by John Conroe
“Because we didn’t want to create an ego monster,” Gabby said.
“Trust me, if anyone knew what it was like to go face to face with Lotus, they wouldn’t want to entertain it for even an instant,” I said, glancing at Mom to check her expression. She was watching Astrid.
“What else does Brad think?” Mom asked. “Does he think Zone D has a prayer of killing Peony and Plum Blossom?”
“He does. But only if they have help,” Astrid admitted reluctantly.
“Help?” Monique asked.
Astrid tilted her head in my direction as she took a small bite of ravioli.
“Ajaya? He wants Ajaya to go back in and hunt the other Spiders?” Mom asked, voice rising.
Astrid shook her head. “It’s not about what he wants or doesn’t want. He thinks Zone D will either pressure AJ, or AJ will volunteer to lead the hunt.”
Everyone froze. Then Aama spoke. “Why would Ajaya do that?”
“To kill the Spiders before they could hunt us,” Mom said, eyes on me.
I put my fork down. “No one’s asked me, Mom.”
“What do you mean, hunt us?” Gabby asked.
“Ah, the Spiders know who your brother is. They have likely prioritized hunting him,” Astrid said.
“Yeah, when he’s in the Zone. But you said us?” Monique said, pointing her fork at Mom.
“There’s a possibility that the remaining Spiders have been able to influence some networks outside of the Zone. If so, they may come after me and, possibly, you all,” I said.
“The accident! It wasn’t really an accident, was it?” Gabby said, looking from Astrid to me and back again.
“We don’t know. Zone D is looking into it. But Brad’s right… if they’re hunting us, I’m going to hunt them first.”
Chapter 17
“So here’s what we need to do,” Yoshida said to me as soon as he saw me the next day. I had walked into the lab, looking for him, ready to lay out Brad Johnson’s theory. But not only were the three scientists there, so were Sergeant Rift and the ever-present Corporal Estevez, all gathered around a glowing computer projection.
I just raised my eyebrows, not sure what the topic was.
“About the infiltrator bot in the drone hive,” he said, reading my expression.
“Okay. What do we need to do?” I asked.
Ignoring my not-so-subtle phrasing, he pointed at the worktable they were gathered around. I moved close enough to see a blue wireframe diagram of a drone hive holographically projected in front of all of them.
“Maya’s excellent work has narrowed our search area down to this series of drone garages on the eighth floor. All of the drones that had recent accidents came from one of these seven depots on this level. Which means that the bot would have to be somewhere in this network node along here,” Yoshida said. His pointed finger caused the computer to expand and zero in on the middle section of the building. I looked around at the others. Maya was beaming at me while her two coworkers looked less than happy. Rift gave me a nod and Estevez just stared at me before looking back at the diagram.
I studied the area in question, taking a second to figure out the scale. “Wait, that’s like almost two stories of area,” I said.
“Yes, a central utility tunnel runs up the middle of the hive, alongside the elevator shaft. Each floor has a central node, and the network conduits branch off of the node and run to each of the garages where area-specific WiFi networks command each drone in that garage.”
“So it must be sitting in the node or just below it?” I asked.
“It could be there, or it could also be inside one of the seven branch tunnels. We think there is either more than one bot, which seems unlikely, or more probably, one bot with some kind of smaller satellite modules placed on the other conduits,” Aaron said.
I must have looked unconvinced because he went on. “If it was right in the node, it could influence the four floors above it as well. Nothing we’ve seen indicates it has done so,” he said.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked.”Armored suits?”
“No armor. In fact, no uniforms of any kind,” Yoshida said, pausing to let that sink in.
“You don’t want anyone knowing we’re hunting escaped drones,” I said.
“We can’t let anyone know. Imagine the panic,” he said.
“So what’s the deal? Corporate coveralls?” I asked.
“Yeah. Rift has some new spider-silk suits that have better ballistic protection that we’ll wear underneath the coveralls, and we have some eyewear to put on once we’re in the tunnels. Silenced, concealed handguns like your 9mm mag,” he said with a level gaze.
“And let me guess, you want me to do it?” I asked.
“Actually, you and me.”
“You?”
He gave me a are you kidding look.
“Yeah, I forget sometimes that you occasionally do this stuff,” I said.
“Cocky much?” he asked Rift. “I’ve been tunnel ratting it since you were in diapers, Junior.”
“Yeah, after humans. Who knows what this bot is? You bringing a drone at least? Unit 19?”
“Yes and no. Unit 19 is too big. I’ll bring my own Kestrel.”
I didn’t know he’d been training his own drone. “No other takers?” I asked, looking at Estevez, hoping.
“Nobody with a drone with enough experience,” Yoshida said. “Now pay attention. Here’s how it goes.”
I paid attention.
A little over an hour later, we pulled up in front of the Jersey drone hive of the largest corporation on earth. An executive type met us at the security desk and waved us through without going through weapons scanners, which made the guards a little wiggy. I didn’t blame them; security in public and private buildings had gone way up in the last ten years. No one wanted another disenfranchised ex-employee freaking out and shooting up their office.
But this woman in a suit had enough clout that the six of us weren’t questioned. Eric was back at the lab, ready to help coordinate with us, while Aaron and Maya were on hand to help Yoshida and myself figure out anything technical. Estevez and Rift were security, backup, and logistics.
From what I could gather, the cover story was that we were specialists here to check the troubled eighth-floor drone systems. Actually true enough, if maybe a little light on exactly what kind of specialists we were.
I wore a real-life disguise, which consisted of a 3D-printed prosthetic nose, much bigger than my own, a ball hat with a good brim, and good old-fashioned cotton swabs tucked into my cheeks. Yoshida kept me in the middle of the team so nobody got a good look at me. The price of being on Zone War.
Once we got to the eighth floor, the hive’s head of IT let us into the access tunnel and we got ready.
The tunnels were well ventilated but there was still a ton of waste heat from all the tech, so we stripped down to the spider-silk undersuits. A newer version with improved ballistic protection. Laser-resistant goggles, helmets with mounted lights, and our personal handguns, in chest-mounted holsters.
My new handgun of choice was a custom Glock conversion. It had started life as a stock recent generation model 20 but had been refitted with a 9x23mm barrel and had a customized slide and grip area. It fit my hand like a glove and the extra long barrel was threaded for an equally custom suppressor. Fifteen-round magazines of either high velocity or subsonic, extra heavy reassurance that could penetrate most aerial drone armor and some of the smaller ground units. This cartridge had more power than Rikki’s Russian-based 9mm round.
The major carried an HK SpecCom, one of the earlier generations that came out a few years back. I couldn’t tell the caliber but I knew they were available in the old standards of 9x19mm, .40, .357 Sig, .45, 10mm, and that there were barrels available that could convert to 9x23mm like mine. Yoshida’s looked well used but in excellent condition.
Yoshida stripped down to a bodysuit was intimidating, all corded muscle, which made me a little self-consci
ous of my leaner frame. And he suited up with a quiet professionalism that spoke of years of experience. My own load-out was much less than I usually carried so I was ready first, which allowed me to prep Rikki.
The major’s Kestrel was newer but Rikki had more proven combat experience, and one other advantage—he could shift into his ball form, which was way, way more efficient in close quarters than the disk shape of the Kestrel. My Berkut’s batteries were fully charged but I slipped a backup recharge into a stretch pocket on my hip. I had three lights; the one on my helmet, another mounted on the back of my left wrist, and a weapon light under the barrel of my pistol. Rikki was fully loaded with twenty rounds of 9x21mm ammo, his integral suppressor fitted with fresh, new baffles. I had a spare block of ammo for Rikki and two extra mags for my gun. Frankly, if it took that much ammo, we were screwed.
“Okay, ready?” Yoshida asked.
“Roger that,” I said, Rikki hovering over my shoulder.
“Remember, we head up the ladder, then you branch left and I go right. We work around the spokes till we meet up at the seventh.”
“Affirmative,” I said, stepping onto the ladder. Rikki slid ahead of me smoothly, lifting up the shaft in near silence.
Yoshida grabbed my shoulder. “Why isn’t he lit up?”
“Because he doesn’t need light to sense the bot, and he’s faster. The noise I make and all my lights will focus attention on me, giving him an element of surprise.”
“We didn’t talk about that?”
“It’s our standard procedure for dark places. You should have attended more of the classes,” I said, shaking my head. Then I was in the shaft, climbing the ladder.
Chapter 18
It was dark, as expected, and the rungs of the built-in ladder were cold even through the thin gloves on my hands. The air, however, was warm, and combined with the exertion of climbing, not to mention the little slug of adrenaline from my body’s natural reaction to hunting dangerous things in small, dark places, I could feel my body perspire. Not good. Most combat drones can detect human pheromones and sweat byproducts, and warm air rises.
Below me, I heard a soft whirring, the major’s Kestrel, then felt the vibrations through the metal ladder of Yoshida’s own climbing.
I clicked my tongue on the roof of my mouth twice. A soft sound, barely audible, but it told Rikki to put twice the original distance between us. I only had to climb about four meters to reach the node and the spokes of the eighth floor, but you try climbing in pitch darkness toward a killing machine designed for human elimination. Rikki’s silent presence at the node was reassuring and I paused on the ladder to pull my pistol and use its light to illuminate each of the two tunnel openings that I could see from here. Then I stepped left, onto the little ledge that allowed workers to circumnavigate the round elevator shaft for access to each of the spokes. I gave Rikki a silent wave and he disappeared into the darkness, heading counterclockwise. The Kestrel came up the tunnel, just a feather of displaced air to warn me. It hovered in place and a few seconds later, Yoshida’s head popped up. He looked at me, at his Kestrel, then looked around at the space illuminated by our helmet lights. One eyebrow went up in a clear question. Where was my drone?
I pointed to the right, then pointed up and spun my hand counterclockwise. He nodded his understanding and climbed off the ladder, stepping onto the right side of the access ledge.
We waited, watching and listening. The Kestrel turned itself toward my side of the shaft, and that was our only warning before the black ball shape of my drone appeared in our lights. Rikki lit one green LED on his front and I turned and shook my head at Yoshida. It couldn’t be that easy. Then I pointed at the spoke tunnel nearest me. He nodded and turned toward the one on the right. Without any other gestures or expressions, we both climbed into our respective tunnels and started the hunt.
Rikki moved ahead into the darkness as I kept moving in an awkward three point crawl. Two knees and a left arm, the right arm holding my sidearm, trigger finger indexed alongside the trigger.
These tunnels were much longer than the shaft we had climbed, each spoke running a bit over fifteen meters before it arrived under the floor of the drone hangar. Light suddenly blossomed five meters ahead; Rikki illuminating something on the tunnel wall. I got closer, shining my own weapon light onto the cluster of fiber optic and electrical cables that Rikki was spotlighting. It took a second to spot it—a small black device clamped onto the biggest cable. It almost looked like it belonged there, but there was nothing else like it on any cable or wire and it looked newer and cleaner, without the fine layer of dust that clung to everything else.
But it also looked familiar, like I had seen it before, or something like it.
Some kind of interface device, almost undoubtedly acting as a satellite control for the bot we hunted. It was the size of a deck of cards, with four leg-like clamps that squeezed the optic cable tightly. We had talked about this possibility and prepped for it. From a pouch on my chest harness, right next to my magazine pouches, I pulled a shiny button of silver metal, removed a plastic cover, and adhered it to the device. The question was whether the infiltrator’s remote had extra sensors in it or not. Motion, temperature, sound, anything that let it know someone or something was fiddling with its remote. No way to know and nothing to do about it.
A single red light lit up on Rikki’s nose cone, indicating that the tiny EMP device I had placed was active and under my drone’s control. With a hand signal, I sent him down the rest of the tunnel spoke to double check. He was gone for ten seconds then came whooshing back, his unlit dark exterior indicating he hadn’t found anything else.
We moved back out to the central shaft, edged around the ledge, and then entered the next spoke. It took longer to find the remote this time, as it was placed much further down the tunnel, almost under the hangar. Sweat dripped down my face and my laser-resistant goggles were fogging in direct contradiction to Sergeant Rift’s assurance that they wouldn’t. These things were supposed to be tested three ways from Saturday, but I don’t think they had ever put them in a tropically warm tunnel on the head of a nervous Ghurka who was hunting a killer drone.
Second EMP coin emplaced, we headed back to the shaft and began to insert into tunnel number three. I was less than three meters into the spoke, head down, when my helmet smacked into Rikki’s hovering carbon fiber body. He didn’t move, staying pointed into the darkness ahead. I froze, resisting the incredibly powerful need to light up the tunnel. I had to trust my drone, no matter what my reptilian brain tried to tell me. If it needed lighting, he would have lit it. Instead, he was holding me in position with his still form against the top of my helmet. Then he knocked against my head, three times, just a soft rocking of his rounded form, enough for me to feel without any real sound. The light pressure against my helmet lifted and I raised my head, looking into the blackness, feeling the flutter of rotor wash as he moved away from me. He was telling me that he would proceed three times normal distance ahead, his sophisticated sensors obviously finding something different in this tunnel than the others.
I waited, sweat running down my brow, dripping off the end of my nose, spattering into the dusty floor of the spoke in the pool of helmet illumination. The goggles were approaching a dangerous foggy level of uselessness, but I resisted pulling them off. Suddenly everything went dark, the light from my helmet fading as a sharp chuffing noise filled the tunnel.
My lenses had darkened automatically, their automatic response to laser light, undoubtedly infrared in this case. But now I couldn’t see and the sounds of something clicking my way fired my nerves, creating an instant, overwhelming biological imperative to see, a need that took charge of my left hand, forcing it to yank off the goggles. My right hand brought up the custom Glock on its own, the tritium night sights lining up before disappearing in a flare of white illumination as my index finger flicked on the weapon light before curling around the trigger.