AGENT G: SABOTEUR
Book Two of the Agent G Series
By C. T. Phipps
A Gordian Knot Production
Gordian Knot is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Crossroad Press Edition published 2019
Original publication by Amber Cove—January 2018
LICENSE NOTES
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Meet the Author
C. T. Phipps is a lifelong student of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. An avid tabletop gamer, he discovered this passion led him to write and turned him into a lifelong geek. He is a regular blogger and also a reviewer for The Bookie Monster.
Bibliography
The Rules of Supervillainy (Supervillainy Saga #1)
The Games of Supervillainy (Supervillainy Saga #2)
The Secrets of Supervillainy (Supervillainy Saga #3)
The Kingdom of Supervillany (Supervillainy Saga #4)
The Tournament of Supervillany (Supervillainy Saga #5)
I Was a Teenage Weredeer (The Bright Falls Mysteries, Book 1)
An American Weredeer in Michigan (The Bright Falls Mysteries, Book 2)
Esoterrorism (Red Room, Vol. 1)
Eldritch Ops (Red Room, Vol. 2)
Agent G: Infiltrator (Agent G, Vol. 1)
Agent G: Saboteur (Agent G, Vol. 2)
Agent G: Assassin (Agent G, Vol. 3)
Cthulhu Armageddon (Cthulhu Armageddon, Vol. 1)
The Tower of Zhaal (Cthulhu Armageddon, Vol. 2)
Lucifer’s Star (Lucifer’s Star, Vol. 1)
Lucifer’s Nebula (Lucifer’s Star, Vol. 2)
Straight Outta Fangton (Straight Outta Fangton, Vol. 1)
100 Miles and Vampin’ (Straight Outta Fangton, Vol. 2)
Wraith Knight (Wraith Knight, Vol. 1)
Wraith Lord (Wraith Knight, Vol. 2)
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Table of Contents
Foreword
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Foreword
Welcome back, my fellow sci-spy fans!
Agent G: Infiltrator was conceived with my idea of combining two of my favorite things, espionage and cyberpunk. The book, however, was set in a present-day “pre-cyberpunk” era with all the near-future technology being hidden away by a variety of conspiracies. In short, it was largely influenced by the hidden world of The Matrix, Deus Ex, and Ghost in the Shell. Reception was very good with especially positive buzz about Lucita, the action scenes, and the revelation that G was never going to get his human memories back because he didn’t have any. He and the other Letters were artificial humans grown in a lab for the purposes of being the world’s best assassin.
I was tempted to have Agent G remain a static character. I’m a huge fan of spy stories, and the idea of just making dozens of books following our antihero on various missions to kill bad people was a tempting one.
However, I remembered the promise I made in the first book: We would follow the transition from the world of 2017 to a dystopian cyberpunk future.
Cyberpunk has always been a big influence on my writing. There’s something very real to me about the idea that technology will succeed only in giving us new ways of screwing ourselves over. For every advantage such as vaccines, internet, and running water, there’s a disadvantage, such as global warming, nuclear weapons, and omnipresent surveillance. Even so, I’d much rather live in one of those dark Johnny Mnemonic meets Bladerunner futures in my favorite fiction than in Ye Old Times.
We’re not quite to a cyberpunk future in Agent G, but we’re getting there. He’s broken free, at least partially, from his masters and taken up with the lesser (?) evil of the United States government. The International Refugee Society, global purveyors of murder-for-hire, have lost a lot of their influence and are on the run. However, that just means it’s more likely for their vast treasure of secrets to come out into the public.
Secrets fascinate me as a writer every bit as much as conspiracies do.
Government leaks showed us a glimpse behind the curtain of what the government was up to. In some cases, whistleblowing can make the world an objectively better place, while the revelation of other secrets has caused global chaos. I tend to argue for transparency, but I’m not so quick to dismiss the idea that covert action should remain covert.
I’ve enjoyed continuing the adventures of G, Marissa, Persephone, Gerard, and a few other characters whom you may be surprised to see make their return. Not everyone will make it out of this volume. That’s the way it works out in my books. If there are no stakes, then there’s no point to the book.
You’ll be surprised where things end up.
I guarantee it.
Chapter One
I’m flying. I’m falling. I’m both as the Karma Corp ultra-light stealth wing suit carries me through the air underneath the scanners of Hernando Fitzgerald’s Peruvian castle-like compound. The compound, still a kilometer and a half away, was nestled in the snow-covered Waywash mountain range, with Black Technology-equipped helicopters the only way anyone could get in or out. It was filled with a hundred cyborg soldiers who watched over not only Hernando but also his two hundred brainwashed servants.
A year ago, Hernando had been one of my bosses in the International Refugee Society. Which had less to do with providing support to displaced peoples than arranging murder for hire. The Society also kept the economy stable for its corporate backers, suppressed scientific development, and manipulated global politics
on the side. To do that, Hernando and his supervisors had commissioned the creation of twenty-six artificial humans called Letters. I was G. I’d been promised a normal life after ten years of service, but the truth was the decay of my artificial brain (cyber-necrosis) would kill me then. I still had a few years left, and I was determined to make them pay for it.
“You’re coming in too fast, G,” Marissa said over our cyberlink. “If you land too quickly, they’re going to notice the wind movement.”
Marissa was my handler, an NSA agent who had been sent to seduce me and convert me to the side of the angels—and when that didn’t work, to the US government. We were still together, but I couldn’t tell you how much of her affection was feigned. Still, I would have allied with the Devil himself to take down the remnant of the Society’s leadership: three powerful executives we’d nicknamed the Tribunal.
“They might notice your messages too,” I thought back to her.
“Not a chance,” Marissa said, sounding genuinely concerned. “My encryption is impossible to pick up, let alone crack, and they’re projecting out constant feeds to their satellites. Anything we say is going to be lost in the static.”
“Whatever you say,” I replied, watching the compound get closer and closer. It was exhilarating, really, flying downward with the ice-cold wind against my goggles-covered face. Once, I would have worried about smashing myself against the side of the mountain or freezing to death.
Instead, I found the discovery of being a machine liberated me from mundane concerns of life and death. I was half a kilometer from the target now. My IRD implant enhanced my vision and gave me a full view of the compound. It was only vaguely castle-like, with a rectangular central building and four turret-covered towers. A Japanese mansion sat on the top, while surface-to-air missile (SAM) platforms were built into the mountain around it. If not for the cloaking tech built into my suit, I’d already have been blown out of the sky.
“You should start decelerating now,” Marissa said.
“Not yet,” I thought back, confirming I was to aim my Tech-7 grappling gun at the side of the sheer gray stone beneath the compound’s eastern side.
“G, you need to slow down,” Marissa said.
“Not yet,” I repeated mentally.
The compound’s high walls made entrance from any angle except the mountain’s sheer side all but impossible. The mission plan was for me to decelerate, fire my grappling gun, and proceed up the side. Too bad that wasn’t going to work. My grappling gun had been sabotaged, and following orders would result in my death.
We had a traitor in Strike Force-22.
Adjusting my wing suit and goggles, I moved the targeting location as I took the useless grappling gun from my side and let it fly from me. I started decelerating, but only slightly, aiming directly at the side of the glass window overlooking the mountains. Pulling out my Black Falcon-7 pistol as I settled into the last few seconds of my descent, I aimed and proceeded to fire three S9 grenade rounds.
“G, what the hell are you doing!?” Marissa shouted.
“Improvising,” I replied. “I’m going in Normandy style.”
An explosion rocked through the side of the house before I hit every one of my air-stream pods on the wing suit, causing the velocity to drop off sharply even as I threw myself into a roll, slamming into the ground. I bounced a good eight feet across shag carpet. If I’d been human, it would have killed me. But I could take a lot more punishment than your average human. Bits of burning wood and glass were all around me even as an ear-piercing siren spread across the compound. I hated going in “hot” and “loud” but found myself doing it increasingly more often lately.
Without the International Refugee Society to regulate things, society was becoming unstable. Also, to be blunt, I wasn’t sure I cared if I died anymore. Being killed in battle was a better alternative than the slow painful death that awaited me if I lived out my entire ten-year lifespan.
“Focus, G!” Marissa snapped at me. “Otherwise you will be dead.”
I was on the second floor of the ski lodge in a kind of faux-sixties rec room with a fireplace, a now-destroyed bar, and a hologram-equipped television set that probably cost more than most mansions. I didn’t stop to admire the scenery long, though, because I was already rushing to my feet and shooting at two blue-suited men carrying submachine guns and coming up the western part of the room’s stairwell.
The explosive bullets from my automatic handgun went through the first of the soldiers’ chests, blowing it out and going out the other side.
The second shot struck the man behind him. They didn’t shower the stairwell with gore, though, because their bodies were nothing but wires, artificial organs, and machinery. Shells. Cheap ones, too. Another sign the Society’s standards were slipping if they were letting their rent-a-cops have that sort of technology.
“Hernando!” I shouted. “We need to talk!”
“G, what the hell are you doing?” Marissa asked.
“Improvising,” I said aloud, letting the rush of danger make up for how little time I had left.
“This is a stealth mission!” Marissa said. “Not the lobby scene from The Matrix.”
I grinned. “Not anymore it isn’t.”
I wasn’t worried about repercussions for going off script. Strike Force-22 wasn’t exactly an organization with a lot of red tape. All that mattered was whether I achieved my goal: kill Hernando and recover his archives.
“Hernando, where are you!?” I shouted, not bothering to use any form of stealth. It might get me killed, but the joy of battle was the only real pleasure I had anymore. The woman I loved was a plant, and I didn’t believe in causes. The rush of adrenaline or simulation thereof was one of the few things that reminded me I was human.
Running down the room and smashing through the door to the hallway beyond, I saw a man in a white bathrobe, soaking wet, rush out of a side door and down the hall. My IRD implant identified him as the target. Hernando was sixty-three years old, of Anglo-Peruvian descent, with leathery tanned skin and white hair. My electronic eyes also picked up that he was more than fifty-seven percent cyberware, which explained how he was running faster I was.
“Marissa, what’s the fastest way to head him off?” I asked, tempted to just shoot his mechanical legs out from under him. But no, I intended to do that only if I had to. He was worth more alive than dead, or at least the computer in his brain was.
“Right!” Marissa snapped. “Assuming the feed from your eyes is correct, which it might not be!”
“I trust you,” I said, lying.
Before I could take a right, I was slammed into by a burly man of African descent who smashed me into the plaster wall behind me. He, too, was a Shell, and a better-made one judging by the fact that he lifted me into the air and started to crush me with the amount of force that would have liquefied a normal man.
I couldn’t get my arms up to shoot him, so I proceeded to bite his eye, the electrical thing sparking where my teeth struck and sending him backward. I then fired a grenade round at point blank range, covering my face as the explosion caused him to fall backward into the room he’d come from.
My attacker absorbed the blast, but the flames licked against the side of my wing suit and chin. Even if the wing suit absorbed the worst of the heat, I still felt every little bit of pain the flames would have caused a normal man. They’d built me well.
Running over the still-twitching metal and flesh body on the ground, I entered a lavishly appointed bedroom, then rushed to the open-air balcony, leaping onto the stone bannister around it and then onto the next balcony over. There were three on the side of the building leading to the courtyard, which was my best option for cutting off my target.
Beneath me, Hernando’s private army was running around like chickens with their heads cut off. One of them noticed me and my shortcut. I could hear him shouting at me and gunfire sailing through the air behind me as I reached the last balcony of the building and leapt off the
edge into the air.
I landed on both feet, less than three feet away from the still-running Hernando in the middle of his courtyard hedge maze. Three of his guards were present and a hidden doorway had opened in the middle of the grounds, revealing a staircase leading down to Hernando’s panic room, I assumed. The fact that the man had paid for a fake garden and hedge maze in the middle of a snow-covered mountain compound was an insight into his character I didn’t need.
“Motherfucker!” Hernando accurately summarized his situation before falling onto the steps leading down to his panic room. “Shoot him!”
The guards were fast, I’ll give them that, but surprise was the enemy of even the greatest soldiers, and I fired my pistol at the artificial hedge to their side. The resulting explosion threw two of them to the ground and caused another to cover his face.
“Alley-oop!” I said, grabbing Hernando in a headlock and running down the staircase, shooting behind me into the one remaining guard who was stupid enough to turn his gun around. Sadly, he proved not to be a Shell and the results weren’t pretty. I suspected it also killed the two other guards I tried to show mercy to.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs with Hernando in tow and cussing in three languages, I saw there was a big red button on the side of the wall.
As I slammed my fist against it, the door above me began to close. It was fortunate, too, because the entire rest of the compound’s guard was about ready to descend on me.
“I suppose your panic room has become your panic tomb,” I said, chuckling.
“Jesus, that’s terrible,” Marissa said, showing she was still with me. “Are you actually quipping?”
“Hey,” I said aloud. “I just did a bunch of James Bond shit up there. Why not quip?”
“Because this is real life and you’re acting psychotic?”
Marissa had a point there. “Who says I’m not psychotic?”
“I do,” Marissa said. “You’re a good…ish, person, G. Remember that.”
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