Ashes

by Russ Linton

  The shadow shifted. The click and soft crunch of sandals retreated.

  Jackie waited forever before she took another breath. Even then she sipped the air. She glanced between Hound and Danger, trying to peel away the shadows to see if they'd both relaxed. Danger's knife returned to his boot. Hound lowered his hand.

  She worked her hand free, grasping the phone. Her smile, the triumph as she held her prize out for the others to see, collapsed. A low wobble resonated on the shelf.

  She tried to step out quickly. Tried to clear the mantle without bashing her forehead and bringing down the rest. Closest to her, Danger made no move except to retrieve his knife. Hound crept across the tiny space, one arm outstretched, his teeth clenched. Before she could steady the mantle, a single bronze bowl tumbled to the floor.

  They all held in the shattered silence. Hound grimaced at her then flashed Danger an angry glare. She saw the old soldier's ear twitch, and he readied his gun.

  "Is anyone there?" She recognized the Pashto phrase despite the tribal accent and pronunciation. She also clearly heard a round being chambered.

  Hound protectively drew her away from the mantle and toward the darkness. Weapon ready, he forced her low and behind him. Before she could check on Danger, she heard a sickening gurgle. Camera raised, she noticed Danger's post was empty. An odd lump of writhing shadows backpedaled through the entry. Another man struggled in Danger's grip. Before he stopped moving, a blinding flash issued from the muzzle of his rifle and a deafening crack.

  Already dialed in for the terrible lighting, she nailed the shot. Caught in the muzzle flare, she could see a man, his bearded mouth gasping, whites of his eyes glistening in the moonlight, entangled in nothing but dark limbs and streaked shadow.

  Another death to be avenged. A ghost slaughtered by a specter. She'd catch the Augment in a photo yet, but for now, she'd run.

  CHAPTER 27

  I SPEND YET ANOTHER day wandering between the basement and the lab. My room is starting to resemble my former prison cell with stacked plates filling in for the food brick calendar. Most of the time, I sit on my bed or lie face down, swiping across the controls embedded into the movable stand.

  Missions have stopped coming. Xamse seems to have lost interest and is nearly always out of the office on international business. He's been working hard to extend his brand before he bleeds the United States dry. I know this. The government knows this. But we've left them little choice.

  I've come to understand the Black Beetle was more than a bargaining chip for this deal. Owning the only weapon capable of decommissioning Augments which the major powers had invested so heavily in provides him an unassailable position.

  They could've come in force to claim the tech. Martial law and all. For them though, it wasn't worth it. Nor would that gain the cooperation of the only people who can repair and replace said tech. The firewall he's shared far and wide, but those given access to the MANTIS project are limited to myself, Xamse and Ayana.

  Could be that's what Cantor's up to trying to groom me. If she can separate me from Xamse, the government can have their suit and some expertise. They haven't let Cantor back in the building though, so she seems to have tipped her hand a little too early.

  And it's like Emily said, the government used Dad. They won't use me. Xamse, I'm sure, has his own plans. None of that is my concern.

  So far, I've discovered several outgoing ports from Nanomech which remain forwarded to an offsite location though they haven't been open since earlier this year. Traffic in the logs shows activity a couple months before I was released. They even take a trip through Eric's digital domain. Brazen, given Chroma's threat level.

  I can understand why. Using the Collective's infrastructure is unavoidable for any international operations Xamse wants to maintain. I probe the ports a bit to see what comes up. When I do, I'm blocked.

  I try a simple crack. No dice. Since I have no clue where this leads, I can't social engineer a response and deliver a payload that way. Recon-Ng gets booted. I might as well be casting "Summon Ayana" with all this but fuck it. Even with the necessary tools, I find no vulnerabilities, no activity. The place is a black hole.

  Must be an old connection Xamse left traces of. No, he's too good to leave a trail. Then I check and see even Chroma has taken some interest at the terminal end of these ports. Even she's been soundly rejected.

  I let loose a heavy sigh. I don't have time for this. Nightstand control panel raised, I slip off the bed and push it closer to the screen, so I can stand and work. Back to my own priority mission: finding Vulkan.

  The Nanomech servers have more depth than FreedomNet. Hell, a dial-up BBS has more depth than FreedomNet. However, with every government agency's reliance on Nanomech's facilities, access to the corporate servers allows me to delve deeper.

  Gotta love the unfettered security clearance of a random contractor using a fake name. I almost wish their network administrators weren't so dumb. A challenge would be nice. A hacking challenge that is, and not this missing Augment bullshit.

  All I seem to find is that Vulkan really did disappear off the face of the earth. No reports in North America, no reports in his homeland of Russia. Europe, China, Africa—he's gone. Maybe the fanciful idea he's kicking it in a pool of lava beside some dinosaurs and shit, down, down, toward the center of the Earth isn't that far off.

  I watch recorded footage of special operations teams combing the tunnels he created and the infrastructure beneath Detroit. They use ground-penetrating radar and even seismographs to try and uncover his exact location. Nothing, In the chaos, he could've gone anywhere.

  Deep into a series of classified reports on Augments, I start to understand the overall strategy. They need me to decommission as many as possible before China or Russia sign them up. That's already happened. Could be Vulkan did the same.

  From the missions I'm being assigned, the government doesn't seem keen to task me overseas. They're too afraid to leave their country open to attack despite the fact the rest of the world seems at ease with their new breathing space.

  I need to broaden my search. A few keystrokes and I punch out into the fresh air which exists on the far side of the Pacific. Time to test the firewall for real. If Chroma tries to hitch a ride, I'll hopefully be alerted and have time to cut her off.

  The Collective's network is buzzing right along with an almost "What Apocalypse?" flair. Everybody took a hit, but they've managed to cobble together an online coalition outside the continental United States, Alaska included. With energy reserves and no prior reliance on the U.S. grid, the remote state quickly switched to Salarium to continue their rugged existence. Hawaii tried the same to avoid a slow, isolated death, then got shut down when the majority of the Pacific fleet returned en route to San Diego.

  Everywhere U.S. armed forces withdraw, land grabs happen as the World Police gets pulled off the beat. But it's The Collective which fills in the digital gaps. They've nearly created an uninterrupted worldwide network which extends even to remote regions which were never connected. I'm impressed.

  Eric's group moves swarm-like, spreading a vast digital web. It doesn't devour, just waits patiently for people searching for a semblance of the screen-staring existence they once craved. New users, longing for the same digital life they'd always been denied join too. Online tutorials facilitate the spread, and I see hints of supply drops including renewable power systems, routers, and phones into places where only bombs once fell.

  Retreating U.S. soldiers even report seeing those care packages incoming as they evacuated their posts. It's one of these reports which hands me the biggest clue yet. I find an Augment contact I'd not been told about in a CENTCOM bulletin. U.S. Forces returning to Hawaii report an entire series of bases being lost. Any mention of where is scrubbed. No details of the Augment responsible are listed either.

  Have I found him?

  A warning beep strikes up a sedate chorus. I'd know the sound anywhere. My port recon software is detecting
activity, and I switch over to Recon-NG to see what's up. Xamse's empty void, the ports he left from some past excursion, is being pinged. Somebody is trying to break through.

  This shouldn't be abnormal. When the web was thriving with life, you could expect hundreds or thousands of such incoming requests, anything from friendly search engines to malicious viruses. But Xamse has gone to great lengths to conceal this address. I only found it working from the inside out.

  Chroma only found it because she's Chroma.

  My first reaction is panic. I nearly close the connection, but I switch to the firewall and find it secure. On my end, I'm just monitoring a remote connection, not opening myself up to it. Ayana must be on lunch break, or I'm certain she would have intervened by now. I keep the recon tools running.

  The contact makes no sense if it is Chroma. They're typical pings. Slow and steady, she's not flooding the gates, and she keeps changing the packet size. I wonder if she's playing the lottery to see if one will receive a different reaction until I see a repeat. Then another.

  "Shit."

  Code. She's communicating. I start logging the numbers.

  You don't have to be Polybius to figure this one out. A simple substitution code, she's using the ASCII codes for their matching characters. Basic. Muy basic.

  L O O K I N G F O R S O M E O N E?

  I tap a finger impatiently on the smooth glass of the work table. Making sure to keep an eye on the firewall for any tricks, I send my own reply:

  Y

  Next? She sends an IP Address: 184.168.221.27, port 554. That's a typical DVR or security camera port. I ping it to make sure it's up. Now comes the gamble. Could be, this is her own attempt to social engineer access into Nanomech. I could log into that site and download a viral payload. Imagine what Xamse would do if he came back work to find a Ransomware request on his screen for billions in Salarium? Forget Xamse. Ayana will probably make it here first, armed.

  I lock the terminal and sprint for the lab. From there, I can hardwire a connection into that isolated terminal they were making me use. That'll help prevent any problems, as long as I can create a secure enough tunnel...

  "Where are you going?"

  Fuck. Ayana's right outside the lab doors. She's mid-stride as if she just rounded the corner as well. We both slow and begin a cautious stalk toward the door.

  "The lab," I say, slowly, unnecessarily. "You?"

  "Routine security sweep. Not that this is any of your business." I can't read her half-baked expression. She's got her standard gear of cargo pants, a Nanomech security shirt, and the ever-present handgun. At least she's left the heavier hardware behind. "No new missions from your handler," she sneers. "Why have you left the goat pen you call a room?"

  "The old armor," I say. "I've been trying to repair it, so we can fly the skies together, hand in hand."

  We've both made it to the door. Neither of us wants to break eye contact first which is tricky with a retinal scanner involved. I blindly place a finger on the security scanner for the fingerprint identification.

  "Fingerprint accepted. Please move closer to the retinal scanner." Our friendly building blurts, oblivious to the tension in the hallway.

  Ayana's eyes continue to bore deeper as if she's intent on reading the thoughts inside my head. She's suspicious. Then again, she's always suspicious. It's her default state, one which she loads up every morning, checked to resume after each restart.

  "Please move closer." Our intermediary, reminding us there are other things to do.

  "Excuse me," I say and lean into the scanner.

  "Access granted."

  I manage a smile while I hold open the door. "You want to come in?"

  "I would," she says, anger restrained behind her teeth. "But there is nothing threatening to mind."

  Score one for my competition. I let her have the verbal victory. Best if she feels confident enough not to come back and walk in while I'm in the middle of trading coded messages with Chroma. She's already returning to the elevators before I enter the security vestibule.

  The old armor, Wormfood, takes up most of the tables in the lab. He's been disassembled into hollow sections spread around the ant farm centerpiece. My repairs have gone well given the amount of damage done.

  This rebuild started as another way to pass the time. However, it's become part of a fledgling plan I've got to turn the tables here. They're all about securing the prototype, the old suit? It's yesterday's news. Once Vulkan's been located, I've got a better chance at stealing it. Once I check out whatever Chroma is up to, I'll get back to work.

  The terminal booted up, a patch cable into the crawlspace behind the wall, a VPN—I'll do the crawling behind walls first, while I know Ayana is between floors. Having spent plenty of time in the lab, I've memorized the camera angles. Shifting the thorax housing of the suit will effectively block line of sight to the wall panel I need to access. Gotta make the disappearing act quick though. Fast enough her less alert guards don't wonder.

  Speaking of quick, I need to hack the video feed in record time too. Turns out, this isn't a problem. Not only has this server where Chroma's sent me left their port open, they've left the factory username and password: Admin/Admin.

  Shit, really? The lack of a good crack is getting on my nerves.

  No need for me to search their video archives either as I'm not alone on their DVR. Chroma already has a video loaded from a few weeks ago.

  The place looks like a manufacturing plant. Glass casings, compact boards, and paper-thin screens hustle past on conveyor belts. Machines print circuit boards and seal cases amid a flickering orange glow. Nice, an inferno is raging here. No employees, just happily working machines ignorant to their coming demise.

  One end of a conveyor dumps its contents into a molten pool where the half-complete phones join the grayish soup. Heat levels must have been off the charts. The list of Augments who can cause that kind of destruction is getting shorter.

  A dark, menacing shadow stretches across the floor. Difficult to see through the smoke, the presence grows as it nears the camera. I draw closer. A hulking form steps into view. His clothes have the bulk of a soldier's fatigues. Inches from the screen, I can't tell the nationality, can't be certain. But his confidence striding into a nascent hell can't be denied. I recognize the powerful stance, the alert, almost disdainful sweep of his head. Then he's staring into the camera, eyes glowing red and a head carved from cooled magma.

  Got him.

  W H E R E? I demand, flying through the necessary ASCII codes from memory.

  F O L L O W Y O U R N O S E :)

  CHAPTER 28

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER I'm still desperately working to reassemble Wormfood, I can't help but keep checking over my shoulder, fumbling tools. I must be giving off some seriously sketchy vibes, but I can't contain them, not now.

  With the security, the invasive monitoring, I know there were traces I couldn't hide. I scrubbed the contacts from the server records and any sign of my connection with Chroma but getting all the digital breadcrumbs would be impossible. How much time I have left is uncertain.

  Chroma knew where Vulkan had been a week ago but didn't know where he was now. She said to follow my nose. Hound, she had to be referring to Hound. Cantor said he'd been returned to active duty. And wherever he is, should lead me to my next target. Trouble is, he's nowhere. Hound, Danger, they aren't listed on any missions I can access.

  Stopping to dig around more about Hound now would be the wrong move. Wormfood needs to be up and running first, so I'm ready to launch the second I have a location. In all the repairs, pretending to be the good little worker simply restoring his company-issued battle armor, I've skipped one thing: the data array.

  Without it, there are no connections and no remote piloting.

  Doing the same to the prototype would be detected. Xamse has hardware and software booby traps set up to alert him of the slightest tampering. The fight with Tomahawk wrecked those for me on the old suit. I'd th
ank the guy if I could. One warrior to another, I suppose.

  The outer door buzzes then clicks.

  When Ayana buzzes through the security vestibule and into the lab, I fully expect to be dodging bullets. But if she detected anything unusual, she's playing it close to the bulletproof vest. I check to make sure my path to the prototype armor is clear. I know I can't shoot back, but she'd be hard pressed to kill me all turtled up inside there.

  "You have a new assignment," she says.

  Her barked out command has caught me before I've had much chance to even stand. I hunker behind a piece of armor, pretending to work.

  "Oh?" I try not to appear too relieved that she isn't here to kill me.

  "Suit up." She's got Xamse's tablet in her hand which means...

  "You're doing the launch?"

  Her smile is made of abject malice distilled from a brutal history where I'm sure all her attackers wear my face. Getting out of this won't be easy. My one hiding place has potentially become my coffin.

  "It won't hurt," she says. "I have promised Xamse this, and we both know his rule." She lingers on the last word, her voice indicating that maybe she does know I've been a bad boy.

  "I'm not worried," I say, wrapping my multitool in Dad's mask. Wormfood's guts left strewn on the table, I walk away from them. Calm. Collected. No more jitters. That's the intent anyway. "Who?"

  "They call him Titan," she says. "He's been found in Las Vegas. Another one our client would like to see brought in alive." I can't help a snort of derision as I turn to the prototype and begin the preflight checklist. "I'm disappointed," she adds.

  "Why's that?"

  "You appear to have learned the real task here. You even seem to relish it."

  "What do you mean? The killing?"

  Instead of answering, she crosses the room to sit on the edge of the table where I've left Wormfood's entrails. She absently picks at the chipsets and wires, reading a future or a past, I'm not certain. "Yes. When I interfered with your first mission, I figured you'd lose the stomach for it."