by J. L. Lyon
Grace put her hands on her hips, too tired to be as angry as she probably should be, “How long ago?”
“It’s been almost four weeks since Rosalind made contact.”
“Four weeks?” she demanded. “Why would you keep that from me?”
“Two reasons. First, did you ever doubt what the test results would be?”
She thought for a moment, and then answered honestly, “No, I suppose not. But then…why?”
“Because of the second reason,” he said with a sigh. “There was no point in worrying you with this before we could do something about it, but Rosalind told me something else in addition to the results. Something I expected, but you might not have.”
“Stop beating around the bush, Crenshaw,” she said. “Just tell me.”
“The results were a positive match, it’s true. But given the nature of this information, the organization to which the Right Hand reports has taken a greater interest in our mission. They are concerned that 301’s existence could destroy what they have built here.”
“Yes, Rosalind told me of those concerns.”
She heard Crenshaw take a sharp breath, “Well, the people who hold those concerns…they aren’t sure of the wisdom of our plan, and have ordered us to desist.”
Grace’s heart dropped, “Desist? As in, do nothing?”
“They think that unless valid evidence can be found showing that he can be turned, it is too risky to reveal the truth to him.”
“But we’ve been planning this mission for six weeks, Crenshaw! Who are they, anyway? Who are they to say what we can and cannot do?”
“We’re not giving up, Grace,” Crenshaw said. “Tonight is about finding some of that evidence. In the past weeks I’ve learned a great deal about 301’s early history. I think that if we retrace his life, we might find what we need.”
“The Capital Orphanage,” Grace said suddenly. “That’s where we’re going.”
“Yes,” Crenshaw replied. “Where one story ended and another began. We have to find out what happened to him if we have any hope of reversing it. And hopefully, we may also find something powerful enough to sway the opinion of our detractors.”
“Alright,” Grace whispered. “I understand. But you should know, Crenshaw, that I have no intentions of backing off, no matter what we find. I don’t care what the Right Hand’s organization says.”
“Glad to hear you say that,” the general said, and she detected a smile even through the darkness. “Neither do I.”
Grace stood up straight, breathing normally again at last, “Okay. I’m ready to continue.”
“We’re already here,” Crenshaw stepped back into the light and motioned to the building across the street from the alley. Grace turned her gaze to the oddly unassuming structure, an obscure medium-sized building wedged between two nearly twice its size. Five stone steps led up to a small porch, where a doorway stood in the shadows of an overhang. In passing she probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance. Ironic, considering how important the place had been to 301—and how important he was to her.
She followed Crenshaw out of the alley and across the street, noticing as they drew nearer the words carved on stone above the overhang: Capital Orphanage. Karla Young, Matron. 0010-18-J. They ascended the steps to the porch and paused at the door, once again shielded by darkness. She didn’t know what Crenshaw planned to do next—surely not just knock on the front door, not at that late hour?
The general reached in his pocket and pulled out a small device like a switchblade. Grace recognized it, though she knew they were extremely rare—another item the World System tightly regulated to keep them out of the wrong hands: a laser key. He slid the thin metal end into the key slot and pressed a red button on the handle. A low click sounded, and Crenshaw withdrew the laser key. He reached out and turned the knob, but as he started to push open the door, Grace stopped him, “Wait! What if we run into someone? Isn’t this place full of children?”
“No,” Crenshaw replied, pushing the door the rest of the way and stepping inside. “The matron of this orphanage became very ill some months ago, so they transferred her staff and the children to other facilities in the city. She is currently receiving care at a health facility about a mile from here. Last I heard, they don’t expect her to last much longer.”
Grace passed over the threshold and tasted the stale air inside as Crenshaw shut and locked the door behind them, “Didn’t have the best housekeepers in here, did they?”
Crenshaw replaced his laser key and drew a light rod from his cloak. It ignited, providing decent illumination for their trip from the foyer into the hall. “I doubt Matron Young concerned herself with creating a comfortable life for the children here,” Crenshaw said. “In fact I’d say quite the opposite. The Capital Orphanage prided itself on turning out a high percentage of soldiers for the Great Army. That was her primary concern.”
Grace looked in on the rooms they passed during their trek down the hall, studying whatever she could see by the constantly changing illumination from Crenshaw’s light rod. She saw rooms of beds stacked one on top of the other like barracks, rooms with desks that looked like classrooms, and one large room of tables that resembled a cafeteria. In all, the word she felt most described the place was cold. She couldn’t believe 301 grew up there—or any child, for that matter. She would prefer the darkest squalor of the Wilderness any day.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Grace said. “In the World System, occupation is chosen for individuals based on data in the government’s central computer. 301 told me the computer uses some kind of test to place people.”
“The Operations Potential Exam, yes,” Crenshaw answered. “Every documented child takes the OPE at ten, after which they are prepared for wherever Systemics has placed them.”
“So then, how could the orphanage purposefully raise up soldiers?” Grace asked. “They can’t rig the tests, surely?”
“No,” Crenshaw said, continuing to scan the rooms for whatever it was he expected to find, “But they can rig the children. The OPE tests basic things, like I.Q., social qualities, leadership ability, aggressive tendencies, and so on. What the orphanage tried to do was create the tendencies desired for soldiers in the children that were raised here. That’s one reason the place looks more like a military installation than a home for orphans.” They reached the end of the hall, and Crenshaw sighed, “Not on this level. Let’s try the second.”
The final door at the end of the hallway led to a stairwell, and the glow of the light rod gave the place an eerie look. Grace turned her gaze upward and saw that the stairs rose far above the reach of the light. Preparing herself for the possibility that they might have a long search ahead of them, she asked, “How many floors does this place have?”
“Five,” Crenshaw replied as they reached the second floor and started walking down an almost identical hall. “But I’m hoping we’ll find what we’re looking for on this floor.”
They didn’t, and had no luck on the third floor either. Grace could sense Crenshaw’s growing frustration, so as they made their way across the fourth floor—which was obviously not used as often as the bottom three—she tried to distract him by continuing their earlier conversation. “So if you can raise your children to be exactly what you want, why wouldn’t everyone do it? Why hasn’t the System completely fallen apart from people ‘rigging’ their children?”
“Well for one,” Crenshaw began, “Systemics is based just as much on economic need as individual competence. For example, an individual might qualify to be an electrician or a desk clerk, but Systemics might compute that the individual’s sector would benefit more from a janitor. In Systemics, corporate gain far outweighs individual potential. So that man, despite his qualifications otherwise, would become a janitor.
“The second and more obvious reason why this doesn’t happen is that it would require access to Systemics equations, since the formulas are constantly changing as
events in the world progress. This kind of access is illegal, of course, to all but the Ruling Class.”
“So then how could the matron get access?”
“Someone hacked into the central mainframe,” Crenshaw replied. “That’s the only answer I can see being possible, though it is supposedly the most secure system ever devised. Silent Thunder tried getting in to corrupt or shut it down many times in those early years, but most came to believe it could not be done. Apparently the matron found someone who proved us wrong.”
“But surely their success rate would tip off the government to the illegal activity.”
“Maybe,” Crenshaw said. “Unless they were so pleased with the recruits put out by the orphanage that they turned a blind eye to the breach. I stopped trying to understand the rationale of the World System long ago, Grace, but if they saw that the benefits of this orphanage far outweighed the cost they would not have shut it down.” They reached the end of the hall, and the general sighed, “Well, one more. Has to be there this time.”
“What exactly are we looking for?”
“I’ll know when I see it,” Crenshaw replied. “I just wish we hadn’t saved the top floor until last.”
They ascended the last flight of stairs to the fifth floor, and when they left the stairwell Grace was sure they must have accidentally passed into another building. The floor was covered in expensive hardwood, the walls were painted, and the entire level seemed generally well-kept—not at all like the dirty conditions below. The rooms they passed were filled with single beds, and there was a kitchen nicer even than the one at the Silent Thunder command center.
“This must be the staff quarters,” Crenshaw remarked.
“I can’t believe this,” Grace shook her head. “They live in luxury while they leave the children to live in squalor beneath them? That’s disgusting.”
“Not the most terrible thing we’ll see tonight, I’m afraid,” Crenshaw said darkly. He paused in front of a room she couldn’t yet see. It was at the end of the hall, and as she approached Grace saw that the hardwood ended at the threshold—replaced instead by the same cold gray stone of the floors below. The room itself was small, large enough for only two or three people to stand in comfortably. Computer monitors lined the walls from top to bottom on three sides, and in the very center sat a single, lonely chair.
“This is it,” Crenshaw said, stepping inside. “The reprogramming room.”
Grace followed, her eyes glued to the chair—so small only a child could have sat there, “The reprogramming room?”
“Yes,” Crenshaw said. “Close the door, if you please.”
Grace did so and turned around to see Crenshaw pull yet another device from within his cloak. “What is that?”
“This room was constructed by whomever the matron employed to hack the System mainframe,” Crenshaw replied. “It would take weeks to break through his firewalls. But thankfully, I got a hold of the biometric password.”
“How did you do that?”
Crenshaw held the flat, disc-like object parallel to one of the monitors, “A friend.” A stream of white light shot out from the monitor and scanned Crenshaw’s device. After a few seconds the white light went out and the other monitors came to life, all glowing with the image of a strange rotating symbol. Crenshaw deactivated the light rod and put it away, as the monitors now provided all the illumination they would need.
“Welcome, Discipliner,” a computerized voice spoke.
Grace looked sidelong at Crenshaw, suddenly wishing she knew more about what they were going to see. The general stepped up beside her and spoke, “Computer, we’d like to visit the past.”
“Accessing archives,” the computer replied. “Specify search parameters.”
“Pull up all available records,” he exchanged a concerned look with Grace as she shifted her feet uncomfortably, “For case file Three-zero-one Fourteen-A.”
39
TWO HALO-4S CARRIED SPECTER from the Spire to the Weapons Manufacturing Facility, blazing fiery blue against the night sky as they shot toward the city’s northwestern quadrant. Though one Halo provided more than enough room for all ten of them to travel together, 301 thought such a course unwise now that the rebellion was out in full force. The last thing he wanted was to provide them an opportunity to destroy all of Specter in a single stroke. So they split, four and six, with he and Derek on a Halo with Marcus and Dodson.
The Specter Captain smoothed out his uniform, thrown on in between returning to the Spire and McCall’s briefing, and felt a sharp pain from the wound in his shoulder. The soreness had only increased in the hours since the battle in the ruins, but he couldn’t afford to show weakness now—not on his first official command of Specter.
“You sure you’re alright, Captain?” Derek asked from two seats over. “What I saw of that wound didn’t look so good.”
“It’s a little deeper than I thought,” he admitted, remembering his brief examination of the gash while changing uniforms. “But I’ll be alright. Definitely not my first wound from a Gladius.” He touched the top of his hand subconsciously, feeling the scar from his first encounter with the rebellion. It had been dark and he couldn’t be absolutely certain, but he had come to believe that Jacob Sawyer himself had struck the weapon from his hand that night. Both wounds had bled, but not as much as they would have from a normal blade. The first healed surprisingly fast, and so he hoped for the same from the second.
“As your partner I need to know if you’re not operating at one hundred percent,” Derek insisted. “If you make a mistake it could be my neck.”
“I’m fine, Specter Blaine,” he said with mounting frustration. “You worry about your own operating percent, and leave me to mine.”
Derek frowned and sat back in his seat, “As you wish.”
301 sighed. What he really needed was time to rest and to think, but unfortunately circumstances didn’t provide for either. Something nagged at him, an ever-present doubt lingering at the back of his mind telling him the situation was not quite right. The rebel major chose to sacrifice himself and his team to ensure that the case of powder got back to the rebellion, and then destroyed the entire operation just hours later? Did that even make sense? That look in his eye when he supposedly broke was what put 301 on edge. It was not the look of a man admitting defeat.
“Specters!” their pilot called. ‘We’re approaching the facility. Prepare to disembark!”
301 gazed out the window as he stood, seeing the large but otherwise unimpressive structure that the rebellion meant to destroy. From his vantage point the Weapons Manufacturing Facility looked like nothing more than an enormous gray block. The building was about as long from end to end as the palace, but it was incredibly boring to look at.
He knew from McCall’s briefing, however, that the first floor was little more than a security safeguard for the rest of the facility, as actual operations took place on five levels below ground. Expert explosives analysis suggested the rebels’ target would be the third floor, as that provided the best opportunity to destroy the entire facility. Coincidentally, the third floor also contained the facility’s most highly classified projects, and served as Alexandria’s primary lab for research and development. There was no telling what sights they might see inside.
The Halo-4 touched down alongside the other craft on the roof of the facility, and 301 led the way out of the vessel. The other six members of Specter met them and stood at attention, waiting for orders. Now closer to the ground, 301 saw that the Fourteenth Army had already arrived—not the full force Alexander had requested as of yet, but another battalion rolled in even as he watched. He turned his attention back to Specter.
“All of you know your part,” he said authoritatively. “Each team will take command of Fourteenth Army troops and fortify your designated area. Team two, you will take the north; three, the south; four, west; and five, east. Specter Blaine and I will command a detachment to fortify the inte
rior. For obvious reasons, we don’t want all of our forces inside that building. If the rebels reach the third floor of the facility, it is over. We will not have time to disarm a Solithium explosive. In the event of such a failure, I will give the abort call ‘Raven,’ and you will order the Great Army to evacuate while you yourselves return to the Halos for immediate takeoff. Are there any questions?” There were none. “Then go. You have about ninety minutes before the rebel attack is set to begin.”
“Yes, sir!” The Specters replied, and they split to follow their orders.
“Well,” 301 sighed. “This is going to be awkward.”
“What is?”
“You and I need to find the general and officially assume command.”
“Ah,” Derek nodded. “And this was your division before Specter. I can see how that might be a little…uncomfortable. But I suppose we might as well get it over with.”
“Command should be set up at the main entrance, to the south,” 301 said. “Let’s go.”
-X-
“Phase One is prepared, Commander,” Davian whispered at Jacob’s side. “All operatives are in position and await your final command.”
“Excellent,” Jacob replied, leaning back calmly against the tree both were using for cover. “And the Great Army? How are they shifting?”
“Reports indicate that the Fourteenth division of the Great Army has been mobilized and divided into halves. One is moving here to the Weapons Facility as we anticipated, while the other is being transferred to the palace to boost security.”
Jacob grinned, “Alexander is getting nervous. Good.”
“The only thing is,” Davian went on with concern, “The Ninth division seems to be shifting northward. They won’t make it here in time for this engagement, but they could pose a threat to future phases.”
“Odd,” Jacob’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps Alexander is more nervous than I thought. I expected him to attempt a quick and quiet extermination. Bringing the Ninth to Alexandria will cause quite a stir. It’s not like him at all.”