by Dan Koboldt
Logan got to the command center just in time to hear Kiara give the launch order. Six missiles, one second apart. They whined as they streaked around the island, a six-fingered claw of airborne destruction. The drone shifted back and forth as they targeted and homed in. Maybe its defenses couldn’t handle that many.
The screech was high-pitched and deafening. It came from every speaker, every surveillance system at once.
“What is that?” Kiara shouted.
“Jamming signal!” Logan said. He ran to the window.
Four of the missiles went down like stones. Another one peeled away and diverted back toward the control tower.
Shit.
“Take cover!” he shouted.
He dove behind the console closest to him. The detonation rocked the floor under him. Incredibly, the Plexiglas windows had held. He regained his feet. Most of the surveillance cameras had gone all snowy on them.
Radar was still up, though, and it tracked the last missile. It was making a wide circuit of the island.
“What’s it doing?” Kiara said.
“Looking for a target.”
The biggest heat signature came from the cooling units behind the central complex. The missile bore down on these and exploded. A light warhead, but that was sure to have taken out the condensers.
“There goes the A/C,” Logan said.
Kiara got on the radio. “Shut down nonessential systems. Everything but the computing cores.”
People could sweat. Hard drives could not.
Right around then, Logan looked out the window and saw that the residential building was gone. “What the hell?”
“What now?” Kiara demanded.
“The residential building’s gone.”
“Flattened?”
He grabbed a pair of binoculars. The area where the building had been was just empty, bare rock face. Like nothing had ever been there at all. “No—just . . . gone.” He looked up and then the warehouse was gone, too. “Shit, the warehouse!”
Kiara was at the window, too. “Did you see an impact?”
“No. It just disappeared. Like a . . .” He trailed off, and he figured it out. “Like a goddamn magic trick.”
“Bradley,” she said.
“Has to be.”
The outer buildings went first, then the inner ones. And it worked, too. The drone was almost in rifle range.
“Did they have any luck getting the specs for this bird?” Logan asked.
“Right here,” Kiara said. She unfolded a set of blueprints that had probably been acquired at exorbitant expense through company intermediaries. They both pored over them, looking for weak points.
“Here’s the comm array,” Logan said. But a metal dome housed that, and he doubted they’d be able to punch through.
“What about these?” Kiara asked. She ran a fingernail on the wires beneath it, the ones that ran from the comms to the drone’s body.
“Going to be a small target,” Logan said.
“It’s all we’ve got.”
Logan got on the radio. “Mendez, you raided the armory yet?”
“I’m here now,” Mendez said.
“Get a sniper rifle, too,” Logan said. “Highest caliber you can find. See you in the bunkers in five.”
“Roger that,” Mendez said.
“Good hunting,” Kiara said.
Logan ran down two flights of stairs and followed the tunnel to the foxholes that peppered the cliffs above the shoreline. Mendez was there with a few men, getting set up. Logan took the sniper rifle. The others had M4s. They opened fire. Not like crazy cowboys, but with each one taking aim, squeezing off a burst. Every shot was plinking off drone metal.
Logan went for the junction, guessing at where those wires would be. This one’s for my girls. . .
He put his shot right in the tiny gap. The drone lurched sideways for three wonderful seconds. Then it righted itself, and decided then to take them seriously.
One of Mendez’s men was on the spotting scope, watching the drone for any sign of damage. “Shit!” he said. “Gun port just opened.”
Logan recognized the sound right away. A distant percussion, then the whizz of the incoming round.
“RPG!” he shouted. He and the spotter hit the floor of their foxhole. The first detonation hit the roof, and others rapidly followed. The entire hillside housing their positions erupted in a storm of shrapnel and white smoke.
Mendez had the presence of mind to jump on the fixed-position M2 with hopes of jamming the drone’s weapon. Good old Ma Deuce delivered four hundred and fifty rounds per minute of 0.50 caliber armor-piercing bullets.
Rounds that plink-plinked off the drone’s shielded exterior.
What the hell is that thing made of?
“Gatling—” said the spotter. Then a hail of bullets cut him practically in half. Logan yanked Mendez away from the M2 a second before the Gatling ripped it to shreds.
“Cease fire!” Logan shouted. They needed a new plan.
The radio crackled. “Logan, come in.”
What the hell does the magician need now? “Not a good time, Bradley.”
“Can you bring the drone a couple hundred yards south?”
“Why would I do that?”
“To put it within range of the mangonels.”
The siege machines? He seriously doubted that they’d make a difference, but it was worth a try. They certainly weren’t having luck with modern weaponry, and it had been Quinn’s trick that had gotten the drone close enough in the first place.
“Give me three minutes,” Logan said. He climbed out of the foxhole and took off running before he could really think through what a bad idea it probably was. He still wore the dark fatigues from under his armor. Not a bit of Kevlar on him, and the color would show up clear as day against the sandy hillside. The drone picked him up and began firing. He dove behind a rock at the sound of the Gatling gun. There was another bunker just up the hill, nearly on the south face. One more sprint should do it.
He took off again as the drone switched to RPGs.
Boom!
Ten yards behind him.
Boom!
Another one in front. Probably meant to turn him around, but he kept charging forward. Clouds of sand billowed in his face, and he could barely see, and it didn’t take long until he was stumbling. Then his boot caught on something and he fell hard. It was the edge of the bunker. He managed to roll himself in before the next RPG hit.
“Get ready, Bradley,” he said over the radio.
He threw open the weapons locker and found an M4 on the rack.
He smiled. “Hello, old friend.”
He crawled into a prone position, easing the barrel around the edge of the bunker’s window until he could just see the drone’s rotor. He started firing at it. Plink, plink, plink. The .223 caliber rounds had zero chance of penetrating the drone’s armor; at best, he could hope to annoy it.
But annoying gets your attention. Just ask Bradley, he thought to himself.
Plink, plink, plink.
“Come on, you bastard,” he said. “Come around for a better shot.”
The drone obliged him.
Quinn watched Logan’s desperate run with binoculars. He made the bunker by a hair. Then he started shooting back. Rounds sparked off the rotor housing, more annoying to the drone than anything. After a few rounds the drone tilted slightly and glided south. Right into the designated kill zone.
Way to go, Logan. “Here it comes!” Quinn shouted.
Miller himself called out the marks. “Sixteen degrees, range four hundred yards.”
The crews made adjustments. “Set!”
“Set!”
The wind died at just the right time.
Chaudri was spotting for them throu
gh a pair of binoculars. “Little bit more, little bit more.” Then she shouted, “Fire!”
The arms of the mangonels snapped forward; a hail of heavy stones filled the air. Quinn watched them arc through the sky, impossibly slow compared to the bullets slamming into Logan’s bunker. But the rocks fell short, and the drone didn’t even notice them. Damn.
“Fifteen degrees!” the crew chief called.
“Set!”
Chaudri was watching. “Fire!”
The mangonels launched another volley. Here we go again. This wasn’t going to work. What had he been thinking?
The engineers had the range perfect this time, though. The projectiles rained down on the drone. It shuddered under the impact, losing altitude. Hell, maybe he was right after all. Time to finish this.
“Trebuchets,” Quinn said over the radio. The engineers signaled that they were ready. He raised his arm, trying to predict where the drone would end up. Its rotors made a horrific noise, like the screech of an old car starting up in cold weather, but so far they’d held. The craft banked just so. He brought his arm down sharply. “Fire!”
Counterweights dropped. Two great arms rotated in a great thwump, slinging twin seven-hundred-and-fifty-pound stones in high arcs. They flew over the mangonels, over the wall . . .
“Damn, overshot it,” Quinn said.
Then the stones hit their apogee and dropped straight down. Slammed right onto the wings of the Raptor Tech drone. It plummeted beneath them and crashed with the horrific screech of wrenching metal.
Quinn pumped his arm in the air. “Yesss!” The engineers saw it and gave a yell of triumph. He hugged Chaudri and slapped the chief engineer on the back. They shook hands, laughing.
Logan’s voice crackled on the radio. “Now that, Bradley, was magic.”
“Magicians don’t have to be smart. But it sure helps.”
—ART OF ILLUSION, DECEMBER 29
CHAPTER 26
LEVERAGE
The good news was that the drone was down. The bad news was Thorisson had escaped during the chaos. Surveillance footage showed him being escorted down a hallway toward the holding cells. An explosion hit, and the lights went out. When they came back on, both guards were down and Thorisson was no longer in frame.
That was right about when Kiara had ordered the nonessential computing shutdown, and the cameras had stopped recording. A comprehensive search two hours after the drone’s destruction turned up only his old clothes and a missing Zodiac raft. There was no water cavalry to call in since they’d kept most of the company boats away while the drone controlled their sea lanes, so pursuit was basically impossible.
Company executives put out a BOLO, leveraging their contacts at the ports and travel centers. Thorisson would turn up soon enough. Or not—the island was pretty far from everything, and the Zodiac wasn’t really designed for cross-ocean voyages. Either way, they hoped he wouldn’t get a chance to pass along any intel on Project Gateway.
Quinn’s own official debriefing with Kiara and the others began the morning after the attack and ran well into the night. He recounted what had happened since Valteron City. The encounter with Moric, the trip to the Enclave’s island. His time there, watching, studying, taking classes. The library, the guild contract, even his little performance that allowed him to stay. In one day, he told them far more about Alissian magic and magicians than company researchers had gleaned over fifteen years.
Of course, he didn’t tell them everything. He left out the part with Jillaine. Nothing really to tell there; she was just another magic user, so no need to single her out. He also kept the Captain Relling encounter in his pocket for the time being. The last thing he wanted was an excuse for the company to lead some kind of military extraction, even though he could guess how much the news would mean to Kiara. Now’s not the time.
Besides, what he could tell them about the Enclave had everyone riveted enough.
“Hundreds of magicians in one place,” Chaudri said, almost to herself. “Our counts were farther off than we knew.”
Kiara insisted that he recount every single use of magic that he’d witnessed while on the island or in the company of guild magicians. Quinn did his best, but there was simply too much. For weeks, he’d lived and breathed in a society that lived by magic. Existed for magic. Nearly anything she asked about, he’d seen happen once or twice. Teleportation, obviously. Telekinesis. Animal husbandry. All sorts of elemental manipulation. The only category of magic use he didn’t really witness was violence. As a whole, magicians in Alissia were reluctant to use their arts against other people.
“That’s consistent with our encounters with them,” Logan said. “The one that we met outside Valteron City—I had my back to her, and all she did was immobilize me. She could have done a lot worse.”
He left one bit of magic out, though. One that he kept playing in his head over and over, to make sure he remembered it right. It happened on that cliff in the smuggler’s ambush, when he’d shouted stop and put the sword over his head. He’d been out of tricks and illusions by then. And terrified he was about to watch his friends die. That’s when the warmth rose up through him like an electrical current, and bright light crackled all around.
His breakthrough at last.
That’s why he was so worried they’d confiscate the amulet from him; the inspection team had already made a note of it as an “acquired possession.” He even admitted that it was a key for finding his way back to the island. No way in hell he was going to let them take it, though, so he hedged a little.
“I wouldn’t take it off me, if I were you,” he said.
“Why not?” Kiara demanded.
“Moric said I’m the only one who can use it, and if I take it off, it breaks the enchantment,” Quinn said. Not exactly truthful, but it was one of his only bits of leverage and he didn’t want it to disappear into a company lockbox. In case that’s not convincing enough . . . “And he also mentioned it wouldn’t be pleasant for the one who took it off me. I don’t know what he meant, but seeing some of the things I’ve seen, I don’t doubt the creative nature of the magicians’ retribution.”
Kiara ground her teeth. “You can keep it for now, Bradley, but I want you available to the research teams whenever they want a look at it.”
“Fair enough,” he said.
Once he’d answered Kiara’s questions, she excused herself to confer with her superiors. Logan and Chaudri caught him up on what he’d missed. His heart went cold when he heard about Bravo Team.
I did that, didn’t I?
Raptor Tech never would have found the island facility if he hadn’t used the jack of spades. They’d played him.
I was just trying to save my own life. I didn’t think it would cost others theirs.
The thought made him sick. It was all he could do to keep his face under control.
If the company discovered his role in the breaches, he’d never get off this island alive. That fact was written all over Logan’s face, when he talked about Bravo. Maybe it was a good thing Thorisson had escaped. He was the only one who could give Quinn up.
Again, it was a treacherous thought. But hadn’t he done what he could to make amends? Hadn’t he saved them time and time again?
I’m not sure it’ll be enough.
He shoved the thoughts away and turned to Chaudri. “So, are you glad you went?”
“Oh, most definitely. It’s given me a great deal of insight into Alissian culture and society. Things I didn’t realize until I was there among them.” Her eyes were shining.
“Maybe it’s time to drop the ‘interim’ from your title,” Quinn said.
Chaudri cleared her throat. “You’re probably right. And that means I’m responsible for our research write-ups. I’d better go get started.” She nodded to both of them and hurried out of the conference room.
&n
bsp; “There’s a spring in her step,” Quinn said.
“She did pretty well over there,” Logan said. “To be honest, I was worried about her.”
“You were worried about everyone.”
“That’s my job. So I’ll ask you the same question. Are you glad you went?”
“More than you know,” Quinn said. “In fact, I’ll bet you a bottle of Valteroni liquor that I get to go back again.”
“Developed a taste for the good stuff, eh? Don’t tell me you managed to smuggle a bottle back.”
“Sadly, no. But I know a guy.”
“Oh, I’m sure. But I’ll take that bet,” Logan said. “Pretty sure we won’t need a magician from this point on.”
“There’s more to me than just quick fingers.”
“That’s what I keep hearing.” Logan scratched his chin. “I must be missing something.”
“You usually are.”
Kiara joined them a minute later. Her face was a mask, but Quinn noted the slight hesitance in her movements. That was one of her tells, the one that meant “reluctantly following orders.”
“My superiors asked me to convey their gratitude,” she said. “You played your part well, and collected some valuable intelligence besides.”
“You’re welcome,” Quinn said. He left it at that and waited. Negotiations 101: let the other party start.
“We agreed to a six-month engagement, and the company believes that contract has been met already. The funds have already been wired to your accounts.”
“And the equipment?”
She frowned. “Yours to take, though I’ll remind you that almost everything you designed has proprietary technology in it. If anything should fall into the hands of our competitors, you’ll be fully responsible.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take precautions.” People were always coming after his stuff; it was a way of life for the Vegas magician. He waited again.
“Do you think you’d be welcomed back by the Enclave, if you were to return?” she asked.
Ah, here it came at last. “Moric certainly made it sound that way,” Quinn said.
“Could you bring a small group posing as magicians, maybe get them in?”