“So … really shitty invisibility.”
“Best I can do.”
“It might get me past the guards outside,” I said. “But what do I do once I’m inside the building? It will be fully lit, and not everybody is going to be wearing a Minotaur helmet.”
“We could try taking out the lights,” Keane said. “I may be able to locate a breaker box on the building schematic.”
“No,” I said. “It’ll be under guard, and in any case, they’ll have a backup generator that kicks in as soon as the power goes out. A smoke grenade might work. That would blind the ones not wearing helmets and give me some cover against the others. Can you access inventory through this thing? They’ve got to have some around for riot control.”
“Checking now,” said Keane. He went silent for a minute or so. “We’re in luck, Fowler. There’s a storeroom just inside the building to the left. There should be riot gear inside. All you need to do is get to that room.”
This idea still sounded fairly insane to me, but at least it wasn’t physically impossible. If I could get past the guards out front, I could conceivably get to the storeroom and cause enough chaos with a smoke grenade to get to the trapdoor in the back of the building before anybody ID’d me. I didn’t like it, but apparently the fate of the civilized world was resting on my shoulders, so I guess I was going to give it a shot.
I retreated back down the alley in the direction I had come, and made a wide circle around the block so I could approach Alpha Base without being spotted. I saw it now on my display; I’d learned that I could toggle my display with the buttons on the outside of the helmet. Presumably there were also voice commands and probably a way to control the display with eye movements, but these were beyond my current level of expertise.
“Where are you going, Fowler?” Keane asked.
“Just doing some recon,” I said. I was now in an alley behind the building that faced Alpha Base. I had planned on sneaking alongside the building and peeking out to get a firsthand view of the guards, but accidentally hitting the transparency mode gave me an idea. I looked straight at the building in front of me and then played with the controls until I got it to vanish. Then I used the zoom feature to get a closer look at the front of the base.
It was a three-story office building, as Keane had said. There was a single entrance in front. As expected, two men with M4-A4s stood guard outside. Just to the left was the entrance to a belowground parking garage, which probably factored into Green River command’s decision to use this building as much as any of Keane’s factors: it gave them a place to park their vehicles. A wall of sandbags and Jersey barriers had been set up to prevent vehicles from getting too close to the building; farther down the road to my left another checkpoint had been set up. That had presumably been where Stoltz had been headed before he’d been shot.
The men out front were rendered as pixilated approximations; the Minotaur system couldn’t actually “see” them, it could only pinpoint their locations based on satellite data and pings from other nearby Minotaur clients. It identified the two men by name; if I’d wanted to, I could focus on their names and read their entire dossier, but I wasn’t really that interested in them. The building behind them, by contrast, was visible in high-definition video—I couldn’t tell I was actually looking at a composite rendering rather than the real thing. It occurred to me that there was probably a way to maneuver through these renderings without having to physically orient myself in the direction I wanted to look, but that, too, was beyond my abilities at present. In any case, my current method seemed to be working okay.
I zoomed in again, adjusting the transparency setting slightly so that I could see through the front wall. The front door led to a lobby; the reception desk was toward the right-hand wall. The door to the supply closet with the riot gear was in the middle of the left-hand wall. Another door, in the back wall, led to a hall that was lined with offices. I saw that Keane had helpfully marked the floor of the closet at the end of the hall on the right with a big red X—presumably the location of the trapdoor. I saw no people, pixilated or otherwise, inside the building, but that could just mean that there were no active Minotaur helmets in the building. Somehow I doubted I was going to be lucky enough to run into exactly no one on my way to the back of the building.
“How’s the invisibility coming?” I asked.
“I have it almost figured out,” Keane replied. “There’s no way to test it, of course, but in theory you should be more or less invisible to anyone using Minotaur.”
“That’s fantastically reassuring,” I said. In my head, I was working out Plan B, which basically consisted of getting as close as I could and then shooting everybody in my way. Running away wasn’t an option; I was going to get that coin or die trying. It was going to be a special kind of poetic justice if Ed Casters wasn’t even in the safe house after all. Hopefully I’d be shot in the head before finding that out.
“Okay, we’re good to go,” said Keane. “Keep in mind that I can’t be terribly selective with the invisibility. It’s either going to be on or off in a given area.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that I can’t make you invisible behind a building without making the building invisible. And as disappearing buildings tend to raise suspicion, that means you have to leave cover before the invisibility kicks in.”
“You have to be shitting me. The invisibility doesn’t work unless I first make myself completely visible?”
“It should be fine,” said Keane. “I can set the range to within a few inches of the building, and that area is in near darkness anyway. Just don’t linger near any buildings. Also, avoid running. The system has to erase you on the fly, so the fewer pixels it needs to change at a time, the less obvious it will be.”
No cover and no running, I thought. So basically do exactly the opposite of what all your training and instincts tell you to do. “Just tell me when you’re ready.”
“Any time,” said Keane. “I think I’ve figured out how to give you some help once you’re inside, too. A little noise in the Minotaur system.”
“That would be appreciated,” I said. “Assuming I make it that far.”
“One more thing,” said Keane. “After this little trick, I suspect Green River is going to be on to me, so I’m going to have to run. I won’t be able to help you anymore anyway; they’ll shut Minotaur down once they realize they’ve been hacked. So drop your helmet as soon as you don’t need it to see through the smoke. We’ll be incommunicado until you leave the DZ with the coin. Message me when you do. We’ll rendezvous at Grand Park, where you met Olivia.”
“Roger that,” I said. I didn’t know why he once again picked that terrible location, but I decided not to question it. Odds were I was never getting out of the DZ anyway.
I made my way around the building toward the front of the base. Peeking around the corner, I saw the two guards in more or less the positions indicated by the transparency view. My original idea had been that I would follow someone into the building, but it didn’t look like anybody was going to be going through that door anytime soon. Occasionally a vehicle would stop at the checkpoint and then pull into the garage, but there was obviously an elevator from the garage into the Alpha Base building, because no one was walking around front to get inside. I was going to have to just walk right to the door and hope for the best.
I took a few steadying breaths and then rounded the corner, making a mental note not to linger in the visible zone. I walked smoothly but briskly toward the door, doing my best to minimize both my footsteps and any unnecessary motion. I figured the distortion would be less noticeable if I avoided any jarring movement. I drew my pistol as I entered the area of the street lit by the lamps, in case I needed to shoot anybody.
But neither of the guards made any indication they saw me. I was now less than fifty feet away and closing, fully illuminated by the floodlights, but the two men stared straight ahead. I was fucking invisible!
I
continued toward the doorway, rolling my soles on the pavement as I walked, my trajectory taking me right between the two guards. My gun was at the ready now; I doubted I’d be able to get within thirty feet without being seen. But at that range, I could probably take out both guards before they could figure out what was happening. These guys didn’t look much older than Stoltz and Ramos, and I was aware of the irony inherent in my intentions to shoot them less than an hour after risking my life to save Stoltz. What can I say, war is a funny thing. Besides, the stakes had changed.
To my amazement, the two guards continued to stare straight ahead as I closed within ten feet of the door. I was beginning to think I was going to be able to just walk right up and slip through the door without either of these bright-eyed sentries sparing a glance in my direction.
And then the guy on the left looked right at me.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The guard brought his rifle up and I pointed the Glock right at his face. From this range, I was pretty sure I could blast right through that visor. I didn’t want to do it, but I had no choice.
And then he dropped his gun and fell to his knees, screaming. The guy on his right did the same, and I heard more screams from inside. Keane’s “noise in the system” had evidently kicked in.
“Audiovisual overload,” I heard Keane say. “They’ll be deaf and blind for about ten seconds. Make good use of it. Good luck, Fowler. I’m out.”
I walked past the two guards, who were lying on the ground desperately trying to get their helmets off, and opened the door. I went inside. A few feet in front of me, Lieutenant Simms lay on the floor, blinking and rubbing his ears, his helmet resting on the floor next to him. Inside, to my right, another young man, not wearing a helmet, was standing behind the reception desk, staring at the man on the floor. Two other men, also sans helmets, sat in chairs to my left, gawking at the man on the floor as well. The only one I recognized was Simms.
“Minotaur’s been compromised,” I said, tossing my helmet on the floor. “You two, get this man outside!”
This instruction made no sense whatsoever, but military men do what they’re told to do. I’d made a split-second decision given the circumstances to forgo the smoke grenade and try to bluff my way through. If the two men recognized me, they didn’t show it; they simply went to Simms and helped him outside. Simms was dazed enough not to resist. That left only the guy at the desk.
“Hey,” he said, as I continued to the door to the hall, “you’re the guy they’re looking for! Major Phan!”
Again I had to remind myself that the desk jockey was not telling me how much he enjoyed my work. “Didn’t you hear me?” I barked. “Minotaur’s been compromised. They’ve been flashing my goddamned picture all over the network, and now they’re jamming everything. Get on a secure channel and tell ComSec Minotaur’s been hacked. I’m going to inform the colonel.”
“Yes, sir!” said the man behind the desk, picking up a phone. God, I loved dealing with people conditioned to unquestioningly obey authority figures.
I threw open the door to the hallway and kept going. When I was halfway down, a stocky man who appeared to be in his late forties stepped out of an office right in front of me. He wore colonel’s insignia on his shoulder. “What in the hell is going on?” he demanded. Then his eyes widened. “Major Phan!” he exclaimed.
“Likewise,” I said, and slugged him across the jaw. He fell to the ground, groaning, and I stepped over him. I continued to the office at the end of the hall. The door was locked, but it was a pretty flimsy interior door, so I kicked it open. The office was empty except for several stacks of folding chairs and other random office furniture. I closed the door and moved several stacks of chairs in front of it, then went to the closet.
Opening the door and turning on the light, I found myself inside a spacious closet. Several more folding chairs leaned against the back wall. I moved these in front of the office door as well, then peeled back the carpet. Underneath was a hardwood floor, and I did not at first see any indication of a trapdoor. There was a banging behind me and somebody in the hall yelled, “Major Phan! Open the door!” This mission was going to end very quickly, and very badly, if Keane was wrong about the bomb shelter.
But as I looked closer, I noticed one of the slats was only about ten inches long, and there was a gap of about half an inch at the end of it. After some experimentation, I found that I could slide the board, closing the gap. As I did so, the pressure of my fingers caused the board to pivot vertically a few degrees, so that the left side moved upward just enough to get my fingers under it. Taking the hint, I wrapped my fingers around the edge and pulled. A door, composed of a staggered, roughly square section of slats, opened toward me. The door was heavy; underneath the floor slats was a steel plate nearly an inch thick. It swung on heavy-duty pneumatic hinges. Whoever had installed this bomb shelter had been serious. For all this effort, however, the door was not locked. Dim light arose from below, revealing a series of metal rungs leading down into a concrete-lined shaft.
There was a crash behind me, and my pile of chairs shuddered. The door opened a couple of inches, but fortunately the opening was angled away from the closet. I pulled the closet door closed as another crash sounded, followed by the sound of chairs clattering to the floor. Lowering myself into the hole, I felt one of the rungs under my boots. I climbed down a couple of rungs and closed the trapdoor, making sure the carpet lay back down on top of it. Hopefully that would buy me a minute or two while the Green River boys wondered where Major Phan had disappeared to.
After descending another ten rungs, my boots hit a concrete floor. Turning around, I found myself in a small storage room. Steel shelving units filled with cardboard boxes and plastic storage containers lined the walls on either side of me. A single low-wattage bulb in a fixture overhead cast the room in garish light. Directly in front of me was a heavy steel door. I tried to open it. It was locked.
From the shaft behind me, I heard muffled sounds of men talking and moving things around. No matter how dumb these guys were, eventually they’d find the trapdoor. And when they did, minutes or hours from now, I would be still standing here, staring at this door, because I do whatever Erasmus Keane tells me to do, and Erasmus Keane is a lunatic who doesn’t give two shits about me.
Having no other options, I knocked. A few seconds later, to my utter surprise, the door opened.
“Come in, Mr. Fowler,” said the small, mousy-haired woman standing in front of me.
I stepped through the door, and found myself in what appeared to be a very cheery beachfront cottage. Through the plate-glass windows on my left, beyond a strip of yellow beach, I saw the rolling waves of the Pacific.
“Pura vida,” said the woman. “Have a seat.” The woman was almost elfin in appearance, with big, almond-shaped eyes and ears that peeked out of her scraggly, brown-gray hair. She wore silk pajamas and slippers. Her age was hard to determine; I thought she was in her thirties.
I took a seat in a wicker chair that gave me a good view of the ocean. The view was astounding; to the right of the beach arose a series of rocky cliffs that reminded me a bit of the California coast. I could hear birds chirping and the crashing of the waves in the distance.
“Can I interest you in a glass of wine, Mr. Fowler?” the woman asked. “I recommend the white. The red down here is a little sweet for my tastes.”
I honestly didn’t know if “down here” meant the bomb shelter or Costa Rica. My brain was having a hard time convincing my senses that I was underneath an office building in Compton. By comparison, I found it relatively easy to accept that Ed Casters was female.
“Just water, please, if you have it,” I said. No, Fowler, she’s been living underground for three years with no water.
“Certainly,” she said, and disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, she reappeared with a glass of water, handed it to me, and sat down on a couch to my right.
“So you’re the mysterious Lila,” I said, then gulped do
wn the water. “Also known as Ed Casters.”
“Ed Casters, Rachel Stuil, Brad Melton, Ann Coswaite, a few others. You can call me Rachel.” She seemed at ease and unsurprised by my visit.
“I’m afraid I led some mercenaries to your door, Rachel,” I said, setting the glass down on the coffee table in front of me.
Rachel shrugged. “It was bound to happen eventually. In any case, we have some time.” She picked up a tablet from the table next to her and tapped it a few times. The view of the ocean was replaced by an image of several Green River men moving stacks of chairs around an office. “They haven’t even found the trapdoor yet. I locked the door behind you; it should take them a few minutes to get through that. I do have an escape route, of course. I made some modifications to this place after I moved in. Wasn’t about to be trapped down here.” She tapped the tablet and the view switched back to the ocean.
“Why did you let me in?” I asked.
“Physical barriers don’t interest me. You earned the right to meet me face-to-face. You and Mr. Keane, of course. But as usual, Keane finds a way to make someone else do the dirty work.”
“He was right, then,” I said. “There really is a tenth iota.”
“A zeroth iota, yes.” She picked up a small wooden box from the table next to her. She opened it and pulled out a silvery coin, setting the box down again. “It’s silly, really,” she said, peering at the coin. “I have no need of it. I’ve got the last bit of the code in my head. But I like the symmetry. Ten coins, ten parts of the code.”
“And ten words,” I said. “‘The path up and down are one and the same.’ What does it mean?”
“Nothing,” said Rachel, with a grim smile. “Or everything. Maybe it means nothing matters, that everything built up gets destroyed. Or maybe it’s a random phrase I picked out. What difference does it make? Would you feel better if it ‘meant something’? What do the coins mean? What do iotas mean? What does gold mean? What does any of it mean? It’s all just ideas we’re chasing around because we have nothing better to do.”
The Last Iota Page 23