by Nyx Smith
"How has it guided him? Toward what goal?"
"The white octagram is his symbol, Machiko. To him, it represents death and rebirth. Liam believes that in order for the earth to be reborn, the great defilers must die. All norms, all metas who serve norms or have relationships with norms."
"Would this not include most of the earth's population?" Faintly, Sashi-san nods. "He uses the name Gamma." Machiko draws a deep breath. The garden now seems very silent and still. "Are you aware that Gamma is believed to be the name of a former member of Alamos 20K? That Gamma is reputed to be an anti-meta terrorist?"
Faintly, Sashi-san nods her head, and once more the pain in her eyes swells like agony. "Yes," she whispers. "Yes, I know. Liam resents elves for what he suffered as a child. But he blames everyone."
"Does he also blame Nagato Combine?"
"Of course," Sashi-san says. "Liam knows the truth of his origin. And he knows of my relations with Nagato Combine. And he is not so great a fool as to imagine that a coincidence." Sashi-san pauses, brushing at her eyes, then seems to exert herself to say, "The persons you detained, members of White Octagon, they may be Liam's pawns. Mere tools of his mystic formulae. I say this because they do not seem to understand as small a thing as the significance of the name he uses."
"The name Gamma has some special significance?"
"It is not drawn from physics. It derives, I believe, from the gammadion, an ancient mystic symbol resembling a swastika. It represents the solstices and equinoxes, the four cardinal directions, the four basic elements, and the four divine guardians of the world."
Machiko is unsure whether she herself understands the importance of this. "Do you mean that Gamma, Liam, views himself as a divine guardian?"
"A guardian, certainly. An avenger."
"Where might we find him?"
"Wherever the earth is most grievously wounded. That is where he will be."
36
By noon, Machiko stands in the transparex-paneled office beside the Nagato Operations Center on Sub-level B of Nagato Tower. She and Colonel Satomi and a handful of Security Service executives watch as a digital records analyst conducts a computer-augmented evaluation.
The first set of digipics comes from a chip-carrier provided by Sashi-san; the second set from video records of the mage conducting the attack at the Chrysanthemum Palace Hotel.
"It is highly likely," the analyst concludes, "that the individual from Machiko-san's digipics, identified as Gamma, is the mage who launched the attack."
"Numerically, how certain is this?" asks Colonel Satomi. "The evaluation software assigns an eighty-seven likelihood. I prefer a more generalized rating of between eighty and ninety percent certainly."
Machiko asks, "You are able to make this determination even though the security cam record from the hotel does not show the mage's face?"
The analyst bows, and says, "We use very sophisticated algorithms to conduct comparative evaluations, Machiko-san. These algorithms take into account a variety of biodynamic factors such as anatomical structure and its influence on physical motion. A person's face may be easily modified, or, as in this case, largely concealed. How a person walks, however, is not so easily disguised. An analysis of this type is not as precise as one might obtain from genetics, or even fingerprints, but it is generally able to provide a reliable indication. It would perhaps be more precise to say that the mage from the hotel record moves in a manner highly consistent with the individual, called Gamma, in the digipics you have provided."
"It appears then that we have confirmation that Gamma did indeed execute the hotel attack," says Colonel Satomi, turning to Machiko. "Where did you obtain these digipics of Gamma?"
"Unfortunately," Machiko replies, "I am prevented from divulging that information."
Colonel Satomi appears briefly surprised, but does not pursue the point. He would naturally assume that since Machiko reports only to the Chairman of Nagato Combine she must have been instructed by the Chairman to keep her source private. In this particular case, Machiko encourages that assumption because she cannot imagine Honjowara-sama ever desiring the truth be made plain.
The shocks of her morning with Sashi-san reverberate still through her insides. She feels emotionally traumatized, as though the fabric of her world has been rent, her most basic assumptions torn away.
Is Sashi-san truly her genetic mother? Could her true genetic father be not an elf, but a norm, the Chairman of Nagato Combine? Is it even conceivable that her own surrogate parents, her true parents, could be the genetic parents of Gamma? And the program of exchange—she can barely formulate a question—how could such a thing exist? It boggles the mind. It challenges not merely her spirit but her very capacity for understanding.
Intellectually, she knows she must accept all this as true, that she has Honjowara-sama's assurance that Sashi would speak only truth, but emotionally the adjustment has not even begun. The truths Sashi has spoken go so far beyond anything previously known that Machiko feels only awe and amazement and an acute sense of incredulity. She must have time to sort it all out, to consider the implications for her life, her relations with her parents, and with Sashi-san, and with Honjowara-sama himself.
But now there is no time.
Before the noon hour is done, an armed SDF courier arrives with the data-storage modules from the SDF's pair of twin-engine Mistral sensor aircraft. At Machiko's request, these aircraft have completed over-flights of the two regions in the New York-New Jersey megaplex, where, as Sashi-san said, "the earth is most grievously wounded." The first region is a portion of the Newark sprawl known as Sector 13, said to be the result of some massive metaphysical catastrophe. The second region is located along Long Island's northern shoreline, a portion known as the Slag Heap, a toxic waste dump further poisoned shortly after the Awakening by the crash of a military transport carrying an eclectic mixture of toxic materials.
Security Service analysts upload data from the Mistral modules to the Security Service security mainframe. They soon project a detailed map on a wall-sized display screen. Color-coded indicators appear on the screen to identify the presence and location of sources of heat and light radiation.
"These are from artificial sources?" Colonel Satomi asks.
The analysts confirm it.
Both of the toxic regions appear to be sparsely inhabited. That is not especially surprising because the numbers of poor inhabiting the plex are legion. Rarely does a week pass without a story in the media about some SINless indigent found dead among the waste containers, or in the tunnels or passage of some abandoned property. Stories that would rouse even the most granite of hearts to compassionate feelings.
"How long might an unprotected individual survive in such places?" Machiko asks.
The chief of the Nagato Corp medical division is consulted. He states, via telecom, "I have seen nothing to indicate that an unprotected human or metahuman could not survive a short-term exposure to the toxins reputed to be present in these two regions. However, to date, there have been no comprehensive studies of the hazards to biological organisms present in these areas, and I am under the impression that such hazards are not limited to strictly mundane chemical and/or radiological hazards."
"Do you suggest that there may be hazards of a metaphysical nature?" asks Colonel Satomi.
"That is precisely what I suggest."
But the point is irrelevant. It is clear to Machiko what must be done. The swords at her back and waist make it clear. A lifetime of duty and loyalty make it clear. She may come in time to question the principles of those she serves, she may come to make inquiries and to weigh all answers with care, but that time is not now.
Now she must remain focused, if only out of loyalty to herself, to the Way, and to the spirit of the ancient warriors who have guided her throughout her life.
"We must seek Gamma regardless of the risk."
Colonel Satomi concurs.
By five p.m., a pair of task forces are prepared, briefed, and
ready. Ground units are ordered to staging zones. Machiko dispatches Gongoro and a team of GSG to monitor and support the SDF force that will sweep through the wastes of Newark's Sector 13. Machiko herself will join a team waiting to link with the forces already converging on the Slag Heap.
At twenty minutes past five, Colonel Satomi turns to a telecom and contacts his opposite numbers at the various corps responsible for police services in the plex.
"We are launching proprietary anti-terrorist operations," he tells them. "Please advise your forces to remain clear of these areas."
It is more a warning than a request. Satomi does not ask permission for the sweeps and his opposites merely acknowledge that the message is understood. This is the protocol.
Corporations in the New York region do not generally interfere with the mass movements of other corps' forces to neutral territory. That would be a prescription for intercorporate warfare. It could lead too easily to the unfortunate consequences of misconceptions. Told that Nagato SDF is on the move. Lone Star and the other police service corps will almost certainly stand back and merely monitor events. Any legal issues that may arise can be handled later, negotiated by lawyers, once the guns have been put away and relative calm is restored.
On the aeropad atop Nagato Tower, Machiko mounts a waiting Hughes Stallion helo marked for the SDF. The helo immediately lifts off. Machiko distributes digipics of Gamma to her team of five GSG and reaffirms the central message of the mission briefing. "He must absolutely be taken alive."
Gamma is a mage. He did not himself penetrate the Nagato computer network. He did not himself send messages to Zurich banks. If he is the force behind the attempt to acquire Nagato debt and bring the corp to ruin, he commands others with expertise in business and computers and these persons must absolutely be apprehended. They must be stopped, and Gamma may be the only means of finding them. He must be captured and compelled to reveal the totality of his plans, everything he knows.
The SDF helo slices across northern Queens, skirting
LaGuardia Airport, then cleaves a path down the center of Long Island, over Nassau and then Suffolk County airspaces, then swings north toward the shoreline.
The SDF pilot shouts over the commlink, "Command signals ready! Initiate Black Typhoon!"
Machiko nods in acknowledgment. She signals her team to prepare for combat. The helo's lone ork crewman yanks open the side door to the main cabin and swings an M107 Stoner-Ares heavy machine gun into position.
A moment more and aircraft appear from the east, a flight of SDF helos accompanied by a twin-engine Commander VTOL gunship and a pair of attack choppers.
Then, the region of the Slag Heap comes into visual range.
According to Machiko's maps, it is centered around an abandoned village once known as Kings Park. The terrain at dusk grows vague with curling mists, obscured in places by swirling clouds like miniature whirlwinds, but the larger details are plain. Whole blocks of houses lie in ruins. Debris clogs the ruptured pavement of the streets. Festering pools of noxious liquids boil and simmer and steam beneath carpets of twisted vines and gnarled trees and the rotting sentinels of ancient wooden utility poles.
The primary target zone lies on the fringe of the old village center, a sprawling expanse of poisoned woodlands and wasted, withered meadows and abandoned brick buildings, some of them five and six stories tall, as grim and foreboding as any medieval prison, or perhaps something worse, an asylum for the insane.
Machiko has only to glance onto the astral to see the twisted energies here, to grasp the malevolent nature of the power afflicting the land, to recognize that here, if anywhere, is where evil dwells. She feels it in the quick shiver that slips up her back. She feels it in her soul.
On the ground, a trio of MVN-17 armored personnel carriers with turret-mounted hardpoints move rapidly up the warped and shattered concrete of a road, led by a sixwheeled Appaloosa armed and armored scout vehicle and an Ares Citymaster armored command vehicle. Helos descend. SDF troopers deploy. Machiko directs her pilot to swing around to the rear of the massive building that gave the most definite indications of habitation to the Mistral over-flight. Two other helos swoop in to follow.
And here the enemy first appears. Backed up to the building rear are a pair of vehicles: the streamlined form of a Leyland-Rover van and a heavy Roadmaster cargo vehicle marked for Nagato Corporation.
"What the frag!" shouts the SDF pilot.
Machiko ignores this. She looks to the men standing around the rear of the Roadmaster. They wear synthleather and camo and the other hallmarks of gangers, much like the captive members of White Octagon. They appear to be loading the Roadmaster with cargo containers, squat metallic cylinders with bright orange labels. Machiko cannot make out what the labels say. However, all questions regarding the lotus and reed insignia on the Roadmaster's side are answered as one man at the vehicle's rear looks up at the approaching helos and immediately lifts an SMG.
The SMG's muzzle flares red. Machiko hears a voice from her commlink shouting, "Taking fire! taking fire!" The ork crewman two steps behind her immediately opens up. The chattering rhythm of the Ares-Stoner MG rises above the beating of the helo's rotors. Tracer fire streams through the twilight. Other men by the Roadmaster brandish weapons. The tracers dance among them, clawing at the ground, pounding the flank of the Roadmaster, tearing at unarmored clothing and sending bodies tumbling to the ground.
The ground comes up swiftly, then.
Machiko goes through the open door, hits the ground, rolls and comes to her feet loping toward the Roadmaster and van, past the bodies of the fallen and the dead, then to the rear of the building. A blackened door stands open. As Machiko reaches the side of the door, another man in camo emerges, swinging an M22 assault rifle toward the lingering helos.
As the assault rifle rises, Machiko catches the back of the man's elbow, squeezes and pulls. The man staggers around her in a half-circle. The GSG immediately to her rear catches the man's neck, and the man crumbles.
More shooting erupts, the staccato reports of automatic fire. Helos thump and whine, tracked vehicles squeal and rumble. Every roar, every report, every detonation seems to vibrate through the earth beneath Machiko's feet. This is the nearest she has ever been to a live shooting war, and yet she feels no fear. Only resolve. A calm resolve that allows no fear, no hesitancy, no uncertainty. A calm like that of the dead.
Rarely has she felt such calm.
The open doorway provides entrance to a long dark corridor. There is light at the end of the corridor, but the space in-between is very dark. She does not see the doorway along the right-hand wall till she is just one step away. She does not detect the female norm coming through the doorway until that woman is stepping into the corridor. Her heat signature then makes her like a lantern amid the dark. She is dressed like the others. She gasps and lifts a Crusader machine-pistol. Machiko reaches out, paralyzes the arm holding the gun, then propels the woman into the corridor wall opposite the doorway.
Another GSG brushes Machiko's side. A sword flashes. The enemy sprawls.
Outside, the battle grows deafening.
In here, death is swift and silent.
Without warning, a new figure appears, a norm male. He comes into view at the distant end of the corridor. He is slim and short, very compact. He wears a full-length black duster and broad-brimmed hat. The hand he thrusts out before him holds a black rod that appears intricately carved.
A mage's rod.
Gamma.
In the same instant Gamma thrusts with the rod, the entire length of the corridor erupts with fire, an inferno—floor, ceiling, walls, and the spaces in between—all raging, roaring. Machiko feels the flames licking at her cheeks, her eyes. She shouts and hurls herself bodily at the doorway in the right-hand wall of the corridor. The cool empty air of the room beyond hits her like a pool of water. For an instant, she cannot breathe. Then she is shouting to her brothers of the Guard. "To ME!"
The first to ent
er emerges from the portal of fire swirling with smoke. The last emerges like a torch. They smother the flames with their own bodies. They assess their injuries and gather their resolve. That is when Machiko notices the squat metallic cylinders standing against one wall.
They are just like the cylinders she saw being loaded onto the vehicle outside, the Roadmaster marked for Nagato Corporation. Each of the cylinders here before her also bears a bright orange label. The labels are marked with the symbol for biohazards and the legend, Sero-Ebola-D. On the astral, the cylinders seem almost alive, glimmering with the power of the arcane.
Was this to be the next stage? No more assassins, no mere magical assaults. Rather, an attack utilizing a biological warfare agent enhanced by magic.
How many would have died if the forces of Black Typhoon had been delayed by a minute or two?
But there is no time for questions like this. Her brothers of the Guard give quick signals of the hand: "Prepared for combat,"
"Advance,"
"Advance!" The corridor from which they came remains a blazing inferno. Machiko steps up onto one of the squat cylinders and splits a rough wooden panel covering an opening in the wall like a window opening. This provides access to another room. This new room has two doors. Machiko and her team move from there into a new corridor, dark but hardly deserted.
As they move up this new corridor, they pass a room where two men fire auto-weapons through shattered windows at SDF forces outside the building.
Machiko signals. The GSG second in line fires two rounds with a silenced weapon. Both men fall.
The corridor ends at the side of a large open area like a lobby, two stories tall and lit by portable lights. Three sets of double doors and a pair of tall windows cross the front of the space. Eight members of the enemy stand, kneel, and crouch at the windows and doors, firing an assortment of rifles, SMGs, and pistols through holes, slits, and gashes at the forces outside.