Zone War

by John Conroe

  “It saves my life at least once every trip,” I said. They had never gotten past the fact that Rikki, in his previous life, had killed our father. Pretty hard to blame them for that.

  “You’re on your way?” Mom asked.

  “Yup. Traffic is slow, but I’m getting there.”

  “Okay. We’ll all be ready when you get here. Goodbye for now. Love you!”

  “Love you too, Mom. I’ll see you in a few.”

  We’ll all? How many were there? Just the twins, Mom, and Aama, right?

  Wrong. Way wrong. When the elevator doors opened to my floor, I found many of my neighbors standing in their doorways, looking down the hall. Looking at our door. Mrs. Radmo, the older lady who lived nearest the elevator, was the only one to turn and look at me. The others, also mostly oldsters, were pretty focused on our apartment.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Mrs. Radmo.

  “You have visitors, Ajaya,” she said. Most of the others finally turned to notice me. There was an odd sort of interest in their eyes. Curiosity of a type.

  “Oh? Who?”

  “Famous folk. Fancy folk,” she said. “But then, you’re famous now too.”

  “Bah, he’s not really,” Mrs. Snyderman said from two doors up and across the hall. Mrs. Snyderman was a bit of a crab. Aama said that Mr. Snyderman probably willed himself to death for some peace and quiet.

  I moved past each door, marveling that none of them looked even slightly embarrassed at their out-and-out nosiness.

  I got to our door and the lock let me in. Any pretense of sneaking was gone as Monique came barreling into the foyer and hugged me. Gabby was right behind her, both girls laughing and smiling.

  “Who are you and what have you done with my sisters?”

  Monique punched my shoulder. “Don’t be an ass, AJ,” she said.

  “We do miss you and worry, a bit, you know,” her twin said.

  I hugged them back. “You only smell a little horrible,” Gabby said. “Like burnt stuff.” She took my pack and her sister took the rifle in the case that I’d “borrowed” from Zone Defense. Didn’t feel like dropping off a gun at the precinct and dealing with an hour or more of paperwork for a new weapon.

  Mom came in a straight line from the living room, and I could hear more voices behind her. The girls took my gear to my room, fast enough to still precede me into the main living area. Besides Aama, there was Astrid, her brother JJ, Trinity, and, low and behold, her father, Chester Flottercot. The media mogul was wearing his trademark bespoke striped suit and a fancy tie. The three younger visitors wore jeans and casual shirts.

  “Ah, hi everyone?”

  “We had to come wait with your family,” Astrid said. “After that bombing run by the Renders, I think we needed their confidence that you’d be alright.”

  “Oh. Ah Mr. Flottercot, I’m Ajaya,” I said, holding out my hand to Trinity’s father. We had never formally met despite him being at Zone Defense the day of the rescue.

  “I know who you are, son,” he said in his thick British accent. “Plus you were the one to come up with that plan to rescue the Destroyer team. Brilliant, that.”

  “You never mentioned that you were part of that rescue,” my mom said accusingly. Behind her, the twins folded their arms and gave me their best put out looks.

  “Because it was impressed on me that it was on the secret side. Trying to get my license back and all that,” I said.

  “We saw the government clip. You’re in it, although you don’t do anything much,” Gabby said.

  Mom led me into the room and I could see that drinks and snacks had been laid out. Since I had taken the time to change out of my stealth suit and into a Zone Defense coverall that happened to be there when I snagged the rifle case, I didn’t feel bad about dropping down into a chair and munching on cheese and crackers. “Please,” I said around a mouthful. “I’ve got the full footage. I did a lot more than whatever edited crap they showed the world.”

  “You have it all?” Trinity asked, excited.

  “Throw it up on the wall,” JJ said, waving with his left hand at our wall while sticking out his huge right hand for me to shake. “And thanks for the overwatch. Haven’t felt that safe in years,” he said.

  “AI, project recording from Zone Defense mission to recover Destroyer armored vehicle,” I said, bemused that Thor was here, shaking my hand.

  “From beginning?”

  “Start with rope descent from Quad.”

  Three sets of individual views popped up on the viewing wall, side by side by side. One was the camera on my suit, showing my hand holding the rappelling rope, the next was from another soldier’s suit camera on the ground, and the last was from a camera probably on the Quad itself.

  We watched, me shoving more crackers and cheese into my mouth, as the rescue unfolded.

  “How did you get this?” Trinity asked, fascinated.

  “No one told me I couldn’t bring my AI, and since we were sending out the motherlode of EM signals anyway, I thought, what the heck. But the other two views were fed to my AI by one of the soldiers. I’m not sure which. Came in after the mission. Some of my treatment was a little rough and maybe one of the troops felt I deserved some help.”

  “Damn, son!” JJ said, as the firefight got fully involved. The other suit’s camera kept me in focus much of the time, showing Rikki fighting in team mode with me, back to back, as we cleared out some of the aerial attackers. The footage froze as I turned toward the first bounding Tiger, the angle of the shot telling me it might have been either Corporal Boyle or Jossom whose suit was recording.

  “That looks more like what I witnessed in the command center,” Chester Flottercot said.

  “Okay, your shooting really has improved,” Astrid said, looking at me like I had a new haircut and she kind of liked it.

  “Speaking of which, how did you guys do with the container?”

  “Zone Def is still tallying, but the LAV was packed to the ceiling. Should be a real good payday for what was for us an hour’s work,” JJ said.

  “And things are okay with the other Johnsons?” I asked, looking between the two of them.

  “Yeah. Martin, as usual had some wiseass comments, but when we opened the container, he shut up,” JJ said.

  “Dad didn’t say much, but I saw his eyes when we were unpacking. I suspect he would do it again,” Astrid said, giving me a raised eyebrow.

  “That was the easiest to get to of the two. The other one will take more planning. A lot more planning,” I said. “Plus I have to meet with Zone Def tomorrow and help them with some stuff before they’ll give me back my license.”

  “You don’t need your license if we do more episodes like that one,” Trinity said.

  “I have a feeling that General Davis would still insist on Ajaya’s participation. He’ll have to put his time in, I’m afraid,” Chester said. “And speaking of time, I believe we need to get going,” he added, looking at the old-fashioned wristwatch on his arm. “Congratulations on making it out safely yet again, young Mr. Gurung.”

  I shook his hand, shook JJ’s again, got a hug from Trinity and then a real nice hug from Astrid, and then the whole contingent left. Gabby shut the door behind them and whirled around to stare at me, her sister doing the same.

  “Trinity said that she wants to do another interview, this time including all the Johnsons and… us too,” Gabby said.

  “She said they got a lot of comments from fans that want to see more of us,” Monique added, leaving no doubt who she was talking about.

  “Sure, probably a whole bunch of pervy boys that I’ll need to beat up.”

  “No. For your information, all the boys at school are scared of you after they saw your shooting,” Monique said.

  “Except Billy Newson. He says thinks you’re pretty cool,” Gabby added.

  Movement on the wall caught my eye. A bug or fly or something. I rolled up a fashion magazine. “What do you think, Mom? Should the twins be on the
show again?” I asked as I stalked the little crawly creature. Its wings buzzed but my swing was true and I could actually feel the crunch under the magazine.

  “Eww, AJ, that’s gross. Glad I read that one already,” Gabby said.

  “I didn’t,” Monique said in slightly disappointed voice.

  “I think it would be okay as long as they keep up to date with homework and chores,” Mom said.

  “Okay, I’ll talk to Trinity,” I said and was instantly swarmed with super-excited sisters. They broke the sound barrier with just their voices, then raced out of the living room to contact their friends on whatever social media platform they favored today.

  “I’m serious. They get too much attention just being in school. Putting them on the show is going to bring creepers like flies,” I said to my mom, pulling the magazine from the wall.

  “Is the way of the world. Men of all ages like pretty young girls. You must protect them, Ajaya,” Aama said.

  “No, that’s not fair to Ajaya. That’s the point he’s making now. They need to learn to protect themselves,” Mom said to Aama.

  The short, super sharp utility knife was suddenly in my grandmother’s hand. “They have learned their own lessons in being Ghurka,” Aama said.

  “True, but they can’t go around knifing everyone who looks at them. There’d be bodies everywhere. Astrid deals with exactly the same thing. We’ll have her work with them, Ajaya. Don’t worry,” Mom said.

  My mouth was still open at the fact that my grandmother had been teaching them to use a knife to defend themselves. I closed it, opened it to speak, then closed it again. Mom patted my arm. “Go change, dear. Maybe a shower as well. I’ll bring you a tuna sandwich,” she said with a gleam in her eye.

  “No! I have tarkari for the boy,” Aama said, her tone brooking no argument. Mom winked at me in full view of Aama but my grandmother just mumbled in a dark tone and headed to the kitchen.

  “She doesn’t like tuna?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Victorious fighters don’t get fed second-rate meals,” Mom said, smiling. “Go get clean.”

  I glanced at the magazine and froze. The bug glittered, like metal.

  “Give me that picture!” Gabby suddenly yelled from just behind me. I turned just as Monique slammed into me, her one hand grabbing my arm and spinning me between her and her twin. Gabby jumped forward, pushing both hands on either side of me, trying to reach whatever incriminating thing Monique held. She missed and her doppelgänger ran around me and then back toward their room, Gabby following and yelling. I looked down. The bug was gone from the magazine. Five minutes of searching the floor revealed nothing. I finally put the magazine down and headed to my own room.

  Twenty minutes later I was in sweatpants and a t-shirt, eating an excellent if somewhat nuclear-hot dal over tarkari, sitting at my desk.

  “Look up methotrexate.”

  “Belongs to a class of drugs known as antimetabolites. Used to treat some cancers or control severe psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.”

  Harper’s mom had cancer? Or arthritis? Couldn’t she find it in the Zone?

  “What’s the shelf life?”

  “One year.”

  So how was she getting it before? Did her mom just get sick? Or did the tricky smart girl with the neuroprothesis have a way to get drugs in the Zone? Or a way to get in and out of the Zone? Past Zone Defense? No… there couldn’t be something like that… could there?

  Chapter 29

  “Right on time. Very military of you, Ajaya,” Yoshida said. I was seated in a waiting area and he was standing in a now open door that said RESTRICTED across its front. “Well, come on then,” he said with a wave.

  I followed him through the doorway and into a long, white, sterile-looking hallway. “I’ve got some things to show you. I think you’ll be interested,” he said, leading us past four or five doors before stopping at one. There was no lock or pass swipe or tag reader. Just three cameras, all pointing at us from three different directions. The door clicked open by itself and he pushed on through.

  Inside, a big open lab area greeted us, intriguing in and of itself but made more so by the glass wall at the end that opened out to what looked like a massive test space.

  He led me to a big worktable, where three people in civilian clothes were hovering around what looked like a drone.

  “Aaron, Eric, and Maya, this is Ajaya,” he said. “Ajaya, this is the dream team of drone design. Aaron has a doctorate in applied robotics, Eric is a design engineer who worked for two of the FANG companies, and Maya is one of the leading lights in neural network and machine learning. And they all know who you are.”

  “You reprogrammed a Berkut. How did you get past the CPU limitations?” Eric asked. He was tall, bearded, with curly brown hair and a slightly pudgy stomach.

  “No, more importantly, how did you circumvent its core directives?” Maya asked, shoving forward. Petite to the point of childlike, she was dressed in jeans and a light sweater, possibly against the air-conditioned chill in the room, with skin just a hair lighter than mine. She definitely had India in her lineage.

  “How do you stand such a clunky machine?” Aaron asked. He had a superior air, like he knew everything important and we would all be coming to him for the answers.

  “Put in a set of new chips,” I said to Eric, then turned to Maya, “which I trained on a gaming console before installing them, and,” turning to Aaron, “it’s the best toy in the sandbox. You got better?”

  Eric and Maya both spoke at once, stopped to look at each other, and Aaron spoke into the opening.

  “This right here,” he said with a wave at the table.

  The others parted enough for me to see what was spread out on the table. I almost started salivating.

  “Meet the Decimator,” Yoshida said from just behind my right ear.

  It was a third larger than a Berkut, but had much of the same sleek delta shape. Thicker from underside to its top, I could see it held more rotors than Rikki did.

  “Six fans?” I asked.

  “Ten. All capable of multi-vector thrust,” Aaron said, pointing to the back of the v-swept wings. Two smaller fans lined the back of each wing.

  “It can climb and dive faster, turn tighter, detect other units from further away, has a longer flight range, greater battery capacity, quicker recharge time, multiple charge technologies, and carries both a high efficiency e-mag weapon and onboard micro missiles that are capable of airburst or hard target penetration,” Aaron said, like the proud parent of a summa cum laude college grad.

  “So what the hell do you need me for?” I asked.

  Aaron frowned and started to open his mouth but Major Yoshida slipped a brawny arm around his shoulders, startling the scientist. “One on one, it’s been unbeatable in all simulations and tests. But in multi-opponent battles, it loses two-thirds of the time. When paired with another drone, including the same model, or with a soldier, it doesn’t achieve anywhere near the efficiency ratios the computer simulations say it should,” the spec op warrior said, frowning.

  “How do you train it?” I asked, looking closely at the lethal beauty on the table.

  “We use the highest level simulations from the most advanced systems on the planet,” Maya said. “How did you train yours?”

  “Well, after I replaced his chips with more modern AI-based commercial units, I plugged him into the family gaming unit for three months.”