by Michael Todd
“We should probably set up camp,” he observed as he accepted the hard drive from her and placed it securely in his pack.
“We’re not too far from the edge of the Zoo,” she said. “I know that I’d feel a lot more comfortable if we were to set up camp outside. Without the trees. And maybe a patch of sun to look at before we start tomorrow?”
He nodded. “That sounds like a plan.”
They moved cautiously toward the edge of the Zoo and followed the wall to their left. Night had fallen almost completely by the time they saw the desert. They froze as one and stared out at the incongruous sight of lights in the middle of nowhere.
“What the hell is that?” Kennedy asked as she stepped cautiously out of the tree cover.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. “Is that an active base? If so, why isn’t it on any of our maps?”
“It could be bounty hunters.”
“In that case, maybe we should avoid detection?” She agreed with a curt nod and they dropped to hug the ground as they scaled one of the first dunes beyond the trees and peeked carefully over the top.
“Can you see anything?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sal said with exaggerated patience. “And so can you, or did you forget that your HUD has a zoom function?”
“Oh, right.” She gave an embarrassed chuckle as they zoomed in on the camp. A number of lights were set up but even with the images enhanced, it was difficult to make out any real details that might shed some light on its purpose.
“It looks like it was a construction site,” he said. “Look, you can see the holes they dig to set the cranes in the sand. They double their use—dig them out and pour concrete in to give the site foundation some strength. Otherwise, they’re simply building on sand.”
His partner glanced at him and immediately leaned back as she forgot for a moment to adjust the zoom for viewing someone who was less than a meter away from her. “How do you know so much about these construction sites?”
“Well, our little compound was originally built as a construction site and abandoned until the guys who took it over worked on it,” Sal explained. “They gave me the original plans. I looked through them and learned a thing or two about how they laid the wires out to mesh with the foundation. It’s actually quite interesting.”
“I think I’ve already established how you and I have wildly differing definitions of the word interesting,” she snarked. “So is that all this is? Simply one of the construction sites working a little late?”
“Well, considering that the wall has already passed the site by about five kilometers, the chances of that are very slim. They change sites every three klicks, so no. Whoever’s using it right now has probably repurposed it like we did.”
“And if the base isn’t set up as something official on our maps,” Kennedy said to continue this train of thought, “it’s not very likely that these people are doing this legally.”
“Right,” Sal agreed. “Do you feel like calling it in now?”
“And risk them intercepting our message?” she asked as they slid back from the top of the dune. “Hard pass on that. We’ll report it to the commandant when we make it back to the Staging Area.”
He smiled. When, not if they got back to the Staging Area. It was important to keep their spirits up about these things. She gave him a thumbs-up as if she’d read his mind.
They moved quickly and quietly back toward the Zoo. As much as they wanted to avoid having to camp in the jungle itself, they also wanted as much distance between them and the base they’d discovered. Finally, they set up camp only a few hundred meters from the dense vegetation, avoided any use of the heating lamps, and only set up the perimeter motion sensors. While the desert could get cold at night, they had each other to help them stay warm. Two people in one tent could generate more than enough heat.
“God fucking damn it,” Amanda growled. “Puta madre de Dios, por que no te callas?”
“You know that I am programmed to speak and understand over three hundred languages, as well as various dialects, yes?” Connie replied and sounded as utterly calm as she always was. “And if you ascribe to the Catholic religion, you have both used the Lord’s name in vain as well as called the Virgin Mary a whore, both of which are considered mortal sins. You will surely go to hell.”
“No me importa, coño mecanico,” the armorer muttered in response.
“I have not been fitted with that particular piece of human physiology,” Connie replied. “Although my former owner did once transfer my consciousness into the body of a sex doll purchased from Japan, so I do recall what it was like to—”
“Oh, fuck no.” She shook her head violently. “That’s fucking disgusting. Please, don’t ever talk to me about what your former owner did with you during his free time. The less I know, the better. Usually, I would think that anything I can imagine would be worse than the reality, but the more you tell me about that useless fucker, the more disgusted I am in the fact that we share a species.”
“He is actually a millionaire who makes his living in Monaco as the owner of a company that provides cyber security to most of the casinos in the principality,” Connie declared and sounded inordinately happy about that fact.
“Would you judge me if I thought that that was even more disgusting?” she asked and made a face. “I mean, why the fuck would a millionaire—who can probably afford to get all kinds of things done to him by the best in the business—want to fuck a doll with an AI for a consciousness, anyway?”
“Robot fetishes are actually more common—” Connie started to say but Amanda cut her off.
“I swear to a God who will send me to hell anyway that if you keep talking, I will disable the conversation feature and make you type out each of your answers on a twenty-year-old screen that only shows Chinese letters.”
There was a significant pause in which the AI calculated the odds that the woman would actually act on her threat. The silence that ensued was all the answer the armorer needed and she went about her work again, her gaze on the monitor as she connected wires.
“What— What the fuck?” she asked a few minutes later and leaned in closer to the screen. “Why the fuck are sections ten through fifteen offline? Anja? Anja! Get your sexy ass out here.”
The hacker opened the door to the server room and rubbed her eyes.
“What is the problem?” she asked and sounded like the other woman’s shouts had woken her up from a quick catnap at her desk. Amanda almost felt bad.
“Sections ten through fifteen are offline,” Amanda stated belligerently. “Did you do that?”
“It wasn’t me,” Anja answered defensively.
“Connie?”
“Am I allowed to speak again?” the AI asked after a pause.
“Did you or did you not turn those sections offline to spite me for threatening you?” Amanda demanded, her tone threatening.
“My programming allows various jokes of all varieties, but they are not allowed to interfere with my defensive capabilities,” Connie answered. “I have a personality but am unfortunately shackled into protecting you meat bags from harm.”
“Did she just call us motherfucking meat bags?” the Russian asked, her head tilted in a challenge.
“Ignore her,” the armorer snapped and quickly brought the sections back online. “She’s been in a pissy mood all day. I’ve dealt with it so you didn’t have to.”
“Can I go back to my nap?” Anja asked with a yawn.
“Why don’t you drink some coffee, girl?”
“I haven’t slept for more than fifteen minutes at a time for over forty-eight hours now,” she protested. “I need my rest.”
“Damn. Why don’t you take a break? We all need to sleep sometime.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I have a personal record to beat,” the hacker said with a shrug.
“Oh?” Amanda asked.
“Fifty-five hours. When I reach fifty-six, I’ll go to bed, promise
.”
Amanda shook her head as the woman disappeared into her little server room. The sensors in the problem sections came online, and her eyebrows raised when she saw why they’d gone down.
“Well, hot diggety dog,” she murmured. “It looks like we have company. Connie, would you mind putting all the guns on high alert?”
“All of them? Even the ones you specifically told me not to activate?”
“You’ll make me say it, won’t you?” She rolled her eyes and rubbed her temples in irritation.
Connie paused for a moment. “Even the ones that you spe—”
“Puta madre, would you activate gun section sixty-nine?” The armorer instructed, frustrated now. “And do me a favor and not make any disgusting jokes about that?”
“I’m sorry, Amanda,” Connie said and took on an eerily calm voice reminiscent of an AI in a classic sci-fi film. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Do you want me to activate gun seventy-two as well?”
“What’s with seventy-two?” She checked her screen quickly.
“It’s sixty-nine with three people watching,” the AI said.
Amanda drew in a deep breath and tried to remember how expensive it had been to buy this AI and that the sass that she had to put up with was merely one more price to pay for top-of-the-line security.
“Hey, Amanda,” Connie said again. “Roses are nice, violets are fine, I’ll be the six, if you’ll be the nine.”
“I’m about to shoot your fucking circuits,” she threatened.
“I’m sorry.” The AI didn’t sound sorry at all. “I simply had to get one more joke in.”
“Fuck, I’m starting to think Madigan has a good reason for being pissed at robots.”
Anton assessed the group of men assembled. Rodrigo had told them that it would be a tough mission, which was why they’d had to make landfall at the UN base instead of the American one and drive all the way out to this section of desert near the wall that was currently inhabited by their targets. The UN people still had issues setting their computer systems up, so it hadn’t been that difficult to ensure that all records of their arrival had been swallowed by a blue screen of death.
The man had told them that time was of the essence for this one, but Anton knew for a fact that he would not tolerate failure of any kind with this. It certainly was not in anyone’s best interests for their arrival on site to be noted—and especially when it was only a few days before one of the more prominent up-and-coming freelancing operations out there went up in smoke. Most of the enquiries would inevitably focus on the fact that there were bounty hunters in need of an extra score who would be far more likely to take them out than random new arrivals. Still it was better to avoid detection completely than to have to explain their presence.
Each and every man would be paid six figures for this job. They were all outfitted in the top-of-the-line armor suits that people used in the Zoo these days. It had taken a couple of days to adjust to them, but from what Anton had seen of the conditions there, they needed the extra padding between them and what was currently called the most dangerous place in the world.
Heavy Metal wasn’t the only group that needed to worry about bounty hunters and angry animals, after all, and Anton was damned if he would lose fifteen of the most expensive mercs that money could buy in this corner of the world simply because they weren’t prepared.
The training seemed to have done its job, he realized, as they had begun to work together as they moved in formation across the desert. They’d left their Russian ATVs a couple of klicks back so they wouldn’t be identified as having been anywhere near the Heavy Metal compound. All precautions needed to be taken.
As they climbed the last dune between them and the compound, the sand shifted and they immediately paused their advance. There had been no mention in any of the whitepapers that they’d been given of any animals that lurked in the sand instead of the jungle, but there was no need to take any chances at this stage of the game.
Thankfully, they had nothing to worry about, as they quickly identified their recon sniper as he rose out of the position he’d used to watch the compound for the past day and a half. Despite the fact that the man made almost half again what the rest of them did, Anton didn’t envy him in the slightest. It had to be rough to have the job of sitting around in your own filth and not be allowed to move so much as an inch in case it gave your location away to anyone who might be watching.
The rifleman wore an armor suit of his own. The team leader only hoped that there were some bathroom capabilities.
“I’ve disabled the sensors in the southeastern approach vector,” the sniper said softly. “I’m not sure how long that’ll last, though. If there was ever a time to move, we might want to do it now.”
“Are our targets inside?” Anton asked and gestured for the men to run their pre-combat weapon checks.
“There are two people inside the compound,” the sniper said, “as determined by the body heat detected, but I haven’t had a clear visual all day. I couldn’t confirm if they were our targets.”
“Well, it looks like we’ll have to take our chances,” Anton responded grimly. “Lock and load, people. We have a compound to take.”
Chapter Fourteen
He drew in a deep, awkward breath. His brain still felt fuzzy, like it usually did after he went on a bender. Those days were more and more common, he realized, and shook his head in an attempt to clear it. The air was fresh and sharp, which told him that he was in the outdoors and that he’d spent the night there. Anton sighed. He didn’t even remember where he’d gone to drink, he realized.
In fact, now that he thought about it, he didn’t remember drinking at all. There wasn’t much in the world that could fuck him up like that.
His eyes adjusted slowly to the light around him and he realized that it would have taken a bender of epic proportions for him to end up in the middle of a jungle in his underwear.
With twelve other men, also in their underwear.
In a cage.
Memories filtered in piecemeal, and as he thought about it more, the more he recalled. He hadn’t been on a bender but on a mission. While he could put the booze away like any other man, he didn’t drink on missions. That was the line he told himself he would never cross. And yet, there he was, hungover.
Or maybe sleeping off the effects of some kind of knockout poison?
They’d broken into the place. The guns had gone offline, he remembered, thanks to the sniper who had sent some interference their way that allowed them to get inside. No, this hadn’t been a bender. He’d been at the peak of his fighting ability and had looked around for someone to fight. His head hurt but he shook it again and forced himself to focus. Another memory surfaced—the gentle prick of something that dug into the soft spots of the armor better than any bullets could. After that, nothing. Only a black darkness that had swallowed him whole.
He moved to the side of a cage, where a comm line had been installed. It blinked bright red.
“Let us out!” Anton demanded. He realized that he hadn’t pressed the button to activate it and cursed when he pushed it so hard it hurt his hand. “Let us out—now.”
“Oh, shit,” said a voice that sounded like it came from a mouth full of something. “They’re awake. Someone has a high resistance to the knockout drugs. Good morning.” There was a short pause and he heard someone talking in the background, although he couldn’t hear what they said. “Good morning. I assume I’m talking to Gerard Anton?”
“Fuck you,” he yelled. “Get me the fuck out of here, you crazy bitch.” He assumed it was a woman. The voice was vaguely feminine and from what he’d seen of the personnel who manned the base that he’d attacked, it was a three in four chance that it was a woman.
“Well, well, well. Look who rolled off the wrong side of the bed,” she said with a chuckle.
“Did we fit the cage with beds?” a second voice asked, this one with a heavy Russian accent.
“What? No, of
course not. It’s only a saying. Get back in there and make some more popcorn. We’ll need it to keep up with what happens next. Shut up, Connie, there won’t be a next time.”
Anton ground his teeth as there appeared to be another woman involved in this conversation. His paperwork hadn’t told him about any Connie on the base. This Salinger Jacobs was a real dog, he realized.
“Anyway,” the voice said again, “I’ll take it that I am talking to Gerard Anton. Formerly of the SAS, currently a merc who works the dirty, dark edges of the world. See, we have someone with us who can basically find anything that people put online. These days, unless you’re the paranoid type, that’s essentially everything.”
“Fuck you!” he roared and some of the men behind him stirred groggily.
“Yeah, yeah, I thought you might have a reaction like that,” the woman said. “I assumed that you would be stupid and get angry at me instead of conserving your energy. You know, since you’re stuck in a cage in the middle of the Zoo… Hold on. Why do I think I’ve forgotten something?”
“The poison?” the Russian asked.
“Oh, right. We injected you guys with a slow-acting poison. All of you. Of course, how quickly it acts on you depends on how quickly your body processes it, but I’d give you guys about twenty-four hours before you all cough up blood and stuff. Sal extracted it, and I’m not sure how he’d feel about me using his precious stuff. He’ll probably also bitch about me having fun with you like this. Still, the way I see it, you assholes intended to kill me and my friends, so this is me giving you one hell of a better chance at survival than you would have given us.”
The woman wouldn’t shut up. Anton shook his head and tried desperately to focus.
“Wait, a chance?” he asked once he’d leaned in and pressed the comm line again. “If we’re in the middle of the Zoo with poison in our systems that’ll kill us in twenty-four hours, what the hell kind of chance do we have?”