Code Breakers: Beta

by Colin F. Barnes

  “Hmmm, interesting,” Jimmy said. “But is that it?”

  “Nah, this is the really interesting bit.” She forwarded it a few more minutes. Nothing showed after the splash. “Looks like they’ve drowned, don’t it?”

  He nodded. “I would assume as much.”

  “And that’d make an ass out of you and me,” she said with a wink. “Look.”

  She pulled up the data analysis record for the UAV whose video they were looking at.

  “See those spikes in radio transmission? That’s minutes after she went under the water; she’s alive! The seats on the Jaguars sense vital signs and transmit with their distress signal after ejection.”

  “Indeed they do.” Jimmy’s face twisted into a kind of half-smile half-grimace, as though he couldn’t decide if he was happy or worried. “Have the drones returned?”

  “Yeah, I brought them back in before I realised the signals were still transmitting. Doc, let me take the sub out. Please? We’ve got enough time before the satellite is overhead. Oh, and hey, it’d be a great way to test your new stealth tech, huh?”

  “Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous. You don’t know anything about this person at this stage. For all we know, that could be a decoy to something else. With the General and his men due back within the hour, you’ll be needed to help them with their kit. Or are you forgetting that you are a member of this team?”

  “But, Doc, did you really make me just to cart about some kit? Isn’t that a waste of my abilities? Hell, you have warehouses full of androids that could do those kinds of duties.”

  The shadow came down on Jimmy’s face then, “I said no, and that’s final. Leave and go and meet the General. I want you to be there ready to help them as soon as they arrive. Maybe that’ll make up for last time.”

  “Oh, come on, Doc. I’m going out of my mind with boredom here. Why program me to do all these great things and then have me busy with mundane jobs and stuck underground? I’m sick of this place.”

  Jimmy Robertson grabbed her by the collar of her leather coat and dragged her from the room. He pushed her into the corridor that led to the surface doors. “You’re to say here, be ready to help General Vickers and his team with their maintenance equipment.”

  Jimmy referred to the gear they used on the various relay stations, transmitters, and drone control nodes hidden about the island, away from prying Family satellites.

  “It’s not fair!” Sasha screamed at Jimmy as he turned his back on her and headed for his lab.

  “Play by the rules, and perhaps you’ll find life here fairer,” he called back as turned out of the passage.

  Sasha waited a minute to ensure he had completely left. When she was sure, she snuck off down the corridor. The General can lift his own damn stuff, she thought as she headed for the submersible compound.

  ***

  Sasha sprinted down the various corridors and levels until she arrived at the unit housing the subs. It featured a water tank that fed into the ocean. It was also the location of Criborg’s team of oceanographers: a team of twenty-five scientists who worked with Jimmy Robertson to develop submarines and other sea-based technology.

  There were the standard observational models, which the oceanographers used to monitor sea life and the effect of radiation since the Cataclysm, and then there were combat models, using Robertson’s new stealth tech.

  He’d had the idea to use a layer of nano-cells on the sub’s surface so that when The Family’s satellites flew over during their monitoring process, their signals would be scrambled, analysed and repackaged by the nano cells. When the satellite received back the photons, it’d seem as if nothing was there. That was the plan. It hadn’t been tested out in the depths yet. It worked fine in their water lab within the compound, but as usual, Jimmy remained reluctant to test it, just like he remained reluctant to test the warehouses full of androids. They could do all the heavy lifting and mundane jobs around the compound, not to mention the maintenance on the surface. It seemed stupid sending soldiers to do basic tasks.

  He’d often say that the androids were left-overs from the war, and when the Anglo-American owners were wiped out leaving a few hundred people back at Wake Island in Criborg’s care, that they weren’t field tested or trustworthy.

  So what if one of them went crazy and killed someone? It was a temporary software problem that could be easily fixed if old Robertson would just loosen up and allow them to at least test them in a controlled environment.

  She’d often sneak into one of the pods that stored the androids. Designed to be drop-shipped into strategic battlefield locations, each pod held fifty ‘droids. With over a hundred pods, that made five thousand android combat units, still new as the day they were made.

  The possibilities were huge, she thought. If they could just sort out the software, they could go to the surface, re-establish a proper community with farming, industry, defences against those damned Family drones, which she hated to admit were far superior to their own.

  Chatter from the scientists and their assistants buzzed out rom the mess hall as Petal walked by. They were all excited about some new chemical report from kelp or something. It never ceased to amaze her what those eggheads would get excited over when there were more incredible things mothballed in storage.

  It didn’t matter though. The more distracted they were the better.

  She opened the door to the wet lab and descended the metal steps until she stood on a gantry and looked down at the black, sleek combat sub. It reached ten metres long and three wide, shaped like a dart with a raised middle section. Big enough to seat three: a navigator, and front and rear weapons operators, it had a pair of side torpedo pontoons, currently empty. The missiles and arms were kept elsewhere. General Vickers, and Jimmy Robertson, didn’t trust anyone, even the eggheads.

  Still, what she had planned meant she didn’t need weapons. She was the weapon in this case—if it would even come down to that, which she doubted.

  Up on the right side of the gantry, looking down over the entire complex loomed a glassed-off observation lab where Salty Mack, the skipper and manager of the sub complex, would often be found. But even he was with his colleagues in the mess hall.

  Doing a quick observation check to make sure no one was around, Sasha suited up in an augmented silvery-black wet suit. It had a series of sensors and control units woven into the fabric, making it smart and adaptive to the user’s core temperature. The mask and helmet it came with fit tight around her face. A small port on the mouthpiece attached to an air supply within the sub. Once outside she’d have a hundred metres of line with which to explore. But even without the air, it didn’t matter to Sasha. She didn’t strictly need air to survive. To perform optimally? Yes. To survive? Not really.

  She pulled up the transmitted location of the ejector seat’s signal on her slate, plotted it into her internal navigation system. Her implant gave her a direct connection to the slate, the sub’s systems, and to the network within the compound itself, all on their own secure encrypted microwave network. However, she disconnected herself from the compound’s wider system so they couldn’t tell what she was doing. She created a program that would ping the network with her ID from her observation room and from the main doors so it appeared to anyone, probably Jimmy, who wanted to check on her that she was doing her expected duties.

  When she got back from her mission, they’d be so impressed with her ingenuity, skills, and what she found that maybe then they’d stop treating her like a child, and more like the capable war machine she actually was.

  Chapter 14

  Not for the first time, Gerry found himself strapped into a chair, arms and legs bound to cold steel. The room was a slightly larger version of his prison cell. Three Red Widows stood in front of him, their dark deep-set eyes watching him, flitting, nervous. They shuffled on their slipper-covered feet, their robes and wrappings swirling about their lean bodies.

  Gabe stood in the middle, dressed similarly; his dreadlo
cks tied back, his face embittered like his compatriots. He had a swollen lump on the side of his head and his right eye was bruised and puffed almost to closing. Despite that, he too had the same fanatic expression in his eyes, but then Gerry knew he’d always had that to some extent. At least then, for a while, he was on Gerry and Petal’s side. Now? Who knew his real intentions?

  To the left stood a woman with a hooked nose and a scar across her face. To Gabe’s right a thin woman with a pleasant face eyed Gerry with a hungry expression. She seemed entirely incongruous to her allies.

  All three looked down at Gerry expectantly.

  He still had that electrocution device in the back of his neck, and he jolted every few seconds with each pulse into his brain. It no longer hurt or surprised him, his nervous system adapting to its effects. And yet he still couldn’t access his AIA or any of his internal systems.

  On the way to this larger cell Gabe had spoken in Russian to the various guards until they arrived at a room that looked like a medical bay. A heavyset woman with a shining gold medallion on the outside of her robes appraised Gerry with a curious eye. She and Gabe spoke in hushed English, but her accent sounded much like the others. She seemed less fanatical, calmer, in control, and Gerry suspected she led the entire operation, whatever that might be. Although he couldn’t make out their conversation, he heard the words ‘servers’ and ‘City Earth’.

  Curiously, the woman in charge didn’t address him as Gabe or Gabe, but as ‘Feodor’.

  And he in return called her ‘Natalya.’ There appeared to be some friction between the two, and Gerry wondered if the wound on his face was a part of it. Either way, he had a bad feeling of what would come.

  While Gabe led Gerry to the cell, he whispered just one thing while out of earshot of the other Red Widow members: ‘trust me’.

  Gerry snorted at that. Given that the last time they were both in these corridors, Gabe had double-crossed him and given him up to Seca’s guards. But despite the personalised-EMP device jammed into the back of his neck, and despite the lack of access to all his gadgetry and technology, a part of Gerry still wanted to trust him.

  There was something about his face, his whole behaviour. He appeared so much a part of the Widows: comrades saluted him, Natalya apparently held him in some kind of high regard, and yet he still tried to appeal to Gerry. Perhaps he had plans to do something. Enna mentioned Petal was safe, and with him, but so far he hadn’t seen or heard her. Was she, too, stuck in a cell?

  Bringing Gerry back to the present, Gabe ushered the two Widows out of his cell and locked the door from the inside. In turn, the door to the cell next to Gerry’s slammed shut. Then came the sound of frantic screaming and pleading. It was a voice Gerry recognised: Bilanko.

  “What are they doing to her?” Gerry said, lifting his head to regard his former friend.

  “Torturing ‘er. Extracting info. It’s policy for infidels, man.”

  “Is that what you see me as now? An infidel?”

  Gabe moved close, dropped his voice to barely a whisper, “Nah, man. I’m looking out for ya. Listen to me. Petal’s dying.”

  “She’s what?” Gerry struggled against his restraints, wanted to throttle the truth from Gabe, who placed both of his hands on Gerry’s shoulders and forced him to be still.

  “Keep it down, man. Listen. I was part of the extraction team that got her from Jasper’s men. I’ve been working with Red Widows for weeks now under orders from Enna. It’s all got out of control. They’re crazy, man, they hate tech, hate the Family—”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “No one, man. But these Red Widows, they want to eradicate everyone from within the Dome, claim it for ‘emselves. And the servers. We can’t let ‘em get their hands—”

  “So where is she? Where’s Petal? And what do they want with the servers?” Gerry whispered back, wondering if he wasn’t being setup again.

  “She was here, man, but I got ‘er out.” He pointed to the swelling on his face. “They think she fought ‘er way out. Well, she kinda did. She’s on her way home. We found out who ‘er makers were. Enna thinks they can fix ‘er up before it’s too late.”

  “What’s killing her? Couldn’t you have taken her to Enna for medical help? Who are her makers?”

  Gabe shook his head and closed his eyes as if in pain.

  “I wish Enna could, man. I wish that’d be all it took. Last time Enna fixed ‘er up, she noticed she was degrading, her DNA unravelling, mutating. She ain’t like you and me, man. She’s something different. Getting her to Criborg, ‘er makers, is the only thing we can do given the Widows have swept over the border and taken most of the hamlets and survivor towns. They completely run Darkhan now, and GeoCity-1 will fall in days. We’re hoping Criborg can provide support, help us fight back.”

  A knock came on the door, Gerry tensed, fearful their exchange had been heard; fearful the torturers from the next cell were now on their way to deal with him.

  Gabe spun, looked at the door, and quickly turned back. In a hurried whisper he said. “They want the servers, man. They already got Old Grey. That’s why they’re torturing Bilanko. They want the other one, the backbone, the one Len was protecting. When he died, his people went underground, off the grid, became ghosts. Don’t tell ‘em anything, man, we can’t afford this lot getting both together.”

  “Why? Why are they so important to them?”

  “They work together, to create AIs. I can explain more later, but Natalya found a transmission from an AI via one of The Family’s satellites. Damn thing communicated with ‘er. Told ‘er all about the servers. S’why Len was protecting it, man. They call it Omega. Its Old Grey’s twin.”

  “Why the need to destroy them, though?”

  “As good as they are creating AIs they can destroy ‘em, too. This AI entity wants the Red Widows to help destroy them, so they won’t be a threat to it no longer.”

  Gerry instantly thought of the thing that attacked him on his way out of the station. Was it the same one? It made sense. Being out there, close to the satellites. Perhaps it is within The Family’s system of satellites the entity resides. “Where is the AI? Is it the same one I destroyed back at City Earth?”

  “Nah, man, this is something else. Something far worse.”

  A knock, more urgent this time, rapped at the door.

  Gabe stepped back. “Look, I’m sorry about this.”

  “About what?”

  Gabe punched Gerry in the face, breaking his nose, splattering his face with blood.

  “Argh! Motherfuc—” Gerry rocked in the chair, squeezed his eyes shut at the pain, tried not to choke on the blood that dripped down the back of his throat. He could taste it now on his lips as it gushed from the snapped cartilage and bone.

  Gabe reached behind Gerry’s head and switched off the EMP disruptor device stuck in his spinal column.

  “Has the buzz gone?” Gabe whispered quickly.

  Gerry nodded, felt his AIA and various internal systems reset and start their boot process. As if switching on a light in a dark room he felt connected again. Could sense all the nearby computers, the various nodes, even the familiar banks of computers he’d destroyed the last time he was here, and for a brief moment he senses the slick digital probing from Bilanko, but it was far weaker than the last time she got into his head. She tried to send him a message, an appeal for help. He couldn’t respond. His systems were not fully capable yet.

  Bilanko’s cell door slammed, and the voices from her torturers grew louder as they approached. An electronic lock within his door clunked.

  Gabe looked at the door then back to him and slapped him hard again, smearing more blood across his face. Gerry’s head throbbed with pain. His eyes filled with water, so that when the door opened and two women came in, he couldn’t quite make out what they held in their hands, only that it gleamed under the white lights.

  They exchanged words with Gabe, and together, all three laughed.

  Blinking the t
ears from his eyes, Gerry watched Gabe leave the room, but before he exited completely he looked back at Gerry from between the two women, and mouthed, ‘Sorry’.

  One of the Widows leaned into Gerry, smiled a grim smile, her teeth rotten and black, and her breath equally foul. The cold and wet touch of a blade pushed against Gerry’s throat as she spoke low and threatening. “You tell us what we want, you no die slow death. Understand?”

  Chapter 15

  At 21:35, under the cover of darkness, Sasha cruised the new sub out of Criborg’s wet-lab, and descended ten meters before turning and heading east out of the Wake Island compound, to the ejector seat’s distress signal.

  This is so damned cool, Sasha said to herself as she sat back in the comfy bucket seat, her hands poised in front of the holographic controls. She watched in awe at the rainbow of colours in the reef and the variety of species that swam in and out of the swaying plants and rocks, all illuminated by the sub’s lights. She took it slowly over the shallow part of the reef not wanting to disturb the eels and sharks and the various small fish that darted away from her.

  Once clear she increased the power of the engines, feeling the power in the hum of the hydrogen jets as it sped through the water as if it were a bird in the sky.

  The sleek black machine left the Wake Island atoll behind, dipped its pointed nose down, and dove with the grace of a dolphin. A series of spotlights illuminated the gloom as it descended a hundred metres, always staying a few metres away from the jagged rocks of the coral reef.

  Using the holographic control screen, Sasha looked up at the critical depths for a human in the sub’s database. Without breathing equipment, they’d struggle beyond fifty meters. The signals, however, came from a depth of over a hundred and twenty. Which told her they’d be dead by now, and that they weren’t human, or they had breathing apparatus, which was unlikely. You wouldn’t fit gas tanks on one of those Jaguar seats.