by Vikki Romano
“Yes, ID marker seven, nine, three, four, four, zed, tango, one.”
He could hear Cooper typing, grumbling, and typing again.
“Do you see any cables running into the screen?” Cooper asked.
Gage looked around the base. Shit, no cables. The base was bolted to the floor.
“Hold on,” he said, smirking at Gage’s cautious look as he grabbed hold of the base and jerked it back and forth. After a few tries, the bolts broke free and he could see cables beneath it running into the floor. “Blue wire, red wire, yellow wire, black cable, white cable.”
“Don’t touch the wires,” Cooper said, panicked. “White cable, grab hold, and connect to me.”
Gage shook his head and took the podium that Calder tipped in his direction.
Calder sat cross-legged, untangled the wiring, and pulled a portion of the white cable out, enough to grab on to it. Steadying himself and taking a breath, he grasped the white cable and closed his eyes.
Immediately, as before, his mind was awash with a flurry of numbers and symbols, code strings swirling around him like leaves on the wind. He could feel Cooper’s connection as it burned through him, up his spine and into the back of his skull, sending a flush of heat through his veins. Bits of code began clumping together and disappearing until there was one code left.
“Do you see a code?” Cooper, disembodied in his mind, said.
“Yes… seven, three, omega, four, delta, eight, tango, tango, one, one, three,” Calder said, his voice loud and reverberating in his mind.
“OK, now put your palm on the screen.”
Calder opened his eyes, his mind hazy as he got to his feet, and gestured to Gage.
Gage turned the screen toward him, and Calder placed his palm to it and watched as it scanned him.
“I added your prints to the system,” Cooper said.
After a moment, the screen flashed and a loud snap emitted from the walls.
Gage dropped the podium onto the floor and went to the door, finding it locked.
“What’s going on?” Cooper asked on the comm.
“Doors locked,” Calder said, checking the one on his side.
“Hold on, I’m checking the system,” Cooper said.
“No need,” Calder said, and braced his hands against the glass.
The room that they were in began descending into the floor. As they dropped into darkness, the connection to Cooper was lost.
Calder concentrated, switching his sight to infravision. He could see Gage flipping his visor down for the same, and they looked to each other. They were surrounded on four sides by concrete from what they could see.
“Any heat signatures?” Gage asked him.
“None.”
There was a physical jolt then as they hit bottom, and one of the tiles on the floor clanked and slid to the side.
“Stairs.” Calder motioned and went to the trap, dropping his legs in, finding rungs beneath him. He climbed down a deep shaft and, at the bottom, found a solid metal door.
Gage dropped down behind him.
Calder went to the door, its prominent red hatch wheel in front of him. He grasped it in his hands and tugged. It didn’t move at first, but then slowly turned. After a few spins, he felt it shift and the door bolts slid back. Then he was able to pull the door inward.
The light in the next room nearly blinded Gage, and he flipped up his visor and rubbed his eyes momentarily.
“What the fuck is this?” he asked as he entered the room behind Calder.
There were rows and rows of racks, each housing stacks of equipment, lights blinking, the room humming.
Calder tapped his comm, but there was no signal. No way to reach his team topside.
“We’re on our own,” he said, motioning to Gage, then held up a hand to halt him as he looked around the room. Aside from the equipment, there were no heat signatures.
No people.
The vast volume of wiring made Calder dizzy as he looked about the room, thousands of lines running in every direction in every wall.
He followed several white lines and orange lines, being extra careful at junctions to make sure they weren’t housing triggers of any kind. He moved up each row slowly and was satisfied they were safe.
“You’re good,” he said, and waved Gage into the room.
“What is all this?” Gage asked, stooping to look at a rack he passed.
Calder could only guess at this point.
“Microservers,” he said as he walked down a row. “Corporate information housing, I would assume.”
“Why the fuck would they need so many?”
“I have no idea,” he said, and suddenly heard a faint voice in his head and held up a hand to Gage.
“Base?”
“Ghostwolf, come in.”
The voice was soft, but as he moved to one side of the room, it got stronger. Transmission node, he thought as he spied the cluster of small antennas behind one rack.
He reached out and grasped one, and suddenly Cooper’s voice squelched in his head and he fell back. Shaking his head, he blinked and stuck a finger in his ear.
“Base, can you read me?”
“Affirmative,” Cooper said. “Lots of feedback, though.”
“You don’t say.” Calder opened his mouth to pop his eardrums, then bent to look more closely at the cluster of antennas. He noted their wiring and could feel the pulse of their transmission energy as he neared them. “Hold on a second, base.”
He moved around to the other side and found the base point where the antennas were connected and placed his palm over it, closing his eyes.
His mind spun and he fell off balance, letting go of the cluster.
“What’s happening, Ghostwolf?”
“Not sure,” he said. “I found a transmission cluster, but not sure what it’s communicating with. Very strong frequency.”
“I’m going to adjust some things here, try again, and I’ll key in,” Cooper said.
Calder sat this time, not wanting to fall off balance again. He let out a harsh breath and put his palm to the cluster once more, closing his eyes.
His mind wavered at the dissonance that passed through it, and then his focus narrowed and a high-pitched squeal tore through him.
“I’m picking up transmission,” Cooper said. “It’s heavily encrypted and buffered.”
Calder let go of the cluster and clasped his head. The noise still echoed in his mind and the pain was acute, as if someone were drilling a hole through his forehead.
“Too painful,” he said. “Did you get anything?”
“Oh yeah,” Cooper said with a whistle, “and you aren’t going to like it.”
Gage came to where Calder was sitting and offered him a hand up, his grip firm on his bicep as he wavered on his feet.
“What did you find?” Calder asked.
“They’re transferring data. All of it, it seems,” Cooper said.
“What do you mean, transferring data?” Gage asked.
“I mean, you’re apparently in their storehouse and, knowing you were coming, they’re moving everything stored there to another area.”
“Do you know where?” Calder asked as he gestured to Gage to begin wiring up more explosives.
Cooper sighed audibly, and there was silence for a moment.
“Coop?” Calder prompted.
“It’s being transferred to a storage satellite in S4.”
Calder closed his eyes.
This could not be happening. He needed this information, needed to know it was destroyed. Needed to know GenMed went down.
“How much has uploaded?” he asked, flexing his jaw. He could hear Cooper tapping on his keyboard.
“Seventy-two percent.”
Primal heat poured through Calder’s veins as he roared and slammed into the rack nearest to him, sending it toppling and sparking as its wires were pulled free. Baring his teeth, he grabbed
the next rack and tore it from its base, slamming it into the ground. The frame torqued and splintered in his hands, and he threw what was left in them and watched them hit the wall.
“Paint it,” he growled. “Paint it all!”
Gage rushed around the room planting explosives, tossing handfuls to Calder to do the same, and once there was enough set out to make the room a smoking hole, Calder gave him the nod and they headed out and up the shaft.
“Can you get us out of here?” Calder asked after tapping his comm.
“Palm on the screen,” Cooper advised, and Calder placed his hand there. The room clicked again and began ascending until they were back in the tile maze.
“Do we have to do the floor again?” Gage asked, hands on his hips, staring at the lit floor.
“Base?” Calder asked, and they waited for an answer.
“No, it’s disabled. You can go ahead,” Cooper said.
“Are you sure?” Calder asked, “I mean, our lives are forfeit if you are wrong.”
“I’m sure. I checked the code and it’s non-functional.”
Calder drew in a long breath, bit his lip, and took the first steps. Once they realized the floor had, in fact, been disabled, both men took of running. Up the long stairwell, down the hallway, and back into the lobby, where the last of his crew was patrolling.
“Calder,” one of the men said, rushing toward them, “the area is secure. We have seven live guards in custody, heading to the tank.”
“Good,” Calder said, and strode toward the front doors. “Clear the area, make sure everyone is out, and get back to the safe house.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, and rushed off shouting orders.
Calder and Gage stood leaning against the reception desk, watching as his crew collected weapons and gear.
Gage took off his helmet, leaned his forearms against the cool marble, and reached down to the desk, grabbing a handful of wrapped candies.
He offered one to Calder, and he took it, unwrapping the candy and popping it into his mouth and dropping the wrapper onto the floor.
Gage unwrapped one of his own and popped it in his mouth. The wrapper, though, went into a silver garbage can off to the side.
Calder laughed long and hard.
“All clear, sir,” he heard from one of his crew.
Giving the thumbs-up, he slapped Gage on the back and headed toward the door.
“You ready to do this?” he asked.
Gage grinned broadly as they made their way out to the far lot, where his team had gathered with their rovers.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he said, tossing his helmet into the open window of Gage’s rig, and he leaned as Calder dropped his bag on the hood next to him and pulled out a large gun-shaped object.
The trigger mechanism had been sequenced to link to all the explosive receivers they had placed around the building. A whopping seventy pounds worth of C98 plastique.
He tapped his comm with a smile.
“Fire in the hole, fire in the hole!”
And with a grin of his own, he thumbed the print reader and squeezed the trigger.
They heard the percussion of the blasts before evidence of them were apparent, then suddenly, the whole of the four-hundred-fifty-thousand-square-foot building exploded in a spray of fire, glass, and steel. The fireball that erupted from its center was enough to singe his hair some eighty yards away and light up the area for miles.
Cheers and whistles erupted around him as his crew shouted and offered their heartfelt opinions of the event, fingers in the air.
“Button up and roll out!” Calder said on comm, whirling his fist over his head.
Gage grabbed his bag of gear and tossed it in the rig as he got in, and Calder dropped into the driver’s seat beside him.
“Job well done,” Gage said, giving him a fist bump.
“Not over yet, but yeah,” Calder said, and thumbed the ignition and took off into the night with the glow of GenMed fading behind them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Calder smoothed his fingers over Sierra’s soft hand and watched her eyes for signs of life.
Jordan hadn’t needed to sedate her, her implant causing so much pain that she fell into unconsciousness on her own, but she was a fighter, and he was sure she would come through this like she had so many times before.
He’d thought a lot about that since he returned to base. How many times they had run into danger, gotten injured. It was never like this, though. There had been bumps and bruises, a couple of broken bones, but nothing like the horror she’d gone through at GenMed.
It was a rushed job, according to Jordan. Not so rushed that she had been physically damaged, but enough that she barely had time to adjust to it before they had connected her and forced her mind and body to do things it didn’t want to do. Psychological damage was inescapable.
Calder knew from experience that the transition was a painful one. But to be forced to do something your mind and body wouldn’t normally do, like attack a friend, left a huge hole. One filled with guilt and self-loathing. Not being able to control yourself or your actions did that. It was something he was learning to live with, and he knew he would have to help her to live with it too.
When the time came.
“McKenna.” Gage’s voice came in behind him as he leaned into the room. “Need to talk to you.”
“Can it wait?” Calder asked, not wanting to leave her. Not wanting her to wake up alone.
“She’ll be asleep for a while, man. Let her rest.”
Let her rest.
Calder tightened his grip on her hand.
He was angry, so angry. He wanted to burn GenMed to the ground a hundred times. He wanted to make sure this would never happen again, not if he could help it.
He had been helpless in the past, unable to save the men mixed up in this shitstorm, unable to save himself from what he had become, but he would fight GenMed until his dying breath, even if it meant saving only one person from this misery.
Sierra was that one.
He pressed the back of her hand against his forehead, then, giving it another squeeze, kissed it lightly and tucked it back beside her.
He stood, weary, and looked at her one more time before turning to leave the room.
The pitying look on Gage’s face made him cringe, and he pushed past him and into the hall.
Gage shook his head and threw an arm over Calder’s shoulder, walking him toward the stairwell.
“You look like shit,” he said, dropping his arm as he jogged down the stairs and opened the door for him at the bottom.
“I’m fine,” Calder said, and again walked past Gage and headed toward his office.
It had only been a day. Not like everyone needed to get bent out of shape yet. He hadn’t slept or eaten, but it wasn’t out of some grand martyrdom. It was because he didn’t want to leave her. Couldn’t leave her. The thought of her waking up alone, confused, frightened… It destroyed something in him thinking about it.
He couldn’t protect her from any of it. It wasn’t like the other people in his life, whom he could shield by just not letting them in. She was in, way in, and protecting her wasn’t something he could actively do.
She knew the dangers of this job and she did it anyway, and she did it well. She was fearless in ways he’d never be, just from being who she was without having to explain herself. Without having to apologize.
He always felt that need to apologize to his friends, what few he had left, and his family, whom he never saw. Apologize for putting them through the stress and worry, and now, apologize for who he had become.
He knew he’d never have to apologize to his father, though. He didn’t exist to him now, though he felt he had to apologize for that too.
Gage shuffled him into his office and took a seat on the couch.
Calder dropped down next to him, crossing a booted foot over his knee.
“You a
ll right?” Gage asked, leaning to look into his eyes.
“I’m fine. Just worried about her, you know.”
“Yeah, I do. We all are,” Gage said, leaning his elbow into the back of the couch. “I’m just a bit more worried about you.”
Calder shook his head incredulously.
“You don’t need to worry. Everything is under control.”
“For now,” Gage said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s going to need help when she wakes up. There’s a good chance she won’t be right in the head, psychologically. She’s strong, but she’s not you. You can’t expect her to be normal.”
Calder turned a cold look to Gage.
“Normal? I don’t expect her to be anywhere near normal. She’s been neurologically altered… against her will. That fact alone is enough to push some people over the edge, but Sierra has an added bonus. She’s biotech-phobic. You know what that means?”
“She doesn’t like tech?”
“She’s repulsed by the idea of anyone having tech inside their bodies. When she realized I had an augment, it changed the way she approached me. She looked at me differently. How do you think she’s going to handle things mentally when she realizes she’s got one in her own skull?”
Gage’s face paled a bit.
“I didn’t realize…”
“No, you didn’t. No one does, because I was the only one who knew. I have to be here for her. I have to make sure this doesn’t break her.”
Gage inhaled sharply and nodded.
“OK, I get it now, but you have to understand that if we want to finish this job, we have to finish it now. You can’t stay here.”
Calder set his elbows to his knees and braced his face, steepling his fingers against his lips.
“What’s the timeline?”
“Now. There’s no window. They shifted almost eighty percent of the data offsite. That’s a lot, and we need to get to it sooner rather than later.”
“OK, fine,” he said, resolute. “I’ll go as soon as I’m briefed.”
“Well, that’s why I called you in here. I already had a short briefing with the data analysis guys. Cooper was there too.”
“And?”
“We initially thought the data was being housed on a satellite in S4, but we were wrong, and the intel we now have changes the entire dynamic of this job.”