out!” Pat pointed to the screen. As the giant helicopter touched down on the platform a ramp slid out. A couple of guys, in what seemed to maintenance uniforms, pushed several huge boxes towards the building entrance. Then a man and woman got out and hurried after them. A few seconds later, large figures, dressed in hooded trench-coats that covered them completely, appeared on the platform at the loading doors. Two of them stood near the back of the helicopter, then three more spread out to stand in random order on the platform. The downdraft from the spinning rotors lashed the figures but they easily withstood it. However, there was something unusual, something indefinable in their movements, which were light and delicate, like a geisha's step.
Behind them appeared their real target. Sean Steersman was wearing clothes that seemed two sizes too big, as if he was cold, but then of course, he could have been wearing protective equipment underneath.
“Fuck!” exclaimed Arch, and stepped back.
“Dude! What's up?” Pat and Jeff asked in unison.
“We've lost connection. I can't control it anymore,” he told them, frantic.
“You what …?” all three of them stared at the monitor wide eyed.
The image stayed stable for a half second, and then they felt a giddy weightlessness as the helicopter lost control and began to fall. It fell incredibly fast, straight at the platform. It had enough momentum that its stabilizers prevented the helicopter from pitching, but it spun on its vertical axis, with the cameras still sending images that blurred into one. One thing was dead sure: the aircraft was going to hit the figures on the platform fairly shortly.
But it didn't. One of the trench coated figures saw it coming and reacted; one big bang, one lightening movement and the transmission stopped dead.
Jeff, Arch and Pat knew that Blue Thunder had been terminated. The three turned simultaneously towards the distant towers. Through the binoculars, Pat could see a smokey ball dissipating over the platforms.
“Let's get the fuck out of here!” Jeff hissed between his teeth.
All three of them packed their equipment and threw it in the back of the truck. Arch carefully wrapped the recording unit inside his sweater and held it like some sort of fragile treasure. They jumped into the truck and left the area, driving madly through a sea of mud. When they turned onto the road Jeff noticed the mess they'd left behind. The pickup's tire tracks were far more evidence than they should have left behind.
“I'll let you out near Staple Mall, get the car washed nearby and then get the tires changed as well,” said Jeff.
“Good idea,” Pat agreed.
“Come over to my place this afternoon. By then I should be ready with images. We can go over them together,” suggested Arch.
“All right. I'll be there at half past two,” said Jeff.
The truck turned onto a main street that wound its way out to the border of Excolopolis; it was a dead end that lead into nowhere, though the city was quickly expanding, no one went in that direction. Jeff let them out, then turned and headed out of the city by the most roundabout route he could devise. His thoughts raced as he tried to think of ways out of the situation. This is all going to lead to some bad shit. He was sure of it.
Fright
Someone was madly knocking at the door. Mrs Pineda opened it. The murmur of Jeff and Pat's voices could be heard talking to her in polite conversation. The stairs creaked, indicating their ascent, and a light knock on the door was followed by the creaking of hinges. They found Arch sitting at a table standing in front of a window with a light shield and he looked like was just about to connect a couple of devices together.
“Didn't hear your truck,” Arch grunted.
“I brought my mom's electric car,” said Jeff.
“Uuuh, exciting!” said Arch, sarcastically.
“I left my truck at a friend's place in a nearby town. Until I'm sure they are no longer looking for it, it'll have to stay there. I told my family that it needs servicing, which is kinda true,” Jeff's friend was a sort of back street mechanic, doing odd jobs in a garage that he had converted into a workshop.
“By the way, you didn't have any problems, did you?” Arch asked them.
“It's all cool,” answered Jeff.
“Yep, cool,” said Pat. “Did you get anywhere with the …?”
“I copied the images onto the flash drive and enhanced the image quality, but I didn't get around to looking at them,” said Arch.
“Well, I hope it was worth it,” sighed Pat.
“Yeah, me too. Too much dough got burned up out there,” said Jeff, vexed.
Arch darkened the room and switched on a large two meter monitor. The huge video file was ready to run, stored in the computer's memory. One click and the film was running in RealLife Definition mode. An incredibly sharp image leaped onto the screen, the resolution so high that it even showed the wisps of ground mist clearly. Then the towers came into view.
“Look at this surface,” said Arch, pointing out the black matte platform that Patricia had zoomed in on. “It is rather unusual how it reflects the light. What do you think it might be made of?”
“Good question,” said Pat.
“I really want to know what those vehicles were that we saw on the test track,” said Jeff.
As if Jeff had actually commanded it, the picture shifted and showed the strange prototypes moving along the high-tech track. The optics that had been fixed on Blue Thunder had been able to clearly enlarge the objects, even from one and a half kilometers away. The track must have had billions of sensors built into and countless thin rays of light followed each vehicle as it moved above them.
The camera view slowly moved back to the platform and showed the disastrous finale to their surveillance mission; the rough shaking and vibrating spin flashed across the giant screen. Arch turned down the sound as the helicopter noise became too loud to bear and the image spun faster and faster. Slowed, the sequence became less nauseating.
Arch halved the speed, and use the software to make minute corrections to each frame. With the film now in slow motion, they were able to make out how many figures were on the platform, though the image still was too fast to be a comfortable viewing experience.
As the sequence approached the crash, Arch slowed the recording still further, improving the picture quality with a few corrections. The rendering process gobbled up processor resources and in addition to the liquid-cooling system, more fans switched on.
Eventually they were watching the film frame by frame, every second another picture appearing on the monitor. The last few meters of the devastating crash took about ten minutes to watch.
Pat shifted uneasily in her seat.
“Come on! What's takin' so long?” she demanded, impatiently.
“What do you expect?” asked Jeff.
“I dunno. There is something weird about those guys. When they got out of the chopper… I felt something strange,” she said.
The other two loved it when Pat had a strange feeling because it usually meant that something exciting was about to happen.
A frame showed the mysterious figures from above, then in the next frame the figure standing to the rear of the helicopter looked up.
The hood on his head slid back, blown by fierce gusts from the rotors.
“What the hell is that?” Pat gasped. “Flip that picture the right way up!”
Arch rotated the picture on the screen.
“What is it?” asked Arch.
“I saw an orange flash on the guy's head” said Jeff.
“Jeez, can't you see it?” Pat burst out. “It's NOT a man!”
“What the hell is it then?”
“It's a fucking ROBOT!” Pat was shouting by now. “Look at its head. It's metal or something. It looks like it's made from the same material as the platform.”
Jeff and Arch weren't expecting such incisiveness from Pat! They both stared at the monitor, looking at the figure in the trench coat, trying to make out the shape of its head under the hood. Matt black skin and some sort of dark light seemed to emanating from within its cranium.
Their blood froze.
“What the fuck is it?” Arch started to panic. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”
“Shut up Arch!” said Pat.
“Sooo, what do we do about it?” Jeff leaned back.
Arch looked at them wide eyed.
“We could destroy it,” he suggested.
“Yeah, right Arch, nice one!” said Pat sarcastically.
They sat in silence, their brains ticking over. Fear mixed with excitement and caused the adrenalin to flow, pushing their minds into overdrive.
Then a sound broke the silence: the squeal of door hinges.
They turned in panic.
“Your friend was right,” a strange voice said.
All three of them jumped. Arch almost fainted, but Pat squeezed her friend's hand in an iron grip, bringing Arch back to life.
“Destroy it!” Steersman ordered.
One of the trench-coated figures towered over them. It was massive and they could see it looking at them, giving them the chance to observe every tiny detail of the robot's face.
Excolopolis_Poles of Enforcement Page 10
