Shift Tense: Eshu International Book 2

by Patrick Todoroff

  His fingers flicked three buttons and a series of explosions bloomed across his screen. “Yes!” he hissed. “Plus four. Damn if our screens aren’t Wiki pix for ‘target-rich environment’.”

  “Positively opulent,” Mansfield purred.

  “What?” Chandra said.

  “It’s another word for ‘rich’,” Nguyen answered.

  “Shut up.”

  Lee Stephen brought his drone around for another run at a clump of militia. “Technically we don’t even need to be here. We’re for show so the suits can say BEECH is under human control. Like a redundancy system.” He thumbed his cannon. “Burned ’em.”

  “Human rights weenies are freaked,” Nguyen agreed. “London Times Online was screaming yesterday how systems like BEECH could go all SkyNet and shit. Bring Judgment Day down on all us terrestrial mammals.”

  “Hey,” Chandra said. “Moon Bloodgood is hot.”

  Mansfield quirked up one eyebrow. “Isn’t she like eighty years old?” she asked. “I mean, I’m not judging you. Just didn’t tag you as the geri-porn type.”

  “That’s not when I mean. She was hot. They could act back then. Not like today. Those films are waaay better than the holo-junk they’re churning out now.”

  Nguyen smirked. “He calls them ‘films’. Like that makes them superior. They sucked then, they suck now. At least the second trilogy didn’t have that muscley Austrian guy.”

  Chandra opened his mouth to protest. His love for vintage movies, games and music bordered on clinical obsession. Watch Officer Penswick and the other pilots in the trailer all knew it. It was the one thing in life—besides food—he took deadly serious, and baiting him was a form of interactive entertainment. A battle raged on their screens, but everyone was eager for the next round in this ongoing clash.

  Suddenly the command center warbled; flash traffic from Dawson-Hull’s Strategic Services Bureau, the corporate consultants running this little war. Every pilot perked up.

  “Listen up, minions…” their commander said. “SSB speaketh. Global Hawk Six is showing another mixed mobile group of Skinnies squirting through the passes northwest of Durukhsi. Multiple units, transports and light armor.”

  “How many is ‘multiple’, sir?” Mansfield asked.

  Penswick chewed on his lip as he checked a small pop-up screen. “Pick any number between a shitload and too many, and you’re close enough. Everyone break off and go to ten thousand. We’re waiting on new orders.”

  The pilots obeyed, and faraway, a stretch of Somaliland flipped from terror and utter chaos to shocked, smoldering stillness.

  Mansfield grinned and sent an email to the mess hall. “I am so ordering sausage and pepper. Two large going to be enough?”

  Chandra ignored him and looked over his shoulder at the other pilots. “No way this is another SPLM ‘recon-in-force’. This is the big one. I’m telling you. I feel it in my bones.”

  A second burble of electronics filled the trailer, this one in a rising note of urgency. Officer Penswick read the incoming message. “Sweet Jesus.”

  “What?”

  “Baby Deathstar is showing movement all across the Ethiopian border from Aysha to Domo. Imagery should be at your stations now.”

  Enhanced satellite pictures scrolled across the lower portion of each pilot’s screen. The heat signature blobs of massed men and vehicles spread over the miniature topographical displays like a stop-motion rash on a green-brown hide.

  “See?” Chandra crowed. “What did I tell you?”

  “Holy shit,” Nguyen whispered.

  “Look at them all,” Chandra said in awe. “Might want to cancel that order, Mansfield. No way I’m eating pizza today.”

  Officer Penswick looked over the frames of his glasses once more. “Whatever it is, the fecal matter is striking the rotary oscillator.”

  “Looks like everybody’s coming home for the holidays,” Stephen said.

  “Someone owes me fifty,” Chandra stated.

  “Someone owes you shit,” Mansfield retorted. “I didn’t take your bet.”

  “I’ll settle for chicken parm subs.”

  “Top my Confirmeds and I’ll order them for you myself.”

  “Can the chatter.” Penswick punched in a series of commands. “Put on your game face, ladies and gents. Pod Delta, I’m sending you G.H. Six’s coordinates. Vector over and light the rebels up the second they come in our back yard. Gamma, you finish up here. We’re definitely putting in overtime today.”

  “Roger that,” Mansfield answered. “Delta flight proceeding to new coordinates.” The three controllers’ screens tilted at the same time as the drones formed up in a distant sky and headed south-east.

  “Now’s our chance to catch up, Gamma,” Stephen noted.

  “What are you, a cheerleader?”

  “Motivational speaker. Everyone’s entitled to my opinion.”

  A wry chuckle ran through the room but was quickly replaced by the hum of air-conditioning and electronics. The latest images had injected a bit of sobriety. This tiny slice of Dawson-Hull’s Tech Support Field Division was now in the middle of something huge. Energized, determined, Gamma Flight dove down toward the smoking veldt while Delta’s screens showed an arid tumble of craggy hills approaching rapidly.

  Nguyen swiped up and studied the satellite photos once more. “We’re a spit in the ocean.” He shook his head. “Professor Hamid’s rolling heavy. Six of us can do some damage, but no way we’re blunting that avalanche.”

  Less than a minute later, Penswick’s phone buzzed, and every head turned. Orders came via secure net, so an actual phone call was beyond unusual. It was abnormal. The pilots flew but strained to listen. Officer Penswick didn’t get a chance to finish identifying himself before he fell silent. Twenty seconds later he said, “Yes, Mr. Director. Acknowledged,” and hung up.

  The watch officer’s already narrow face had gone a thinner shade of grim. He looked at each of the remote pilots in turn.

  “What is it?” Lee Stephen asked.

  “That was Regional Administrator Hugh Brenton on the phone,” Penswick replied. “We’ve been ordered to Condition Red. Major threat imminent. Strategic Services has declared Somaliland a free-fire zone.”

  “Can they do that?” Stephen asked. “On a whole country?”

  “Sounds like they just did,” Chandra replied simply.

  Penswick continued in a by-the-book voice. “Seeing that lethal force is deemed necessary to protect vital corporate interests, all security service staff are hereby mandated for the duration. Any and all force protection assets are ordered to immediately engage hostile SPLM units. That includes the full complement of Nemesis UCAVs.”

  Chandra waved a hand at the empty control stations. “Hello… pilots?”

  Penswick looked at him, stone-faced and slightly pale.

  “I’ve been ordered to bring the Battlespace Enhanced Engagement Command Hub to full operational capacity.”

  “Full Capacity... you’re kidding,” Mansfield murmured.

  The Watch Officer fished a lanyard out from under his shirt and inserted the data wafer on the end into one of his station’s ports. “No. I’m not.”

  There was a faint chirp as the computer read the code, then Officer Penswick punched a series of numbers from the back of his picture ID into his Command console. The pilots watched him with the horrid curiosity of traffic-accident witnesses. It was like watching a man sign his own death warrant.

  “Logic restraints are now disabled,” Officer Penswick said evenly. “Adaptive Processing engaged. Nemesis System is now untethered. BEECH has full autonomy.”

  At those words, without so much as a cascade of blinking lights or the natal blurt of electronic self-awareness, the world’s first thinking, learning, totally independent military computer network went online.

  Half a second later, the flared-head joysticks eased out of their human pilots’ hands and started swaying like charmed cobras, the screen views distorted wit
h rapid acceleration. The six pilots slid their chairs back, staring.

  It could have been feedback in the speakers, or their imaginations, but the pilots could have sworn they heard sonic booms, faint and far away.

  Outside North Hanger One, a battered blue Toyota pickup screeched to a stop next to the sleek charcoal-gray bodies of the eighteen remaining Nemesis UCAVs. Parked in six flights of three, the drones shimmered in the midday heat beside the taxiway, a render of alien predators with swept manta-wings and double-fin tails. Sinuous titanium disguised the bumps of missile carousels and cannon muzzles, their turbojet nacelles wombed in stealth carbon-composites. Nestled in each aquiline prow was the wide whale-eye lens of targeting and camera optics. The delivery guy, a Taiwanese national named Fred with lime-green hair spikes and the latest in Prada Google Glasses, bopped past them without a second glance, clutching a bright red thermal bag with two large pizzas.

  As the hanger’s interior gloom swallowed him up, the Nemesis engines spun to life, flared, then steadied to a blowtorch roar. Outside the fence, a committee of dozing vultures was startled into flight.

  One by one, the Nemesis’ lens lit up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Angels

  Somaliland, fifteen kilometers north west of the Dhubbato I.D.P. Camp

  Mount Dhubbato towered over the Somaliland scrub like a pile of broken cinder blocks on a pool table, a jagged cairn that marked hectares of sun-scorched sand, coarse gravel and foliage too stubborn to wither and die. Dust-devils dervished in the hot afternoon winds, and the brittle rasp of desiccated leaves cascaded across the plain like the ghost of ancient rivers. The desolation was vaguely poetic from a distance, but up close and personal, that stretch of land could kill without blinking an eye. If not for tumbleweeds and the faded blue sky, a person would swear they’d been marooned on the moon.

  The eight of us had reached the mountain just as the sun was spilling over the eastern horizon. Two hours ferreted out a suitable overhang on the northeastern face, a shallow cave out of sight of the refugee camp and the cracked asphalt ribbon of Highway Three. Broken-tooth boulders hid the entrance; it was perfect, as far as these things go.

  Daylight revealed a smoke-smudged horizon to the south, the distant crackle and rumble of fighting. The SPLM offensive had started.

  The sun climbed and brought the temperatures with it, hammering the air flat until it tasted like hot iron. By midday, exposed rock would blister skin. The cave was an oven, but we tucked ourselves away in its shade and waited for a word from the Garcias.

  Abdi arrived late afternoon, dowsing with the GPS. We spied his red shirt threading up the trail, Carmen in a wide straw hat and umbrella, Alejo sweating and panting at the back.

  Curro met them with a canteen as they stepped into the shade. I thought Carmen was going to smother the kid, she hugged him so long. Alejo cuffed his eyes, complaining about sweat and dust, but he wrapped his arms around his son and joked that at least he hadn’t gained a stone like other kids their first year away from home. Hard questions lay behind their smiles when they turned to Tam and me, but courtesy left them unasked—for the moment.

  Typical, Carmen had brought food, so after hugs for the rest of us, she set about to cooking. Funny how she made home anywhere she went. Abdi joined the Triplets and Curro, while Alejo mopped his face and quietly sucked down more water. Tam and I stood by; the grilling was about to begin.

  “Ruined my best shirt.” Alejo frowned at the drenched cotton print. “Only good thing about this place is that it will dry quick.”

  He surveyed the hazy countryside, hesitating. I was about to tell him to get on with it when he wiped the canteen’s neck and capped it. “Gunboys in other people’s wars isn’t your usual gig. What are you doing here?”

  “Working on our tans?” I volunteered.

  He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  I tried again. “Other people’s wars pretty much sums up our life. We’re working.”

  He nodded, waiting.

  “What happened to ‘Hey, so good to see you’?” Tam asked. “It’s been over a year, and you interrogate us first thing?”

  The older Spaniard lanced us with a stare. “Hey, so good to see you. Now tell me why Eshu International is here with my son.”

  “Careful what you wish for,” Tam said. “On-the-job training was your idea, remember?”

  Alejo conceded that point and let sweat drop off the tip of his nose. “I do, and Carmen won’t let me forget it—especially after today.” He glanced over at his wife as she mixed spices into a bowl of corn meal and chatted with her eldest son and the Triplets. “So…? And don’t lie. I know when you’re lying; your tongue turns black.”

  Tam and I smiled. Alejo had used that line on his kids for years. Curro still joked about it. Neither of us volunteered any more information however.

  Alejo stroked his moustache. “Dawson-Hull let you go?”

  “We’re still with London,” Tam replied. “Bouncers for this shindig.”

  “SAF or SPLM?”

  “SPLM,” I said.

  Alejo barked out a laugh. “London sent you to be shooters in this mess? For the rebels?” He shook his head. “No. A otro perro con ese hueso (Give that bone to another dog). Why are you really here?”

  “We’re looking after corporate investments,” Tam answered vaguely.

  Alejo held up three fingers. “That means theft, sabotage, or assassination. Seeing as you’re in the field, I’m guessing one of the latter two.”

  Tam didn’t answer. I coughed and looked away. Alejo may have retired, but he still knew the business.

  “You guys take down Dhul-Fiqaar,” he continued, “Somalis will be dancing in the streets. El Presidente estar como una cabra.”

  “Who’s crazy?” Camen asked from camp fire.

  “General Dhul-Fiqaar,” Alejo called back.

  “Yes, he is.” Carmen stopped stirring and narrowed her gaze. “They here to kill him?”

  “Why does everyone think we’re assassins?” Tam exclaimed. “We’re raking in extra scratch.”

  Carmen’s laugh was identical to Alejo’s. “Lamborghinis at the banger races? No.” She waited for our explanation then went back to the mixing bowl when we didn’t offer one. “Fine. Tell me later.”

  Alejo shrugged and changed the subject. He’d played the game long enough to know we’d talk in our own time. Or not. Instead, he pointed east out across the plain to the slag heap of another mountain. “Laas Geel. There are seven-thousand-year-old cave paintings over there. Beautiful, simple stuff. Animals, cattle, people playing musical instruments. Place is a UNESCO World Heritage site.”

  Tam took the cue. “Sure they’re not ancient astronauts. Chariots of the Gods scribble?” he teased. “Maybe a TARDIS with the good Doctor beside it?”

  “So it’s no to God, but yes to Aliens now?” A grin spread under Alejo’s walrus moustache. “Step in the right direction, I suppose.”

  “Heaven for the climate. Hell for the company,” Tam quipped. It was an old comeback. We were moving to familiar ground.

  The grin widened. “Yet here you are with me,” Alejo winked.

  Tam and I had traded God-salvoes with the Garcias ever since their conversion to Christianity. My default position was agnostic with a healthy dose of parody. Nothing vicious. I figured to each their own, and seeing as sarcasm is my love language, my trash-talk was banter between friends.

  But religion touched a nerve in Tam. Every now and then, contempt bubbled up, as if faith was a black eye, and it was Alejo and Carmen’s fault. He’d been a touch more respectful since Alejo’s garbage truck rescue at the B-Port Docks last year. Saving our lives had definitely taken the edge down, but he still treated God like a threat, and the rancor had strained our friendship.

  My brain felt like it was baking, and I didn’t want our reunion to turn sour. Best stick to easy topics like the local tourist attractions. “Animals and musicians, eh? You seen them?”

  Ale
jo sucked his teeth noisily. “Only in pictures. Al-Shabaab dynamited the place ten years ago. Collapsed the entrance. Said the images offended Allah. Now the U.N. can’t get anyone to open it back up.”

  “The U.N.: cholesterol of the body politic,” I said. “Remind me what they’re good for again?”

  That earned another grin. “Spitting in the ocean? Seriously, they give us a chance to make a difference. And I’m glad.”

  “I imagine tourism is way down anyway,” Tam noted.

  “I don’t know… seems to be a lot of foreigners running around the countryside lately,” Alejo chided. He looked Tam and I over, more kindly this time. “Always need more good men at the camp.”

  “Not sure we qualify,” Tam said. “The ‘good’ part, that is.”

  “There are sheep. There are wolves. And there are guard dogs,” he answered. “No one’s trying to pull your fangs. Just point ’em in the right direction.”

  The scorch of jets sounded in the sky, heading south. Tam lifted a hand in acknowledgment. “Already got a collar. And a course to run.”

  “God allows U-turns,” Alejo said.

  Tam pursed his lips and decided not to pick up on that. The smell of food was filling our granite hovel, and my stomach growled. Carmen held up a tin teapot and called us over.

  Tam put a hand on Alejo’s shoulder. “I think it’s time to eat,” was all he said.

  ***

  An hour later, we were stuffed full of rice, sambuusa—pastries with hot green pepper and ground beef—and canjeero flat bread. Afternoon winds had brought a little relief, at least moving the dead air around, so the ten of us were sprawled at the mouth of the cave, trying to cool down and catch up.

  Alejo had his arm around Carmen, watching Mopsy amaze Abdi with sleight of hand and a 12.7mm round. Tam looked over at the Garcias. “I might as well ask what you’re doing here. Bet you wish you were in Morocco right about now. What happened?”

  “It was a last-minute thing,” Carmen answered distractedly. “God changed our plans.”