Going Dark

by Linda Nagata

  I wish now I’d left the receiver in, because that would let me blame the Red for all my bad decisions.

  I spit blood and phlegm and use the back of my hand to wipe drool from my swollen lips.

  I’ve got no weapons, no rig, no angel sight, no night vision, and no squad to back me up. The setup reminds me of that Bible story about King David before he was king, when God sent him alone out to the battlefield armed with only a slingshot. I think that little adventure was supposed to be a test of faith, but I fail at tests like that. Better to know a well-connected arms dealer than to invest any faith in the Red.

  I can’t reach gen-com, but that doesn’t mean I’m isolated, not when my network icon is green. I try calling Papa—and that works. He picks up right away. “Shelley, you made it out?”

  I start to speak. Nothing comes. I try harder and manage a whisper. “Papa, things got seriously fucked. Are you still in the city?”

  Silence, as he thinks this over.

  “Da. I am still here. How many of you are alive?”

  “I don’t know. I got separated from the squad and locked out of gen-com. They should have been pulled out by now.”

  “And you?”

  “I lost my gear. I need a weapon.”

  “Where are you?”

  I capture my GPS coordinates and send them.

  “Can you get across the canal?” he asks.

  My hands shake at the thought of going back into that canal. “The bridge is blown out.”

  “The water is shallow, no?”

  I think, Lock it down.

  “Yeah. I’ll wade across.”

  “I will come.”

  • • • •

  As soon as I step away from the blood road, it disappears. I climb down into the canal, keeping away from the debris, the floating body. Mud tugs at my robot feet, and I trip over glass and wire and old steel cans, but I manage not to fall down and of course nothing can cut me.

  As I climb out of the canal, an SUV rolls up, headlights off. The passenger window glides down. The doors unlock. It’s too dark to see inside, but I hear Papa say, “Get in.”

  I do. The window goes up as I slide into the passenger seat. “Did you bring weapons?” I ask in a hoarse whisper.

  “No. This mission is over. My role in it is over.” He makes a sharp turn onto a narrow residential street. “I’ve heard nothing from Abajian. And there is a curfew, enforced by gunship.”

  I twist around to check the sky and right away I see the silhouettes of two gunships over the city, but they’re way off to the north. One is briefly illuminated by muzzle flash from its machine gun.

  Leonid turns left at the next corner, and then right. No other vehicles are moving on the streets. “What happened to you?” he asks.

  “I got hacked. And not by the Red. Nashira breached gen-com. I think that’s why I’m locked out. But I think something critical got exposed when it happened. I think the Red worked out how L-AIs like Nashira are being used against it.”

  The gates of a compound open ahead of us.

  “I have to go out again, Papa. There’s another mission.”

  He turns in through the gate, parks the SUV outside a house where no lights are showing, and says, “No. I’ve heard nothing from Abajian. It’s over.”

  I tell him, “The target is Nashira.”

  Past the closed window, I hear the distant rumble of helicopters, a smattering of gunfire. And then Leonid gives in to a low, rumbling sigh. “Nashira,” he says. “You know where it is?”

  “Yes, I know.” Maybe the Red always knew Nashira’s location, or maybe that was something it had to work out through human hacking—listening to conversations, seeing through infiltrated farsights and overlays, monitoring the EXALT nodes. “Everyone visible, everyone accountable.”

  “That was your excuse for what happened in the cavern.”

  “That’s the world the Red is making. L-AIs like Nashira fuck with that. Think about it, Papa. If Nashira hadn’t kept the lab hidden, Semakova might still—”

  “Stop! You want to persuade me? You want to remind me of what is lost? Stop first and think of your own life. Do you remember what happened in the UGF, Shelley? How close we came to dying in that tunnel?”

  “Yes, I remember it.” My voice is almost gone. “I don’t know why I’m still alive, except for this. If we find Nashira, figure out who’s behind it, maybe we find the Arctic AI too. Maybe we can stop that war before things get worse.”

  “You’re a madman, Shelley.”

  “No. It’s just I’ve seen behind the curtain. And I need your help, Papa. You know and I know there are a thousand ways this world could die—but not on my watch.”

  “Go inside,” he growls. “And then you can tell me a madman’s plan.”

  • • • •

  Leonid gets his first good look at me when the lights come on in the house. “You look like a man who just crawled up from Hell.”

  “It’s really fucked down there, Papa. I’m not looking forward to eternity.”

  “Da. I’m not either.”

  It’s a Western-style house, the layout and furnishings generic and familiar. Leonid orders me into the shower. I wash off the blood and the stink under a lukewarm trickle of water, and clean out my wounds—gouges and cuts and lacerations. I’m dizzy, and I don’t think I’ve got a square inch of skin that isn’t bruised. For sure, everything hurts like hell. Leonid helps me treat the shallow wounds and glue the bigger ones shut. “What happened to you?” he asks me.

  I tell him about the hack, and the hanging, and the attack on the bridge.

  “I think a missile hit it. Thought I was in Hell, but it saved my life.” He thinks about all this as I dress in civilian clothes—brown slacks and a short-sleeved beige shirt. “Abajian must have seen the missile strike,” he concludes as we return to the living room. “He believes you are lost, dead. He would say to your squad it was too late to rescue you. Priority, to get the electronic intelligence out.”

  “And the wounded,” I remind him, collapsing into a chair beside the table. Leonid has gathered equipment there: a folded med-kit, plastic-wrapped camouflage shirts, two digital night-vision glasses, two armored vests, a pair of Lasher 762 assault rifles. I gesture at the gear. “All this.” I look up at him. “You’re going to help?”

  He’s glaring, his eyebrows knit in a fierce scowl. “Do not ever doubt the existence of God, Shelley. I asked that I be allowed to serve Him in some small way. And what did He do?” He raises his eyebrows. “He sent me you. But as you reminded me, this Nashira helped those who murdered Yana. So yes, let’s go. And see what can be done.”

  “Okay.” Leonid’s reasons are no crazier than mine. “But I need to link up with Logan. I need to know the squad got out.”

  “You want Logan to know you’re alive?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  He opens the med-kit and sorts through the blister packs of pills. “Because this mission was given to you, and only you. If it was given to Logan too, and Tran, why cut you off from gen-com?”

  “Because my security was compromised.” I think about it. “Or maybe it was to keep Abajian out?”

  He looks up from the med-kit, eyeing me from beneath his heavy brows.

  “I trust my squad,” I insist. “It’s the Red I don’t trust. And Abajian. So yeah, let’s find out where they are. If they’re still here, maybe we can bring them in. Do the mission, but do it our way.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight.”

  He hands me three blister packs. “A stimulant, an antibiotic, a pain killer.”

  I get a bottle of water from the fridge. Swallowing those pills is one more torment added to the evening, but I do it.

  Then I sit for a few minutes and think. Should I do this by myself ? The way the Red intended? In the Bible, David went alone to the battlefield, but I’m not David. I want my squad around me.

  I dictate a text to Logan: “Need a sitrep. NOT on gen-com. Di
d you get pulled out?” The text-to-voice handles my hoarse whispering without a problem.

  Send.

  It takes twenty-two seconds for Logan to get back to me. Who the fuck is this?

  “Who do you think? Sitrep! Where are you?” Send.

  You asshole. We are out here looking for your fucking body.

  They’re still here. Part of me is happy to hear it. Relieved. But they’re not supposed to be here. “You were supposed to get pulled out.” Send.

  Abajian wasn’t joking about your fucking messiah complex. You figured we’d just leave you behind?

  “Escamilla was almost dead. You damn well better be able to tell me he’s out.” Send.

  He’s evac’d. Dunahee, Roman, and Flynn too. There’s your sitrep. Now where the fuck are you?

  “Safe house. With Papa. We’ve got another mission.” Send.

  I look at Leonid. He’s buckling on an armored vest over a long-sleeve black-camo shirt. “I might have handled that wrong,” I admit. “Those pills work pretty well, though.”

  “Keep a man going until he drops.” He shoves two more blister packs in my direction. “Another round to keep in your pocket.”

  I check the labels. Just the pain med and the stimulant this time. “Thanks.”

  “If you’re really going, than get out of the dress shirt. Put on some camouflage, and the vest too. Do it before Logan gets here. That way, if he shoots you, you might live.”

  Good advice.

  I’m pretty battered though. My shoulders are messed up and the camo shirt is a pullover, not button-up. I need Leonid’s help to get it on. The vest is easier. I’m standing by the table, adjusting the buckles, when Leonid’s phone beeps.

  He glances at it and presses a code. “They’re at the gate.”

  It takes Logan twelve seconds to clear the courtyard. Hell, maybe he came over the wall. The door bursts open. He stomps in, fully rigged, carrying his HITR in two hands. I can’t see his face behind the black shield of his visor, but I know it’s him. Jaynie comes in behind him. Then Fadul and Tran.

  “Close the door,” Leonid says.

  Tran closes it.

  They all take off their helmets.

  Logan’s face is flushed and sweat-streaked. He’s staring at me like I’m a ghost—a shockingly messed-up one. “Jesus, Shelley. Gen-com thinks you’re dead. It’s showing you as dead.”

  I tell him what I know, in the hoarse voice he couldn’t hear by text message. “I got hacked, and then I couldn’t log in anymore.”

  “Kanoa said they hanged you … from a bridge. And it’s true, isn’t it? You look like it. How the fuck are you still alive?”

  “I think the bridge got blown up.”

  “Yeah. He said that too.”

  Tran is looking at me with an incredulous grin, like I’ve just been revealed as the secret civilian identity behind Bounce-back Man. “You’re a fucking walk-on-water superstar!”

  “Papa gave me magic pills. But we did not win this one. We fucked it up bad. How’s Escamilla?”

  “The navy’s taking care of him,” Fadul says, eyeing me cautiously, like she’s not sure it’s me. “That’s all we know. Roman and Dunahee will be okay.”

  “And Flynn?” I ask, turning to Jaynie.

  She’s standing there, strapped into her dead sister, her helmet under her arm, studying me like maybe I’m a trick, an illusion, an anomaly that doesn’t belong in the world. “Flynn will be okay. But I’m starting to think you can’t ever die.”

  “Matter of time,” I assure her.

  Fadul puts her helmet on the table, walks up to me with her HITR slung on her shoulder. Walks right up to me. I’m getting ready to duck, because I’m sure she’s going to throw a punch, but I’m wrong. She cups my face gently in her gloved hands and says, “You were supposed to keep up with us, Captain.”

  “I took a wrong turn.”

  “Didn’t we all. Glad you’re here, though.” She steps back. “What are we after now?”

  “Nashira.”

  “I didn’t get a briefing on that.”

  “Neither did I,” Logan says, stepping forward. “What the hell, Shelley?”

  “Papa thinks I was supposed to go by myself, but that’s not how we do things, and I don’t think I could have made it there anyway.”

  “Where?”

  I forward the briefing with the attached map to their overlays, saying, “Don’t share this with gen-com.” Abajian gets to see everything that goes through gen-com and I’m not ready to bring him all the way in on this yet.

  They all get glazed looks as they scan the briefing. “I’ve seen that place,” Fadul says.

  Logan has too. “It’s not far.”

  Tran eyes Jaynie. “You going to link Vasquez in on this?”

  Jaynie looks at me, one eyebrow raised.

  “Can’t,” I tell her. “You don’t have an overlay.”

  Her voice is taut, expectant, when she asks, “So this is a rogue mission? To hit Nashira?”

  “We don’t do rogue missions,” Fadul says. “This is straight from the boss. Right, Shelley?”

  “Roger that.”

  Jaynie doesn’t protest. She doesn’t argue that we’re overstepping our mission. Instead, she says, “You don’t have to go dark. Abajian will back you on this.”

  It’s not the response I expect, but it tells me a lot. It tells me that her sudden return to service is not all patriotism; that Jaynie is after something beyond the original target of our mission. It makes me uneasy, but I just tell myself, Lock it down.

  “We need to do this before Abajian can fuck it up,” I say. “Get your gear ready. We move in five.”

  “What is the plan?” Jaynie asks.

  Logan says, “The plan is still being written. We’ll get more information going forward—enough to successfully engage the target when we get there.”

  “Get where?”

  “The vault that houses Nashira’s core.”

  “So we have a target,” Jaynie says, “but no plan. That makes me worry.”

  “There is a plan,” Logan insists. “It just hasn’t been issued yet.”

  “Need to know,” Fadul says. She shrugs out of her pack and thumps it down on the table. “We’ll know when we need to.” She starts pulling out fresh ammo to load into her HITR. I pick up one of the Lashers to get it out of her way. It’s new. The key is still hanging from the trigger guard. Fadul scowls at me as I use the key to reset the weapon’s electronics. Then she turns to Logan. “Hey, LT.”

  He looks up from his own reloading operation while I register the Lasher to my biometrics. “What’s up?”

  “Why aren’t we telling this idiot he has to sit this one out?”

  Logan shakes his head. “Go ahead. Try it.”

  And Leonid snorts. “You will be wasting your time. He has his orders.”

  Fadul eyes me. “We don’t need you. You are going to be a liability on this mission.”

  Fadul is no better at diplomacy than I am.

  “I’m fine,” I whisper. I toss the key into the corner of the room. I don’t want it with me, because I don’t want anyone else to be able to use the weapon. “Maybe not fine, but functional. Papa, do you have hand grenades?”

  “No.”

  “Here.” Fadul tosses me one. “If you’re going to be stupid, have one on me.”

  I drop it in my pocket.

  “Jaynie?”

  She’s getting her pack in order. “Yeah, Shelley?”

  “Did Abajian talk to you about going after Nashira?”

  She looks up, that eyebrow raised, an expression suggesting there is more, much more, than either of us is willing to say. “It’s a target of interest.”

  Maybe it’s the hurt I’ve taken, maybe it’s the pills, but when she says that, doubt grabs me and I ask myself, Was tonight’s mission even real? What if Abajian ran the whole bloody exercise as a setup—a way of exposing the presence and the influence of Nashira? And the people who died ton
ight? Were they just collateral damage on the way to cracking the cyber-camouflage of an L-AI?

  Is Abajian that ruthless?

  Have we been played?

  I pull out a chair and sit, thinking, Be calm. Lock it down.

  I look up at Jaynie to find her regarding me with a worried frown.

  “What does Abajian want with Nashira?” I ask her.

  “He wants to take it down. And then he wants to take down the Arctic AI.”

  FaceValue doesn’t tag a lie, but there is more that she’s not saying.

  “Isn’t that your goal, Shelley?”

  “Yes.”

  ETM 7-1 has made a lot of mistakes lately—maybe because we were operating on faulty intelligence. We have to do better. Going after the L-AIs should help with that, help us get back on the right road, help us unwind the damage we’ve done.

  “We are on the same side,” I say.

  “In most things.”

  “Mars is a mistake.”

  “We’ll fight about that later.”

  I nod. “Who’s still got explosives?”

  Jaynie, Fadul, and Tran are all out of det cord. They used up their supply at the lab. But Logan digs into his pack and pulls out a couple meters of cord and a packet of C-4. “Might not be enough.”

  I turn to Leonid. He shakes his head. “No. No explosives. I was to help you get out of Basra, not help you to level the city.”

  “Give it to me,” I tell Logan. “We’ll make it work.”

  He hands over the packet. I put it in a deep pocket of my vest.

  “We need to hook you back into gen-com,” he says. “We need to be linked, and I can’t stand looking at your dead black icon anymore.”

  He’s right. It’s an issue I would have addressed right away if I was thinking clearly. “Ask Kanoa—”

  “Yeah, Kanoa says he’s going to reinstall gen-com on your system—and he wants to see the order.”

  “Send it to him.”

  A tag slides open in my overlay, alerting me to the install.

  “Are you really going in like that?” Tran wants to know. “No dead sister? No helmet? You’re going to go down as soon as the shooting starts.”

  “Let’s see what happens when we get there.”