by Wesley Chu
“It’ll be tough, and those things have a battery life window of maybe four days. Turning it on remotely and hearing anything useful will be a crap shoot.” Helen hesitated. “There’s one more thing. I was found out. One of the nurses caught me lurking and asked for my ID.”
“What did you do?” Chase asked.
She shrugged. “What did you expect me to do? I bolted for the nearest door. Pretty sure I’m compromised at this point.”
“We’ll have someone else take your place.” He looked at Elias.
Elias, who had a thick Brazilian accent, held his hands up. “Don’t look at me. I’ll stick out like a sore thumb the second I open my mouth. Besides, I’m a jarhead, not some thespian. You go then, sir.”
Marco made a face. “And I wouldn’t stand out? Tell me, how many Brits do you think pass through here every year?”
“Yeah,” Elias said. “I can’t understand half the words coming out of your mouth sometimes. It’s like a whole different language.”
“Yes, it’s called English. From Eng-land.”
“I’ll go,” Roen said, throwing up his hands. He took the keys from Helen. “Will those scrubs fit me?”
She eyed him and then pointed to her drastically smaller frame. “Do you think they would?”
“I’ll just get some myself,” he grumbled.
Sheck walked into the room. “Keeper says she’ll give you ten minutes, starting forty seconds ago.”
Roen and Marco dashed out of the room. Grabbing a conference on the same day with her was like trying to arrange for the pope to attend a Bar Mitzvah. If they didn’t take advantage of this meeting now, they might not be able to reach her again for days. They sprinted to Sheck’s room and jumped on the secure channel.
“It’s one in the morning,” was the first thing out of her mouth.
“Apologies, Keeper,” Marco said respectfully. “My surveillance team has made a full appraisal of the target facility.”
“That’s great. Now put it in a report and send it to me so I can read it at a more godly hour. Your next objective is to propose an incursion plan as soon as possible. I want this facility out of play.”
“Well, you see, Keeper,” Marco continued, “my team and I have concerns –”
“Resolve them. Unconcern them and –”
“It’s a death trap, Meredith,” Roen cut in. “Everyone you send in won’t make it past the third defensive barrier. And in case you’re wondering, there are five. We can’t go in from the air, since it’s US airspace, and we can’t go in from the ground. The Genjix have at minimum an eight-kilometer defensive patrol perimeter, and you can be damn sure that thing is bottlenecked all to hell inside. It can’t be done with the resources we have available. Period.”
The Keeper looked at Marco. “Well?”
He nodded. “I’m afraid so, madam. The Genjix must be well aware of our operating limitations in this country and have planned for them thoroughly.”
There was a period of silence before the Keeper fixed an eye on Roen and acknowledged him for the first time. Then she grimaced. “Find a way.”
“I don’t think you understand –” Roen began.
“No, you don’t understand,” she said. “This is our only viable way of stopping Quasiform. We know that Quasiform requires a number of their facilities to kick-start the catalyst at the same time in order to initiate the chain reaction. Of all the locations we’re aware of, this facility is the only one within striking distance. I don’t care if it’s a bad tactical option. It’s our only option, so when I say find a way, I damn well mean find a way. Is that clear?”
Roen and Marco exchanged glances and nodded. “Yes, Keeper,” they said in unison.
“Very well, then. I look forward to your report in the morning. So if you will excuse me, gentlemen, good night.”
“Wait, Keeper,” Roen said. “Have you spoken to my wife? I haven’t been able to get ahold of her since our meeting, and my phone tripped the security cut. We’ve had outages like this in the past, but never this long.”
The Keeper looked over at Marco. “Your commander didn’t tell you? It was part of his morning status report.”
“Tell me what?” he said, now alarmed.
“The Genjix attacked Jill’s base of operations two days ago. The entire operation went dark.”
Roen lost feeling in his fingers. “And you guys didn’t fucking tell me?”
“Look,” Marco said. “It’s too early to jump to conclusions. Command got in touch with Hite. He’ll grab a visual. It could be anything. Jill’s my friend too, but we have a mission to complete and I can’t have distracted –”
He never finished the sentence, because Roen clocked him in the face. “That’s my family, you bastard!”
Marco came back a second later with one of his own, followed by a Judo throw that put Roen on his back. Roen managed to get two quick kicks on Marco’s face as he got turned upside down. A few seconds later, the two had destroyed Helen’s bed and managed to punch several new holes in the drywall.
The Keeper, watching them roll around through the screen, yawned. “Goodnight, gentlemen.” Then she smiled, and the screen went black.
24
Show Must Go On
A dark time began for all Quasing as thousands of hosts on both sides were either rooted out and imprisoned, or were forced to flee. It was interesting that it took a massive alien conspiracy to unite the world against a common foe. The nations of the world banded together and created the Interpol Extraterrestrial Task Force.
A new player in our hundreds-year-long war emerged, and they were ruthless. The IXTF hunted us down, confiscated our assets, and destroyed networks that had taken hundreds of years to build.
Baji
* * *
As the submarine sliced just under the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the atmosphere was somber. The retreat through the tunnels from the farmhouse had been frantic. Jill’s group had barely gotten their supplies together and made it a hundred meters before the Genjix cut through the trap door.
Immediately, they heard sounds of fighting. She didn’t know if the other team got to safety or not. Jill knew that Harry and Garrett had decided to stay behind in order to distract the pursuers. They knew that Jill, with the older Rin and Ohr in her group, would need every small advantage she could get.
Even then, two of the Genjix had caught up with them halfway into the steep and uneven tunnels before they could escape into the submarine. Fortunately, Jill, Freeni, and Vladimir were able to lay a trap and take them out.
“Jill,” Freeni said, looking at the console. “We can’t squeeze anything more out of her. We need to break toward shore now.”
We are still far from the next station. You will have to finish the journey on land.
They would have to disembark and continue on foot. Jill glanced back at the sad-looking group sitting in the rear of the sub. “This bunch can’t handle a long trek.”
Then locate the nearest safe house, establish communications, and have Faust pick us up.
Jill steered the sub toward the coast. Their ride was an old commercial tourist sub Roen had won from a junkyard dealer playing darts. They had retrofitted the sub, removing all the benches and turning the vessel into a short-range transport for supply runs. Jill had conserved as much fuel as possible, but the submersible wasn’t built for long hauls and the fuel was almost exhausted.
She looked behind her at the small, quiet group. The Russian was a complete mess, face contorted with grief and eyes bloodshot. Jill didn’t blame him. The poor guy had lost his wife and child within a span of weeks. His entire life was in tatters. She felt his pain. At least she had gotten word that Roen was all right before the attack. Otherwise, she would be thinking that she had lost both her husband and child as well and would probably be in worse shape than Vladimir.
Ohr and Rin were in only slightly better shape mentally, though not physically. Neither of them had ever been players in this sort of game.
Ohr was a political heavyweight, and Rin was a scientist. Neither had ever had to spend a night on the run before the past few weeks. This experience had to be quite a shock to them. They were learning the hard lesson of what their world was, now. Well, that was the life of a secret society operative. Inevitably, one’s hands had to get dirty.
When the sub couldn’t get any closer to shore, Jill stood up and motioned for everyone to follow. “Here’s where we get off, folks. We’re going to make landfall about three klicks north of Fort Bragg. From there, we go on foot. I have a safe house on the south end of Noyo Bay. We can rest there for the night.”
She swung the packs and gear that she was able to salvage – all of her worldly possessions – onto her back and picked up the bundled rifles stowed in a sleeping bag. Between the five of them, they would have to share two rifles and two pistols. She nudged Vladimir on the shoulder. “Come on. Get up.” He didn’t budge. Everyone else began climbing up the ladder to the hatch. Jill looked back at him still sitting in his seat. “Vladimir, get your ass up. Now.”
He just stayed there, staring at the floor, eyes glazed over. For a second, Jill wasn’t sure if he was going to get up. The guy had suffered a lot. Every person had his limit; maybe he had reached his. Maybe his soul couldn’t take any more grief, and there was nothing left for it to do but die. She had seen it happen on the battlefield before, to friends and enemies alike. Letting him end his pain could be the kindest thing she could do for him.
Jill gritted her teeth. Screw that. She stomped over to him, grabbed his elbows, and pulled. “We need to go, Vladimir.”
“I have nothing,” he said, the words barely audible. “Marta, Alex. Nothing. Just leave me.”
We do not have time for this.
“Alex is probably with Cameron. He knows what to do. They are probably heading toward us as we speak,” Jill said, pulling more insistently this time. “Get your ass up.”
“My daughter is probably dead. Your damn son killed her!” he snarled, pushing Jill away. “If it wasn’t for him, she would be here right now.”
Either snap him out of it or drown him.
“I am not leaving anyone behind, Baji.”
An imaged flashed into Jill’s head of an ancient fishing boat slowly sinking. She saw one of the sailors with his leg trapped underneath a wooden beam. As hard as she tried, she could not pull him free. The boat capsized, trapping Jill underneath it as it sunk. Everything became blinding white, and then she blinked and saw the world in an entirely new way through the eyes of a fish.
“Point taken.”
Jill gave Vladimir one measured look, swung her arm back with an open palm, then thought better of it. Instead, she closed her hand into a fist and clocked him across the jaw. Vladimir dropped onto his side like a sack of potatoes. He tried to retaliate, but Jill got past his weakly flailing arms easily. She pulled out her pistol and jammed it into his temple. “That’s my son, you shit. He’s out there, too, so don’t even start with me, because the only thing that’s keeping me going right now is the fact that I know he’s well-trained and competent. I know that if he is alive, he will find me, and if your daughter is alive, he will bring her to us.” She cocked the pistol. “Do you understand, or would you like me to end you right here?”
Vladimir nodded.
Slowly, Jill pulled back and holstered her pistol. She offered her hand, which he accepted, and hauled the guy to his feet. She tossed the heaviest pack at him. “You get to be the pack mule.”
Vladimir rubbed his already purplish cheek and wiggled his jaw left and right. Then, surprisingly, he grinned. “Marta would have liked you, Jill Tan. Even if you are a betrayer. Sometimes, Vladimir just needs a reminder.”
“Happy to oblige,” Jill said, returning the smile. “And don’t do that again.”
“I won’t. I trust your word that my daughter is safe.”
“I wasn’t talking about that. Don’t refer to yourself in the third person. It annoys the hell out of me.” Jill pointed at the metal ladder. “Come on, it’s getting dark, and the temperature is dropping.”
Once topside, the group had to wait until Freeni got the emergency raft inflated before paddling toward shore. Jill looked back at the submarine bobbing on the ocean’s surface and pushed a small button on a remote. A few seconds later, smoke began to billow out of the open hatch. Several loud cracking noises followed, and then the sub tilted. In a matter of minutes, the ocean had claimed its latest wreck. It was a damn shame to lose such an asset, but the wrong hands – Genjix or IXTF – could get a lot from its salvage.
The small group stood at the beach, unsure of what to do next. Jill pointed to the wooden ramp up the beach. Just past it was a highway traveling north and south. “Let’s move. No stragglers. We’re wet, and the temperature drops at night.”
It took the small group a little over three hours walking along the highway to reach their destination. The safe house at Fort Bragg ranked pretty low on the luxury scale of Prophus safe houses. It was an old trailer nestled in the back of an RV park held up by stacks of cinderblocks. Fortunately, it was a frequently-used facility, so it was relatively well-maintained and clean.
Check the emergency exit plan.
Jill watched the other four exhausted refugees march into the rusty chrome Twinkie-shaped trailer. She walked to the cliff at the back of the park overlooking Noyo Harbor and peered over the steep drop to the beach below while the others lugged the gear into the trailer. It had been over a year since she was last at this safe house. Down at the base of the cliff, hidden in the thick foliage, should be an emergency pack. Every safe house had a designated exit plan. Jumping off the cliff and tumbling down to the beach was the designated one for this trailer. It wasn’t much of an escape route, but it was better than nothing. Not much better though.
The two dummies in her life – her child and her man-child – thought it would be great fun to test it out when they had first set up the trailer. Both jumped and tumbled down the cliff enthusiastically. Roen badly sprained his ankle, and Cameron earned a gash along his arm that needed stitches.
Like father, like son.
“Let’s just hope we’ll never have to use it.”
It took Jill a few minutes to identify the marker where the pack was supposed to be hidden. Satisfied, she went back to the trailer and joined the others. The inside was cramped for five, with just enough room in the hallway for one person to walk through at a time. Ohr opened the fridge and pulled out a six-pack of beer and half a bottle of vodka.
“Any food?” Rin asked, looking over his shoulder.
He held up a bottle of Sriracha. “Ketchup, mustard, barbecue sauce, and this. At least you have the important stuff. How do you have a fridge full of condiments and no food?”
“The trailer wasn’t expecting company for another two weeks.” Jill made a mental note to get ahold of Faust, who ran the operations south of hers, right away. Just because her operation went dark didn’t mean it was now defunct. There were still refugees who needed help. The Patels were still scheduled to move in two days. If they missed their transport, it’d be another three weeks before they could try again. Then there was the issue of the six outlier outposts operating in her region. Most had backup protocols, but she didn’t know how thorough her cleanup operation was, or how pervasive the enemy. More of her people could be in danger. She sighed. There was so much to do. So many people depended on her.
Jill pointed to the sleeping quarters in the back. “Two to the back. One on the couch. Freeni, first watch. I’ll take second. Then Rin, Ohr, and Vladimir. Freeni, hold the fort. I’ll be back.”
She left the RV and made her way through the darkness toward the office building up front. It was a moonless night, but the sky was full of stars. She hadn’t slept in over thirty-six hours and was starting to feel the effects. She wasn’t a law school student able to pull off all-nighters anymore. She wasn’t even a policy director working in Washington DC. Jill was a tired woman on the lam tryi
ng to save a bunch of Genjix refugees while her son was somewhere out there. Possibly injured. Possibly dead. She shook her head and pushed those thoughts out of her mind. Cameron was well-trained. He was smart and able. He would find her. She believed it; she had to. She had no other choice.
“Get it together, girl,” she growled. “People are depending on you.”
It took a few seconds for her to find the relic she was looking for. The sad-looking pay phone attached to the side of the office building had seen better days. The ground under it was overgrown with weeds, and the paint had long flaked off. Jill half-feared the line would be dead when she picked up the receiver. With her cell phone bricked, she had few other options. Luckily, there was a dial tone. She looked around to make sure she was alone, and dialed the emergency number.
“Twenty-four-hour wake up service. We wake up to wake you up. Can I help you?”
“Identification Baji.”
“Voice recognition matches Jill Tesser Tan. Current condition: Unknown. Base binary code required.”
“Binary code zero, zero, one, zero, one, one, one, zero, zero, one, one, zero.”
Silence.
“Baji, it’s good to hear from you. We thought we lost you when the hard line tripped.”
“Hey, Datlow. It was a Genjix raid. A full-blown assault. Vessel-led. Well-armed and coordinated.” Jill leaned against the aluminum siding and looked up at the night sky. She closed her eyes. “Did any of my people report in?”
“Six of your outposts reported in after they received the alert. Two of your occupied safe houses as well. No one from your base of operations called in. I am sorry.”
Rage welled up in Jill, not just at the Genjix, but also at everything else. At these refugees she was chaperoning. At Cameron for being missing; at Roen for not being here; at the government for not seeing things more clearly. Most of all, though, she was mad at herself for letting her people down.