She looked back up at Suman’s chat log. I know that they have access to a tremendous amount of information that suggests very high-level technical ability, it said. Oddly specific and with no explanation. He’d claimed not to know much, but he was curiously aware of ANANSI’s ability to get information. At the very least, there was something he wasn’t telling Zala. He knew more about ANANSI than he was letting on, she was sure of it.
Her thoughts turned to Suman’s own activities: a major player in the city’s cybercrime scene, now a senior member of a massive terrorist organization. It made sense that he and ANANSI would have crossed paths.
Then it came to her. That day, in the café, waiting for the key-logger to collect its data – while waiting, she’d been sending messages, in a comparatively open security state, to Suman. This could mean anything or it could mean nothing. Zala took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Perhaps ANANSI was simply monitoring her. Perhaps Suman had sent ANANSI information about her. Or perhaps—
Hacker. Political streak. Insight into Zala’s location and activities.
She felt the colour drain from her face.
Zala sat very still and very quiet for a long time. Polina was in police custody, and Suman Chaudhri was potentially the hacker who had been opposing her all along, or at the very least in league with him. She was exhausting her allies and in the meantime the videocasts were making her the enemy of the entire city.
Zala had never felt so lost before, so without hope.
She needed to distract herself and so, as she did in every spare moment, she toyed with the code her father had left her: those few fallow lines, sitting in their own folder. Nothing new was revealed to her. It was in a coding language she’d never seen before, and the syntax was bizarre but seemed to conform roughly to the structure of code meant to end a number of specific processes for use in a unique program. This essentially made it useless: it was far too specifically coded to be used unaltered and new terminating code was so easy to write that it wouldn’t be worth converting it for use with a new program. It was only capable of stopping one program in existence, and that was clearly not a program Zala had ever encountered before. With everything else in the massive stores of data her father had left, there was a use, an obvious, practical purpose. The rest of his work was written in coding languages she understood, which left this one piece of essentially useless code as an outlier. She kept it none the less. It was a memento.
So Zala worked instead on a few programs she had in progress, switching to a new one each time she grew bored. Hours passed. As she coded, she turned the newscasts back on to make sure that, at the very least, there were no camera-crew vans pulling up outside the flat.
She killed time and she waited. And then she sent a single message off to the same non-address she had used for the other messages to ANANSI.
>I want to talk.
Chapter 20
SIX SHOTS PUNCHED through the paper target and into the sandbags behind. Maalik pulled the target from its heavy industrial staples and surveyed it. Even from where Alice stood, she could see that most of the shots were in tight groups and all within kill zones. The shooter, Pratima Rachana, grinned shyly as Nataliya Kaur patted her on the back. She had been the first of the recruits the day before to shoot the child target, which had been a more morbid achievement; the switch back to adult-sized targets had possibly restored her enthusiasm. Pratima turned to the three other recruits waiting behind her and whooped. They were quick to congratulate her. Maalik stapled a new target to the sandbags and the next shooter stepped up. Behind them, Anisa Yu and Serhiy Panossian sparred, demonstrating unarmed close combat techniques to eight other partnered trainees. One from the day before had not returned; Maalik was pleased – it was a lower than expected dropout rate – and joked that he had been especially harsh to them before.
The effects of his mind games had taken hold quickly. Already the new recruits were taking pleasure from hitting targets or successfully executing some grapple, laughing over their potential to snap arms or shatter ribs. More importantly, the drive to fulfil an order as successfully as possible was starting to grip them; everything else was just muscle memory.
At this point, Serhiy and the ‘Roaring Sister’ Anisa Yu, both participants in the hostage situation at the GeniSec Regional Administration building, had been all over newscasts and public service broadcasts. They had gained a level of notoriety which had bought with it an ironic celebrity. When it transpired that they would be helping with training, some of the good spirits the recruits had first arrived in had returned. Today, Maalik did nothing to quash this enthusiasm.
Behind them, Alice and Juri looked on. Alice’s decision to put a priority on training had been vindicated. One more day like this and these new recruits would be useful combatants when the riots started up again. They’d probably never be genuinely good soldiers; the time necessary to truly make warriors of them was far in excess of the time available to them. The Council would either crush the NCLC, raise the restrictions they’d put in place, or create a cure for the Soucouyant virus, but in any of these scenarios there was probably less than a month remaining in the conflict. The question then became whether the new trainees would live to see the end of it.
A message rang out from her terminal. The tone carried further than she’d have expected, and she realized that the other NCLC members had also received messages. She turned on her screen. It was from Suman.
>raid
She turned instantly to Maalik, eyes wide. Looking up from his own terminal, he met her gaze and nodded, before switching his attention to the rest of the room. ‘Everyone, your training is over. It’s time to go to work. Grab your guns.’
Anisa and Serhiy began herding the recruits out. Those not already holding weapons gathered some up from the stack in the corner of the room. They quickly filed out of the cold-storage area and through the factory. Alice tried to break into a run, but Maalik held her back. ‘Don’t run and draw attention to us. This could be an ambush.’
The group threw on coats or other outer wear to hide the fact that they were all in military garb and body armour. They folded up their rifles and hid them under their coats or in bags. They then walked out into the street. The shutdown of most of the businesses in Naj-Pur meant that the streets were full of people trying to find something to do. The group blended quickly into the crowd, drawing little comment, though Anisa’s niqab stood out as ever. As they moved, Alice hissed back at the group, ‘There’s been a raid on our safe house. That’s all the details we have, but if it’s the Security Force, we’re going to take a look at their numbers and if it seems like we have good odds, we need to try and stop our people getting arrested.’
Pratima turned her head. ‘Is there anyone at the safe house who’s a priority to keep safe if it comes to that?’
‘Councillor Ryan Granier,’ said Alice. ‘He’s probably the reason the safe house is getting raided. He’s our bargaining chip. We can’t lose him.’
There was murmuring behind her. Anisa quickly caught up. ‘Alice, it’s okay if you want some of us to make a beeline for your kids.’
A sudden, resonant sense of terror ran through Alice. Her children were in there. Some part of her had failed to grasp that they were in danger. She murmured, ‘Oh god …’ then hung back until Serhiy came level with her, and grabbed his arm. ‘Serhiy! If you want to get back into my good books, get my kids out of there!’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ came a gruff reply.
They turned a corner into the road where the safe house was situated. Almost immediately, they ran into a tightly packed crowd of people, all straining to see something ahead of them. Over their heads, Alice could see the tops of a convoy of heavily armoured SecForce and New Cairo police vehicles. Her breath caught in her throat. She clambered up onto a nearby car to see what was happening.
Further down the road, beyond the crowd, she could see that the door of the bank, which had served as an NCLC base and housed
Ryan Granier, was wide open. Men, women and children – the fugitives who had been hiding inside – were being led out at gunpoint by SecForce special forces troops and thrust into the backs of two armoured vans parked on the far side of the area. The rest of the perimeter was lined with the armoured personnel carriers SecForce used for taking troops into heavy combat zones. They’d come in full force; the NCLC were outnumbered and outgunned. It was already over.
Occasionally the procession was interrupted by Security Force officers carrying out stretchers on which lay bodies covered with sheets.
And there they were. A SecForce officer was leading Ria to the furthest van, the young girl carrying Zeno in her arms. The van’s heavy steel doors shut behind her. Alice stared, unable to take it in. Before she could process what was happening, she realized she was fumbling under her coat for her rifle.
Strong hands reached up from below and wrestled it away. Maalik was there, her rifle in his hands, hissing, ‘Don’t you dare make orphans of those children!’
Suddenly deflated, she climbed down off the car. Her hands were shaking. There was nothing they could do. She began to sob. ‘They’ve got my children, Maalik.’
Anisa Yu drew her into a hug. There was something so comforting about the huge woman’s arms enveloping her. Anisa rasped, ‘We didn’t get any intel, our sources never turned anything up. There was nothing you could have done to stop this.’
For a moment Alice let herself believe her.
Then, a voice from somewhere behind Anisa asked, ‘Where’s Serhiy?’
This was followed almost immediately by a loud cracking sound – gunfire – and a volley of screams. Snapping back to attention, Alice looked around. The noise had come from near the vans, but there were too many people in the way for her to see what had caused it. She pulled away from Anisa and began pushing through the crowd.
The mass of people had become startled by the sound, and a nervous energy began to build throughout as everyone strained to see what was going on. By the time Alice made it close enough to the police barrier that she could see, they seemed to collectively be on the verge of bolting. The safe house was to her right, with the armoured personnel carriers parked in the road to the left and the vans loaded with rebels ahead of her. The space outside the front of the building was full of SecForce and police, all scanning around the crowd frantically. Two SecForce troopers were on the ground, bleeding heavily and writhing in pain.
The troops began yelling at the crowd to give up whoever had shot at them. They were so preoccupied in hectoring the crowd that no one noticed a young man, who couldn’t have yet been twenty, creeping around the side of one of the armoured personnel carriers towards a SecForce officer. He grabbed the man tightly from behind, pulling him off balance, and pressed a handgun to his cheek. ‘Back up!’ he screamed to the man’s comrades as he dragged the trooper backwards, further and further towards the rear doors of the van containing Ria and Zeno.
The other troopers raised their guns, but inched backwards. ‘Drop your weapon and let the man go, son!’ called one.
‘I can’t do that, sir,’ Serhiy shouted back. ‘I made a promise.’
The SecForce troops seemed to sense an opportunity to deescalate. One by one, their weapons lowered, ever so slightly. ‘What do you want?’ yelled the one who was apparently in charge.
‘There are some children in the back of this truck right here,’ Serhiy motioned behind him with a jerk of the head, ‘and I’ve got to get them back to their mother. So you’re going to let me climb into the front of this van and drive off.’
‘I’m sorry, son, but I can’t let you do that,’ said the SecForce officer. Around him, armed, uniformed SecForce troops began to move forwards again, guns raised, slowly flanking him. Serhiy would be surrounded before he ever made it to the van’s cab.
Serhiy nodded, then pulled the hostage’s head back and fired. There was a flash of red and a thunderous crack, followed by screams of panic from the crowd and a tattoo of returning gunfire. Anyone in the crowd who was second-guessing the decision to flee no longer had a choice in the matter, and they began to scatter. Alice ran with them, caught up in the chaos. Behind her, gunshots rattled off, cracking against concrete or APC plating.
Finding shelter behind a car, Alice turned and looked back at what was happening. Serhiy lay on the ground, blood soaking his shirt and pooling out from underneath him. The SecForce officer stood over him, rifle pointing down. There were two gaping wounds in the young man’s back. Both bullets had torn right through his bulletproof vest. Serhiy looked up, his gaze rising to the approaching SecForce troopers and then past them, meeting Alice’s horrified stare. In the moment before he disappeared from view, Alice could have sworn he looked as though he were ashamed.
With nowhere else to go, the rebel group reconvened and made their way back to the cold-storage unit. Alice had to be dragged there. Everything felt strangely distant, as though she was outside herself, looking on. As soon as they were through the door, Alice wiped the tears from her face.
‘I–I–I have to call Kahleed. We have to make sure they didn’t get him too.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said Maalik, who was visibly shaken himself. ‘You’re in no shape to do anything.’
‘You think this is the first time I’ve done something like this?’ Alice found herself yelling. ‘I saw people die on my command in the Security Force, Maalik. I need to handle this. Just …’ She took a deep breath. ‘I saw my children get taken from me and a comrade die, and there was nothing I could do. Give me control over something.’
Maalik looked at her as though he was confused, then nodded and went to sit down against the wall opposite. Alice brought up Kahleed’s name on her terminal. A dozen agonizing rings sounded before he finally responded. ‘Is everything okay on your end?’ said Alice.
‘Yeah, everything’s fine. Has something happened?’
‘There was a raid at the safe house. Granier’s gone. They’re all gone. Someone’s dead, don’t know who. They carried them out on a stretcher, wrapped up in a blanket. And Serhiy.’ Alice took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Serhiy’s dead. A bunch of us are still safe, but we’re hiding in the training factory.’
‘Who’s still with you?’
Alice took another deep breath. ‘Maalik, Anisa, Nataliya, Juri, and a dozen of the new recruits we were training.’
‘Everyone else is gone?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fucking hell,’ said Kahleed. ‘Where are the children?’
Alice tried desperately to keep her voice from wavering. ‘They got everyone who wasn’t involved in the training exercise.’
‘All right … You should all get yourselves over here as soon as possible. Bring what gear you can. Do you know how much of your equipment they got?’
‘I have no idea, I haven’t gone in to check. They’ve probably got everything. Our equipment, my things, the things my children brought with them …’
Alice trailed off. Kahleed was silent for a moment. ‘Go ask Maalik about the failsafe.’ He hung up.
Alice turned to survey the assembled room. The new recruits looked awkward and unsure of what to do, while the more established NCLC members sat talking quietly among themselves, trying to take in what had just happened. Maalik was hunched over, staring at the ground. Alice walked over to him.
‘Was there anything I could have done to stop him?’ rasped Maalik.
‘Nothing. There was nothing you could have done. Serhiy got it into his head that he needed to make things up to me. That was my fault. You couldn’t have stopped it.’
Maalik nodded to himself, still not taking his eyes off the floor in front of him. ‘You’re right, I couldn’t have stopped it. He was his own man. Thank you.’
Alice reached out and touched his arm. ‘You were right, in the end. He was a good kid.’
Maalik shuddered slightly, then looked up at her. ‘We’re going to get your children back, Alice.’
‘We don�
�t have shit on them. Granier’s gone. We don’t have any leverage.’
Maalik stood up and walked past Alice towards the main door out of the storage area. ‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’
Mystified, Alice followed.
The two of them walked through Naj-Pur and up to the city boundary. It wasn’t too far; they were near the edge anyway. The NCLC wasn’t needed in the city centre. Here, the high-density tower-block housing was at its worst; nestled in among it was Elevator Station Sixteen. No one who was from the wealthier parts of New Cairo, and thus cleared to leave the city, would have braved this desperate, dangerous neighbourhood to get to Elevator Station Sixteen, so it had been unused since the crackdown on emigration from ‘high-infection areas’. Next to it was a huge concrete building, above which was a long cluster of cables that snaked down the side of the city crater from the main power lines out of the solar membrane. Beside that building was an old, deserted restaurant, its wooden sign rotted and its boarded windows covered in dirt, diminutive next to the massive towers and industrial buildings around it. Maalik walked up to the front door, where the lock was long broken, and led Alice inside.
The inside walls were covered in graffiti and the premises smelt strongly of stale sweat and piss and whatever else whoever had been squatting there had produced. Maalik took her behind the old counter and down a flight of stairs, at the bottom of which was a large steel door. It was noticeably newer than anything else in the building and had not yet been vandalized. Maalik fished out an old-fashioned metal key from his pocket, inserted it into a lock and turned it. The door swung open to reveal a bank of inactive computer terminals, wired into an old, beaten-up looking computer. It took a while to place, but Alice had seen something like it before.
‘Is … Maalik, is that an In-Network Explosive Device terminal?’
Maalik nodded. ‘We’ve got about seventy networked explosives wired up around the city, and an additional thirty wired up to the solar membrane above us, all of which feed into here. It’s our last resort, if everything else fails. It’s time for you to know where it is and how to use it.’
The Hive Construct Page 21
