Absorption: Phase 03 (The Eighteenth Shadow)

by Grafton, Jon Lee

  The taught-faced old man fell back, eyes shut even as he seethed, “Never! Tara Adler…”

  The holoscreen flickered and went black.

  The Lincoln’s com interrupted, saying, “Govcloud bandwidth unavailable. Please try your stream again in a few minutes, or say record to create a holotranscript.”

  “FUCK!” Tara screamed, livid as she slammed her hand against the steering wheel and her bare toes against the accelerator.

  The Kansas countryside, harvest-green farms and yellow autumn trees blurred through the windshield. Something new was screaming outside. Turbines. She looked in the rearview HUD just as the AV9C Harrier launched its first air to ground missile. The explosion rocked the hovcar.

  It rocked the world.

  The Coyotes vanished single file into the rows of marijuana at the edge of the field that had not been vaporized by the exploding hydrogen blimp. Dragged sideways by the THOR unit, the wallowing, crushed fuselage of the C17 Globemaster more than filled the hovroad edge to edge. The only way through was a gap created by the elevated tail section.

  The cowboy must have told THOR to clear a path.

  Danny watched the Lincoln float slowly but steadily under the tail section, meet the open hovroad and accelerate east like a skittering bug.

  That’s when the Harrier noticed the fleeing vehicle. It swooped after it in pursuit.

  Joan was gone. THOR was gone. The Coyotes were left behind, streaking invisibly into the rows of jane. Soon their limited intranet would be undetectable.

  No one scans for Ipv5 and only I know…

  “Oh sky no, come on!” said Everquist, watching the jet bank east.

  He typed in every bypass command he knew. Nothing. He could only see stats on the Harrier and the hovcar, couldn’t hack coms on either.

  It’s impossible to hack a firewall I can’t see.

  He would have died to hear the chatter, but could no longer avoid the spate of incoming klaxons. Holostream relay servers worldwide were choking with pings, the Govcloud servers struggling.

  Suddenly his own combud chimed. A priority ping appeared on his holotab.

  He swiped the screen right and projected the bank’s female customer service avatar, Camilla, who delivered her message with a gracious smile, “Hello, Daniel S. Everquist. Thank you for contacting Bank of North America. All of your accounts have been closed per your request. Your current balance is now 0 digidollars and 0 digicents. We appreciate your business. Have a great weekend!”

  The hologram collapsed.

  Danny sat bolt upright, “Access BNA customer service. Priority ping!”

  “I’m sorry, that address is currently in queue,” said the computer. “Your wait time is 14 days, 6 hours and 21 minutes. Please think or say one now if you would like an avatar to ping you back as opposed to waiting on hold.”

  Danny listened to the words.

  He read them as they transcribed across the screen, “A balance of zero dollars and zero cents.”

  Joan…

  He stood for what seemed like the first time all day and raised the interior blinds in his office. There were only two other human employees on site on a Saturday, AI did the rest. Both were sheriff’s dispatch secretaries, Martha and Paul. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could see the panic in their faces as they stared into their holoscreens and tried to access the stream. Everquist turned back and smiled as Govcloud virus holoscripts began flooding his second monitor.

  Please activate antivirus software on your workstation at this time. Govcloud security compromised. Please activate antivirus software on your workstation at this time…

  It was beyond brilliant. Danny grinned effusively and plopped into his chair. The holographic keyboard automatically appeared. He swiped a quick search.

  “Hah!” he said, scanning the results. “Every stream-serviced bank in the Americas and Europe, which are subsidiaries of every major bank in the world…” He typed a few more keystrokes then shook his head, “Joan… the question is how much longer?”

  There was no time to ponder. He had to pilot the drone. His last command had instructed it to accelerate and tail the fleeing Lincoln and Harrier. They were in Johnson County now, rocketing across the countryside towards Kansas City. The pilot had lowered elevation. He was flying 200 meters off the hovcar’s tail lights.

  Captain Mary Johnson was dead.

  This pilot, wonking as Captain Ernest Phalbert, had never re-initiated safety protocols on his air to ground ordinance. Danny still had only visual. Com functionality came and went. Whatever was going to happen, there was little time.

  His com pinged.

  Talboy!

  The transmission was garbled, but he could understand the words, “C… come back, tech-boy! Everquist, need evac!”

  “Brick! I never thought I’d be happy to hear from you! I got no tracking. The stream’s compromised. Virus. Come back!”

  Talboy’s voice was rattled, “Danny, he’s not dead. We’re hiding, Downs is wounded. Acid burn. Send help?”

  “Yes! Again, no coms, I got no vitals on you guys. Who’s not dead?”

  The com crackled and spat, finally the words came, “…repeat again. Sheriff Proudstar is smashed up bad, though. Badge dropped some field nanos on him, ost a leg… We… wounded… need ASAP! Will die…”

  Danny blinked, thinking of Joan’s words.

  He forced his breath to steady, “Say again, Talboy? Is he stable?”

  The voice was clear this time, “Don’t know. We were running from the big borg and hid in the tunnel you found. The sheriff was right there. The borg spotted us, so he turned it out and unloaded on that bastard with his M4, last we knew. The jets were cuttin’ bad sky overhead, it was impossible to hear anything. Downs, Azarov and me stayed hid, next thing we hear more howling, screams, then his body tumbles into the weeds down here. Soon after, one of them fighter jets explodes at the far end of the ditch, flushed us! So we just ran. Circled back, Badge cracked a med kit on the sheriff. We been pinging coms!”

  “Talboy, listen,” said Danny. “The holostream’s down. The hacker released a virus that made everyone’s money vanish. Billions of people are emergency pinging their banks.”

  “Whatta you mean our money’s vanished!? I don’t…”

  “Nevermind! Are you safe?”

  “Yeah! Downs has acid burns on his hands and knees. Bad. A co2 scrubber dropped, case I forgot to mention! Fields were on fire! Even Badge was scared. We’re hiding in this creek bed about a thousand meters from the hovroad. I was scared to hump the sheriff, but we had no choice. His leg is gone. I mean gone. Can you see our lights?!”

  “No. Just stay put. Soon as the Govcloud drivers get this virus under control we’ll have regular coms back. Keep your beacons green, they’ll find you. I gotta go! Tara Dean’s still running!”

  “What…” Talboy sounded exhausted.

  “Everquist out.”

  “Don’t forget us, tech-boy!”

  “Never.”

  The sheriff was not dead.

  Joan knew.

  Danny checked his screens. Coms were slowly returning. The first Army Reserve reinforcements were just cresting the western hill, a klaxon late and a kilometer short. They would find Azarov, Downs and Talboy with the sheriff.

  Proudstar will survive.

  Danny knew he should have kept the Douglas County drones close to the scene. But he also knew that part of his life…

  He had to try and stop the Harrier pilot.

  That’s no Air Force jet.

  He pushed the COD faster. The Harrier barely had to idle its turbines to keep up with Abner’s fleeing MKZ hovcar, but Everquist’s drone was straining to maintain 190 kph behind them.

  An auto-klaxon reappeared on the holoscreen, indicating that the drone was again recording data. He patched it to make a single copy on Dina’s thumb drive.

  With Joan gone, devices should function.

  Motion on the far horizon, a thin gray, st
reaking line. He extended his fingers across the holotab and zoomed in. The stream was still flooded with human chatter, people all over the North American Union terrorized at the automated banking message that had come to them via dolphin virus.

  Danny pulled up a map on his second monitor and sat forward in his chair as the image clarified, “The maglev train… 13 kilometers to the crossing,” he said to himself. “They have to get past if they’re gonna have a chance.”

  His legs were numb and sore from sitting in the chair for so long. He gave up on his keyboard and slouched back with the holotab.

  “Computer,” he said. “Hovcar data.”

  “Vehicle registered to Abner, Daxane J.” said the computer blissfully, “Warning, wanted criminal..”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Danny talked over the voice, “Silence all auto-klaxons. What is the likelihood that car will make it across the train tracks before the Lawrence-Lenexa Flyer?”

  “59%.”

  Danny bit his lip, “Let’s see, train is moving 698 kph. The Lincoln is floating at 195 kph, less than two minutes until the intersection, they should be able to… unless…”

  The Harrier pilot, Captain Phalbert, fired a warning missile. It exploded uncomfortably close to the vehicle, causing it to rock and spin against the mild resistance of the hovlev conduit, but Tara Dean kept it floating over the pavement, lateral stabilization fans doing their job. Rain mist, dirt and wet weeds mushroomed into the air as the black drone rocketed after them, following the jet’s afterburners. The Lincoln’s speed had dropped to 168 kph, gravel and mist spewing behind as its propfans redirected. Ms. Dean managed to straighten out and must have stomped on the accelerator. The hovcar again achieved 198 kph.

  “Go, go, go, please go…” said Danny knitting his fingers.

  His holotab vibrated furiously in his lap. Brick Talboy again.

  No time.

  The Harrier edged closer and fired again. The next missile slammed into an enormous elm tree ahead of the black hovcar, showering it with splintered wood, but Tara Dean did not slow.

  Danny confirmed the video stream was still recording.

  Yes.

  A large branch from the elm slammed into the side of the Lincoln as it passed. They pushed on, drifting wildly sideways, but she managed to straighten it out. The MKZ was fast, obviously armored and highly maneuverable. The point where the Lawrence-Lenexa Flyer would whisk across the rural hovroad was coming up quickly.

  “Oh my Dog, you have to do this!” Danny howled.

  He pulled the train’s manifest, using his emergency allocation to access what remained of the stream’s bandwidth, “Carrying 412 passengers… oh man.”

  Danny tugged his orange hair and bit his tongue. Code could not save them. The hovcar would either flash past the nose of the maglev train or…

  Tara Dean had pushed it to 225kph. Top speed.

  The AV9C jet floated above them like a bird of prey lazily surfing an updraft. The Lawrence-Lenexa Flyer was half a kilometer away when the jet lobbed a third missile. It was a glancing explosion, less than ten meters from the Lincoln. The car rocked sideways down the gravel shoulder into the opposite field, throwing up a tidal wake of mud as it jolted over an irrigation ditch, then launched back up the shoulder onto the hovroad, powerful levfans spitting a dirty fog. Everquist could imagine the screaming sound the propfans were making. Were Tara Dean and Dax Abner screaming inside? He checked the Lincoln’s momentum.

  138 kph.

  Danny couldn’t watch. He averted his eyes, waiting long enough to be sure the hovcar had gotten by the train safely. He stared at the floor of his office, head in hands, counting out fifteen eternal seconds, then finally, timidly looked up at the projection being streamed by the COD.

  The first four train cars were still rolling through the fields of marijuana and hemp on either side of the hovroad, leaving behind vast swaths of flattened destruction. From the drone’s perspective, it looked like someone had dragged a gray fingernail through globs of green and yellow paint. Danny zoomed in. He set his jaw in horror. The bodies of passengers, twisted, tossed and broken, littered the land. These were not cyborgs. Pools of blood surrounded a few of the corpses. The emergency repulsion brakes on the train had saved the ten cars in back. Surviving passengers fled across the fields, stumbling, screaming, holding each other or running alone through the mud and fire.

  The Harrier jet hovered a quarter kilometer further east, a despicable mantis, windows polarized and black, emotionless. Danny zoomed in on it, not surprised at all when the plane suddenly banked left and burned away at mach 2 following the eastern horizon line.

  The remains of the Lincoln MKZ smoldered in a ditch, roof blown off. Danny flipped his holotab over and began pulling data. The Govcloud drivers were finally getting ahead of Joan’s virus. Even her final masterpiece failed in the end. I could have…

  Neither of the Lincoln’s emergency escape spheres had deployed. A green LED on his holotab told him that all com relays and datastreams were now functioning.

  Danny looked at it unresponsively.

  I know what I must do.

  He squinted in the direction the Harrier had disappeared, “Welcome to ultimate darkness.”

  His COD began relaying audio, citizens screaming and com klaxons. He muted the signal and entered a data request. The holotab began filling with red characters – names of the 67 Lenexa-Lawrence Flyer commuters who had just died in the crash, including both engineers.

  Danny tapped the holotab against the back of his knee and spoke a few of the names aloud, “Mr. James Dewley, Mrs. Angela Sparks. Engineer Sparks had two children, ages nine and eleven…”

  No time. You have to move if you’re going to do this.

  He swiped, scanning for Mr. Abner and Tara Dean. The COD picked up the Ipv7 from a Daxane J Abner’s combud almost immediately. The drone did not have to go far. Danny magnified. Their bodies were mangled, charred and broken, laying side by side. Their fingertips reached out, but did not quite touch. Mr. Abner’s corpse was dressed in his fine, bloody suit, face down in the mud. His reddish-orange hair seemed dull and brown.

  Our hair is the same color.

  Danny panned the drone’s view. Tara Dean’s green eyes were wide open. One was filled with blood and dirt. The other was clean and clear, as though staring at the clouds. She was barefoot and wore plain sweat pants. A piece of paper was in the mud by her hand, partially folded. It looked like a printed holograph of people in a restaurant. Ms. Dean’s neck was obviously broken and Danny noticed the star tattoos that trickled down her shoulder.

  He somberly backed the drone off and read the transcript that flashed over his holotab, Daxane J. Abner / Fugitive / Wanted / Douglas County Kansas / Illegal alcohol lab / Possession and distribution of a controlled substance / Possession and operation of unregistered cyborg(s) / Tara A. Dean / Fugitive / Federal Recidivist / Wanted NAUS and territories / Arson / Assault of a Federal employee / Hovcar theft / Falsification of identity / Govcloud manipulation / Possession and distribution of a controlled substance / Public intoxication / Public nuisance viol…”

  Danny Everquist sighed.

  The bad guys…

  He dropped the holotab into his lap and closed his eyes. A moment later, he jumped when the device vibrated. The stream came through crystal clear now.

  Talboy.

  “Everquist! Where you at!? Jeezus! You gonna get us the sky outta here? Sheriff and Downs are in bad shape. Need that evac, tech-boy!”

  Danny picked the holotab up with both hands and held it in front of him without speaking. The visual from Murray Downs’ HUD was clear. Brick Talboy’s shaken, muddy face filled the small display.

  His skin was red like he’d taken a bad sunburn, “Well glad things are calm at the office! Talk to me, dude! We just heard more explosions to the east! You got a light on us or not?! Whatta you gotta say, tech-boy?”

  “I quit,” replied Danny stoically.

  Talboy began screaming, but Everquist
cut the stream. The holographic keyboard appeared, and he sent a final command to the drone, directing it to Brick Talboy’s Ipv7, which he had had for the last five minutes.

  He looked around at the trash and mess of his office and wistfully said, “Oh man…” Everquist almost got up, blinked one eye shut with a thought and tapped his combud, “Med-Vac Drone Unit, authorization douglas_control_611_alpha, primary response targets located at 38.955213 by -95.819053. Secondary execute, immediate, with attached field surgical auxiliary.”

  Then he cut the drone recording, stood and grabbed Dina’s thumb drive, inserted it into the media port on his holotab. He took his jacket from the rack beside the door and crossed into the control room to the Exit, nodding affably to Martha and Paul as he passed. Danny took the steps down two at a time, breezed past Maybelle’s glass vestibule through the empty lobby and quickly found himself on the sidewalk.

  Outside. Breathing fresh air. His feet on solid Terra.

  I gotta get some sunglasses.

  He blinked and took in the day as though he’d just awoken. The cool October air was damp and clean. It tickled his skin. Somewhere close by a citizen was tending an antique fire barbecue, which smelled of savory, grilled synth-steak. A COD hovered briskly overhead, flying down the sidewalk moving north. He followed it with his eyes, then turned and walked the opposite direction.

  As he walked, he tapped his combud and said, “Dina?”

  “Yes, Danechka? I am in the spa,” replied his girlfriend’s Russian voice. “I could watch no more. Did they make it?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get home.”

  “Home? You are off work?”

  “You could say that.”

  “So what now?”

  “Now…” Danny stopped and sighed, looking west, “we go find the tether.”

  Above him, a sliver of blue sky allowed a bit of afternoon sun to come through. Everquist liked that. He was no longer afraid. The shaft of sunlight briefly warmed his pale skin, then vanished.

  He and Dina vanished with it.

  Chapter 3.8 – Secondcity