by H. J. Pang
They were going to stop the decryption. After all his hard work, these ignorant fucks were going to put an end to all that! How could they understand that the fate of many outweighs the fate of a few useless kids? La-Zu was tempted to leap out of his hiding space, and do whatever it took to defend his brainchild. Not that it would mean much, and the two guards would easily cut him down where he stood.
One of the 418 soldiers had fallen right next to edge of the grille opening. La-Zu’s eyes picked up the M110 Sniper rifle hanging over the edge. Equipped with both long range scope along with iron-sights for close combat, La-Zu knew the semi-automatic weapon was loaded with 7.62mm armour-piercing rounds. More than enough to deal with these armoured thugs. Getting up slowly from where he sat, La-Zu prised the weapon strap away from the dead guard, ignoring the clatter of the gun over the railing. He would have to take care of the two guards first. Having been connected to the console, the third won’t be able to respond.
These ignorants would pay.
“Did you hear that?” asked Major Shang suddenly, his eyes sweeping the room. Greg thought he had heard a clattering, but with the slight hum that dominated the whole place, he had dismissed it as background noise.
He caught a quick movement out of the corner of his eye. Trying to throw himself to the side, Greg instead stumbled against the cover he had braced against instead. Even as he tried to bring up his oh-so-heavy SAW, he knew he would never be able to fire first.
Major Shang moved faster than Greg could imagine, darting before him. The roar of several shots rang out, and Greg felt the Major fall back onto him, bringing him down in a heap.
La-Zu turned his gun on Wesley, just as Greg brought his own up. Two shots rang out as one.
Wesley yelled, and all at once, the children in the circle shuddered together with him. Heart rate sensors beeped, and several of them meandered out into a flat line. Greg’s target fell backward with a gurgle, his rifle falling with a clatter on the ground. An alarm sounded in the far distance, and Greg then knew somehow, the condition of the server’s subjects was linked to the call for reinforcements. Yells sounded in the sealed door beyond.
“Leave me! I’ll be fine!” Wesley said through gritted teeth. He pulled out another syrette of neurostimulant, jabbing the needle into his neck. Greg checked on the kids. A few appear to have died, presumably because of the neural dump Wesley’s injury gave them. But Jin appeared to be fine, if only for his heart rate becoming far more erratic. The disengagement percentage progress on the screen seemed to increase faster, and Greg knew that with several kids dead, less minds would have to be entangled from their mental slavery. Which meant that if he were to shoot several more kids, Jin had a good chance …
A choking noise caught his attention, and Greg turned his attention towards it. Here, Major Shang lay dying, while he contemplated murder most foul? These kids belonged to other parents just like him. He rushed towards his compatriot, who now slumped against one of the processor units. As Greg knelt beside him, drawing a first aid dressing, he already knew the injury was far more than he could handle. From the amount of blood pooling out from the front of the Major’s chest where his armour plate was, he didn’t have long. As Greg tried to remove the Major’s vest, he grasped Greg’s hand and pulled him close.
“After you save the kids … take good care of Guo Li …” He choked.
“I will, Major,” assured Greg, fighting hard against the Major’s grip. “Just let me wrap up your wound …”
The Major’s grip tightened so hard that Greg gasped. “Promise me!”
Greg didn’t know how things would be like after all this was over. Will it be truly over, for that matter? After he had saved his son, and Wesley got what he came for, the 418 would be after them all. Not even the Old Guard could stand against their might. But Major Shang and his men had risked all they had to help him, and it would be remiss to turn away from what they stood for: protection of the innocent.
If he could take care of two kids before, he could do it again.
“I promise.” With that, Major Shang smiled, and closed his eyes.
The door to the server room groaned open, mechanical motors straining against underused roller bearings. Through the gap in the door that had formed, a familiar war chant of the 418 could be heard.
The Dragon snakes his coils around,
The Phoenix dances forth!
The Dragon chases the Pearl around,
The Phoenix is reborn!
With a breath almighty cold,
Like the Dragon we purge our foes!
Dragon Head! Dragon Head!
We fight in your name!
To purify, to conquer,
To absolve of shame …
Greg shouldered the sling of his SAW, a sense of calm emanating through him. He should be exhausted, having spent much of the night awake and without rest. But all things considered, what he was about to face was nothing compared to what he had braved so far. When this was over, there was so much he could teach Jin. And Guo Li too.
He just had to survive a little longer. Greg ducked behind one of the processors facing the steadily-opening door, and fired upon the advancing enemy.
The Code was the Law, and the Law was To Exist.
For years, Wesley had partaken in the sermons the Administrator gave his flock. Though it emphasised belief in the intangible rather than physical, Wesley always kept a foot in both worlds. After all, how could the Code exist without a physical vessel to broadcast itself? Even after the Implants of Transcending Reception had been installed within his cranium, Wesley was not without belief that the physical world held as much value as the digital. Which is why he understood Greg’s need to recover his son.
It was no easy task trying to untangle the security protocols associated with each kid. Intentional or not, every mind connected to the digital realm exhibited some degree of resistance when one attempted to access it. Coupled with the fact that these kids had been beaten and tortured by their captors. This subconscious fear increases one’s resistance to intrusion, and Wesley was sure that the 418 scientists must have known that, if only by accident.
Being fired upon disrupted his concentration, but the connection Wesley had established in the minds of the children caused them to share his intense pain. A number of them died from the shock outright, while the rest screamed and writhed. The feeling of despair and unfairness their neural dumps routed threatened to disengage his own cortex processors, and it was all Wesley could do to inject a neurorelaxant into himself, and apply pressure to his wound. He needed his entire concentration if this was to work.
Not that he wasn’t aware of what went on around him. He could see and hear Greg composing himself as he made one last promise to Major Shang, not just from where he stood, but from multiple angles. Wesley could see the 418 soldiers massed outside a huge door in great detail, complete with their tattoos and equipment, and it was then that he realised he had gotten access to the compound’s intranet. Through that, he got access to the security cameras, though the total number of visible feeds were incomplete.
The children were not just decryption proxies. They also had the network key installed inside them. And when a few of them died, parts of the data making up the key had been transferred to all of them, including him. Which meant that he now had partial access to the server, but not yet that of Network Administrator.
Wesley knew he could use a worm to pry the network key off the children, but that would result in neural breakdown, giving rise to brain death. Although he was sure the other members of his brotherhood would not hesitate, the fact that he had known a kid in person would make it a personal betrayal if he did.
Steeling his mind, he knew he had another, less pleasant choice. The sharing of minds was done during the daily communion back in the Sanctum, where the members of the Brotherhood put their minds together via wired connection to a server chatroom. The theory behind it was to ensure everyone could motivate each other towards a common g
oal. It may work, given time, but the fact that everyone had their own wants, desires and hates so different from his made it a rather uncomfortable process. And now he had to do it with kids. Wesley barely remembered his childhood, but he did remember how boisterous and full of life children were whenever his relatives came over during major holidays before The Storm. They were always talking twenty to the dozen, clambering over his furniture, and messing with his computer’s wired connections and encryption devices his workplace let him use. It had cost him years of building the perfect workstation.
No time like the present. Wesley steeled himself as he opened a firewall to the children, fragmented thoughts washing over him. Hopefully, these strangers would be more helpful than his relatives’ brats ever were.
Greg gritted his teeth as he fell back behind cover, a long trail of blood running down his arm. The 418 soldiers coming through the door were relentless, and for several he put down, more took their place. A wild shot had gone through his unprotected arm, and it was all Greg could do not to falter in his defence. Several 418 troopers had even rushed in with ballistic shields, but two of the Major’s grenades had made short work of them, leaving them writhing and screaming on the floor. Sometime in the last three minutes, the electronic door had started closing. Only a few of the 418 soldiers had made it inside before it shut completely, but Greg knew his position was precarious. The 418 soldiers had dug in behind cover, and flushing them out would be far too risky, especially with his injury. Already some of them laid covering fire upon him, their loud echoes bouncing off the magnetically-shielded walls. Right across Greg was Major Shang, his lifeless eyes staring back at Greg.
No more foes could enter the server room, but for all it mattered, the place was already gone. He alone couldn’t take on the few 418 that made it inside, especially when he was down to about 15 rounds of ammo, according to his translucent magazine. He had the Major’s P228 pistol, but that wouldn’t be of much use even against light body armour. Wesley shook erratically, the protocols of the server fast taking a toll on his mind. Meanwhile, one of the 418 soldiers had gained ground, peering around at Wesley.
Greg couldn’t risk him getting shot. Not with his son in there, not with Wesley still alive. “Get down, Wesley!” he yelled, yanking his last grenade out from a pouch.
The digital world has a different perception of time. With the extremely high speed of processing, every hour spent inside it could feel like an entire year, or two. Which goes to say that the last few minutes inside felt like weeks.
There were a lot of things one could do with so much time and bandwidth. With several enthusiastic kids helping out, that speed is multiplied. Picobytes upon picobytes of data that would take the fastest computers hours to process took only the space of minutes.
Wesley knew he may not survive, but he had done all he can.
The wall to the control room exploded, taking Greg by surprise. Everything was thrown about by the force of the shockwave—corpses, fighters, cultist and 418 alike. Greg coughed and made to open his eyes, but the haze of dust caused him to blink in futility. His ballistic goggles had come loose in the chaos.
Dark figures swept into the room, the room’s lighting flashing sporadically. The emergency lighting flicked on, illuminating the room with a red glow, giving the newcomers an almost supernatural appearance. As Greg made to get up, one of the figures shoved him back down with a boot, pinning him to the debris-lined floor. The barrel of a battle rifle pressed against his neck, stilling whatever resistance he had remaining. His head already turned to the right, Greg could only watch on as several of the figures kicked a motionless Wesley. In the brief flickers of the main lighting, Greg could see that the newcomers were decked out in what had to be the best armour and weapons in the wasteland. What looked to be black ceramic scales outlined in red covered their forms from head to toe, and Greg was willing to bet few weapons in the wasteland could hope to pierce it. In their hands were an assortment of Belgian-made SCAR-Hs, which Greg knew had to be pilfered from a commando camp or that of an elite police unit. The 418 soldiers that managed to make it into the control room earlier knelt before them.
“We give our respects to the Dragon Head and Teeth!” announced one of the soldiers, a senior 49er, if Greg could guess from his scarred appearance.
“Your orders were to capture the control room,” spoke a voice among the scaled figures. “You have however failed. Only the strong survive.”
“Only the strong survive!” intoned the scaled troopers. The control room was lit up by the harsh staccato of gunfire. The 418 failures fell to the ground, and Greg did all he could not to gasp. This guy just ordered his own men killed. He only had to imagine how he would treat his enemies.
Out of the group stepped a figure. He wore robes of the blackest silk, with numerous red dragon motifs interspersed throughout it. He grew out a beard that would have been long out of fashion before The Storm, and eyes that were crueller than anyone Greg had seen. Before he even spoke, Greg knew this had to be the leader of the 418. How could it not be? No one else would be escorted by fighters with equipment that would eclipse even a modern pre-Storm army. A bodyguard pulled Greg’s helmet off, and the Dragon Head snapped his fingers.
A man was brought before them, hands bound behind him. Though his hair was now dishevelled, and his skin stained with grime and layers upon layers of dried blood, Greg recognised him still.
It was Lantern, his nighttime guide through the labs of the 418.
“Do you recognise this man, Lantern?” asked the Dragon Head almost lazily. He had taken to twirling his pistol around his index finger. It wasn’t a model Greg recognised. Custom-made too, if the reflex sight and red matt finish was any indication.
“Yes, Dragon Ho,” coughed Lantern. Greg stared defiantly back at him.
“Look carefully. I’d really hate to kill the wrong guy,” droned Dragon Ho. “Is he or is he not?”
Lantern’s eyes bored into Greg’s face, such that he was tempted to damn it all and make one last fight for it.
“I’m positive, Dragon Ho. This is the one that infiltrated The Mountain, and forced me to take him to the labs.”
“That’ll be all.” Dragon Ho raised his pistol and fired.
Lantern collapsed with barely a sound, not even a gurgle. The bodyguards caught hold of him, throwing him beside Greg. Greg thought his time had come, but still Dragon Ho toyed with him. The 418 leader stepped before him, looking disdainfully at his prone self.
“There are many things you can tell about someone through their eyes,” said Dragon Ho. “The lies they keep, the anger they harbour. Even their penchant for vengeance. I see all of that in you.
You were most resourceful too, if your exploits are to be believed, but I have but one question. What made you do all of this? Self-righteousness? The wish to upsurp my rule? I didn’t think so.”
Greg would have contended with a “fuck you”, but he wasn’t ready to die just yet. “You took my son away. I’ve come to get him back.”
“So that’s what it was.” Dragon Ho nodded. “A quest of retrieval, much like the stories of old. But at great risk you put your life to find him. It could have resulted in you lying dead on a highway, alone and forgotten. It could have resulted in you being a victim of the barbarians that roam the highways. Your son might not even have been alive anymore, for that matter. Did you think that you, a mere slave miner, could hope to face off against the 418 empire and win? All that you had done was for naught.” With that, Dragon Ho fired at the children lying around the console. Each and every one of them jerked from the force of the shot, heads slumping to their sides.
“No!” yelled Greg. He made to move, but one of the bodyguards held him down. He would have thrown him off and charged Dragon Ho, but this guy was far too strong. It was like trying to move a tank. Despair seeped into him as he realised he would never talk to Jin again, never get to hold him as he went to sleep.
“What you feel is but a fraction of the
pain you have caused me,” hissed Dragon Ho. “All we had been working towards, to rebuild a new world, set back by the stupidity of just one individual! Don’t you understand? Your son means nothing! People mean nothing! Without the knowledge of the world before, what does it matter if people live like rats in a hole? All my people are doing is change all that for the better, and yet your ignorance set us back by a margin of a few years! But no matter, once the Old Guard are finished, there won’t be anyone to stand against us.”
When I shout, run towards the door, said a voice in Greg’s head.
What? thought Greg, wondering if he had imagined it. Dragon Ho levered his pistol at Greg’s head, and Greg could hardly make out his words in his fear.
“I will live in The Cloud!” yelled a voice, and everyone’s heads jerked towards Wesley. The acolyte had both his hands clutched around what had to be a telescopic antenna, and Greg immediately knew who had spoken in his mind. Summoning the last of his strength, he sprung upright, shoving his armoured guard before him.
Explosions rang out in the room beyond where they stood, followed by an enormous one from Wesley, engulfing everything around in a ball of fire. Greg felt himself sliding backwards with the guard he held against him as a shield, his back slamming hard against a wall. His back hurt, his body hurt, but he remembered what he had been told. The emergency lights of the room flickered on and off, and the sound of rushing water could be heard.
The whole place was starting to flood, no doubt from a burst pipe. Already he could hear splashes of water where Dragon’s Teeth bodyguards staggered from the aftereffects of the blast. Shoving his scorched, smoking guard to the ground, Greg dashed towards the electronic door to the room, which appeared to have been partially blown open. 418 soldiers that had been waiting to enter lay in the hallway beyond, stunned or mangled by the explosive charges. He chanced a glance at where Wesley was, and with great regret, saw only a blast mark and what remained of his gear.