by John Conroe
“Thank you, Aama, but I don’t think a reward is warranted.”
“Ajaya. You led, you fought, and you brought out everyone you could. That is your duty, and you did it with honor. The Gurung name has been upheld. Of course it deserves a small reward,” she said, her English heavily accented but excellent. Mom nodded next to me at the table.
“Did you sleep at all?” Mom asked.
I shook my head, a piece of roti already in my mouth.
“Eat some breakfast, then why don’t you lie down on the couch and try to rest? The major said he was going to have you go down to Zone Defense later this afternoon. Maybe you could catch a nap,” Mom suggested.
I ate the roti, which Aama followed with a plate of beans fried in ghee, then, with nothing else better to do, I decided to go with Mom’s idea.
The couch was soft and the morning news was playing on the viewing wall, so I lay and listened to the repetitious cycle of weather, traffic, sports, business, headline news, and human interest bits. The only thing that was remotely interesting was a side piece about a small group of delivery drones that went slightly amok, dropping their packages like little bombs on the recipients. The mega-corp that owned them, along with owning a bit of damn near everything else, reported that it was a software glitch, which they found and fixed, preventing them from having to ground their national delivery fleet.
The news anchors, artificially bright, cheery, and attractive, rambled on, repeating the same stuff almost word for word. I drifted off into a strange dream, one where I knew I was dreaming, where retail drones hunted me with heavy packages of clothes that my sisters had ordered.
Part of my dreaming self wondered that any such packages could weigh much at all, as my sisters are petite and had entered that teenage phase where the clothing they chose was even tinier than they were. The rest of my dream self was trying to avoid death by package while shooting back at the drones with a t-shirt cannon filled with shirts bearing the logo of the New York Yankees. Then part of me that was aware that the news was playing realized that the current sports story was about the Yankees’ spring training. I woke up almost immediately after that thought and found that a couple of hours had slipped by. And then I remembered Primmer and the way he died.
I sat upright, fast, startling my mom, who was at the dining table working on her AI, probably making lesson plans. “You okay?” she asked.
“Ah, just a bad dream. But the nap helped. I feel a little better.”
Which was the truth. Still tired but not as groggy as before, I dragged myself off the couch, showered, shaved, and got ready for the day, trying to think of anything but the Zone and Sergeant Primmer.
Mom had made lunch in my absence, turkey melt sandwiches with tomato soup. “Where’s Aama?”
“Your grandmother has her women’s craft group meeting today.”
Aama had found a group of Nepalese women who got together every week to practice the traditional handcrafting of Nepal. They did a lot of weaving but sometimes tried jewelry making or ceramics. Aama’s specialty was weaving blankets, woolen ones that were so tightly woven that they were basically waterproof. In the cold weather months, I usually included a thin one of dark gray wool in my Zone survival kit.
“Okay. That’s good. I guess I’ll start out for my meeting. Walking part way will do me good,” I said.
She smiled slightly, nodding. “Being out in the City is probably a good idea. It’s a very distracting place.”
As I headed out the apartment building’s front door, I almost hit a jogger with the glass door as she ran up the steps. Then I realized it was Harper. She was kitted out in athletic Lycra gear, a slight sheen of perspiration on her forehead.
“Hey Ajaya,” she huffed out, a little winded. She had come out of the Zone and immediately taken up fitness like it was her life’s calling. You only run in the Zone if you’re already being chased, and then you’re not likely to live to finish the race. Harper had always moved slowly and cautiously, so she had had a hard time with cardio when we had raced to get out of the Zone. I think she wasn’t going to ever have that happen to her again.
“How far today?”
“About ten klicks, give or take,” she said, pulling her right foot up behind her to stretch her quad.
“You’ve come really far, really fast,” I said. “And look at your arms! Weights?” I asked.
“I’m taking a kettlebell class.”
“Nice. How’s work going?”
“Picking up. Word of mouth takes a little longer, but once it starts, it’s the best form of advertising,” she said, now stretching her other leg. She did look good, muscles toned under the close-fitting gear. Then I forced my thoughts back to her answer to my question.
Harper had a new identity, skillfully crafted and carefully implanted into society’s records by her computer genius mother. But no matter how good it was, it wasn’t foolproof. So she earned her living by troubleshooting drones and robotic hardware and software, skills which she had in spades, and she avoided most normal online forms of advertising. I had helped her get some of her early jobs, but it was her own quality work that was expanding her clientele.
“Zone War is toying with the concept of sending a few drones in with the armored teams,” I said. “They’ve asked me about shielding their units from interference by Zone drones. I’ve mentioned that I would consult with a friend who might be able to help them. You have any interest?”
She looked at me, the whirring wheels of thought almost visible as she considered the idea.
“It would be a bit of a risk, revealing any knowledge of what goes on in there, but it’s probably pretty good pay, right?” she asked, head tilted slightly as she waited for my answer.
“I, ah, let it drop that my contact had done some work with me, like on Rikki. So it gives you a plausible reason for knowing this stuff, and yes, I told them it would be a little expensive. Trinity didn’t bat an eye.”
“You spoke to Trinity Flottercot about me?”
“Without saying anything about who you were. Told her I’d have to run it by you.”
She locked eyes with me, a pleased smile on her face, then nodded. “I’ll do it. Only, you have to introduce me.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Okay, great. Let me know when you set it up. I gotta bounce,” she said, sliding past me through the doorway. She got real close, brushing against me, then headed inside with a quick smile over one shoulder.
She seemed to have adjusted pretty well to life outside the Zone, and to the loss of her mother. I think she had made a few friends, but I was pretty sure I was still one of her most important ones. Even if she was usually a bit snarky with me. And she had helped me with both Rikki and with questions about the Kestrels when Yoshida pressed me for improvements to his program. I owed her my life, so I would do everything I could for her, but it seemed like some of her smiles went a bit beyond basic friendship. Or maybe not. What do I know about girls? Which made me think of Astrid, and that thought left me with a big smile.
Chapter 6
I made it to Defense headquarters on Roosevelt Island a bit earlier than the time Yoshida had specified. With time to kill, I took a seat on the retaining wall near the steps leading into the glass and steel building that used to be Cornell Tech’s main campus building, instead of housing the military. Soldiers and a few civilians moved up and down the broad staircase, a couple glancing my way.
My time on Zone War had made me a slight celebrity, not recognized all the time, but enough that it wasn’t unusual. I sipped my second coffee of the day and watched people walk by.
“Yo Boyle, look… it’s a real-life star!” a female voice said to my left. Corporal Kayla Jensen was walking my way, her ever-present buddy Corporal Boyle shadowing her left side.
“Wow, Zone Defense soldiers! Like freaking recruiting posters in the flesh,” I said back, unable to stop a little grin.
“There you go with all that talk about flesh again. If
I didn’t know better, I’d think you were obsessed with my body, Gurung. But you know I don’t play for your team.”
“Easy, soldier. I was talking about Boyle.”
“Oh?” She turned and gave him a considering glance. Tall and raw-boned, with scars on both cheeks, he was more dangerous-looking than anything. “Well, there’s no denying he’s a dreamboat.”
“Fuck both of you,” he said without any change of tone.
“Ouch,” Kayla said, then smirked at me. “So, you here for show and tell? Heard you had a rough day yesterday.”
“Yeah, the worst.”
“Nah, Shooter. The worst is the kind you don’t come back from. You made it out and that Marine sniper, Eros, was sure singing your praises. These guys and gals are all professionals. You aren’t a babysitter. Boyle and I wouldn’t dream of going into the Zone on a sneak and peak without you for a guide, right B-man?”
“Truth,” the somber Boyle said.
“You done sunning yourself like a lizard?” Kayla asked me.
I nodded.
“Then let’s head inside. We’re headed to the team ready room. You’ll probably find the major there.”
Sure enough, we almost bumped into Yoshida as we approached his strike force’s section of Zone Defense headquarters. Yoshida, as far as I could tell, seemed to wear two hats: first, he led the ZD Instant Response Strike Force, which Kayla and Boyle belonged to, and he was also tasked with oversight of the Counter Drone research group, the people who had developed the potent Decimator drone that had helped Rikki and myself when we were facing down a Spider-led horde of Zone drones.
“Ah, Jensen and Boyle, you seem to have found my civilian consultant. Excellent. You two head on in. I believe there is some armor maintenance in your very near future,” the major said when we found him.
“Yes sir,” both answered. Kayla turned to me. “See ya around, Shooter.” Her buddy just gave me a nod and they vanished into the team’s offices.
“Come on, Ajaya. I’ve got some things to show you. We’ve made some progress with your Spider carcass.”
The Chinese Spider CThree he was referring to had been designated Lotus and been one of three in the Zone. They controlled and directed all the other drones. Lotus had begun setting traps and my running battle with it had resulted in it falling into the East River with a bunch of big bullet holes in it. The water had pretty much ruined most of it and this was the first I’d yet heard about any progress in computer forensics.
“What changed?” I asked.
He grimaced. “They finally got it completely apart. Damned scientists wouldn’t rush their dissection of it no matter how hard I came down on them. They found the equivalent of an aircraft black box. Some kind of backup log recorder. My geeks have just broken the encryption system protecting its files.”
“And you’re sharing with me?”
“Some. I’m sharing some of the intel with you. You know me, gotta keep some cards back.”
He led me to an elevator that brought us down to the drone labs where the Decimator was built and kept, passing us through multiple layers of completely automated security.
The lab doors opened all on their own as we approached and without any fanfare, we entered the main lab. Three familiar figures were clustered around an AI worktable, looking at streams of code that were being holographically displayed in the air above the table. A huge flat table held the massive dissected metal carcass of the Spider CThree, spread out in orderly deconstruction. An unstoppable shudder ran through me as I looked at it. Then I looked to my left as we approached the Yoshida’s brain trust, spotting a big, matte black delta-shaped form floating over a very specialized charging station. The Decimator, Unit 19, was docked at its charging station, hovering on magnetic repulsion fields, with only a few lights lit up on its ocular band. Much as I hated to admit it, Unit 19 was even more aerodynamic than my pet Berkut, plus it was better armored and better armed than my drone. Yet, somehow, Rikki still managed to outperform it in actual combat conditions, a fact that drove Yoshida’s people nutty.
The three scientists, Aaron, Eric, and Maya, didn’t notice our arrival as we stood behind them, listening to them talk. “These log events indicate the Spider accessed the internet. How?” Eric said.
“It could just clamp onto a fiber optic cable and have at it,” I suggested. They all turned, regarding us without real surprise, more focused on my words than our sudden appearance. Weird people.
“Fiber optics? Where?” Aaron asked, something in his voice suggesting I was a dumbass. That something seemed to always be there when he talked to me.
“Almost anywhere in Manhattan, genius, but the old Western Union building on Hudson Street is a major hub. Some of those lines are still being used,” I said.
“Hmmm. I suppose,” he said, turning back to the code on the display.
“So Lotus was on the web?” Yoshida asked.
“It appears that Lotus was on the web a lot,” Eric said, moving his hand over the display to scroll the code upward.
Yoshida turned to me. “You’re not surprised?”
“The Spider CThrees that were released into Manhattan were enhanced and upgraded way beyond their original specs. They’ve been learning and growing for over ten years while they pursue their single mission—kill humans. They aren’t going to let the Zone stop them.”
Yoshida and all three scientists were staring at me. “How did you know the Spiders were enhanced?” Aaron asked, suspicious.
“I’ve been rummaging around in the Zone for ten years. I’ve been in the hold of the ship that delivered them. I’ve seen spec sheets,” I lied smoothly. The best lies are embellished truths. I had seen drone spec sheets in the hold of the drones. Some specs were about the Spiders. But most of my knowledge came from Harper’s mom, Dr. Theodora Wilks.
“Why have you never said a word,” Yoshida asked, his own expression now suspicious.
“I don’t carry a camera, and what I’ve seen was too water damaged to survive. Nobody ever believes half of what I say I’ve seen. Who here was going to buy my story without proof? Now you have proof,” I said, waving at the metal skeleton on the big table.
“Do you know what was done to it?” Aaron asked.
“What I saw indicated better chips, much better chips. Also mods to the power and recharge systems, and notes that indicated changes to the neural net. Couldn’t really read all of them because the East River had had its way with the paper and ink. Enough to know they were better than off-the-shelf versions.”
“And off-the-shelf was pretty darned good ten years ago,” Eric said.
“So why was it on the web?” Yoshida asked.
“The log indicates it was visiting multiple corporate sites, maybe looking for ways into the companies’ networks,” Maya said.
“Seeking more ways to kill humans,” I said. “Hey, does that box back up any of its software?”
“No,” Aaron said. “Strictly a log of last activity, like the little computer chip in the old manually driven cars, the one that tracked the last five seconds of engine activity before an accident for insurance and law enforcement investigations. Why?”
“Just a thought,” I said.
Before Zone Defense learned about my pet Berkut drone, I always had to leave Rikki in the Zone when I got out. If anything happened to him while I wasn’t there, I needed a way to back up all of his files, so I built a set of data chips inside him that received near continuous updates as he went about our business. The weak spot in my plan would be finding his dead airframe if he went down. But if I did find him, I’d be able to resurrect him, or at least give it a good shot. Nowadays, he just backed himself up at his charging station every night, but the chips were still inside and still functioning. I was kind of glad the Spiders had no such feature. Bringing them back to life would be disastrous for everyone.