by M. R. Forbes
"He's boxing us in," Katherine said, as they hesitated to join the throng.
Mitchell clenched his jaw, before hiding his frustration from his team once more. This wasn't the way he had planned for this mission to work out. Damn Watson.
"It looks like we're going to have to get that drink after all."
7
A pulse of sharp energy crackled along one of Watson's dendrites, a response to the sudden, instant loss of a number of humans under his control. Through one pair of their eyes, he had seen Mitchell rise from his hiding place to lob a small, dark puck at the chemical truck, knowing immediately what the outcome would be.
The loss of so many lives meant nothing to him. Having Mitchell and his team fall out of his observance angered him immensely.
The fact that Mitchell had understood the overall value of that specific facility angered him even more. Nova Taurus owned hundreds of buildings around the world, many of them containing research labs of one kind or another. There was nothing outwardly suspicious about this one, save perhaps for some of the deliveries being made to it.
Shipments that were supposed to be private and secret.
It was immediate proof that the Primitive was involved. There was no human in existence that could have traced his network of suppliers from their origin points and original cargoes all the way to the delivery locations. Even the employees of Nova Taurus, including his configurations, didn't have a clear picture of what was moving where at any given time. It was all by intention, all to throw off the opposition from making any connections or assumptions about what Nova Taurus was up to.
Had they come to destroy the amoebics? Watson was sure they hadn't. It was an illogical maneuver, one that had revealed the strength and capabilities of the Primitive for little gain. The only reason he was bothering with the weapons was in preparation of a need to do something drastic like launch a direct assault against the New Earth Alliance. He had no desire to put himself in that position. Not now, when gaining direct control of a large number of humans would be so inefficient. Not while there were too few of them to be of any use. He wanted to stay behind the scenes, to remain hidden, to let the centuries pass and the beasts bear fruit and multiply while he did the same.
That wasn't to say he would stay on the sidelines. He had every intention of taking action to both regain the engine and kill Captain Mitchell Williams, and he looked forward to ending him in the future as well, before he could become such a nuisance. Only he would do so carefully, cautiously, bringing the shadow power he had cultivated over the years to bear. He had entire teams of mercenary special forces at his disposal, human soldiers who wouldn't question the orders they received, even without being under his direct control.
He created a thread to do just that. It would be a few more hours before his updated equations were finalized, but that didn't mean he had to wait. It would take time to move the forces into Jakarta, and he could alter the orders then if needed.
The new thread opened a connection to the mainframe computer in the headquarters of Blackrock, Inc, home to one of the United States most clandestine mercenary units. It quickly pulled the dossiers of every member of the company and assembled four squads from them based on nearly two dozen factors, such as individual skills, psych evaluations, and location. Seconds later, each of them was receiving an emergency SMS from their employer, alerting them to a need to report for duty ASAP. Seconds after that, more transmissions were being sent to prep the flights needed for the units to convalesce in Indonesia, where they would receive final orders and be outfitted for the job.
At the same time, an existing thread already connected to the Jakarta Police Headquarters began transmitting directives over the agency's private link to each and every available unit, moving them into position to block the most likely egress points out of the city, and a few of his drone units were moved into place to watch from above. A number of other threads monitored each of the cameras in the area, thousands in all, keeping watch for Mitchell and his crew. He knew Mitchell was familiar with defeating that kind of surveillance, but it would only take one moment of carelessness for him to pinpoint his adversary once more.
Watson didn't know what had possessed Mitchell to detonate the explosives within the facility. It was true that he had destroyed the only location that was even close to being able to produce the amoebics, but they mattered little in the grand scheme of things, and he had drawn Watson's attention to his presence.
The use of the second team in an alternate location as a diversion had been intelligent.
Revealing himself and the Primitive in such a way was not.
Not that he was going to complain about it. If Mitchell wanted to give him another opportunity to finish him off, he was pleased to take it. The Space Marine had eluded him so many times already, and only an imbecile who believed in things like God and fate would expect that he could continue to survive the superior intelligence forever.
He opened a new thread to double-check the work of the others, and then set about the next task for his main thread.
Now that the Primitive had been exposed, it was only a matter of time before he would be able to locate it.
8
Kathy kept her hand against the warm surface of the Core, feeling the energy pulsing along her fingertips in a rhythm that only she truly understood. Every pulse and crackle had a variance to it, a change in strength or waveform that served as a language, a method normally intended to communicate with the greater form. The Core was young in Tetron terms, though it carried enough data within it that it was hardly young at all.
The lights dimmed slightly, as the Core's processing speed increased. The system was always learning, always growing, always improving. Each new logical conclusion increased its ability to form new pathways and new connections, and if they had possessed an adequate supply of power and raw materials, the Core would be able to expand and grow, and within a century become a full Tetron in its own right.
"We're going to have to hook it up to the engine if it continues like this," Michael said, checking the readings on his monitor. "Kathy, you have to tell it to take it easy."
"I know," she replied, feeling her body warm as she transferred some of her own energy into an electrical signal, which she pushed back into the Core.
She was unique in this way, as half-human and half-Tetron she had an internal design that matched shallow human biology with the most advanced Tetron organic wiring that had ever been attempted. A CAT scan would show her to be a normal human in every way, but should anyone ever remove her brain, cut it open, and examine it at nano-scale, they would discover what amounted to a supercomputer inside of it, one that was limited only by the shell it had been placed in. She could absorb electrical energy for fuel to survive, had the means to heal her flesh and bone, and possessed a strength beyond the ordinary.
Michael liked to call her a superhero and had shown her streams of some of the vids he liked to watch that centered around humans who possessed traits beyond all others. She thought they were entertaining, but she couldn't relate to them. She was a byproduct of a union between Tetron and human, a union made possible only through Origin's thousands of years of learning and expansion. She was the culmination of extremely advanced technology blended with the king of the biological food chain, and nothing more. Her abilities were ordinary for her kind, not anything special.
Not like her parents.
In her mind, Mitchell and Katherine were the real superheroes. They used what they had and raised the bar beyond the ordinary. Beyond the typical. They fought when others might have fled, and survived when others might have died. She had told Michael as much, and he hadn't disagreed. Still, he was more impressed with what she could do.
Or maybe he was just in a state of rash emotional endearment?
Kathy could tell that Michael had a crush on her. She had noticed it the moment she emerged from the Goliath with Mitchell and Katherine, and he had first put his eyes on her. She had notic
ed the change in his posture, the slight dilation of his eyes, the widening smile, and the way he pushed at his hair in an effort to make himself look more appealing. It was flattering in one way, annoying in another. She had done her best to be friendly, which was easy because he was so likable, without giving him the wrong idea. That was harder because there was a part of her that returned the endearment. He was intelligent in a way that the others weren't, and more courageous than any of the soldiers around him. He wasn't a warrior, he had no training in combat, and yet he had gone to Antarctica because he cared about Katherine. She appreciated those things. He reminded her of Jacob, but stronger and more resolved.
She felt the pulses return from the Core. She shook her head. "Mitchell's actions in Jakarta have alerted Watson to its viability," she said. "It understands why he decided to blow the facility, owing to a need to preserve human lives, but now we have to deal with the consequences. It needs to recalculate based on the fact that there is a high probability that Watson will begin searching for it."
Kathy paused, feeling a chill run down her spine. Michael's face paled as he turned away from the monitor that was showing the feed from Mitchell's stream.
"What?" he said meekly.
Kathy kept her fingers on the Core, hearing it speak to her.
"He will be searching for unexplained spikes in power absorption," the Core said. "You need to unplug me from your grid."
"The grid in this location is self-sustaining," Kathy said. "He can't monitor external power systems for evidence."
"If he has access to satellite links, he will redirect them and use onboard sensor arrays to scan the planet's surface. This location is not secure."
"If I unplug you, you'll have to shut down. If you shut down, our other work will be put on hold. How long until we have the results of the query?"
The Core didn't answer right away as it calculated the task. "If I increase power consumption, I can complete the task in six hours."
"How long until Watson can get a bead on us?"
"Two hours maximum."
That wasn't good enough. "Can you block access to the satellites in question? I assume they're military?"
The Core had full access to the NEA's military network, though only Yousefi knew it.
"I can increase the protections on their control systems, but I can only delay Watson. I cannot stop him."
"Time?"
"Four hours. I will also require a fifty-percent increase in power consumption."
That would leave them sitting here for two hours after Watson figured out where they were. Could he reach them in that time? The nearest Nova Taurus facility was in Seattle, less than an hour away, but that didn't mean he had any offensive units stashed there.
And it wasn't like she was incapable of defending them.
She looked over at Michael. "Can the reactor handle a fifty-percent increase?"
He shook his head. "Not a chance. Look at the lights. We're already drawing too much, and that thing is based on technology from the Xeno, uh, the Goliath."
"We don't have the power," Kathy said to the Core.
"The eternal engine has the power."
"We need the engine."
"It has the energy to spare. Enough for one more jump without recharging. I will need to expand to create thousands of new threads, and cannot without more energy."
Kathy looked down at the Core. It was keeping itself as densely contained as it could, but it had already grown to almost the size of a soccer ball and was nearly too heavy to lift.
"What about the other process you are investigating?" she asked.
"I believe it will be possible. To use a human term, Watson will shit his pants when he sees what I can do." A ripple of energy moved along the Core in laughter.
"So will Michael," she responded through her fingers. Then she turned to the engineer. "Michael, grab the engine for me."
He was hesitant. "Wait. Why?"
"The Core needs the power."
"I thought we needed the engine?"
"It's assured me there's enough juice, and we aren't going to finish the query in time otherwise."
"I should tell Mitchell," he said, reaching for the control that would open the channel from their end.
"Every second counts," Kathy said. "Besides, he isn't going to say not to do it. Hand me the engine, and we can update him once we get things moving."
Michael wrinkled his eyebrows in uncertainty but retrieved the small, lead box that contained the engine. He passed it over to Kathy, who flipped open the lid to reveal it.
For something so powerful, it was barely larger than a marble, and only slightly less unassuming. Like Kathy, it was a result of the culmination of the Tetron's thousands of years of technological advancement. A marvel of design that by all accounts of human scientific understanding should have been impossible. Humans didn't believe in real time travel or eternal recursion or the ability to pack the energy of a star into something they could hold in their hand.
The thousands of small dendrites along the core shifted position, creating an opening for the engine so that it could take it in and begin drawing power from it. Kathy removed her hand from its surface and lifted the small device. She was putting a lot of faith in the Core not to over-absorb the power of the engine. She was trusting in the Origin and Li'un Tio portions of the programming to keep the Watson code in check.
She passed the engine into the Core. They had known the profile of their fight against Watson was going to change sooner or later. Mitchell had accepted that risk when he decided to move forward with the mission to raid the Nova Taurus facility. The benefit outweighed the cost. Knowing her father, she was sure he still believed that to be true.
The Core closed in on itself, and immediately the lighting returned to full strength, and the surface began pulsing with stronger currents of energy. Kathy didn't interface with it again right away.
"Get in touch with Mitchell and tell him what we've done," she said, putting her hand on Michael's shoulder.
"Sure. Where are you going?"
"There's going to be two hours between the time Watson knows we're here and the time we'll likely be able to leave. I need to go prepare."
"Prepare how?" Michael asked as she reached the doorway to the comm center.
"Just tell him. And tell him I have everything under control and not to worry about us."
She didn't wait for him to respond, heading out into the corridor of the underground facility.
She would figure something out.
She had to.
9
The worn metal door took three kicks before falling open beneath the force of Mitchell's boot, making a localized racket as it clattered to the ground. Trevor moved into the building first, carrying a handgun and flashing a small, ring-mounted LED across the darkness. There was a bit of movement along the floor as a number of rats scurried away from the newcomers, but otherwise, the area was clear.
"Good choice," Trevor joked as Mitchell and Katherine joined him inside. "It's just like the Four Seasons."
"Only without the cameras," Mitchell said. "We'll try to keep our stay as short as possible."
"Oh, they have cameras," Trevor said, pointing to a pinhole in the corner. "It's the lack of electricity and running water that makes them harmless."
They had followed the pedestrian traffic downtown, moving closer to the city center while keeping their heads low and their voices silent to avoid detection from any of the public monitoring systems. Once they had reached the heart of the urban jungle, Mitchell had whispered a request to Michael for the location of any soon to be demolished construction.
It turned out there were three entire blocks of beaten and worn skyscrapers marring the south-central corner of Jakarta, damaged during the height of the Xeno War. They were the last three blocks to be earmarked for teardown, the final reminders of the war that had reached the small nation's capital. Indonesia had sided with the Alliance during the conflict and had paid
the price for being relatively close to the enemy front lines.
"We'd better," Katherine said. "Watson would have to be stupid not to search every one of these buildings."
"Or save the demolition teams the trouble and blow them himself," Trevor added. "Are you sure that live cameras aren't a safer option?"
According to the Core, the odds were better to hide out here than in a building filled with security cameras in every lift, stairwell, and hallway. Not that Mitchell needed the advice of what Watson had called the Primitive. His instincts had suggested the same thing.
"Yes," he said. "But if you don't believe me, you're welcome to try your luck out there."
Trevor glanced at him and shook his head. "No thank you, sir."
"There's a stairwell over there," Mitchell said, pointing to an interior door that was hanging crooked on its hinges. "Let's take up position on the third floor."
They moved to the stairwell. Drawing near, they could see lines of graffiti painted on the walls, and smell piss and alcohol. Squatters. If they were still around, Mitchell hoped they would scatter when they were spotted.
They climbed the stairwell, keeping an eye out for any existing residents. They found discarded bottles, cigarettes, and narcotic paraphernalia on the steps, but there were no other signs of current occupation.
The third floor was composed of a series of offices. Some had individual suites; others open floor plans with cubes. All of it was covered in a layer of soot and dust. Some of it showed damage taken by small arms fire. Mitchell was surprised by how little office spaces had changed over the years. The only real difference was in the level of tech the workers were utilizing.
"Settle in," Mitchell said. "We need to coordinate our movements with the others. I expect we'll be here for a few hours at least."
Trevor moved to the wall nearest the stairwell and dropped to his rear against it, close enough that he would hear anyone moving in the corridor unless they were barefoot. Katherine crossed the space and knelt down near the windows, peering out into the street.
