After a final look out the window, he sat back and brought up his Optik display. “How are you feeling today, my friend?” he murmured, glancing over to where his partner sat, recharging after last night’s successful outing.
The drone resembled nothing so much a rather small stealth aircraft. It was powered by a trio of extremely powerful micro-motors and possessed an astonishing array of anti-tilt and airflow sensors like all counterterror – or CT – units.
Its heavy-duty chassis was armoured, and equipped with a modified M107 semi-automatic sniper system. The .50 calibre anti-material weapon was out of date by a few years, but still eminently useful, nor was it the only one the drone possessed. Besides its panoply of sensors and its weaponry, it could interface with most operating systems, allowing the operator a variety of tactical and strategic options.
The drone had been upgraded for use in clandestine combat operations, or so the seller had claimed. It was a prototype – the only one of its kind so far. Coyle hoped it would remain so. In his opinion, it was far too lethal a device to allow in the hands of private military contractor like Albion – God alone knew what a prat like Nigel Cass would do with such a weapon. But it was perfect for Coyle’s needs.
The man who’d sold it to him hadn’t been aware of why he needed it, thinking him just another private collector. He’d been more concerned about the money Coyle was paying him. Given his debts, that wasn’t surprising.
After a quick systems check, Coyle dismissed the drone’s display. Everything was functioning well within established operational parameters. Given how much he’d paid for it, he was somewhat relieved. Money well spent, and at his age, anything that made his job easier was to be embraced. His knees weren’t what they used to be.
Never one to remain idle, he turned his attentions to a partially disassembled spiderbot that lay on a tray on the floor. He set the tray on the low table before him with a grunt. The spiderbot was listed as a Blume brand product, but Coyle knew that it had been developed by an American corporation, Tidis. Tidis hardware married to a Blume operating system.
The unit – with its six segmented limbs and armature array – was designed for small tasks in harsh environments. He’d purchased several dozen of the devices, using one of his aliases and a shell company – an industrial cleaning firm, based in Sheffield. Spiderbots were durable, replaceable and easily hackable. Perfect for his needs. They had autonomous operating systems, using a standard cTOS template. They could interface with anything using the operating system, and required little maintenance.
He’d cracked this one open, and was in the process of testing a new – and highly illicit – upgrade. An improvised firearm – a zip gun, as Americans called them. Though, he hoped, not so crude as all that. Consisting of a 3D printed barrel, breechblock and firing mechanism, it needed to rest easily inside the spiderbot chassis while remaining concealed.
He’d tested several prototypes, making adjustments as he went. Initially, he’d considered just giving the spiderbot a stripped down .22, and seeing how things went. But that struck Coyle as sloppy and one thing he was not, was sloppy.
A person in his line of work couldn’t afford sloppiness. Sloppiness led to mistakes and mistakes led to death or worse – incarceration, interrogation and eventually a shiv in your guts in the exercise yard. None of which Coyle found appealing. He liked his freedom. He liked his music and his books and his one glass of wine a day, after dinner.
He paused, frowning now. There was always an element of random chance at play with any hit. You couldn’t control for every variable, no matter how meticulous your preparations. You had to learn how to adapt to an evolving situation and roll with the punches. The death of the wrong man at Lister House had been one of these unforeseen variables – not a mistake, as such, but a complication nonetheless. One that would need to be remedied. He checked the GPS signal for the target’s Optik, but it was still deactivated.
It was likely in police custody. Another complication, but not insurmountable. He intended to wait until he heard from his employer, however, before he made any attempt to recover it himself. Killing police officers was something he tried to avoid, when possible. Not out of any respect for the authorities, but out of simple pragmatism. Dead policemen tended to complicate matters.
His Optik chimed. A call. He looked at the ID and smiled. His daughter. Answering, he said, “Hello, sweetheart. How was practice?” The conversation that followed was enthusiastic and welcome – a bright spot in an otherwise grey day. A bit of joy before the bollocking sure to come when he talked to his employer.
He chatted to his wife for a few minutes as well, trading affectionate inanities and inquiring as to how things were at home. His family thought he was out on a job – which he was, though not the job they imagined. He missed them terribly, of course. Every moment away was a precious moment missed, as his mother had often remarked.
Still, he had a job to do – and it wasn’t finished yet. And might not be, for several days, despite the narrow timetable his employer had given him. They would not be happy about this. His display pinged with an alert, even as his wife hung up.
“Speak of the Devil,” he murmured. Time to make the call. He did so at the same time every forty-eight hours, as per the standard contract. He moved the spiderbot aside and reached down for another tray. This one held an assemblage of Optik external devices, mostly stolen, some purchased. Each was linked to the others by a network of cables and wiring.
He was still coming to grips with the new tech. He felt like a man out of time, in more ways than one. But he was learning. Even in privacy mode Optiks collected baseline metadata, recording everything including your location. They were flares, lighting up the darkness of the information superhighway. If your Optik was on, if your implant was in place and functional, it was transmitting information. But there were ways around that, if you had the wherewithal.
The first was to have a black market implant, rather than the standard model. Something not registered in any database – or registered to someone else. Coyle’s implant had been taken from a dead man. It transmitted ghost-data, created by a sophisticated bot-program, thus forming a false profile. What he ate, where he went, his favourite films, all of it a smokescreen. Randomised, but pattern consistent.
The second method was to create a crude refractive array. You couldn’t cut the flow of data, not without alerting someone, but you could control it – dilute it. It was like diverting a river. Optiks were programmed to synch with every other Optik in range. With the right program, you could send out a flood of misinformation, drowning the signal. And the more Optiks that were synched, the faster it worked.
Each Optik was comprised of two parts – the implant and the external device. On their own, the external devices were basically fancy paperweights. But if you managed to steal one, you could skim-clone the user’s browsing data – including any saved passwords and the like. You could also use them to create falsified online identities. The identities wouldn’t stand up to human scrutiny, but they could easily pass most bot-detection algorithms.
Using the external devices, the falsified identities and a signal-splitter app he’d procured on the dark web, he could create a primitive overlay network, allowing him to feed false data from every direction, obscuring his location in a flood of fake news, flame wars and denial-of-service blitz-attacks. In this age of constant noise, he’d found that the best place to hide was amidst the cacophony.
It had all been so simple once upon a time. Burner phones had been cheap and plentiful. But these days, having a phone would be considered suspicious. He set his Optik down near the array, and let it synch to the others, as it was programmed to do.
As it did so, his display broke into multiple windows. It had taken some time to get used to using multiple displays. Thankfully, the flow of information was minimal – mostly GPS data. It still gave him a migraine if he used it for longer than a few minutes.
Once the synching was co
mplete, he lifted the Optik on the far end of the array and made the call. There was only one number programmed into it – encrypted, of course. He never used his own Optik, if he could help it. The GPS for the other external units was programmed to transmit random locations, scattered throughout the city. The call was answered immediately.
“Yes.” The voice was not that of a person – or rather it was like that of several persons, each digitally layered over the next, as if it were an unsettling choir speaking, rather than an individual. Coyle was not impressed. There were apps for everything nowadays.
The image on his display was slightly more impressive than the voice. It was… nothing. A face that was as much an absence as anything. A crackling, distorted hole in the digital world. If Coyle had been anyone else, he might have found it disturbing.
They called themselves “Zero Day”. There was some meaning to the alias, but they had not deigned to share it, and Coyle was not inclined to inquire about such matters, regarding it as outside his purview. What they called themselves made little difference to him, so long as they paid him in full, and in a timely fashion.
“It’s me,” he said. Something that might have been a smile crossed the void.
“We know. No one else has this number.” As ever, he thought he detected the slightest hint of a sneer in his employer’s attitude. He was used to that. It took a certain egotism to contract a killer. Often, his employers thought themselves his superiors – as if he were nothing more than a plumber.
“The secondary target has been taken care of.”
“And the primary?”
A loaded question. Coyle grunted. “You saw the news?”
“Yes. You failed.”
“Failure is a matter of perspective,” Coyle said, calmly. Getting angry at the client rarely helped. “I prefer to say that I have not yet succeeded.”
“We were under the impression you only needed one shot.”
Coyle allowed himself a laugh. “Hyperbole. I need as many shots as are required. One is the preferred number, obviously, but sometimes people don’t die when you want them to. So you have to keep trying until it gets done.”
Zero Day was silent, save for the crackle of the frequency. Then, “We needed this accomplished yesterday. The schedule–”
“Schedules change,” Coyle said. He still hadn’t been able to trace their true identity, or identities, if that was what the story was. He wasn’t certain as to anything about them: gender, race, creed – all mysteries. Coyle normally made it a point to know absolutely every last thing there was to know about an employer. All such information went into safety deposit boxes, scattered across a variety of banks in several countries. Though he wasn’t actually a claims adjuster, he still believed in having insurance.
Another pause. Coyle wondered how many people were actually on the other end of this conversation. Were they using the royal we, or was it a consortium? He had been hired by groups before, though he preferred working for individuals. The more people who were involved, the more risk there was for him.
“Not if they are followed correctly.”
Coyle sighed. “I could not account for a pickpocket. By the time a target lock had been acquired, this man Dempsey was already in possession of the Optik. One cannot recall a bullet, once the trigger has been pulled.”
“Dempsey is irrelevant. Marcus Tell is not. He must be eliminated.” Tell was the primary target. The one he’d been trying to kill that afternoon. He didn’t know why a pensioner living in East London needed to die, but neither did he plan on asking. The whys and wherefores were extraneous to his operational paradigm.
“He will be,” he said.
“And how will you find him?”
“That is my concern,” Coyle said, bristling slightly. “Yours should be the Optik. Until Tell is dead, that device may well reveal whatever it is you don’t want people to know. If I were you, I might be inclined to retrieve it from the police.” He paused. “Unless… you wish me to do it?”
Silence. Then, a soft, static-edged laugh. “And how much will it cost?”
Coyle said a number. No laugh this time. Zero Day did not find the subject of money amusing – another odd fact to add to the pile. “You ask a lot,” they said, finally. “Given that it was your error that allowed the Optik to fall into police hands in the first place.”
“Again, not an error. An unforeseen eventuality, easily rectified.”
“Tell me your plan.”
“For the device, or for Tell?”
“Both.”
Coyle considered refusing. The conversation had already gone on far too long for his liking. But he was annoyed. Whoever was under that digital mask was, as his daughter might say, a right twat. “The device will eventually be reactivated. Once the signal returns, my little friend will track it down as before and – pop goes the weasel. The device and whoever is holding it will no longer be an issue.”
“What if it is reactivated inside the police station?”
“Then I will use other methods. But I have no doubt they will bring it out – they’ll want to find the owner, after all, and that will require activating the external unit and using a reverse GPS search. The moment that happens… well. No more problem.”
“And Tell?”
“Locating Tell will be a matter of extrapolation. The metadata you’ve provided will enable me to pinpoint him the old fashioned way – the only tools I require for that will be a map and a pencil. If Tell acquires a new external unit, we’ll go for a redo. If he doesn’t, I’ll find out where he resides and make a special delivery.” He patted the spiderbot fondly. “Again, it will be no problem.”
Zero Day made a sound that might have been a sigh, or a laugh. “Very well. But the schedule stands. You have just over seventy-two hours remaining, Mr Coyle.”
He froze. “What did you say?”
“We’re sorry. Isn’t that your current identity? Arthur Edward Coyle, Art to his friends. Husband of Amelia Coyle, father of Frances Emily Coyle. Resident of–”
“Enough,” Coyle said, sharply.
“You tried your best, Art – may we call you Art?” Without waiting for a reply, Zero Day went on, “But you’re like a Neanderthal compared to us. Your little tricks were an amusing diversion, nothing more. But now you know, we can get to you – or those you care about –any time we choose.”
Coyle was silent for a moment, mind racing. Rolling with the punch. “If your reach is so great, why even involve me?”
“That is our concern. Yours is to complete your assignment. Seventy-two hours, Art. You don’t want to know what happens after that.”
One by one, his slaved Optiks started to smoulder and smoke. Fat sparks danced along their screens, and he flinched as the connected displays winked out one after the next. He stood, knocking his chair over, went to open an air vent to clear the smoke.
Seventy-two hours? He thought about calling his wife and daughter again. Decided against it. He looked back the Optik externals. Some of them were salvageable. And there were other apps he possessed. Ones that could be used to trace signals of all sorts, including encrypted ones.
“Seventy-two hours.” He glanced at the drone and smiled at last. “Plenty of time.”
Day Three
Tuesday
Bagley-bytes 13667-0: Lots of chatter around Bethnal Green Police Station today. By the way, that’s probably the first time anyone has used those words in that order in this century. The station will be playing host to all sorts this AM, including our favourite MP, Sarah Lincoln, and our least favourite jackbooted stormtrooper, Sergeant Richard Faulkner, Albion’s man in East London. Needless to say, everyone should be on alert – or our beloved Redqueen will have your guts for garters.
+++
We’re monitoring more than 250,000 CCTV public surveillance cameras in London and spotting a fair few familiar faces, to which I say – shame on you. Especially you, Terry. Every camera in the city feeds through a cTOS facial scan platform,
giving the authorities, the corporations and certain others the ability to trach your every move. So remember your masks, please.
+++
Speaking of cTOS, preparations for the TOAN Conference are underway near Blackfriars Bridge. DedSec needs eyes on the ground. If you’re in the area, talk to Wendell.
+++
RE: vlogs and written manifestos. Sabine requests that you please stop posting your fanfiction on operational chat-apps. Except yours, Linda la Potter. We’re all dying to know what happens next.
+++
Finally, Albion operatives have been spotted sniffing around the Leake Street field base, creeping out the local street artists. They’re likely trying out some new facial recognition software. As I said – remember your masks.
11: Bethnal Green
On a bench in Bethnal Green Garden, Hannah nervously tapped at her Optik as she waited. Bagley had given her a location and a time, but nothing else. Sarah was due at the police station at any moment. She wanted to make her entrance before Faulkner and his bully-boys arrived, no doubt followed by every news drone in the borough. Winston Natha was due to visit later, in a show of solidarity, but it wasn’t his constituency. Arranging it all took time and patience, things Hannah had little of at the moment.
She felt somewhat guilty about the whole thing. When she’d made the suggestion to visit the station, Sarah had jumped at it without needing to be convinced. Hannah knew she was still smarting from her meeting with Nigel Cass, and angry about Holden’s attempt to bug the office. It wasn’t manipulation, exactly – Sarah was too smart for that – but it still made her uneasy. It could all blow up in their faces if they weren’t careful. Not just hers and Sarah’s, but DedSec’s as well.
Then, maybe it was only a matter of time. DedSec was changing and Hannah wasn’t sure she liked what it was becoming. Pacifist activism, like propaganda bombs and jamming television signals was giving way to a more revolutionary philosophy. The Resistance wasn’t just a catchy name anymore. It was a mantra. An ethos.
Day Zero Page 12
