by Scott Baron
“This is the rough shape of the facility,” he began. “It is at this corner that your people will find safe access,” he said, pointing to the crude drawing. “Here, take this with you.” He offered her the makeshift map.
“I have committed it to memory,” she informed him. “No need to carry a rock into battle.”
“Very well. Though, should your weapons fail, a rock can come in somewhat handy,” he joked.
Daisy grinned and turned to leave.
“Are our comms devices still secure?”
“They appear to be.”
“Good. I will key you in when we have a hard countdown so you can tell your people. This is it, Craaxit. This is when we land the first blow to retake both of our worlds.”
“Good luck, Daisy. May fortune be on your side.”
“Thank you, Craaxit. I hope when next we meet, it is in celebration of our victory,” she replied, then headed back to prepare for the mission with the others.
The men, women, and cyborgs who were going to join in on the assault of the San Francisco facility were practicing movement and weapons handling when Daisy strode back into their camp. Sergeant Franklin and his men had indeed gotten the ragtag group of civilians into respectable muster, considering the time constraints.
“George!” she called out to her cybernetic friend. “They’re looking good.”
“Told you they’d be ready when you got back,” he said proudly. “I think we just might survive this. If we don’t blow ourselves up on the way there, of course,” he joked, nodding to the bundles of explosives and EM bombs stacked with their gear.
“So, you’re confident in our chances?”
“As much as I can be,” he replied. "I mean, we have the element of surprise, a multi-pronged attack with both land forces, as well as aerial missiles. Plus, we have inside help. Short of your buddies getting those drones working for extra cover, I’d say we’re in pretty good shape. Now tell me, what did your fella have for us?”
Daisy detailed the level of assistance their teams could expect in Tokyo, Sydney, and New York.
“Seems ideal,” Franklin mused. “And what about our objective?”
“The warp ship facility is going to be a tougher nut to crack. The Chithiid insiders are only willing to provide the most bare-bones support for the effort. They’ll leave a door open and divert the surveillance cameras and scanners to provide a tiny sliver that is off-scan, but they will not overtly sabotage the hangar doors.”
“We need them to keep the ships from leaving, Daisy. That’s a crucial part of the plan.”
“I know, George. But they’ll only go so far as to provide an innocent-seeming diversion to temporarily obstruct the doors, but it won’t last long. Unfortunately, that means we are going to have to clear the building exceedingly fast.”
“So, a fast-track assault with minimal intel, unknown numbers of hostiles, and the most rudimentary of facility schematics?”
“Pretty much.”
“Sounds like fun,” the metal man joked.
“I knew I could count on you, George,” Daisy said with a chuckle. “I think you’re going to love Frisco.”
“You know they hate it when you call it that, Daze,” Sarah noted.
Well, they’re all dead, so I don’t think they’ll take much offense.
“Daisy, would you please join me in the conference room?” Cal’s disembodied voice asked.
“Sure thing, Cal. Be right there.”
She whacked George on the shoulder. “Okay, buddy, get your little duckies in a row. I’ll let you know when we are about ready to head out.”
“Copy that, Daisy,” he replied, then headed off to gather the rest of the team to complete their prep.
Daisy jogged over to Cal’s conference room facility.
“Okay, I’m here. What’s up, Cal?”
“I just received a transmission from Finn’s team in Sydney. They are nearly in place.”
“Excellent. But why call me over here when you could have just told––”
“They also came across something I need to show you without alarming the others. The monitors in this room are the most convenient for this purpose,” he replied.
The screens on the wall flashed to life. For a moment, it was unclear what they were showing.
“What is that? Daze?”
I don’t know. Looks kind of like a––
She trailed off as reality hit.
“Those are Chithiid,” she gasped.
“Yes, they are.”
“There must be hundreds of them.”
“In that building alone. Yes. And there are three more structures just like it. Finnegan postulated that they were barracks facilities outside of Sydney proper.”
Daisy’s eyes began to tear up as images of body after body flashed on the screen.
“They were executed. Look at the wounds. Their hands,” she gasped. “Who did this?”
“It seems obvious that only the Ra’az, or their loyalists, by extension, have the resources and wherewithal to do such a thing.”
“But why? It makes no sense.”
“Perhaps there was an uprising. Perhaps they were just no longer of use. Whatever the case, I thought it important you see this as soon as the message arrived.”
Daisy was beside herself. It was wholesale slaughter.
“I have to tell Craaxit,” she finally managed to say.
“The countdown to beginning the assault is already underway,” Cal noted. “We are but awaiting Joshua’s command. I am sorry, but I’m afraid a meeting with your friend will have to wait, Daisy.”
She took a deep breath and settled her thoughts, lowering her pulse as she did.
Keep it calm, Daze, she told herself. We’ll deal with this later.
Emotions in check, Daisy turned to join the others.
“Thank you, Cal. You’re right, of course. I just wish we’d had this an hour ago. It might have been enough to sway the holdouts in San Francisco to act. In any case, the ball is rolling, and I, personally, am looking forward to seeing it crush the bastards that did this.”
Chapter Nineteen
“How much longer?” Sarah asked impatiently. “I thought departure was imminent.”
“Another hour, or so,” Daisy quietly replied. “And will you chill out? Our teams are all in place, and Craaxit’s people are on it. And with the Chithiid on our side, even if the Ra’az do launch a counterattack, it should just be mop up for our guys in those facilities. Numbers are in our favor.”
“It’s only a seventy-four percent chance of success, you know.”
“Look on the bright side, will ya? In just a few hours, regardless of what our team manages to do in San Francisco, the Tokyo, New York, and Sydney communications centers will fall.”
“If the Chithiid are true to their word and can get our teams inside.”
“I trust Craaxit.”
“So do I, but that doesn’t mean his people will be successful. If we can’t sneak our teams inside to disrupt communications and cause a distraction, those missiles will only trigger a full-on alert message to the entire Ra’az fleet, not to mention their home planet.”
“Again with the negativity. For once can’t you have a little optimism?”
“Sorry. I guess it’s easier being a pessimist––when you’re dead!”
“Low blow, Sarah.”
“Yeah? Well sometimes you deserve it.”
In the hours that had passed since Daisy and Craaxit met, the preparations across the globe had been well-organized, if a bit frantic. Thanks to the supersonic loop network, the teams had all reached their munitions caches, and subsequently their target cities long before their deadlines, and with minimal complications.
Though the cities containing the communications hubs had each fallen in the first wave of the attack and had been deconstructed in the ensuing years, the subterranean transit systems were ignored by the Ra’az and their minions.
Stealthy in their appro
aches, each team was currently entrenched and hidden near their target facility, ready to sneak in and cause as much damage and mayhem as possible to mask the arrival of Joshua’s hypersonic doom from the skies.
A half dozen uninfected cyborgs Shelly had met as she reconnected Chicago into the global AI network had made it back to Los Angeles and now sat underground, waiting with Daisy’s team. There weren’t spare Faraday suits to shield them from the scans, but once the Chithiid insiders got them access and the team subsequently sabotaged the scanning system, the unshielded metal men would––in theory, at least––be free to join the assault.
Several of them even carried heavy breaching explosives, ready to rush in and open blocked doors, if need be. Though domestic in design, the cyborgs, after what had been done to their world, were more than ready for a bit of payback. They weren’t alone.
Shelly was securely in position in New York, while Omar was situated in Tokyo and all set to begin his assault. Finn and Reggie, after their horrifying diversion, had arrived safely in Sydney and were likewise ready to roll.
All of the teams had found themselves in interestingly similar positions. As they had reconnected the larger AIs in their travels, more and more functional, though fleshless, cyborgs within the city limits had come forward and joined the cause.
After hundreds of years hiding, more than a few were eager to bring the fight to the Ra’az invaders.
Humans, on the other hand, were a rarity, and aside from Alma’s loyal followers and Cal’s far healthier lot, the only other humans they had encountered so far were the mutated horde Finn and Reggie had stumbled upon and a few pockets in smaller cities. There were sure to be more, but they’d have to search them out properly after the assault.
If they survived, that is.
“Phase one is about to begin,” Joshua signaled the reconnected network. “Countdown will commence shortly.”
Far across the country, his covert signals crept into the long-inert missile silos. He couldn’t simply power them up, as that would show up as a giant spike on even the lowest-level scans. Instead, he sent a tiny snippet of code, setting a subroutine in motion that would gradually adjust the targeting computers and power up the facility at a trickle pace.
If all went as planned, the build-up would be so gradual that no scans would register the change. A constantly refreshed scan would possibly see the difference, but the periodic background-level ones would miss it. Not because it was hidden, but because it took so long to crescendo.
“Like putting a frog in cold water and turning on the heat,” Chu had said when told of the plan.
“That’s a nasty analogy,” Gustavo said before diving back into his frantic rewiring of a small recon drone.
“Maybe,” the scientist laughed. “But it’s accurate just the same.”
They had been quite fortunate that the missile silos were never placed under AI control. It seemed the human race had remained wary of computers possessing the means of their destruction after one too many films depicted mankind’s fall at their hands. Ultimately, this paranoia would save the planet, only not in the way they had anticipated.
With the human crews long-dead, even with the targeting and access codes in his possession, the only mechanism short of sending two-man teams to each launch site to manually activate each missile individually was the last-resort override.
It was a process that could only be activated by an authorized genetic human within the military chain of command. Fortunately for Joshua, one was residing within his walls. All he had to do was add her genome to the approved database list, already done with a simple genetic scan when his visitors had first arrived.
“Tamara, if you would please do me the honor.”
“My pleasure,” she said, placing her hand on the DNA scanner. “Lieutenant Tamara Burke, MOS225891753-WT, authorizing transfer of silo control.”
The scanner hummed a moment. “No authorization record found.”
“Uh, Joshua?”
“I was worried this might happen. Please try the base commander override phrase, ‘How High the Moon.’”
She cleared her throat and placed her hand on the scanner again. “Lieutenant Tamara Burke, MOS225891753-WT, authorizing transfer of silo control. Override: how high the moon.”
A long, silent pause filled the air with an uncomfortable nothingness. It was the absence of sound that put Tamara on edge as the machine quietly processed her command. At long last, the screen flashed green. “Transfer complete.”
“Excellent. I now have access control,” Joshua said gleefully. “Let’s get this party started. I’m sending the first launch command sequence to begin the countdown timers. T-minus sixty minutes. I’ll notify the others.”
As his message blasted out across the globe’s firewalled hardlines, and up to the moon via encrypted comms, way out west in Los Angeles, an unlikely group of soldiers and civilians were gearing up for the assault on San Francisco.
“I only regret I can’t come with you,” Habby said as his well-dressed cyborg friends took up arms to help in the fight. “Good luck, my friends!” he said, happy to once more be part of the larger AI collective.
“Thank you for the help, Habby. It’s been greatly appreciated,” Daisy said.
“It is my pleasure, Daisy. And just imagine. If we succeed, oh, all the people who will be in need of something sharper-looking than those drab jumpsuits and flak jackets.”
“Cart before the horse, Habby. For now, let’s focus on winning. You can clothe mankind afterwards,” she said with a smile, then keyed the communications hardline.
“Joshua, do you copy?”
“Yes, Daisy, what is your status? We are at T-minus fifty-seven minutes.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a timer running. I confirmed with Craaxit that his contacts within the San Francisco facility will temporarily disable the hangar doors as soon as the communications hubs are down in all three cities. They’re monitoring real-time.”
“Did he get a final number how many Ra’az are in the building?”
“Negative. The best estimate they have is twenty, but that cannot be confirmed. There are also an unknown number of Chithiid loyalists as well.“
“Very well, we’ll just have to improvise if need be. We begin in fifty-six minutes.”
Joshua cut the comms link and broadcast on open speakers throughout his vast facilities.
“Fifty-six minutes until the assault begins. All teams return to the main facilities. I am sealing all external doors and access conduits in preparation for any possible retaliatory strikes. All of them will be shut and locked down in ten minutes.”
The plan was a good one, and Joshua figured the odds of success at higher than ninety-six percent. It wasn’t perfect, but given the massive element of surprise working in their favor, victory seemed highly likely.
Nine minutes later the massive doors swung shut, sealing them all deep within the impenetrable safety of the facility’s stone defenses. Nothing could get in now. Not a weapon, not a microbe, and not even an unfiltered communications transmission. They were perfectly safe.
Moses brushed the dirt from his hands as he dropped his tool bag with the others.
“Come on,” Tamara called out to her scruffy assistant, “let’s watch the assault from command.”
“I shall be right behind you,” he answered as she walked away.
Moses looked around. No one was anywhere to be seen.
A wicked little smile played across his lips as he pulled a tiny data chip from his pocket.
“For you, Lord,” he said as he plugged it into a tiny and relatively unimportant peripheral CO2 scrubbing unit’s input panel. He said a brief prayer to the almighty Alma, then sat to wait for the payload to be delivered.
Chapter Twenty
“Okay, let’s gear up and head to the pod,” Daisy said. “It’s a five-minute trip at Mach two, and we sure as hell don’t want to be hanging out in that city any longer than we have to, but I’d rather be e
arly than late to this particular party.”
The humans and cyborgs picked up their equipment and were about to move out when a warning siren sounded. It was coming from the communications link.
In Colorado, Joshua was about to send a burst of data to the AI network when he sensed something off in his systems and paused.
“Something’s not right,” he said as he began a rapid scan of his systems. “Oh shit! No! How did this possibly––?” he blurted in shock. “Guards! There’s a breach! Sever all peripheral devices and comms hardlines!” he ordered, knowing full well it was too late.
“Hey! What are you doing there?” a cyborg soldier shouted to Moses.
“For the Lord!” the madman cried out, then lunged at the metal soldier and hugged him close, detonating the small bomb tied to his chest.
In a flash, both were blown to pieces in a rumbling blast.
Joshua knew what he had to do.
“All hands, abandon the base. I repeat, abandon the base. I am opening the main tunnel door and peripheral escape routes. Hurry, there is little time!” he called out over his internal speakers through the vast tunnels.
“What was that?" Tamara asked, shocked. “We have another hub to reconnect.”
“Joshua said to go, we go. No time to question!” Duke replied, grabbing her by the hand. “We’ve gotta run. Now!”
The teams all raced to the people mover as fast as they could and piled in.
“Hold tight!” the cyborg driving called out as he slammed the accelerator all the way to the floor, sending the vehicle lurching forward.
“Joshua, what’s going on?” Daisy yelled into the comms. “We were just about to get underway, but now there are sirens going off. Is everything all right?”
Joshua was busy, rerouting his systems as fast as he could, placing some in standby, while shutting others down outright in a bid to slow the virus as it tore through his massive processing banks. It was futile, but it would buy him a little precious time.
He packaged a secure encrypted message and pulsed it from his only intact and uninfected communications network––the wireless one to Sid. It had remained separate from the terrestrial link that had been compromised, though for how long was up in the air.
