“So, where’s the vault then?”
“It’s in the basement, actually below it in a sub-basement, only accessible by a small elevator behind that second hidden door. None of the other teams found it because it matches the same space on every floor and shows up in the floor plans and blueprints only as a mechanical shaft.”
“And why did this mysterious high net-worth person tell you about all this gold? Why did he trust you, a Probie with only a few softball missions under your belt, to go and get it for him?”
Andy’s eyes shifted to the illumination of light off to his left. It was the second time tonight that he witnessed such a flash; he had no need to guess what caused it. That recognition became moot a second later when the AT-4 with the high explosive warhead slammed into the building off to his left and above him just as he was slammed to the ground with Keith on top of him. Rubble and dust blew over the upper part of where they stood a quarter second earlier. They were saved by Keith’s quick action taking both to the pavement and behind the concrete wall of the ramp. Seeing the UV lights of the Radio Building go dead with the explosion Andy didn’t have time to thank Keith or to think about what caused it. They had to get inside and quick before the overhead flares went out.
***
Logan keyed his mic to call Andy and let him know they needed, all of them, to get to the roof and with the gold. “Andy, copy for—”
Before he could complete the radio call, a pressure wave lifted him from his seat and threw him to the floor. The whole building shook, lifting the floor before it settled back down. Pieces of the ceiling collapsed all around and onto him. Most of the monitors crashed to the floor, shattering. The control room went pitch black as the lights went out.
Flat on his back with his ears ringing Logan tried to work through what was happening. They were under attack from heavy weapons again! His immediate concern was that he was now in a nearly pitch-black building; an orange glow from across the hall the only illumination. Logan regretted removing his helmet to call Mia. Without the night vision of the face shield, he would not see the DEVO’s rushing in to feed on him. Logan sat up, reaching for his rifle that thankfully was still attached to him by the sling. His fingers reached for the tactical light, which came to life the same time the emergency lights on the walls did. Those lights were much dimmer than the primary ones; they would barely repel the creatures but were better than nothing.
Scrambling to his feet, Logan noticed light from the hallway. The emergency lights now were on in there as well. The electrical system had been taken out, which meant that the exterior flood lights keeping the DEVO’s away would have gone dark as well. The batteries would not have much power even for the dim emergency lights since the generator had only been running and charging their batteries a short while.
Looking at the control monitor smashed on the ground, he fought back the rising panic. He hoped Andy if he survived whatever it was that caused the explosion, could get it started again. For the first time since coming inside the building, Logan heard the calls of the creatures just outside the walls so intent on having him for a meal. Resisting with all his will power his urge to run, someplace, anyplace Logan scurried across the floor, found his helmet and put it on.
The weapon site in front of his eyes comforted him. He still had significant firepower at his fingertips. If Andy and Keith had perished, he would shoot his way into the water. If that didn’t work out...he patted a grenade at the top of his load bearing vest.
Logan grabbed Keith’s rifle, vest, and helmet. The screeches grew louder as he moved from the control room into the hallway.
“Holy shit.”
The gaping hole across the hall that opened the building to the outside grabbed his attention, but not so much as the figures silhouetted by the fire on the floor below moving around.
In their stiff, distinct stride.
Chapter Eighteen
The MTT motorcycle roared through the city streets. If it were not for the street lights and of course the lights on the machine, itself black in color along with the leathers worn by its rider, it would be nothing more than a noisy moving shadow. It was the latest generation of Y2K bikes, powered not by a gas engine but a Rolls Royce-Allison gas turbine power plant that could produce over 320 HP and could do more than 200 MPH. Tonight, however, it was only occasionally hitting a little over half that speed having to slow to negotiate the corners. The lone rider, accustomed to high-speeds was in a hurry; lives and treasure were at stake, especially the later.
Her destination, a hangar at the Voracious Soldiers compound was just a few more miles distant, but Mia’s mind already was working through the logistics of the flight. She hoped that no one would notice her departure as she had no plans of alerting either the FAA with a flight plan or the authorities whose jurisdiction the DZ fell into.
As she drove, she rung up her always available copilot, Edward. His commute was shorter than Mia’s as he lived with the aircraft, or rather in it. Edward was an AE, Artificial Entity. The term used to be Artificial Intelligence, but there was nothing artificial about Edward nor his intelligence. He was fully mobile and could preflight the aircraft, do routine and some advanced maintenance and repairs. His other role was to physically fly the VTAL, that is when Mia let him.
Mia gave him a brief rundown of the mission and told him to plot a course to the Radio Building by taking them direct out over the bay.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but flight into that area after sunset is expressly forbid—”
“Edward, just do as your told, and have the bird preflighted and configured for take-off when I get there.”
“Yes, ma’am, of course, but I show you six minutes out, it will take longer than that to run all the checks and inspections.”
“Expedited departure protocol, thanks, Ed.”
“Expedited departure protocol,” Edward repeated as was the proper communication procedure for such an event. An EDP meant that Edward would do an abbreviated preflight and systems run up. Rather than visually confirm that each component was flight ready, a scan of the sensors would be done. If all were in the green, then Edward would move onto the next set of grouped EDP’s, dramatically shortening the preflight list. An EDP was something Mia only did on occasion when a mission warranted it. Because she was meticulous about maintenance and inspections, she trusted that the VTAL was at 100% flight-ready status, just as she left it earlier in the day.
Mia slowed as she approached the entry to the VS compound before stopping in front of the robust iron gate. She had full access and as soon as the bot in the guardhouse scanned her credentials, her retina and she gave the correct challenge response, the gate creaked open. Such security precautions were necessary given the weapons, ammo and other equipment stored inside. The Voracious Soldiers and other teams had permission and authority to employ resources otherwise only available to the military. As such, necessary precautions had to be instituted and followed.
While the Voracious Soldiers compound had never been raided, other infiltration organizations were, by Outfitters or their black-market suppliers. The vast wealth left in the deserted city, just for the taking made people take risks they might not otherwise. Looting was as old as humankind, it may have even been the world’s second oldest profession.
The gate clanked to a stop, fully open, and Mia raced through. Rolling to a stop in front of the nose of the VTAL parked inside the open hanger, the petite brunette paused to admire her machine. She heard the whine of the first of the two powerful turboshaft engines come to life. The soft glow of the cockpit instrumentation lights bathed Edward sitting in the right seat in a soft red glow as he went through the startup procedure. Usually, the navigation and strobe lights would be activated but Edward, as per Mia’s instructions had left them off so as not to attract any more attention than possible.
Mia drove her bike to the right side of the hanger and shut it down. She removed her helmet and shook her hair out. The whine of the first engine starting had i
ncreased as it came up to operating speed. Leaving the helmet on the seat, she gathered her mane up into a ponytail. Running a rubber band around it, she studied the less than sleek flying machine. The white aircraft identification numbers stood out against the otherwise flat black paint scheme. She would be like a black hole coming in from the bay.
The aircraft rested on its three broad landing tires. One under the nose and the other two centered under the bottom of the fuselage, designed for rough, unimproved landing surfaces. Stubby wings drooped down from the top of the boxy shape and angled towards the ground so that lift could be maximized while in ground effect, that is the pressure pushed down by the large ducted fan in each wing as well as the smaller one situated outboard of each near the tip. The large ducted fan was for hovering as well as forward flight. It moved about a circular frame, or duct and was like the rotor blade of a helicopter, which the VTAL’s had mostly replaced. The huge fans could be rotated to the vertical and propel this model of VTAL to speeds of more than 300 knots or over 345 MPH. The two smaller outboard fans contributed to some of the lift but were the primary controls for roll and yaw at slower speeds. In forward flight, ailerons on the wings controlled the roll while the horizontal stabilizer on the tail controlled yaw. The elevators, small wings jutting out at the top of the tail, controlled pitch.
Mia unzipped her black leather jacket, sliding out of the garment before draping it over the motorcycle. She did the same with the leather chaps, fully revealing the green flight suit identical to her co-pilots.
Mia walked to the front right of the machine and pulled open the door. Placing her left foot into the step built into the airframe she grabbed the handle mounted just to the right of her seat and pulled herself up. Grabbing another handle on the frame between the door and the windshield Mia hefted her small but muscular frame up before swinging her legs one at a time over the collective control between the door and the seat
The collective, like those on helicopters, controlled the pitch of the rotor blades. Pulling up increased the pitch and engine RPM’s, which in turn moved the aircraft up. Assuming there was adequate power for the weight on board, the elevation, and the density altitude. The last two limiting dynamics were not much of an issue at sea level on a cool night. As to weight, even with Andy’s team, and the gold the VTAL would have power to spare. Mia kept the fuel tanks, the biggest weight variable, at less than 50% as a cushion. They would be okay, if she didn’t lose an engine then all the factors would double, or put another way, the power would be half of normal.
Mia had to lean forward in her seat to get loosened the flight vest wrapped over the seatback. Freeing it, she pushed her arms through the openings and wiggled into the vest and zipped it up.
Kevlar panels to stop bullets and shrapnel lined the garments interior. It contained an inflatable life jacket, Glock .45 caliber handgun with explosive rounds, extra magazines, a radio and a sat phone along with a flashlight, a large knife and a hydration pack with energy bars and other odds and ends stuffed into the various pockets. Attached to the top of the vest was an emergency oxygen supply in case a water landing went badly and the VTAL rolled over and sank. It would provide ten minutes of air while she got herself untangled and out of the fuselage and to the surface.
Mia turned to her right looking back at the Car-50 rifle latched in next to her seat with the extra magazines attached to the stock. She grabbed her helmet from the hook over the center of the windscreen and pulled it on. She dropped the face shield down, which both powered it on and linked it into the aircraft’s communication and flight information systems. A heads-up display or HUD illuminated in front of her eyes, built into the acrylic material of the otherwise clear shield.
“Engine 2 coming online,” Edward’s voice buzzed in her headset.
Mia made a scan of all the instruments.
“Engine 2 generator in the green, all systems nominal and ready for flight ma’am.”
“Great. My airplane.”
“Your airplane,” Edward said.
Mia looked at Edward. Decked out in his flight suit he cast a dashing figure, particularly with his perfect features, too perfect. His smooth skin texture gave him away as not being human to anyone who got within a few feet, but from a distance, especially when sitting in the copilot seat with his helmet on and screen down concealing his face, no one could really tell. Edward was a tier 2 animatronic, which meant that he was not sentient, which was fine with Mia. Sentient beings, animatronic or digital were mostly just a pain in the ass after a while.
Edward had a narrow but very useful skill set that he performed flawlessly all the time, every time. That’s all she needed, wanted or expected. The sentient beings always wanted to make small talk or worst of all had personalities with all the quirks of a human, good and bad. Plus, they were considerably more expensive than Edward, who himself cost a good chunk of change. But in the long run, it was still better than paying a copilot and Edward never took a sick day.
Mia reached up to two levers extending down from the top of the cockpit between her and Edward. The one on the left had a small green LED light in the form of a “1” in its handle. The one just to the right a “2.” She gripped both which controlled their respective engine’s RPM’s, both set to “Ground Idle.” She guided them forward together until they clicked into the “Flight Idle” position. The whistle of the engines, music to Mia’s ears, increased substantially.
The pilot’s Nomex gloved left hand moved to the flight stick between her knees, known as a cyclic because it “cycled” between control surfaces or fan angles. That specific control input caused each large ducted fan to tilt forward slightly, if she moved the stick in any direction the ducts would move accordingly. Her right hand dropped to the parking brake, a handle at the base of the center console before turning it; releasing the brakes as it telescoped down into its stored flight position.
Mia pushed slightly forward on the cyclic. The VTAL, which had become a moniker for any aircraft that could Vertically Takeoff and Land, rolled forward out of the hanger. Clearing the hanger, Mia pushed on the right foot pedal causing the front tire to turn in that direction. If the VTAL had been in a hoover, then the smaller outboard ducted fans would have tilted in opposite directions to rotate the aircraft in the desired direction. Because it was on the ground with the weight resting on the landing gear the control systems did not engage those flight controls, saving engine power and fuel.
After completing a 90-degree turn, Mia pulled the cyclic back to its neutral position, and the VTAL rolled to a stop without her having to tap the brakes at the top of each rudder pedal. Mia took one last look at the gauges, all in the green, then switched on her night vision. The cockpit instrumentation lights automatically dimmed to a level that would be imperceptible without night vision. The black of the evening changed to a greenish-grey hue, nearly as bright as it would look during the day. The 12-foot wall of the compound sixty or so meters in front of her now fully visible.
Gripping the collective with her left hand, she slowly pulled up. The VTAL’s landing gear extended down as the weight was taken off the heavy-duty shock absorbers. The struts finally extended, all three tires floated off the ground. Mia let the VTAL rise to about three meters before pushing forward with the cyclic control, much farther than she did when it was on the ground. The nose dipped slightly before rising. The boxy flying machine raced forward while gaining altitude rapidly. As the wall of the compound sped by underneath, she was making forty-five-knots.
“Gear up.”
Edward’s left hand reached out in front of him and grabbed a small lever that extended out of the cockpit, with a round portion that resembled a tire. He pushed it up.
“Three greens ma’am,” Edward said after a moment, letting Mia know that the gear had correctly come up and stored itself.
“Roger.”
Mia kept the VTAL at about 100 feet above the ground occasionally going a little lower but more often rising or moving to the left or righ
t to avoid a structure, tree or something in her path. The roofs of the buildings in the commercial district flashed by just feet underneath at over 200 MPH. After just a minute of flight, the water’s edge of the bay approached brightly lit by the security lights posted over the strands of fencing directing their bright UV lights out to the water and towards the DZ, a final reminder of the safety she rapidly was moving away from. Mia popped up enough to get out of their beams. Once offshore she lowered her altitude and moved the cyclic gently to the left. As the VTAL banked over the glass-like water not 30 feet underneath the window of the chin bubble she wondered what was going on in the DZ at that very moment.
***
The light from the flare buzzing overhead kept the things hissing and clacking their teeth only meters away in the buildings on both sides. Creatures all around them but a bit farther away did the same. Even the closeness of the fresh flesh would not lure them out into the UV light.
“That ought to help the DEVO’s get a delicious meal,” Graybeard said.
A nervous chuckle came from the two-subordinate’s topside with him. While they were happy to watch any rival eaten, they were more concerned with not becoming a meal themselves. The goings on across the intersection in front of them in the windowless building seemed less important than seeking shelter themselves. It wasn’t likely they would get to see any of it firsthand anyway, why were they waiting?
The dust settling exposed the gaping hole in the side of the Radio Building just above ground level and extending up, revealing a portion of the second floor as well. Best of all the exterior UV lights were out, the only visible light outside of the building but not over it directly was from the overhead flares that would soon burn themselves out.
METAVERSE GAMES: OMNIBUS Page 13