by Brian Lewis
He grows silent.
“Where!?” Natia demands to know.
“To the Shield Room. When I built this place, I thought it would be a good idea to have quick access to that room in case of an event like this. I didn’t anticipate it being used against me.”
“Well, it is.” Natia rolls her eyes.
Captain Jeska is already waving his men to sprint back up top and head back to the Shield Room. He waits for Natia before following his men.
Out of the corner of her eye, Natia sees her team’s Orunmila’s sitting in a pile atop of lab table in the room next door. Out of all the lab rooms beneath the complex, this one looks the most unused and empty.
“Khalil, I need you to unlock the door in the room next to this one with the servers. I’m sure Araba and Michael want their devices back. They’re not yours to quarantine now that you’ve allowed a spy to infiltrate the island.
To Natia’s surprise, Khalil doesn’t protest or argue. She hears the locked door in the hallway unlock and slide open. Khalil, still having his Orunmila, opens it with the click of a few buttons from the Ectogenesis Room.
Captain Jeska waves back one of his men and the three of them collect the Orunmila’s. The Messenger 11 drone follows Natia around; flying through the air like a skier on snow. She turns towards it while placing her Orunmila around her forearm—
“I’m headed to the Shield Room to fix a problem you created.” Natia ends the transmission by pressing a button on Messenger 11. She balls her hands into a fist and slams them down on the desk again and again. “What an idiot! Does he realize how much he’s risked the security of New Manden?!”
Captain Jeska walks up to her. “It’s not my place to question Founder Khalil’s motivations. I’m a soldier.” He clears his throat. “But I’d be lying if I said I expected more from him. This is bad.”
Natia breathes deeply. “Let’s just get back to the Shield Room as fast as we can and hope the men we left behind were able to slow her down—or better yet, kill her. So I don’t have to.”
Captain Jeska lets out a soft chuckle and the two of them sprint back down the tunnel, hoping they aren’t too late.
Chapter 16
False Hope
Node One—Manay City, 2082—Isle of Khalil—Research Building
Bodies. Everywhere.
The dead bodies of the C.O.M.M. soldiers they’d left behind lay spread out across the Shield Room floor. They’d split into separate teams to head to Khalil’s compound and they had to secure the Shield Room. It looks to Natia that they had done their job until someone sabotaged them from behind.
Natia and Jeska lead a small group of soldiers to the opened entrance to the Shield Room. They take positions on opposite sides of the door and peek around the edge. Natia can see impact holes from a plasma pistol in the backs of the dead soldiers. The smoke rises in a wispy fashion from inside the holes.
Fresh kills. Natia knows Acacia is nearby.
She looks with a restrained depression at the dead soldier closest to her. His dark brown face is covered in red tattoos native to the Isle of Nimdobo. The Mandenite island is known for its large bushy rhododendron trees. They were transplanted after the isle’s construction.
“Natia! Natia Greenheart!” A voice rings out from inside the Shield Room.
“Acacia. What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know how many people you’ve killed today—and for what?” Natia can’t see where Acacia is hiding as she scans the room.
“Come in here and find out.” The faint sound of a chuckle hovers off of every word.
Jeska, looking at Natia from the opposite side of the door, shakes his head back and forth and whispers, “it’s a trap.”
“Come in, Natia, and lock the door behind you. No C.O.M.M. terrorists. Just you and me.”
Natia looks at Jeska, not for approval because her mind is already made up. She wants to take one last look at another person, not knowing whether she’s about to live or die. She steps into the open doorway after sliding out of cover. Natia positions the MX-Alpha from Khalil’s compound across her chest with her finger on the trigger.
Before stepping into the doorway, she turns to Jeska and nods. “Don’t go too far now.”
Walking in, the door shuts closed by itself. Natia presses a button on the wall-bound console. Now she’s locked inside with Acacia. Splendid idea, Natia. Give in to her demands.
Natia shakes her head and scans the Shield Room. A large wall-to-wall aerial display screen stretches across the expanse of the entire wall adjacent to her. Natia can see a red symbol with a timer attached to it heading for what appears to be the island they’re on.
The Shield Room is about two hundred feet long; the same size in length. Rows of computer consoles made of a translucent material stand throughout the room. Turns out, maintaining the shield that protects the island is a more complicated feat than the invaders had expected. Natia notices on the display up ahead that the shield is still up.
“It’s over Acacia. From the looks of it, you’re out of support. All of your androids, including that annoying Aren 7, are destroyed. Whoever you wait for, they’re not getting through that shield.”
“You know, Natia, we never got along. But I cannot lie, you have a perseverance that I find intriguing. You’d make a brilliant KWR scientist, the ends justify the means, right? Isn’t that what Khalil taught you? The Principle of Solidarity, right? Show solidarity with me, Natia.”
Natia laughs out loud but suppresses the jovial emotion. She speaks in a grim tone, “we don’t show solidarity with traitors.”
Acacia continues, “ah, c’mon, Nat. You’re not playing nice.”
“I don’t talk to voices. Show your face traitor.”
Acacia rises from behind a dark console elevated on a rectangular platform in the far-left corner of the room—plasma pistol in hand. She points it towards Natia, “The ends justify the means, right?”
“Not anymore.”
“You were willing to do whatever it took to complete Project Maximus, even if you had to bend rules and laws to do it. Now you’re self-reflective all of a sudden?”
Natia remains silent for a moment.
“I’ll never join the KWR after what they took from me. My grandmother and grandfather are dead because of them. They had a hand in my parent’s deaths too. Why in the world would I join them?”
“I feel the same way. You see New Manden, especially Khalil, has taken something from me too. From us.”
“Us?”
“My brother is on the way.”
“Is he the one on that incoming ship?”
“He is. His name is Taseti. You’ve never heard that name before, but you know him.”
“I doubt it.”
Acacia laughs the way a person laughs when they know something you don’t. “Foolish woman, you’ll find out soon. I’m sure Khalil didn’t tell you about the man he worked with to build the Turtle mech. The man he left for dead during the Second Revolutionary War because he didn’t believe in creating a new nation.”
Natia’s eyes widen. “How old are you?”
“Old enough to remember the old America before the schism. The way things used to be before this.” Acacia wrinkles her nose and looks with disdain at her surroundings.
She’s used de-aging technology, same as Khalil. All this time I thought she was as young as she appears. Despite that, I know she’s stalling… has to be. Natia begins slowly creeping forward. That’s when she notices the small hand-held device Acacia is trying to hide behind her leg. There’s a black cord that runs from the device to…
Natia raises her plasma rifle and pulls the trigger. A bright laser shoots out of the nozzle of the rifle and shatters the terminal Acacia stands behind on impact. Acacia grabs the railing and leaps over the top, landing perfectly on the floor below. An image appears on the display that was hidden moments before. It’s a countdown to the island’s protective shield dropping.
Twenty seconds.
&n
bsp; Acacia grabs her plasma pistol from off the floor and stands in front of Natia. The massive display screen illuminates her from behind, casting the front of her in shadow. Even while covered in darkness, Natia can still see her cold eyes and the angry scowl on her face.
“Die with the rest of them then you Mandenite extremist,” Acacia says. Hatred drips from every word.
As fast as Acacia lifts her pistol, Natia is quicker. Dodging ever so nimbly to her left, she raises the MX-Alpha and pulls the trigger. It happens so fast that Natia thinks she might be dreaming. The blast from the plasma rifle sends Acacia flying backward with so much force, her body causes part of the aerial display to shatter upon impact. She remains standing, looking below at the hole in her stomach. Acacia looks up at Natia, with her rifle still smoking, as a tear falls down the side of her face. She attempts to keep her balance on the console in front of her before collapsing to the floor.
Dead.
Natia walks up to Acacia’s smoldering body and smells the rancid odor of metal and burning flesh. It forces her to cover her nose. Looking up, Natia can take a long look at the aerial map that receives a live feed broadcast from a satellite in the upper atmosphere. The KWR ship has slowed to near hovering speeds just outside of the shield that protects them, for the moment.
The stolen data-file with Khalil’s secret tech lies on the floor next to Acacia’s body. If Khalil has quantum tech that no one knows about on this island, Natia can only imagine what else Khalil hides on the secret server. Natia is curious and wants to know the secrets within the data-file but knows she doesn’t have the time to hack into it. So she sweeps it up and slips it in her pants pocket.
She uses the moment of privacy afforded her to sync her Orunmila to the island’s entire blockchain network. Natia wants access to everything she can get her hands on. Power has now shifted into her hands. She has something she knows Khalil wants. It’s in the Shield Room where Dr. Natia Greenheart accepts her newfound role as Protector of Subject Alpha, of New Manden and of the entire island.
It’s not that I didn’t want the network to be hacked, I didn’t want Acacia to hack it. Natia feels a moment of relief. She can’t wait to share the news with Michael, who she hopes is safe in the Medibay.
Lifting her arm chest-high, she taps a button on the thin Keletronium material that wraps around a cotton sleeve on her forearm. When the display appears, she scrolls through a series of prompts. She has the option to sync with a variety of tools.
“Hmm… this looks interesting. This tiny island has a tunnel system within the body of the Jena.” Her eyes followed the length of the AR map hovering in front of her. There appear to be two main parallel tunnels that ran alongside each other. They both end at a massive arena-like structure that’s submerged deep underwater to the north of the island. “I’ll take that.”
As the island’s map system syncs with her device, she notices something even more intriguing. “Well this will certainly come in handy.” A private communication channel exists behind several layers of complex system security protocols. Is this how Acacia was communicating with her brother in the KWR? Or is this Khalil’s? If it’s his, then who has he been in contact with that requires an even more private way of communicating than on an unregistered Jena off the grid?
Natia now has more questions than answers. The user ID’s for both participants are encrypted with pseudo-names. So she has no way of knowing who the sender or receiver is. Checking her Orunmila, she’s prompted by the device’s A.I. that it will take thirty minutes to hack into the private comm channel.
Natia presses the augmented prompt, and her device begins hacking away at it.
Running back to the door, Natia opens it, forgetting that Captain Jeska and the battle-ready C.O.M.M. soldiers are still waiting. The door swings open and there they stand.
“You know for a second, we thought you were on the wrong end of those shots we heard.” Captain Jeska’s tone is less comforting than Natia had hoped.
“Well don’t sound so disappointed.”
“It’s not that ma’am, it’s just…”
“Spill it, Captain.”
“Someone has just lowered the shield.”
Natia’s eyes bulge and she looks back towards the aerial display on the far wall. It must’ve happened as soon as she opened the door because the shield was just up moments prior. “What the hell is happening!?”
Jeska clears his throat and commands his men to meet him at Khalil’s location. They hesitate, looking back and forth between Jeska and Natia.
“I said move!” Captain Jeska barks.
They quickly begin shuffling back down the corridor and to the floor above.
Captain Jeska lifts his hands and presses one of the soft edges of his helmet on either side. A click can be heard indicating he can remove his helmet. He lifts his helmet away from his head, revealing a dark-skinned man in his early thirties. At least assuming he hadn’t used any age enhancers yet. His wavy hair is black and cut close to his head, while his eyes are copper brown. Clear genetic-augmentation, Natia thinks it looks like Endonis’ work. A thick black beard plops down that smells of oil and sweat.
“Node Two, I assume. The copper-brown eyes and beard are dead giveaways. But where’s the paint on your face?”
He smiles, but it disappears quicker than it appeared. “The Isle of Dosha.” He shakes his head to change the subject. “Listen, I believe you are in danger, Dr. Natia. I’m a huge supporter of your project, Project Maximus, I’m here, on how can we say… dual duties.”
Natia looks perplexed.
“I’m Mandenite Intelligence ma’am. Shadow Guard.”
“I’ve never met one of you guys in the flesh before.”
“In most cases you don’t want to, but high-influence workers within The Collective are worried about Khalil. They have been for a long time now. They chose to embed me here. We knew he had an unregistered Jena, but that shield blocks satellites. So no one knew what was going on here until a few moments ago.”
“So you dropped the shield?”
“No. Now that Acacia is dead and you’re here with me, the only other person on this island that would’ve had the authorization is Khalil himself.”
“But why? Do you have any theories?”
“None of them good.” He looks down the corridor and can hear a commotion from the remaining C.O.M.M. soldiers outside. “Look, to your point. I have to maintain cover; I can’t do anything erratic. I have to go help the soldiers outside. I’ll try to get communication out to the other Nodes and let them know we’re under attack and need immediate help. Our radios are offline right now.”
Natia remembers the private channel she’s discovered. Even though she trusts Jeska to a point, his revealing himself as a Mandenite spy encourages her to keep her discovery a secret. As soon as she gets confirmation that her Orunmila has hacked into the private network, she’ll let Captain Jeska know so they can get a message out.
“Ok then, Captain, we’ll both work on a solution to the comm issue, you go help your men. I’ll handle Khalil.” Natia speaks with directive intent.
Jeska nods. “New Manden shines brightest during its darkest days…”
“… and we will last always.” Natia finishes speaking the last verse of the New Manden national anthem.
Chapter 17
Ghost of the Past
Node One—Manay City, 2082—Isle of Khalil—KWR Battle Transport
Today is the day.
The day he’s been waiting many years for. Not only does he hope to reunite with his sister, but to finally come face-to-face with that murderous false prophet. The man who left his face disfigured, and his natural eyesight destroyed.
Khalil.
For a moment, he thinks the reunion will be cut short. As his armored aircraft hovers just outside the perimeter shield of Khalil’s island. He looks to the timer readout on the display in front of him. Acacia is late, and that’s not like her. She should’ve had the shield deactivat
ed by now.
“Taseti, the shields are down.”
“Keep hovering for a moment,” Taseti says. “Now we can use the infrared display, go ahead and pull that up.”
The pilot, wearing the insignia of the KWR on his shoulder pad, presses a button on the console in front of him. A thin film-like AR image cascades like an overlay over the front blast window. It shows the artificial island the same as before, but with the bonus of heat signatures. A small cluster of buildings stands erected to the north. One with a few people, the other with a much larger group. A pyramid compound that looks similar to the one Acacia described is the farthest north and empty.
“Perfect.” Taseti notices the southern half of the island is deserted and built mostly for decorative purposes. To stroke Khalil’s own massive ego, no doubt.
A large, spread out cluster of bodies stand around the center of the island. “C.O.M.M. terrorists. Now they will feel the wrath of one man’s army.”
Standing behind the two seated pilots, Taseti points the pilots towards the least populated area of the island. There’s a small enough clearing behind a group of trees to the far south. “Set down over there.”
Their aircraft, designed by NAS engineers, is not built with reinforced Keletronium. That doesn’t mean it cannot hold up against C.O.M.M. energy weapons. The aircraft is ideal for heavy combat and transport. Taseti is confident it’ll be a great aid when the time comes. His Plutarch financiers in the NAS might be vicious and inhumane, but they pay well and gave him this fine aircraft at a discount.
“Our sensors aren’t picking up any surface-to-air energy weapons. Looks like the androids Acacia let in did their job.”
Taseti says. “Good.” The two men piloting the aircraft are both honored veterans of the Knights of the White Rose. No longer active, now mercenaries who will do anything as long as the crypto is good.