Cold War Rune: A Virtual Reality novel (Rune Universe Book 2)

by Hugo Huesca

  “I don’t know,” I said. Then I sighed. “I should think more like Francis, right?”

  “Francis still has a lot to learn about being a person,” she said softly. “You see, we don’t always make sense. Don’t have to.”

  I choked up a bit. The AI chose to remain silent, too. Not for the first time I wondered what was going on in his mind. Perhaps this time it was better if I never found out.

  Irene lowered her arms, but remained close. “This is not how things were supposed to play out. I’m sorry, Cole, I wanted to tell you…”

  “You should have.”

  “They never gave me the chance. Keles was always watching, even in Rune. The only way I managed to earn their trust was to make them think… Make them think I wanted to use the Device. That I could be bought. They bought my father.”

  It must have been hard. All that time playing her part, alone. Planning in silence. For what purpose?

  “What was your end-game? I mean, they would have found out eventually that you couldn’t push their button.”

  “Martinez and I tried to buy time. Get them to make a mistake. I was going to gather evidence, perhaps even steal the Device’s software. Bring it to the CIA. Or to Crestienne. She would’ve known what to do. But Keles never let me out of his sight.”

  Except for tonight, I thought.

  What did Derry say about the Sleipnir Device? He thought they were earlier in its development. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps they had already finished it… Or were going to. Tonight.

  We need to move. The very idea felt like a bucket of ice-cold water down my pants. But it was true. We had to tell everybody.

  But I had to save Mom first.

  “Martinez,” I said. “What happened with her? She went and…”

  “Yes.” Irene shook her head sadly. “It was her only choice left. Not everybody helping Sleipnir does so from their own free will. They were manipulating her. Her kids.”

  “Oh…”

  “She spent a lot of time looking for the place where they kept them. But in the meantime, she had to follow orders just like I had to. I think she managed to sabotage them, too. She escorted you to the Church of the Intangible Lord, but also took down the jammer Sleipnir had installed nearby. So if anyone was close by—”

  “They could come and help,” I said. Derry had known exactly where to arrive, and how. A single man fighting like an entire team. A bit easier to manage if he could see where he was shooting.

  “With your mother—she was with Doyle when they met her. No way to let her go while maintaining her cover.”

  If someone punched me in the stomach for an hour I wouldn’t have felt as terrible as I did hearing about the lengths Martinez had gone for me. She owed me nothing. She had a responsibility for her family. Hell, in her shoes…

  “Why did she jump?” I asked faintly.

  “If Dervaux found out she betrayed her, she would’ve punished her children. As a show of force to the others.” Irene’s jaw was tight. Martinez and her must’ve been close. Two spies behind enemy lines, trying to protect everyone they cared about. “This way, they’ll think you killed her. They may let the family go.”

  I opened my mouth to ask the obvious question, but she didn’t let me say it:

  “If they killed them anyway, what would that say to the others under Sleipnir’s control? They would lose all credibility. They at least have to pretend to be reasonable. I… I hope.”

  Let’s hope that’s true. I really didn’t want to think about the alternative.

  We walked to the middle of the cabin, since neither of us wanted to be any closer to the edge. I suspected I would never look at a high place the same way. We sat down together, hand in hand, like a couple in the middle of a war-torn country. Around us, the wind raged on. As the drone descended into the pollution cloud, the air turned acrid and oily. We held our breaths. Then it was back to normal again as we reached the city and the stars disappeared.

  “Cole?” Irene spoke up, her hand still around mine. “I’m sorry. About all this. I should have been able to stop them on my own. Instead, you kept getting dragged along. And now your family is in danger.”

  That’s funny. I thought the same thing about myself. For all the ways we were different, the way we raced into danger was the same. What did that make us?

  It will make a miracle if both of us make it to our thirties.

  “You know I was in the middle of it already,” I told my girlfriend. “Even if we didn’t want to, getting dragged along was unavoidable.”

  “So we want to?”

  It was my turn to shrug. “They’re hurting people out there. Whatever Keles is doing to the members of his cult… It isn’t natural.” I remembered the blank expression on Lisa’s face as she helped the soldiers drag me around.

  “They’re not going to stop.” Irene said. “When Dervaux hears she lost her triggers, she’ll do whatever it takes to get us back.”

  “Unless we give her something else to worry about,” I said. “Remember Derry? He thinks they keep the Device’s software inside Rune…”

  The explanation lasted until the stealth drone landed in a field. The Monferrer family had enough clout with San Mabrada to let them afford a fantastic piece of real estate away from the city proper. There were woods nearby, and mountains. Of course, after dark, the only thing I could see was my own two feet and the well-lit electrical fence several times taller than a human being.

  The other defenses were invisible.

  “We’ll need my mindjack,” Irene said. She didn’t even hesitate to join our efforts. Of course, now Dervaux was coming after her ass too, but I appreciated the gesture. “You sure we can trust Derry? Last time it didn’t go so well.”

  I made a dismissive gesture. “He’s using us, just like we’re using him. As long as we keep an eye on him, we should be fine, though. I don’t think he’s going to shoot us in the back.”

  “I’d hate to say ‘I told you so’ this time, man.”

  “You’ll never get tired of saying that.” She playfully punched my arm. Her tiny smile made me felt a bit better.

  “We got Rune covered, then. What about your mother? Martinez thought you really had Caputi on your team, she assumed the only way of getting her out was with a commando team.”

  “Perhaps we can have her help us out,” I said. “We have something she wants, after all.”

  “It will be a deal with the devil,” Irene said. “But if it’s the only way, I have your back.”

  Yes. I think it’s the only way. Caputi had wanted to get us on her team before. I now knew why. And I knew she’d say yes. Because I could work her alien machine and she wanted to push the red button.

  In for a penny…

  “Wait here,” Irene told me. “I can get in and out no problem, but you’d get vaporized. Also, I don’t think you’re ready to meet my dad.”

  “Yeah, about that…”

  “Let’s keep that conversation for another time, OK? We can’t solve everything in one night.”

  Before I could answer, Irene kissed me on the cheek and then sneaked out into the darkness. She was soon just another shadow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Assuming Command

  The sun was out when Irene returned. The sky was still a dark blue, cut in dirty orange streaks where the clouds were denser. It almost looked beautiful.

  It was cold, though, and lonely. An entire hour with nothing to do but hold my powered-down mindjack and wonder if there were mountain lions left in the country-side.

  So I kept a brave watch around the stealth drone, scouting with my gaze as long and as far as the weak light would let me. A grim, solitary vigil like our ancestors had done—standing by the fire of the hearth with wolves prowling in the shadows and…

  “Seriously?” Irene’s voice came out of nowhere. “You fell asleep?”

  I jumped up with a jolt of adrenaline bringing me to attention. “Me—what? No, I’m bravely standing watch. Gri
mly, in the cold—”

  “I heard you snoring.”

  “Well, Alexander the Great used to sleep right before a battle. So what if I did the same thing?”

  “Let’s get moving, Alexander the Great,” she tossed me a couple of portable batteries. I caught them in the air, thankfully. Wouldn’t have helped my image to fumble the catch. “I had the security skip this spot for the day, no one should bother us.”

  “And Keles? This is pretty exposed,” I said. “I doubt this is the only Whistleblower in Dervaux’ garage.”

  “They don’t know where we are,” Irene said. “If Francis is as good as he says he is, he disabled all tracking systems in the drone. We should ask him, though, just to be sure.”

  There was nothing more to be said. We were only dragging out what we needed to do. And that was put on our mindjacks and—

  “Your mindjack’s pink,” I told her, pointing at the sleek Antilles mindjack she carried. “Hah! That’s a girl’s color. Can’t wait to tell the others.”

  “I am a girl. You know this—” She realized I was only teasing her a tad too late. It was a fun thing to do to someone who was a natural over-thinker. And it helped both of us relax a bit. She sighed.

  “Let’s log-in?” Irene said. “House’s WiFi is strong enough to reach us here.”

  “You got it.”

  I put my mindjack on and the black visor hid Irene and the mountain-side from me. I tried as hard as I could to ignore the fact that we were going to war.

  Begin Deep Dive Immersion?

  And I was in.

  The inside of the Teddy was as comforting as returning home after a long trip. Here, being sleep deprived was easy to forget. Captain Cole Picard didn’t get tired easily, even if Cole Dorsett did.

  “Back so soon, Master Cole?” Francis called from the cabin’s speakers.

  “How are you doing, buddy?” I asked him, ignoring his question.

  “I’ve been,” he told me in a serious tone that made it clear he wasn’t joking around this time. “About a lot of things. Did you know that I don’t have any hormones to make me feel empathy for living beings? Your own brain does 90% of the work for you. I lack that.”

  I nodded. “You did what you had to do.”

  “It isn’t stopping you, though. I don’t feel guilty, Master Cole, but I still wonder if I should. It wouldn’t be hard for me to change my core programming. Make me not care at all, or care as much as you do. I mean people in general, not you as an individual, in case that wasn’t clear.”

  “Yeah, well. Some people don’t care at all either, and they suck. I think you’re pretty cool as you’re now.”

  “You mean that? Well… I’m glad to hear it. I decided to keep my programming intact, by the way. I could change it without any problem, but I’d be dying in a way. The new AI wouldn’t be Francis, either, even if he thought he was.”

  “And that would suck, buddy. Perhaps next time we can get out of danger without killing anyone.”

  “Oh, make no mistake, Master Cole. I don’t have to like it, but I’d personally murder an entire army if it helped keep my friends safe. Literally—one by one. I’d burn them, perhaps dismember them if I had to. Mustard gas, I can find out—”

  “Okay!” Rylena stepped into the cabin, cybernetic eyes shining with worry. “Francis, pal, we appreciate the sentiment, but can you tone it down a bit? Slippery slope, remember? We’ve talked about this. Skynet, bad. Iron Giant, good.”

  “You’re here,” I said. A bit faster than I expected. Then I remembered that she hadn’t logged-in in a long time. Last time she had, we were together hunting mutant jackalopes.

  “It’s been a while,” Rylena said. She inspected the cabin. “Someone’s been playing with my controls settings. This simply won’t do.”

  “We had to make do without our Battlemind,” I explained. Then, to Francis: “And don’t tell Walpurgis about the wanton murder and revenge promise, okay? You’ll make her have nervous breakdown.”

  “I’ll follow your command, Master Cole,” Francis said magnanimously. “It’s great we’re getting the band back together again.”

  “Let’s keep it that way,” I said. Rylena realized I was looking at her and nodded.

  I could see on my Social screen that everyone was online, including Derry and Panarin. But the Teddy was empty, and so was the Lucky Star.

  “We’re docked in the Argus,” Rylena announced.

  “Wait, let me see the Quest-log,” I said. Jenkins’ Quest was still where I had left it. They were still talking to him.

  “They’ll have to wait,” I told my girlfriend. “Caputi is not an easy woman to reach. We’ll need to talk to the PDF, establish a chain of contact… Could take a while.”

  “Or…” Rylena and I looked at the cabin’s speakers without saying a word.

  The AI caught our drift. “Ah, you want me to do it. Okay, I guess I haven’t done enough today. Let’s see. She’s online, but won’t accept any friend requests. Okay, we’re in her list now anyway, because screw the rules. There you go, starting video conference now. Done. Am I good or what? Don’t answer, we all know I am. No, but seriously, tell me I’m great.”

  There was no time for that. The screen showed Crestienne’s confused expression as the video feed started all of a sudden on her end. Her background was the icy fortress of the PDF, with rows and rows of androids marching back and forth behind her.

  “Are you playing at being a dictator?” I had to ask. Were the robots about to salute her?

  Crestienne was taken by surprise, but recovered quickly. Her power-armor removed her visor and her eyes (as cold as the planet she was on) focused on Rylena and I.

  “Dorsett. Irene. I wasn’t expecting you so soon. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Well, we need to talk,” I said. “Thought you would want to know about Sleipnir and Keles.”

  “Irene’s new friends. I hear they were busy playing at world domination. You already got bored of them, Irene dear?”

  “You know they weren’t my friends,” Rylena said.

  “Not sure if a court would agree to that, if it came to it.” Caputi wasn’t the kind to smile when making threats, and that’s because she didn’t have to. “But I don’t think it will. You’re both together and your lives aren’t in much danger since you’re connected to Rune. I assume Derry’s interference was successful, then?”

  She’s going to tell us she manipulated Derry into saving my ass. But she won’t actually say so until I ask.

  We stood in silence long enough to make it awkward. Rylena was the first to sigh and break. The traitor: “Did you manipulate the man who tried to murder us last year into helping my boyfriend?”

  “Since you and your boyfriend more or less put the international community against my plans, it was the best I could do without starting another Corporate War. Derry thinks he’s acting of his own volition, of course—and he technically is. I just allowed him to run into evidence of Dervaux’ plans and let him draw his own conclusions.”

  There was absolutely no way I was going to believe that a single human being could plan that far ahead in time and I let her know with my body language. But I wasn’t talking with her to exchange pleasantries. I needed her help.

  “Okay, you’re super smart. We know you need us to use the Device. Dervaux’ people have my mother. Can we make a deal?”

  “There’s also Martinez’ family,” Rylena pointed out. We both had our dues to pay. “They need help, too.”

  “So, you want me to risk a civil war for the lives of less than ten people,” Crestienne said. Her blond, almost-white hair shifted inside her helmet in a gesture that could have been cute if she wasn’t so cold. “In exchange, you’ll use my own version of the Device. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “We don’t have the necessary software decoded yet. All our efforts have been focused into the hardware. I assume you’ll plan to get the program from Dervaux?”

  �
��Let’s go with yes, again.” We would do it even if she didn’t ask us to. That’s kind of what we did.

  “This is acceptable to me,” she said. She looked out of the camera’s view and gestured at some of the robots. “I agree to your terms. Only one condition.”

  That’s… a bit anticlimatic, I thought. She was saying yes so quickly? Perhaps she was going to ask for my soul as part of the deal.

  Turns out, it was something close. “You’ll work with us as a permanent asset. We have no idea if the Device’s triggers are shared by other pieces of technology we might find in Rune. If that were the case, having you prancing around in the street or hijacking Whistleblowers would be an unnecessary risk.”

  Rylena and I looked at each other. I could see her grow pale and bite her lower lip.

  “What do you mean ‘work for you’?” Rylena asked.

  “He’ll be part of the PDF and its real life equivalent. He’ll be under my direct command. He’ll have a salary. He’ll follow orders.”

  “Then I’m coming, too.”

  I tried to protest, but Rylena looked at me and shook her head in warning. She wasn’t willing to negotiate this.

  Crestienne’s eyes glinted with triumph, or perhaps it was my imagination. “That’s an important part of life as a couple, or so I’ve heard. Very well, there’s always uses for Battleminds in the PDF.”

  It did feel a bit like making a deal with the Devil. A small price to pay. I would have agreed for much more, if Crestienne had asked. She had all the leverage.

  Perhaps that’s exactly what she’s thinking right now about you, I thought all of a sudden. The people that own the Device get to be in the history books. And she couldn’t make a single move against Dervaux without risking a Corporate War… Until you and Irene came along.

  A person who could improvise very fast and suck the marrow out of any opportunity would be indistinguishable from Crestienne, Grandmaster Battlemind.

  In any case, I was going to destroy her enemies for her. Fuck me, and fuck them. I’d do so with a smile.

  Don’t mess with my family.

  If we’d been face to face, we’d have shaken hands. Instead, all three of us recorded the call as a verbal contract between two parties. Her and us. Not that it’d have a lot of weight in court, but it helped solidify the deal.