“That’s not shooting!”
“Hooks!” A pause. “Where’s Hooks!”
“Get to cover and sound off! Sound off!”
Gragg moved toward the fallen men. He pointed and let loose with several seconds of deafening thunderclaps. Men crawled away screaming, only to be immobilized the moment the first bolt hit them.
In a few seconds they were all motionless or convulsing.
The sickening smell of burnt hair came to Gragg’s nostrils.
*
“What the hell just happened?” Philips stared at a bank of security monitors. The security command center was packed with Korr Security folks pointing at monitors and barking into radios.
The Major snapped his fingers at the control board operator. “Get on the horn to Weyburn Labs. Tell them we might be facing an illicit LIP-C weapon. I need countermeasures and tactics.”
Merritt watched the intruder on the monitor. “What’s an LIP-C weapon?”
“Laser-Induced Plasma Channel. Uses laser light as a virtual wire for electricity.”
“Where did he get it?”
“The Daemon appears to be dipping into our research pipeline.”
Philips turned on him. “Just how many sections of the intelligence apparatus have been compromised, Major?”
“Not now, Doctor. We’ve got men down.”
Ross, Merritt, and Philips stared at the large central monitor. There, the intruder was stepping among the fallen strike team members, sprawled on the floor of the gaming pit.
The Major barked at the board operator. “Seal zones three through six. Let’s contain this asshole.”
Another Korr officer spoke up. “I’ve got an identity on User 25: Michael Radcliffe. Grad student, MIT-”
The Major waved it aside. “That’s bullshit. Radcliffe’s probably dead.”
“Should we pump tear gas through the ventilation ducts, sir?”
“Use your brain. There’s a dozen gas masks in there with him.” The Major checked his watch. “Call in an electronic warfare team and a demolitions team. We need to jam this fucker’s uplink, then kill him.” He turned to nearby Korr officers. “I want commercially marked choppers over our twenty. Scramble the perimeter defense teams. Lethal force authorized. No one enters or leaves this facility until I say otherwise.”
“Understood, Major.”
Philips pushed up to him. “Major, we should try to take this man alive.”
“We’re not capturing anyone, Doctor. This situation is going to end right now, and whatever’s left is all yours.”
Ross pointed at the monitor. “He’s doing something.”
They all looked up.
The intruder was standing, moving his arms as though controlling invisible objects, his mouth moving in a rhythmic chant.
*
Gragg concentrated on the plane of D-Space. The entire floor plan of Building Twenty-Nine was replicated there, spread out around him as a life-sized wire-frame model overlaid on the GPS grid. It aligned precisely with the corners of each wall in the real world. This allowed Gragg to see the geometry of adjoining rooms. More importantly, images from the building’s dense network of security cameras were wrapped around the wire-frame model’s geometry, showing a patchwork of live video from those neighboring rooms-giving Gragg an almost X-ray vision through the dense concrete.
Korr personnel sprinted through the hallways, loading weapons and sealing doorways. They were ants in his ant colony. He had seen the strike teams getting ready all the way back in their locker room.
The garrison was in disarray.
Gragg turned to look far beyond the concrete walls of Building Twenty-Nine, to distant, glowing call-outs in D-Space. He selected dozens of virtual objects he’d stored there, then launched his prearranged summoning sequence, making somatic gestures and speaking the unlock code to the VOIP module. ” Andos ethran Kohlra Bethru. Lord of a million eyes, Loki summons you…”
Gragg looked through the sealed blast doors leading into the lab. The guards there had been pulled inside, but Gragg looked into the artificial dimension beyond them. He aimed his gloved finger at a virtual object in the lab, an object he had insinuated into the equipment collection some time ago. Gragg closed his fist on the object in D-Space.
Somewhere beyond those thick concrete walls a compressed air tank sprayed powdered aluminum across the lab space-then ignited it with an electrical spark. Suddenly the building shuddered, followed by a dull roar and the muted shrieks of twisting metal. A deafening klaxon sounded the alarm throughout the facility. Blue strobes flickered near the exits.
*
The Major scanned the security monitors as a dozen red lights blinked on a floor plan map. There. The lab was consumed in flames. The camera image rippled with interference, vertical hold skipping. One of the scientists ran through the picture, burning alive beneath white-hot flames. Sprinklers deployed to little effect.
“Goddamnit…”
“The science team. Get medics to the lab! And the equipment collection-”
“It’s too late…” Ross pointed to the monitor.
On-screen an acetylene tank was spinning in a pinwheel of flame near the lab table, then exploded, shaking the building again. The monitor image went dead.
Philips slumped and covered her eyes. “We just lost some of our best people, not to mention the Daemon equipment collection.”
Merritt grabbed The Major’s shoulder. “Where do you need me?”
“Sit tight, Merritt.” The Major looked back at Philips. “Are you still glad you conducted your little test, Doctor?”
“Without this test we never would have discovered we’d been infiltrated.”
Ross nodded. ” That’s why we weren’t able to join Daemon Factions. He was tracking our every move.”
The Major turned to him. “Maybe we shouldn’t have been playing games with the Daemon in the first place.”
The board operator looked up again. “He’s not going anywhere, Major. The gaming pit is locked down.”
*
Gragg stood before the sealed bulletproof glass doors barring his exit. The camera-lined corridor beyond led to the building entry vestibule.
Gragg turned to face another D-Space object hovering just to the right of the glass doors. It was a surreal blue button, floating impossibly there as seen through his HUD glasses. It was labeled in large glowing letters: OPEN. Gragg tapped the virtual button with his gloved hand. It flashed.
The real-world ballistic glass doors slid open, and he stepped through the opening and entered the anteroom beyond.
*
Philips threw up her hands. “He’s out of the gaming pit.”
Ross gestured to the monitors. “The security system’s been compromised.”
“Who subcontracted that, I wonder?”
The Major gave her a look. “Stow that shit right now.” He turned to the board operator. “Physically cut the power to the north perimeter doors.”
The board operator rolled back in his chair. He opened an electrical panel on the back wall and started tripping breaker switches.
Philips leaned over the board and clicked from camera to camera. “Where is he?”
“Don’t worry, Doctor. He’s trapped.”
“That’s what you said last time. Show me.”
“We just tripped the breakers. The perimeter doors are frozen in a locked position. He’s not getting through inch-thick steel plating.”
She studied the bank of black-and-white monitors. The large one in the center now showed the intruder standing in a dead-end hallway some distance from the exterior steel doors. He stood above three newly fallen guards, their bodies smoking. The intruder was just staring up at the camera. Unnervingly calm. He was only a kid-early twenties at most.
The Major nodded at the monitor. “I told you we’d stop him.” He turned to a nearby guard. “I want every gun on the tarmac focused on that exit.”
Philips leaned into the microphone
sticking up from the control board. She held down the mic switch. “You’re trapped. Give up, and you won’t be hurt.”
The intruder’s tinny voice came in over the speakers. “Dr. Philips, I see you discovered D-Space. Or at least a layer of it.”
A flash of fear swept through her. He knew her real name. How could he possibly know her name? Thoughts of her parents in D.C. thrust front and center in her mind. She turned to The Major. “Call Dr. Fulbright at Fort Meade. Tell him to take my parents into protective custody. Now!”
The Major snapped his fingers at a Korr guard, who grabbed another phone.
She keyed the mic. “You know who I am. So who are you-or are you afraid to tell me your name?”
“Bitch. I’m Loki, the most powerful sorcerer in the world, and I’m about to ruin your whole fucking day.”
Merritt took off his suit jacket and headed for the door. “Keep this nutcase busy, Doctor.”
Ross grabbed Merritt’s arm. “No heroics, Roy.”
“I don’t plan on any.”
The Major blocked his path. “Where are you going?”
Merritt looked calmly at him. “I’m going to see how that prick deals with flash-bang grenades. Unlock the gaming pit, Major.”
The Major appraised Merritt for a moment, then grabbed a radio and headset from a nearby charging station. The man looked as determined as he had in the famous Burning Man images from Sobol’s mansion. He tossed them to Merritt. “Good luck.” The Major watched him exit.
Philips turned back to the monitor and keyed the mic again. “Loki, Sobol is using you. What you’re doing is high treason. If you surrender now, I can help you.”
“You can help me?” He laughed. “I’m not the one who needs help. The society you’re defending is doomed.”
“It’s your society, too, Loki.”
“No. It’s my parents’ society, not mine. What does it offer my generation? A meaningless existence. Living long, boring lives, milked each day by salesmen. Livestock for a permanent ruling class. Well, I have no use for their laws, their maps, their failures. The Daemon has already defeated them.”
“This is your last warning: surrender.”
Loki smiled. “You don’t get it, do you?”
Philips sighed in exasperation and pounded the mic button again. “We physically cut the power to the door in front of you. Your hacks won’t work. Even if you manage to get through the door, we’ve got snipers covering the tarmac. They’ll cut you down from two hundred meters downrange. Just surrender.”
Loki shook his head. “You’re not thinking in enough dimensions, Doctor. Only part of me is in this building.”
*
Squads of heavily armed Korr Security guards ran to take up positions next to a guard shack ringed with highway barriers and razor wire at the perimeter gate. Behind them a quarter mile of bare tarmac stretched to the nearest hangar, but most of their attention was drawn inward, to Building Twenty-Nine itself. They listened to their encrypted radios and the voice coming through it.
“Shoot on sight. Repeat: Shoot on sight…”
“Copy that, Secom. Out.”
A bay breeze kicked up, sending scraps of paper tumbling over the expanse of concrete and flattening them against the chain-link fencing. Nearer to the building another squad of Korr guards with scoped M4A1s rushed to take up positions in the staff parking lot-the best cover available. They took aim at the sealed steel doors of the building.
The roar of speeding engines suddenly came in on the wind. One guard turned, then urgently grabbed his officer’s shoulder, pointing. “Pas op!”
They both turned to see one, then six, then fifteen, then thirty cars screaming in from several vectors along the runway, racing in through the gaps between distant hangar buildings. The cars swerved with remarkable coordination, all converging on Building Twenty-Nine like a school of piranha.
“Polizei?”
The lieutenant blew a whistle, and everyone turned to face him. He pointed and shouted with an Afrikaans accent. “Incoming! Take cover!”
“Might be car bombs.”
“Belay that!” The cars had already closed half the distance. More were issuing from between the distant hangars. The lieutenant keyed his radio. “Secom, we have several dozen vehicles inbound at high speed. Code 30.”
Nothing but static came back.
“Scheisse.“He turned to his men. “Fire at will!”
Automatic gunfire erupted from a score of positions. The shots cracked flatly in the open air of the runway. Tracer rounds ripped across the tarmac, ricocheting off the concrete and whining into the sky.
“Knock out the lead cars! The lead cars!”
A light antitank rocket blasted from their lines in a pall of smoke and detonated against a mid-sized car at fifty yards, turning it into a tumbling ball of flame. A black domestic sedan swerved around the wreckage and came roaring onward. Half a dozen divots appeared in the black-tinted windshield at head level right in front of the driver’s seat, revealing a high degree of marksmanship. Then hundreds more bullets tore through its front grill. As its engine died another car surged past it, and as that one was riddled with bullets, yet another took its place. Already ten cars were smoking and rolling to a stop-but still more came on.
The shooting died down as half the squad dropped clips and hurriedly reloaded.
“Watch that left flank!”
The lieutenant leaned around the guard shack just in time to see a car’s front grill-which was the last thing he ever saw.
The car crashed into the fence line and concrete highway divider at 110 mph, disappearing into a cloud of concrete dust and debris as it tumbled end over end. It was immediately followed by three other sedans, crashing through the gate. Automatic weapons stitched them full of bullet holes from several directions. Shouting filled the gaps in the gunfire.
But other cars had already blasted through the fence line elsewhere, dragging great serrated lengths of chain-link fencing behind them. These caught guards across the thighs, tearing their flesh and dragging them screaming, even as other guards blasted out windows and peppered car bodies with bullets from M249s with 200-round belts.
Now they could plainly see the cars were unmanned.
” Dit kan nie wees, nie!”
“Fall back! Fall back!”
A car crashed into the edge of the parking lot, while two others careened off each other and slammed into a scattering pack of guards with such force that the guards’ bodies hurtled twenty yards and landed in the bay, followed closely by the cars that hit them. The cars sent up geysers of water as they hit the surface.
In the distance, more AutoM8s kept streaming through the gaps between warehouses.
*
Merritt raced out into the gaming pit, Berretta drawn. Automatic gunfire crackled like popcorn somewhere outside. “Damnit…”
Merritt slowed as he reached the still-smoking bodies of the strike teams sprawled between the workstations. He knelt to feel the pulse of the nearest one. Nothing.
He scavenged an HK UMP.40-cal submachine gun with a web belt of extra clips and flash-bang grenades, then spoke into his headset microphone. “Merritt to Secom. What the hell’s going on out there? Over.”
*
The Major talked into a radio headset. “Agent Merritt, we’re under attack. Stand by.”
Inside the security control room, the sound of muffled automatic weapons fire was starting to be eclipsed by roaring engines and crashing. The Major watched the external monitors. One camera showed a head-on view of a driverless, bullet-riddled car nailing the camera pole, the screen filling with snow. “Why didn’t they sound the alarm?” He was having trouble comprehending it. “This isn’t a guerrilla raid-this is a frontal assault.”
Ross examined the screens. “Computer-controlled vehicles. Dozens of them. The Factions call them AutoM8s.”
The Major stared at the large central monitor on the control board-seemingly the only monitor not at present de
picting mayhem.
On-screen the intruder was busy moving his arms-manipulating invisible objects. He glanced up at the security camera. His voice came over the speaker. “I’ll let myself out.”
Just then, some ten yards behind the intruder, the steel doors were staved in by a shredded mass of metal. The whole building shook with a dull thud, concrete dust sifting down through seams.
The intruder barely flinched.
The car that had smashed in the steel doors was now entirely blocking the exit. But then another unseen vehicle cut in from the side and ripped the first one out of the hole with a deafening crash.
The opening was now clear.
*
Merritt heard the first crash and saw sunlight streaming in from beyond the sealed ballistic doors. He loaded the UMP and by the second crash he was rushing toward the glass doors.
*
Gragg emerged into the sunlight through the shattered opening of the main door.
As he did so, a silver BMW 740 with blacked-out windows rolled up to meet him. Its rear door opened, and he slid inside, pulling the door closed behind him. The BMW screeched off toward the wrecked fence line, followed close on by a pack of domestic sedans.
*
Merritt emerged from the dark, smoking doorway screaming, “Loki!” He stopped, clutched his UMP’s fore grip, and opened up with three short bursts, expertly tagging the tinted rear windshield with a dozen closely grouped shots. The.40-cal bullets left small divots but not much else. The car was obviously a security model.
“Goddamnit!” Merritt lowered his gun and watched a sizeable pack of unmanned vehicles converge like a single organism, surrounding the BMW to shield it. They accelerated toward the distant fence line, running over several bodies in the process. The pack of cars was heading for the distant hangars at high speed.
Merritt glanced around at the carnage surrounding Building Twenty-Nine. There were bodies, streaks of blood, burning vehicles, and debris littering the tarmac. Columns of black smoke billowed skyward. There wasn’t a guard in sight-or any intact unmanned vehicles for that matter. They had all left with Loki.
Merritt spotted a racing motorcycle parked along the wall in the staff parking lot. He rushed over to it and searched for keys-nothing. He slung his UMP over his back and pulled his Berretta pistol, aiming it at the ignition lock. He turned his head away.
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