by Matt Ward
“Finally up?” Paer asked.
What? I stopped dead. “What are you doing?”
“Come on, kid. I may be old but I’m not that old. I can recognize love, especially the young, crazy kind.”
Crap. “Don’t tell the others.”
“Your secret is safe with me, but I’d be surprised if most didn’t know. Enough about your love life, we have more important things to discuss. The teams are in position, ready to attack on our signal. Backup’s ten kilometers out in case they fail. Do you have the announcement ready?”
Um... “The what?”
“Lars thought it would be good for people to hear it from you that we’d destroyed the brain-field backups. Explain why it mattered and why we did it.”
This was the first I was hearing about it. “Did he now?”
“Well, you had a busy night, didn’t you?” she added with a smirk. “Find him, get that done.”
I blushed. “What about local militias?”
“You were right. We doubled, and in some cases tripled, support in the major regions thanks to the calls. It’s huge. Is it enough though, that’s the question.”
Lars called.
‘On my way.’ I hung up before he could reply. “Gotta go,” I apologized, running for the stairs.
“Where have you been?” Lars snapped as I flung open the door. “We need to get this done.” He was pacing, screens arrayed around the room, bags under his hypercaffeinated red eyes.
“Sorry.” I looked away. “Fell asleep early.”
He rolled his eyes but rather than pry, talked about what he had in mind. Fifteen minutes later, we had our recording. “This will have to do,” he said. “We don’t have time to try again.”
Five minutes later, the Council room. “Attacks start in twenty-five minutes,” Paer said. “Anything else, folks?”
Wow, twenty-five minutes.
We shook our heads.
Paer flipped a switch on the table, and four separate holograms appeared, two men and two women, all in fatigues.
‘Can you hear me?’ Paer asked.
‘Yes.’‘Roger that.’ ‘Loud and clear.’ ‘Yes ma’am.’ They responded in a blur of voices.
‘You have the green light. Start the assault. Permission to use any force necessary. Provide updates every ten minutes when possible. We need to know where we stand.’
‘Affirmative,’ they answered in unison before signing off. One by one they disappeared, leaving us on the edge of our seats.
“And so it begins,” Lars murmured.
“We need to go.” I stood, nervous adrenaline coursing through me.
Zedda rose. “I’m going with you!”
I fought to keep my face a mask. “Don’t they need you here?” It was too dangerous.
“Not a chance.” She gave me a don’t even think about it scorcher. “I’ll be there watching your back.”
So freaking stubborn. Damn, I loved that about her.
“Holos all set, Lars?” I asked.
He nodded. “Ania has everything. She’ll help Agtha upload when the time comes.”
“Are we missing anything?” I looked around. There was always something.
Obowe shook his head. “It is time we play our cards. Go, we will be here. Good luck and give them hell.”
“We will,” I promised.
54
Street Parade
We arrived downtown thirty minutes later, in time for the start of the action. A crowd gathered on the marble steps of the Justice Building, thousands of individuals of every shape, size and color lining the streets, carrying pitchforks and blasters, audio amplifiers, and even a few old powder rifles.
It was a sight to behold—stripes and scales and fur—animotes of every age and walk of life, here to fight and die for their future. It gave me goosebumps.
Further up the road was a DNS barricade, an unending wall of black-clad soldiers. VTOLs hovered overhead, news crews and air force ships vying for space and to control crowds.
It was way more than I expected. There had to be a few hundred thousand on the streets, twenty to forty percent of the capital. The energy was electrifying, both terrible and awe-inspiring at once.
A voice burst through. “THIS IS THE DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL SECURITY. RETURN TO YOUR HOMES AT ONCE. YOU ARE IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF GOVERNMENTAL DECREE SEVENTY-SEVEN SECTION SIX. BE ADVISED, WE ARE AUTHORIZED TO USE FORCE IF NECESSARY. RETURN TO YOUR HOMES IMMEDIATELY.”
A BOOM shook the streets. Hundreds of amplifiers came to life, voices joining in a crackle. Song erupted. “WE AIN’T GONNA TAKE IT, NO, WE AIN’T GONNA TAKE IT. WE’RE AIN’T GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!”
The music got louder and louder, and my heart shook, deep bass rocking my very core. When it couldn’t get louder, it faded and my voice echoed everywhere. The video from two days ago reverberated through the streets, silencing everyone. People froze. What was happening?
A buzz enveloped the crowd as people stomped their feet, chanting. “Down with the GDR. Down with the GDR. DOWN WITH THE GDR.”
I joined in as the cheers eclipsed even the heart-stopping music earlier, tension building. This was it. The moment was magical. The emotion, overpowering.
BANG.
Someone fired. Shit.
Shots filled the air; tens, hundreds, soon thousands... The police had opened fire.
People scattered, regrouped, and charged the black-clad soldiers and cops. Objects hurtled through the air. Explosions everywhere. The building to our right erupted in flame. Cars and scooters went up in smoke. Around us, screaming animotes collapsed.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
A massive rev stopped my heart. What was that? To the left, a huge military transport barreled toward us; it must have housed a hundred men. No... I opened my mouth to shout when another appeared behind us, boxing us in.
Zedda grabbed my arm, pointing. A third rocketed toward the crowd from the right. They weren’t boxing us in, they were mowing us down like bowling pins. How could they? Dozens were crushed by oncoming vehicles as fear jolted the crowd. It had gone from a fight to a slaughter in seconds. Their VTOLs opened fire, high caliber blasts ripping three meter wide holes in our ranks.
What had I done? Blood everywhere.
Targeting the closest transport, I laid down heavy fire and hit the driver. The truck careened into a wall in an explosion of glass and concrete. Lars and Zedda battled a VTOL to my left as a bearish man with an anti-aircraft gun was blown apart not twenty meters away. That could have been her...
Sprinting toward the onslaught, I fired. My first shots missed as the vehicle bulldozed bodies, picking up steam. The fifth shot got him, but it was too late... speeding for a huge crowd. There’d be hundreds of fatalities.
I hurdled a boy throwing rocks at the oncoming behemoth, and lost it. Not him too, he was just a child. Slamming the rig, a shockwave rippled through me and the truck launched into the air, landing five meters from the screaming boy.
“Go!” I yelled. “Get out of here!” He ran, and made it three steps before he was blown apart by an airborne blast. No! I could have—a soldier fired, but I shot him.
To my left, Henk stood over the wreckage of the last transport, firing like mad. Zedda was right; he was an animal in combat.
Speaking of Zedda, where was she? Was she okay? My heart pounded. What about Lars?
A message from Paer: Two locations down.
What? Oh, yeah, the brain-fields.
An endless supply of soldiers piled into the fray, and from the east, the roar of more VTOLs. We were getting murdered.
Something slammed into me and I spun, ducking as I leveled my blaster. Holy shit, Lars!
“There you are!” he yelled over the chaos. “I almost killed you. We’re getting massacred.”
“I know! Have you seen Zedda?”
“No, but we need to push back one of those columns or we’re all dead—” Something streaked toward us and I tackled him. The ground we�
�d been standing on exploded in a plume.
“Follow me!” I darted down a side street, away from the action. Could we flank them, like Thorn’s men? We had to.
Lars seized my arm. “Are you running away?”
What? “No.” We passed a zombie-filled VR den, turned, and burst onto the main thoroughfare behind the advancing column.
Switching to automatic, I opened fire. The first line of soldiers whose backs were to us were cut down instantly. We didn’t let up, not even pausing to aim as wave after wave collapsed to the bloody pavement.
In twenty seconds, their column of several thousand had been reduced to a third. As they countered, rebels charged. It was the perfect accidental two-pronged attack.
Within minutes, all lay dead or dying.
A cheer from our supporters, the first moral victory of the one-sided battle. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to cheer death. They’d chosen sides, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
Paer called. ‘We got trouble!’
55
Visitors
‘The Dever team called, they haven’t located the brain-field banks,’ Paer said.
A lucky shot whizzed past as we ran for cover. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘It’s Calter,’ she hissed.
‘What?’ Despite the carnage, my heart stopped. What about him?
‘He’s there, with a special forces strike team no less.’
I froze. ‘But the first two facilities were destroyed?’
‘Yeah,’ she said.
‘Patch me through to Dever.’
‘One sec.’
A second voice crystalized, clean cut face to my right. ‘Rogers here.’
‘Rogers, this is Raek Mekorian. What’s your status?’
‘We captured the facility, sir!’ he barked. ‘But we’ve haven’t found any storage banks, sir.’
‘Paer, did the other teams find the brain banks?’ I asked.
‘Nothing labeled brain-fields or emulations, but they found matching neural hookups at both locations. Sending images now.’
An alien-looking image materialized, a metallic halo crown covered in spaced dents, tentacled black wires winding downward to a silver harness with another metallic halo.
Where had I seen that? Think.
An explosion shook the alleyway as it hit me. Lars’ book, The Rise of Immortality. I accessed my saved memories. A picture in Chapter 9 depicted an eerily similar setup captioned Earliest Attempts at Emulation.
That had to be it. I told Rogers and Paer, but they hadn’t found anything like it in Dever.
‘You have to find that brain-field bank,’ Paer cut in. ‘Everything is riding on that.’
All our best laid plans... ‘How long until Calter’s forces breach the base?’ I asked.
‘Hold on. We hacked the cams.’ Several images materialized—fifteen in total—showing the fortress: walls, perimeter, everything.
‘You getting this?’ Rogers asked.
We were, but Lars wrenched me behind a recycler, and shoved a hand over my mouth. “Shhh!” He held his finger to his lips, and pointed to a wave of soldiers marching down the street, backup for their fallen comrades.
‘Shit!’ Rogers yelled. ‘Hangar alarm is going off. Smalls, get over here!’
A huge soldier ran to him and saluted. ‘Reporting for duty, sir!’
‘Smalls,’ Rogers said. ‘I need you and Drog to check that, ASAP!’
Our entire plan hung in the balance and I couldn’t do a thing about it.
The hanger appeared, a forklift racing toward an abandoned VTOL, a guard at the wheel.
They missed a guard. ‘He’s trying to save the backups!’ I yelled.
‘Smalls, Drog, come in!’ Rogers squawked. ‘We got company. There’s another guard in the hanger driving a forklift to save the brain-fields. Their reinforcements breached the base. Shoot! Doors two and four are compromised as well!’
We were losing. This couldn’t be happening.
This was Calter’s chance at immortality—and deniability—and he was taking it. I’d miscalculated...
Two figures sprinted into the hanger as the forklift was in the process of loading the VTOL. They opened fire. A few shots hit home but nothing happened.
The hanger doors blew off their hinges, daylight poured in along with black-clad figures. The soldiers concentrated their fire on Smalls and Drog as the VTOL’s engines purred.
This was it...
Calter appeared on another screen, eyes twinkling and smug as he tapped out Mozart with one hand, holding the other to his ear.
Now what? ‘It’s okay, Rogers,’ I said.’ You did your best—’ A cry cut me off.
Rogers dashed through the facility, carrying something, headed for the hanger. What the—?
‘What are you doing, soldier?’ Paer yelled.
The object in his hand was about the size of a brick, not quite rectangular, an almost doughy shape. What? No, it couldn’t be… A bomb.
‘Rogers, no!’ I bellowed.
Into the hanger he sprinted, soldiers everywhere. No one noticed until it was too late.
‘Rogers!’ I screamed. Don’t do this. Not you too.
‘I’m sorry!’ He yelled, diving toward the motionless VTOL. ‘Freedom!’ His voice reverberated through the cavernous hanger as his finger pressed the detonator.
Nothing happened.
56
Making It Rain
He exploded in a ball of light, shockwave pulsing the hanger, incinerating everything, before the camera konked. A high-pitched static ringing.
‘Paer?’ I said in a shocked stupor.
‘I’m here,’ she answered in a hushed voice.
We’d sent those soldiers to their fate. After a full minute of silence, I asked how things were going.
It wasn’t looking good. ‘Their air support is killing us,’ she said.
‘How soon until the fourth facility’s breached?’ That’s all we needed. Once that was done, there was no stopping it.
An officer passing our alley noticed us and opened fire. We ran.
‘They keep sending reinforcements!’ I yelled to Paer as we raced down the alley. ‘Do we have any backup?’
No, and no. And it was an hour until team three arrived on site.
We rounded the corner as a large contingent of protesters charged the Parliamentary steps, flinging homemade bombs and spraying the building with blaster fire.
Four nearby VTOLs turned, concentrating their fiery carnage on those rushing the stairs. Concrete and marble spewed as groups of rebels were cremated in an instant.
An anti-aircraft gun from somewhere in the crowd took out the closest bird. Within seconds, the man holding it—and everyone unlucky enough to be within four meters—had been reduced to ashes.
Our guys didn’t stand a chance. I targeted the nearest VTOL, cycling my blaster settings. After the flying fiasco, I’d done some research. While VTOLs were resistant to blaster fire, their instruments were highly sensitive and relied on precision maneuvering. Small errors or losses of power could be catastrophic.
And catastrophic was just what I needed. Would it be enough?
Selecting stun mode, I locked on and fired twice as the ground to my right imploded. Bingo.
The engine stalled midair and the VTOL plummeted. Less than twenty meters from impact, it roared to life. Crap, pilot must have rebooted. I fired again. The engine froze and resumed its fall, exploding as it bounced off an empty fountain and took out half the World Bank.
The other pilots pulled back. They’d seen their friend’s fates and wanted no part.
A cheer went up from the rebels, even as a micronade clunked at my feet.
Oh crap.
Zedda.
It exploded, launching me into the air.
57
Heaven And Hell
Something wasn’t right. I’d died, and gone to hell, that was the only explanation.
But hell wasn’t real. There wa
s no right and wrong, no good and evil…
Yet, here I was. This was no dream. It wasn’t VR either. Everything was real, and somehow, ethereal.
The world was happening around me, like I’d become something else.
Bodies everywhere, butchery beyond imagination. Raw horror. Everything reeked of death. It was ALL my fault!
But who’d won? I needed to know. I headed toward the worst of it but stopped dead. Henk was sprawled on the frozen earth, coughing blood.
‘Henk? There you are. Can you hear me?’
“Help!” he cried. “Can anyone hear me? Is anyone there?”
‘Henk, it’s me.’ I reached to pick him up. ‘I got you budd—’ The words died on my lips. Where were my hands? My arms? My body was gone.
No No No! Was I dead? Was I a ghost? Or something...
I ran—or glided, I guess—away as fast I could. I was going to be sick.
‘Can anyone hear me?’ I screamed. ‘Help, help!’ What was happening?
Farther, faster; bodies and blood and death as far as the eye could see.
The scene changed. I was somewhere else, yet time stood still. A sign, Itany. Here too: death, destruction, suffering.
‘What is this place?’ I yelled in a wordless scream. ‘What do you want from me?’
Suddenly, back in Caen, a small side street. Zedda’s bloody face alongside a headless man. What was she doing here? I ran to where she lay. Her chest and torso were gone, nothing left. No, this couldn’t be happening. Tears came as I threw back my head and wailed. She was all I’d had left, and she was gone.
‘Why are you crying, son?’ a voice behind me asked. ‘We all lose loved ones, you of all people should know that.’
It sounded like, but it couldn’t be.
Fitz? I turned. Sure enough, it was him, his presence at least. I felt it.
‘You’re here?’ I whispered. ‘How?