by Nick Svolos
“Cindy, it’s not my place to tell you how to handle your business, but I’m going to do it anyway. Do the right thing and come clean with him. Joe’s a good man, he’ll understand.”
I could sense her unease in my head. “I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Be careful, Reuben.” And then she was gone.
“You’re awful quiet, Conway,” Dawson said as he backed out of the alley and drove off towards the Tower. He turned on the lights and siren.
“Ah, just thinking.” I smiled inwardly at my little joke. “Say, things are likely to be crazy over there. You’re not gonna tell me you’re two weeks from retirement or anything, are you?”
He laughed. “No, I got a few years left in me.”
“Good. I hate clichés.”
The interior of Dawson’s Crown Victoria smelled of spilled coffee and stale tobacco, a remnant of countless stake-outs. I explained the situation with Archangel and how Galestorm had probably taken over the Tower’s defenses by now. We had to be ready for anything, and the situation was likely beyond our ability to influence. He responded by calling for backup and instructed the watch commander that all available units should be locking down the area around the Angel Tower. We turned a corner and the Angel Tower came into view. The top ten or fifteen stories were windowless, and I knew those levels were where the flight deck was. Large retractable steel doors could open and allow The Angels’ hoverjet to come and go as needed. As we continued our approach, we saw those doors explode out into the night in a world-rattling blast.
“Jesus!” Dawson exclaimed. Big chunks of metal rained down on the street below. He made the sign of the cross on his chest, floored the accelerator and we sped the last mile to the Tower. “Guess you were right.”
“Yeah. It wouldn’t have broken my heart to be wrong about this one.”
As we rounded the last corner onto Fifth Street, Dawson had to swerve to avoid flaming debris from the flight deck blast. Chunks of flying machine, steel and glass littered the street, and as we got closer it became impassible by car. We got out of Dawson’s Crown Vic and ran the last half block on foot. I heard sirens approaching in the distance, and the whooping of alarms emanating from the Tower.
We reached the corner and began to cross the street to the Tower. We heard gunfire from the entrance to the parking garage, and Dawson pulled out his weapon, a no-nonsense .45 semi-auto, that he held low, pointed at the ground. As he thumbed off the safety, he pulled the slide and chambered a round. The chunky man’s moves were calm, practiced and professional. I could tell this wasn’t his first rodeo.
We reached the corner of the Tower, and Dawson called a halt to assess the situation. A few stray rounds sizzled from the mouth of the garage entrance to smack into the brick and mortar building across the street. He poked his head around to look into the garage and quickly pulled it back. I heard a metallic whump from the front of the structure that vibrated the ground a little, followed quickly by a second and a third. They were growing louder. I poked my head around the Tower’s corner and saw two long metallic legs walking up to the front of the building, alloy feet crunching into the pavement. I followed the legs up what must have been forty stories to see the gleaming steel form of Mechanista striding up to the building, her legs transformed into long metallic stilts. Unstoppabull was hanging on her back. She retracted her legs as she transformed her body into a robotic spider and clung to the side of the building. She crawled up the last thirty or forty feet to the gaping hole in the flight deck. I lost sight of the pair of supervillains as she clambered into the building.
I turned back to Dawson and told him that Omega was here.
“Oh, that’s good. I was just thinking we needed more superpowered psychos running around,” he dryly joked.
“Yeah, anything to break up the monotony. So, what’s going on in there?” I asked, gesturing to the garage.
“Looks like a bunch of goons fighting some security guys.”
I crouched low and poked my head into the garage. I saw a bunch of guys, many I recognized from Mickey’s bar, engaged in a gun battle with a group of Angel security guards holed up by the elevator bank. Casualties had been taken by both sides, and the battle’s participants had settled down to a siege, taking cover behind parked cars and low concrete walls. The outnumbered security guards were holding their own, but I could tell that it was just a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. I estimated the henchmen’s numbers at around thirty, mostly guys who worked for Fist. Even now, I could see a few of them working their way around the side of the garage into a flanking position. I spotted Reggie Burns in a group laying down cover fire near the driveway.
“Dawson, I think I can de-escalate this. Don’t let these guys see you.” Without waiting for an answer, I ran in a low crouch toward the group, shouting, “Don’t shoot!” I slid to a halt next to Reggie.
Reggie looked down at me in shock, “Conway, what the hell are you doing here?”
One of the thugs turned toward me and leveled his rifle at my chest.
“Hold up,” Reggie told the man, “I know this guy.”
I held my hands in plain sight for the benefit of the twitchy gunman, and he lowered his weapon.
“Just getting a story, man. You’re not the only guy who sells me leads.”
“Yeah, well you might want to consider this a bad place to be. Shit’s getting serious, here.”
I nodded. I risked a look over the car’s hood at the Angel Security position, just for show. I was playing the hack journalist bit for all it was worth.
“That’s for sure. How much are they paying you?” I asked as I ducked back down. “Omega must have offered a pretty good payday to get you to attack this place.”
Reggie was getting irritable. “Enough. Now get the fuck out of here! We’re workin’.”
“Yeah, about that. Did you get paid up front?” The question brought him up short and he looked at me quizzically. “You know Omega all made the List, right?”
“Conway, what the fuck you talkin’ ‘bout?”
“Cops pinned the refinery thing on them. FBI put bounties out on ‘em yesterday.”
The look in Reggie’s eyes told me my point had hit him where it hurt, in the wallet. Dead employers don’t pay their bills, and an living employer who was on the List would be unlikely to worry about such niceties. They’d be concerned with other matters, like being very difficult to find.
One of the henchmen, the one who had pointed his weapon at me earlier, had been listening to our conversation. He pulled out his phone and brought up the FBI website, confirming my statement. “He’s right.”
Reggie let loose a long and creative string of curses. He called out to the other henchmen, “The deal’s off. FBI put Omega on the List.” I heard curses and exclamations from all over the garage as the sounds of gunfire died down.
The other thug called out, “It’s true, I just looked it up. Happened yesterday.” He turned to the elevator bank and called out, “Hey Angel guys. We’re leaving. Nobody shoot and everything’s cool, OK?” The fire coming from the Angel security team decreased.
I was worried that the security team would violate the makeshift cease-fire, thinking it was some sort of a trick, but cooler heads prevailed. I heard a voice call out, “Hold fire! Let ‘em go!” and then to the assembly of henchmen, “You got thirty seconds. Use ‘em!”
The henchmen didn’t need to be told twice, they all turned and fled from the garage in a disordered mass of muscle and guns. Once they were gone, I slowly stood, arms raised, shouting, “Don’t shoot, it’s Conway, I’m coming over.” I remembered Dawson, and called out, “I got a cop with me. Don’t shoot him, either.” With that, I saw Dawson stick his badge around the corner, followed by his bulky body. He’d replaced the gun in his shoulder holster and held his free hand away from his body. Nobody shot us, and we walked over to the security barricade.
The street level of the Tower’s parking garage, now that I had a chance to look around at it,
was a mess. There were about ten or fifteen cars on this level, all of them showing various degrees of battle damage. At least one had suffered a puncture to its fuel tank, and the smell of gasoline mingled with that of sweat and spent gunpowder. I stepped around the body of one of Fist’s goons. As we passed, Dawson kicked the man’s gun away and towards the barricade.
I was surprised to find that there were only six guards manning the security area. Two more were injured, currently being tended to by one of the guards and there was a dead man back by the elevator. I knew they were outnumbered by the henchmen, but I had no idea how badly. Ben Jefferson stepped forward to greet us. He looked sweaty and tired, but relieved that the attack was over. “I don’t know what you said to those guys, but thanks.”
“I explained the economics of the situation. Just be glad they didn’t get paid up front. Where’s the team?” I resisted the urge to ask about Herculene.
He shrugged, “We lost contact with everyone when the blast hit. Archangel seems to be offline, too.”
“That might be good news. Archangel’s been compromised. Galestorm Tech is behind all of this, so your security systems are probably working against you, too.”
Ben’s eyes shot wide at the news. “Galestorm? That doesn’t make any sense!”
“I know, but I’d rather not get into it right now. Time’s an issue. Are you in charge here?”
He looked around, and saw that he was the senior member of Angel security present, “Yeah. I guess I am.”
“Unless I miss my guess, all of The Angels are incapacitated. I saw Mechanista and Unstoppabull go in through the flight deck. It’s probably best to assume Hammerblow’s broken loose downstairs and Glowstikk and Fist are unaccounted for. What do we do?”
Ben looked unsure for a moment, and then his training kicked in. “We need a better picture of the situation. The IT floor is our best bet.” He looked around at his team. “If you can fight, get ready. We’re moving. Are they stable enough to move?” he asked a man tending to the two injured men. He shook his head. Ben thought for a second and said, “OK, well, this is as safe a place as any right now. Stay with them.”
He turned back to me and Dawson. “Thanks for the intel, Reuben. Officer, nice to meet you. We’ll take it from here.”
“It’s ‘Lieutenant’,” Dawson corrected him, “And this is an active crime scene. I’m coming with you.”
Ben looked at the detective, “Uh, sir, the elevators are down. It’s eight floors up.”
The chunky cop growled, “I’ll make it, kid.” Ben shrugged and handed him the dead man’s ID badge.
I was already walking to the stairwell. I heard Ben call out, “Hey! I can’t let you do that.”
I turned, but kept walking to the door, “Ben, if you think I’m going to walk away from this, you’re nuts. I can go with you, or wait until you’re gone and then go. I figure I’m safer with a bunch of armed people around.” Then I was at the door and I started climbing the stairs. I heard a “Dammit!” from behind me, followed by several pairs of booted feet ascending the stairs.
“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” an exasperated Ben Jefferson said as he hurried past me on the stairs.
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” I reached a landing and stepped aside to let some of the security team pass. I fell in beside Dawson. He was laughing quietly.
The trip up to the ninth floor was quite a climb. The security team set a good pace, and to the surprise of all around, Dawson kept up, although I could see he was starting to get winded as we crossed the eighth floor. Still, it was pretty remarkable for the old guy.
When we reached the IT level, the security team spread out and made sure the area was secure. Nobody started shooting, so Dawson and I followed them into the room. We stepped up a couple of stairs to a raised floor that supported the rooms equipment. The Angel’s computer room took up the entire ninth floor, and row after row of units containing stacks of networked blade servers, all bearing the Galestorm Technologies logo, filled most of it. They had some serious computing power here. Cooling fans filled the air with a steady hum, and the heat generated by the computers was canceled out by powerful air conditioning ducts in the floor forcing the warm air into ceiling vents.
In the center of the room stood eight workstations arranged in two semi-circles, chairs on the inside facing out. Along one wall were about a dozen large flat screen monitors. These displayed a variety of information of interest to computer folks, system uptime, bandwidth utilization and other metrics. Several of them were blinking red. At one of the workstations sat an overweight man in his mid-twenties. I could see the stress on the man’s face, the kind of stress that comes from a very long night spent trying to get an obstinate computer to do what you want while you’re under a deadline. We’ve all been there, and most of us weren’t contending with a rogue AI bent on destroying the most powerful superteam on the West Coast. I felt sympathy for the guy.
Ben Jefferson was leaning over him and watching his work from over his shoulder. As the detective and I approached, I could begin to hear their conversation.
“So, you’re locked out completely?” Ben asked.
“Not completely.” The IT guy sighed. “Let me explain it again. There are now two copies of the Archangel program in the system. One is trying to help us and the other is fighting it. The bad one has control over most of the internal security systems. The weapons in the ceilings, sensors, target selection, surveillance, and pretty much everything above the twentieth floor. The good one has control of everything from eleven on down, plus all the stairwells and elevators. That’s why you guys didn’t get fried coming up here. Everything from twelve to nineteen is pretty much a war zone, from the AIs’ perspective. Every time one makes a gain in one area, they lose another. They go to re-establish control over what they lost and then lose whatever they took. It’s like they’re in a loop, feeling each other out. Everything I do from here gets canceled out after about a minute. I can get control over any subsystem, but as soon as I do, the evil AI kicks me out.”
Dawson interrupted, “Well, that’s good news. That means robot lady and the minotaur are trapped on the flight deck, right?”
Ben shook his head. “Mechanista can just drill through the floor. It might take a while—the flight deck is thick—but she can get through anytime she wants to.” He turned to the tech, “Can you see what they’re doing up there, Steve?”
“Yeah, I can get us a look.” He called up a window and reset the cameras on the flight deck. A few seconds later, several video feeds appeared on a second monitor and we could see Mechanista yelling at someone on a mobile phone. Unstoppabull paced the burned deck, periodically stopping to hit some piece of equipment that hadn’t been blown out in the explosion. He was clearly frustrated. Then the feeds turned to static.
“OK, they’re still up there, at least. Looks like they’re waiting for something,” Ben observed as he stepped back and straightened his back.
“I think I know why,” I said. “We haven’t seen Glowstikk or Fist yet. When Herculene and I figured this out, the bad AI, let’s call her ‘Archdemon’, knew the jig was up and accelerated the timetable. Omega wasn’t in position. They’re probably stuck in traffic.”
Ben smiled grimly. “Well, that’s a break, at least. Gives us a little time to figure out if we can turn the tables.” Ben started to pace a bit. He called the rest of the security team over, leaving two to watch the elevator and stairwell. He explained the situation for those who hadn’t been present, concluding with, “OK, guys, start pitching ideas.”
One of the security guards asked, “What about The Angels, Steve? Any idea where they are?”
“Three Dollar Bill is driving in from Hollywood,” Steve said. He checked a timer he had set up on his screen, “ETA is twenty minutes, but he might be stuck in traffic, too. I don’t know where anyone else is. Herculene left the building to find the reporter guy at about three. I thought she’d be back here by now. Everyone else was here
in the Tower before this started, but they haven’t checked in.”
Dawson asked, “How about the other supers, Conway? You seem to know all these guys. Got any on speed dial?”
Steve interrupted, “No, that won’t work. They’d be zapped before they got past the front door. The Tower’s defenses are based on a DNA scanning technique Galestorm developed. It detects whether you’re a super or not. If it flags someone as a normal, like us, it ignores them and their access is controlled by the badges we wear. If it detects a super, it checks against a database to see if it’s one of The Angels. If not, the defenses kick in and disables them. Gently, if it can, but it’s designed to get more lethal if sufficient resistance is given. The Tower can generate a stasis field that can even hold Ultiman, if it has to. I was there when we tested it.
“Anyway,” he continued, “The profiles in the database has been wiped. No super should be able to walk around in here. It’s autonomous—even Archangel can’t control it.”
I asked, “What about shutting down the AIs altogether? Can’t we just pull the plug on these computers?” I gestured around at the array of servers.
Steve shook his head. “No, these are just our IT systems. Archangel lives up on twenty-four through twenty-eight. She’s a big girl. No way to get up there without being taken out by the defenses. I tried to shut her down remotely, of course, but they locked me out.”
Dawson thought of an alternative. “What about the AC? A computer that size has gotta get hot.”
“I could do that, but then we lose everything, including the detention block. We still have Hammerblow locked up down there.” I was glad to hear I was wrong about him being on the loose. Things were complicated enough.
Dawson wasn’t finished. “I got a SWAT team and another twenty cops standing outside. We could get them in here. Take about five minutes.”
I could tell Ben didn’t like the idea, but to his credit, he didn’t rule it out. “I’d rather handle this in-house, but we don’t have a lot of options. Let’s get moving on that. Tell your guys to come into the garage, and have them start working their way down to the detention level. Get communications established and then have them work their way back up here.” He turned to one of the guards, “They’ll need badges. Carson, can you handle that, please? Stay with the cops. They’ll need someone who knows their way around.” The Angel Security man nodded and headed to the stairwell with Dawson.
