He could play along. He could be invisible. He could find Lucia. He didn’t even blink.
‘Sign me up.’
Six Months Later
Chapter 12
The fleet of drones flew up out of one of the many deep fissures in the Colonnade, keeping low to the ground as they zipped between the ruined hulks of what had once been lofty skyscrapers equal in majesty to the Tower.
They moved with a singular purpose, not content to patrol the network of soaring airways as thousands of their brethren did.
While they flew, one drone protruded a small weapon from a concealed utility compartment, and fired a single shot down toward the doors of an apartment building. The unlucky soul that had been walking out to the street was instantly burned to a crisp. Pieces of scorched flesh fell and blew away in the wind.
Another drone fired at the roof of a low building, sending people scrambling for cover. Not all of them made it.
Each of the six drones was now firing off a few shots at random targets, just warming up their guns.
The formation tightened up as the drones came to a dense area of the city. They flew through a narrow gap between two buildings, and burst out into a wide courtyard filled with people.
This particular courtyard was once a popular spot for local politicians or celebrities to gather a crowd for press announcements. In another lifetime. Now it could have passed for any old junkyard from before the war, except the crowds remained, making use of the debris for makeshift homes or shop stalls.
The only thing the drones knew was that there was a crowd of people greater than a predetermined number. In fact there were over a hundred souls scratching a living amongst the filth. But the drones didn’t care. They weren’t programmed to. The arbitrary value written in their code for this mission determined the value of the peoples’ lives below, and their number was up.
Four drones drifted to each corner of the courtyard, and the last two hovered back to back in the centre, revolving on the spot. Weapons and scanners disappeared inside their chassis’ as they rearranged their front facing armour plates to reveal display monitors hidden beneath.
Simeon appeared, his face projecting from each of the six drones in the courtyard. When he cleared his throat, the noise boomed out and echoed off the building walls, magnifying its effect.
‘Attention,’ he began, ‘Attention citizens of the Confederacy. I have been informed of a small minority who are itching to distribute their stockpile of illegal weapons amongst you. For your own safety, we do not want you getting any... distressing ideas. Therefore, I have no choice but to outlaw any congregation with over twenty people. You have 30 seconds to disperse.’
The image of Simeon separated into chunks as the drones packed away their displays.
No one moved. But then, no one cared.
Simeon’s words simply bounced off the crowd, too immured to notice. People shuffled around as aimlessly as they always had, lost in their own worlds. A small child buried in his mother’s clothing tugged on her rags and pointed up, trying to get her to notice the drones. Despair hung in the air like a fog, while the people sat and waited for death to come.
But they weren’t expecting it to be today.
The drones finished packing away the monitors and whipped out their cannons, like gunslingers from a Western.
They fired mercilessly into the crowd.
Simeon switched control of the drones over to their built-in artificial intelligence program and tore himself away from his desk. Controlling his drones manually was just too much fun, but he had had little luck in locating the General’s iPC with the bio-ID in this way. He couldn’t see everything. Not yet.
He walked over to General Withers’ liquor cabinet and fetched a fine bottle of Scotch whiskey. They didn’t make these any more. Another relic.
The man knew how to relax, Simeon thought, as he poured a drink and leaned back on the counter. He surveyed the gigantic living quarters that had once been the General’s, right at the very top of the Tower.
A rich mahogany desk, with spare iPCs, networked AI hard drives, and built in wireless chargers occupied the centre of the room. Plush carpets that massaged his feet with low currents of static electricity. It might have been pleasant to someone else, but not to Simeon. He’d rearrange the room to his liking soon enough. It was prime real estate after all, and he couldn’t let it go to waste.
An entire wall dedicated to banks of monitors showed areas in and around the Tower, with a special section for the private rooms of the rest of the Confederacy’s High Council members.
So Withers was as paranoid as the rest of us, he thought. Not paranoid enough apparently. He could only watch the Council members while they relaxed in their rooms. A mistake Simeon would not repeat.
The final touch for Simeon’s new den was the stunning vista. He stopped at the edge and gazed out. It was even higher up the Tower than the Conference room from where the General fell. Simeon might as well have been floating on a cloud from here. Another few drinks and he may well feel like it anyway.
He looked down at the Tower falling away before his feet, into the heart of the Colonnade hundreds of metres below ground. The workshops churned away like a beehive, producing weapons, supplies and equipment for his soldiers. Factories spat out troop air transports and the indispensable drones, among other projects. Simeon squinted down at the laboratories.
‘Where is that bloody egghead?’ he asked aloud in frustration.
He pulled up his iPC inbox and checked for new messages. Pointless really, since the system would ping him the instant a new one arrived. His life revolved around those damn ping sounds.
He glanced at the wall monitors covering the labs to check if the doctor was in there or his private office. He wasn’t. These monitors were useful, but too limited. Simeon would have to fix that.
He’d had enough of waiting. Since his troops and drones had failed to find General Withers’ iPC with the bio-ID, he had scooped up the General’s own laboratories and assigned everyone possible to copying that damned brilliant man’s work. Dr. Prewett.
Simeon’s lead researcher was supposed to have had a progress update for him by now.
With a huff, he strode for the door, entered the elevator, and punched the button for his private aircraft’s landing pad.
He stepped out into the exposed elements. Simeon made a show of indifference towards his minions as they saluted when he walked past, a cover for not wanting to look down from such a height.
He entered the transport, which took off straight away, floating gently as a leaf on the wind down into the bowels of the Colonnade.
The reception committee that waited for him was sparse. A few Confederate soldiers sprinkled about, trying to look innocuous. They knew what was coming. Simeon stared furiously as a flustered looking scientist hurried down the landing ramp. He reached Simeon, and bent over to catch his breath. He must have run a mile uphill, inadvisable for a man in his sixties.
‘Sir! I... I didn’t... I’m sorry I... I... forgot to make the report today,’ he managed. Simeon looked him up and down in disgust.
‘Where is my new bio-ID, Brock?’ Simeon said, his rage barely kept in check. ‘You had Prewett’s notes, you had his resources and more besides, so why have I not got my bio-ID yet?’
‘But sir...’
‘I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses.’ Simeon flicked a hand at a nearby guard. ‘Take him to the top of the Tower and throw him off.’ The guard moved to take Brock, no questions asked.
‘Sir I have it!’ Brock said. ‘I have a working prototype.’
Simeon held a hand up to the guard, stopping him.
‘Show me,’ he said.
Brock turned and trotted ahead, wanting to run away but fearful of what Simeon would do if he fled. Simeon followed him through the winding corridors, always heading further down, as secure from infiltration as possible.
They passed security checkpoints by the dozen, Simeon was w
aved through on sight. Automated turrets, defensive drones and human guards stood down as he passed like a rock crashing through a wave.
Finally they came to Brock’s wing of the laboratory and he showed Simeon through. The room was littered with desktop computers, spare iPCs, random electronic components and medical instruments. Sitting in the centre was a computer connected to a giant device shaped like a jet engine, tapering down to a precision laser on one end.
Simeon approached it cautiously. ‘This is it?’
‘Well it’s just the prototype for now... It’s not quite the same as Dr. Prewett’s work. And I have to improve its power requirements to make it mobile but...’ Brock trailed off, unsure whether he would be praised or punished.
‘Excellent work Brock. You’ve tested it of course?’ Simeon asked.
‘Uh... no, no...’
‘It will work on any iPC?
‘Well...um, yes. Actually, it only works on iPCs,’ Brock gulped.
‘Ah.’ Simeon pointed at the end of the laser. ‘Sit.’
Brock managed a frightful squeak as he fell into a chair. Simeon selected a scalpel and two iPCs from the supply shelf, and advanced on Brock.
He powered up the machine minutes later and the lights flickered in the building, casting strange shadows over Simeon’s gleeful face.
Chapter 13
Joshua slammed his back into a wall, breathing hard in the hot midday sun. The wall was actually one of the dark masses of coral in the emptied lagoon, and it dug painfully into his side. His jumpsuit, similar to Sarah’s but tailored to fit his own build, injected him with a cocktail of stimulants and painkillers. Should have switched off the auto-meds, he thought. He was going to crash in a few hours and it wouldn’t be pretty.
He held up a camouflaged fist, signalling his teammates to hold position. Two spectres appeared out of nowhere and took up supporting positions on Joshua’s flank. They were dressed the same as him, their jumpsuit’s camo set to inactive, yet it still did a decent job of hiding them with a static green and brown pattern. The suit, leaving only their eyes exposed, covered every centimetre of their skin.
Joshua pulled his hood off to wipe the sweat from his brow. They’d run through the entire lagoon basin since early that morning, and he was cooking. He’d have to find a way to broach the subject with Casey regarding an upgrade to the suits with temperature regulators. It wasn’t enough that they masked thermal heat signatures and offered limited protection from external heat sources; they needed to be comfortable too.
Basic things, he thought, shaking his head.
Hashi Ichiro followed Joshua’s lead and wiped his face off, but he always kept one eye on ridge line, even as he leaned over to ask, ‘What is the plan?’
Joshua liked that about Ichiro, he was all business, all the time. He pointed at the coral that ran along the rim of the lagoon.
‘The two of us are going to leapfrog over to that clump of coral, then make a dash for the tree-line on the ridge. That’s the only place left she could be. Meanwhile, Ryan... Ryan!’
He swung an arm out his other side, hitting Ryan’s shoulder to wake him up. Ryan shook himself and became instantly alert. He ripped his hood off and threw it down.
‘This is stupid,’ he complained. ‘We’ve checked the entire bloody island. If Sarah was going to-’
At that moment, the area around them erupted in laser fire, seeming to appear out of thin air. The three of them flinched and scrambled to get their hoods back on. The fire abruptly ceased, and an eerie quiet filled the lagoon.
‘She is toying with us,’ Ichiro observed.
‘Stick to the plan.’ Joshua pointed towards the coral, ‘Move out, active camo engaged until we make a visual on her location.’
His teammates obeyed without a word. Joshua could start to enjoy being in command, even though it had only come when their previous team leader, Phil, caught the first one of Sarah’s stun rounds. She was good. Very good. Which was why she was on a team all by herself.
Their jumpsuits slowly melded with the landscape, bending the light around their bodies to create the effect of invisibility. But a keen observer would still be able to find a shimmery ghost flitting from cover to cover. The midday sun amplified the shimmer, even casting the occasional reflective glare as the suit fought to compensate. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but they had to get out of the lagoon.
The exercise had begun at sunrise, when they had been ferried up to the surface of the island, the lagoon having been drained to knee-deep before they arrived. That was no coincidence, it had slowed them down long enough for Phil to be eliminated early on.
In fact everything they had run into had been carefully laid out by Sarah. Being by herself, she was allowed access to the training ground the night before, and she hadn’t been sleeping. She only had the suit and the single Stunner the rest of them had been equipped with, but somehow she had rigged the entire island with traps.
By midday, Joshua’s team of ten had been whittled down to three by snares, deadfalls and other traps. All non-lethal of course. When they had stopped to rescue their teammates from Sarah’s traps, she had used the distraction to close in with active camouflage. She could pick off the stragglers with her Stunner rifle, specially tuned for this exercise to bypass the jumpsuit’s defences. A couple of the younger members had panicked, making easy sport for Sarah.
Joshua was determined not to lose to her yet again.
He ran past Ichiro, reaching the first of the coral outcroppings that led to the ridge. He slammed into it, looking around for any sign of the ghostly shimmer that would mark Sarah’s whereabouts.
Nothing.
He signalled to Ryan, who ran from his cover position to take the head of their column. Joshua and Ichiro scanned the coral and the ridgeline with the Stunners, ready to provide covering fire if necessary.
The Stunners had notoriously bad aiming; the bulky cannon shaped rifles were mostly for show. The non-lethal guns were good substitutes for real weapons during these training exercises, as long as it was combined with muscle training to make up for the weight difference. Confederacy guards used them because they were remarkably light, weighing only two kilograms. Guards were also less likely to get in trouble for stunning a citizen rather than killing them. Drones were trusted with more power over life and death than the Confederacy’s own human stooges.
Ryan made it to the coral, the last until the empty stretch before the trees at the top of the ridge. Joshua and Ryan turned to look back at Ichiro, coming up last in their column. He got the message.
‘Right,’ he gulped. ‘Looks like I am up then...’
He pushed off the coral face, and ran up the slope, legs splayed wide to ease the angle of the slope as he ran. A shot came from the tree canopy, smacking Ichiro on the shoulder, sending him spinning like a top. He fell over and rolled down the hill, every muscle in his body disabled, save those needed to breathe and blink.
Joshua and Ryan fired blindly into the trees as something scuttled away, pushing the foliage aside as it moved. It had to be Sarah.
Still firing, Joshua and Ryan charged up the hill together, loosing a battle cry. It dissolved into a mixture of panting and yelling as they ran out of breath on the slope.
‘Forget the camo, switch the power over to anti-gravity!’ Joshua called between gasps. Ryan grunted in agreement, and they both became suddenly visible. But it enabled them to bounce up the hill and out of the lagoon as though they were on the moon. On the lip of the ridge, Joshua pointed at the treeline just beyond.
‘That’s where we’re going. One leap. Go!’ he said. Ryan miscalculated his jump, too used to putting all his strength into each step. He sailed right over the canopy, flailing about as his trajectory took him to the beach on the other side.
Joshua caught an out-stretched tree branched and hauled himself in. He had a perfect view of his last teammate as he bounced over the beach. Ryan finally dropped into the sand when he switched his suit’s anti-grav off.
He flicked Joshua a small salute.
Suddenly Sarah stepped out from the shadow of a rock on the beach. She had Ryan dead to rights. The sun's reflective shimmer off her active camo caught Joshua in the eye, blinding him for a moment. He fired wildly in her general direction. When his vision returned, Sarah was lying on the beach, cooking in her tight jumpsuit, muscles locked up from multiple Stunner hits. Ryan was looking up at him, hands on hips.
‘Heh. Sorry,’ Joshua said. He lowered the weapon and jumped down to help up Sarah out of the sand.
She stared up at him with wide dangerous eyes, like a cat that didn’t want to be held. As much as he wanted to hold her, Joshua snapped his hands back as though he’d been burned.
Overhead, the Nyctalopia cruised silently by, and Richard’s voice crackled over their team comm system. Joshua put a hand to the earpiece communicator he wore, while everyone else just listened in with their iPCs. He hadn’t yet been able to bring himself to get one implanted. The thought of having a robotic eye made his skin crawl.
‘Breaker breaker,’ Richard said over the comm in a terrible trucker impersonation. ‘I got a Mama Bear and two Joes in need of a pickup. Over.’
The boys packed Sarah into a carriage lowered from the Nyctalopia which hovered above, playing the part of a rescue helicopter.
Hanging from the wire as it lifted back into the ship, they headed back to base, passing over the team members that had been eliminated long ago. Ichiro, still lying on the bottom of the ridgeline, regained control of his mouth.
‘Hey... a little help? You are not going to leave me here right? Hey guys?
...Guys?’
Chapter 14
The Nyctalopia touched down on the landing pad, and the entire structure descended into the depths of the island. Joshua preferred entering the Academy with the ship; from here he could see where he was going, the bright landing lights showing the way down.
The Covert Academy Page 7
