Sanctioned

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Oz chuckled. “No - just your heuristic.”

  Joel frowned, and sat up straighter. “You’re kidding?” he asked, half impressed, half disbelieving he warranted that much trouble.

  “Yes, I am kidding,” Oz confessed. “I haven’t modeled your behavior formally. But, to be fair, you’re not as erratic or complex as Molly, so…”

  Joel laughed to himself. “Yeah. I hear you,” he agreed, his attention drifting off as he remembered some of her infuriating complexities. He shook his head, bringing himself back to the conversation. “So, what do you think you can do for me?” he asked.

  “Well,” Oz conceded, “nothing from your current installations… But,” he continued, “if we could acquire some additional implants and tech, we could do a heap of stuff.”

  Oz paused.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” he clarified.

  Joel hesitated. “Faster reflexes. For ops,” he added quickly.

  Oz couldn’t see, but Joel’s face flushed a little pink.

  Oz chuckled. Joel could feel the slight vibration of his laughter through the seat of the pod.

  “What’s so funny?” Joel asked.

  Oz’s voice was still bouncing with humor a little. “Nothing. Just funny how male humans compete!”

  Joel dropped his arm from where he had wedged himself and was almost up out of the seat in protest. “I’m not competing. I’m… I’m…”

  The vibrations of Oz’s laughter paused. “Yes?” Oz prompted.

  Joel deflated, and slumped back into the chair. “Okay. I’m competing,” he admitted, flushing an even deeper shade of pink. “But it will also be good for the team,” he added weakly.

  Oz chuckled again. “This is true,” he concurred. “Which is why I’m going to help.”

  Oz went quiet for a few moments. Joel shifted awkwardly in the pod, still feeling a bit hot around the face.

  Finally Oz spoke again. “We’re going to need a set of implants, which I’ll have ordered up on the next shipment. And you’re going to have to bring Brock in on this.”

  Joel nearly shot out of his seat again. “Whaaaa?” he blurted. “Brock? Why him?”

  Oz’s voice was steady, with a hint of irony. “He’s the only one of us with a body who might have the necessary skills to implant the devices we’re going to need.”

  Joel settled a little, huffed, and wedged his arm back onto the side of the pod for comfort. Then suddenly, he looked suspicious. “Hang on,” he stalled. “Where exactly are these devices going?”

  Oz sounded more clinical now. “We should have a stimulator-cum-relay at the bottom of your brainstem, and then one on the outside of the cortex.”

  Joel did a double-take, glaring at the heads-up display in front of him, as if he could eyeball Oz. “You what-what?! You’re talking about Brock doing brain surgery on me?”

  Oz sighed. “Well, yes. Technically. But no need to be so melodramatic!” he exclaimed. “The one in the brainstem can be injected, and it will settle in place. The one in the cortex will go in around your temple, where the bone is thin anyway,” he explained somewhat flippantly.

  Joel went pale, the effects of any blushing completely neutralized.

  Oz continued. “It will be fine. Brock has more than enough dexterity to take out a tiny slice of bone, put the implant in, and then replace the bone and let it heal up,” he reassured Joel. “You’ll hardly feel a difference once it’s in…” He paused, and then qualified his statement. “Unless it overheats.”

  Joel’s voice jumped a few octaves. “What do you mean, ‘unless it overheats’?” He suddenly remembered himself, that he was trying to keep his presence in the pod a secret.

  Oz pulled up a simple diagram from the product page of the device he had located on the XtraNET. “It’s a slight risk. If the chip doesn’t go into precisely the right amount of tissue, it won’t be able to run the signal, and so it might heat up.”

  The area around Joel’s eyes rumpled in confusion and frustration. “In which case?” he pushed.

  Oz remained clinical. “In which case, we simply remove it and try again.”

  Joel shook his head in disbelief. “Oh, right, so no big deal, then.”

  “Right,” Oz agreed plainly.

  Joel looked out onto the hangar deck, away from the brain diagram. “I was being ironic,” he told him.

  “Yeah, I got that,” confirmed Oz.

  Joel was silent for a moment, thinking through his options. He could always not have the procedure and just keep working out. But then he’d never have Sean’s reactions. Or speed. Or strength.

  He sighed. “Okay, so I need to have a word with Brock at some point, then?”

  Oz’s channel had gone quiet. Hearing Joel’s response, the audio opened up again. “Yes. I’ll let you know when we might expect these parts though.”

  Joel leaned forward to grab the handrail and pull himself out of his seat as the door opened up again. “Okay, great. And thanks, Oz. I appreciate you helping me.”

  “Of course,” Oz replied. “Got to help a brother out.”

  Joel grinned and hopped out of the pod quietly.

  Before closing the door, he peeked around the hangar, just to make sure no one was around. Satisfied, he waved his hand in front of the access panel, and the transparent door slid quietly down.

  Joel crept for a few strides, and then stood up straight and walked casually back to the main thoroughfare around the outside of the hangar deck.

  Sean Royale, you cocky son of a bitch. I’m going to show you and your cyborg ass who can shoot, he thought as he climbed the stairs two at a time back towards the demon door corridor. He had another meeting to get to shortly, and a few things to organize before then.

  Gaitune-67, base conference room

  Just over an hour later, the team was assembled in the conference room for the briefing. Jack had been introduced to everyone, and sat between Sean and Molly.

  Joel was the last person to arrive. Since he and Jack were already acquainted, he waved to her and pulled out a chair around the corner of the table from Pieter. He noticed Pieter tracking his movement and leaned over to punch him gently on the shoulder before sitting down.

  Molly was standing up, ready to begin. As soon as Joel was seated, everyone spontaneously gave her their full attention.

  She ran through the order of proceedings in her head, as the manual for briefings had suggested. First, welcome them and acknowledge anything new or different, Molly recalled. Jack is new, Molly told herself.

  “Greetings, everyone,” she began. “Thanks for being here. I know you were looking forward to squad training, but we’ll schedule that for a little later on.”

  There was a rumble of chuckling throughout the room. Squad training was the bane of their existence; but, like eating vegetables, they knew it was vital to their survival - in a very real and immediate way.

  Molly continued. “As you may already know, we have a new team member. Her name is Jack Nolan. She is a decorated former officer, and has run operations and teams bigger and badder than you can even imagine. She’s tough as nails, and is probably going to give our boys Sean, Crash, and Joel a run for their money.” She paused and glanced around at her GIs. “No offense lads,” she winked.

  Jack blushed a little. She was far more used to having to prove her toughness than having team leaders pre-warn their guys about her.

  This was going to be a refreshing change.

  Molly went back to her mental notes. Tell them the purpose or outcome you want from this meeting.

  She took a breath, organizing her thoughts. “The reason we called this meeting over squad training is because I had a conversation with the General earlier. As a result of what we discussed, we’re going to have to shift our plans.”

  She waited for a reaction in the group. Not a single person flinched.

  Relieved, she continued. “What we’d originally scheduled was to go full-tilt into training for the General’s mission in
three weeks’ time. In the interim, Joel, myself, Oz, Sean, and Maya have realized that there was a pattern behind our latest missions; The Syndicate was behind them, trying to set us up.” She paused, glancing at her more senior team members briefly. “We finally have enough data and resources to commit to taking them out, once and for all. When the General found out about this, he not only sanctioned it, but insisted we clean it up before we join the mission they have planned.”

  She took a deep breath. “So, in effect,” she concluded, “we’ve doubled, or maybe tripled, our workload.”

  Brock grinned, his hands on the table, leaning into the discussion. “Nothing new there, then, eh?” The team erupted into chuckles. Paige clapped her hands, and Crash slapped on the desk to make more ruckus.

  Molly grinned at him. “Knew you’d be up for it!” she said, her shoulders relaxing a little.

  Pieter leaned forward and crumpled up his face a little, like Sean does. He sat a little askew on his chair, too. As Sean does. “So, who are we to kill, and how dead can I kill them?” he asked, mimicking Sean’s intonation.

  That was it. The conference room erupted into another bout of laughter that could be heard all the way through to the hangar deck. Molly put her hands on her waist and hunched over laughing.

  Finally she composed herself. “You can kill them very dead, Pieter.” She glanced over at Sean, who was doing his shoulder-and-chest-bouncing silent laugh. “Perhaps the real Mr. Royale can help us out? You have new intel about the Syndicate? Namely, how we can find them?”

  Sean sat up and leaned forward, careful to not screw his face up, or shift his weight sideways. He glanced at Pieter coyly, his eyes narrowed, before turning his attention to the group and responding. “Right,” he confirmed. “Our contact, Garet Beaufort, has been posing as a member of The Syndicate for the last several months…”

  He paused, noticing Joel’s eyes widen. Molly didn’t show any signs of it being new information to her.

  Sean continued. “… Ever since he went back to Estaria, after you first extracted him. He’ll be able to tell us when all the members will next be in a room together. They’ll have layers of security we’ll need to handle, but once we know where and when, we just need to decide what to do when we get there. Snatch and grab. Point and shoot. Or something else.”

  Sean glanced over to Molly for her decision.

  Molly shrugged. “I’m more concerned with breaking up the systems they have implemented and represent. Sure, we can kill them; but then we need to do the work to dismantle what they’ve put in place… which will come afterwards, I guess.”

  Sean held her gaze, waiting for a definitive.

  She hesitated a moment, thinking, then shrugged again. “Okay. Take them out.”

  Sean grinned.

  Joel took a breath and inserted himself into the conversation, as the rest of the team watched carefully for their orders. “I think the reality is that unless these people are forcibly removed from influence, they’re going to keep that system in play; a system that is costing lives, and causing suffering for generations of civilians. We have a moral duty to intervene.”

  Molly’s face relaxed a little. She nodded, moving onto the last point she needed to cover in her meeting plan. “Okay, so strike team will consist of myself, Crash, who will guard the pods, Sean, Joel, and Jack.”

  She then indicated to the remaining team members by pointing a finger at each of them, as if selecting them on a dashboard. ”Pieter, Brock, Paige, and Maya; I need you here, working to gather anything you can find that will tell us the weaknesses in their organizations, that will pull them down once they are dealt with. Paige, I wonder if you can also get with Garet after the takedown, and find out how to change the legislation which is allowing this kind of regime to thrive?”

  Paige nodded and made a note. She seemed more focused on the job in hand than the prospect of having to speak to her ex. Molly noticed, and made a mental note to keep tabs on that situation. And possibly confer with Joel about it in their next management training pow-wow.

  “Maya, Joel can hook you up with our police contacts on the surface. They will no doubt want to help any way they can. They’ve been trying to take these guys down for years. Especially the female detective we met… She sounded like she’d been immersed in tracking down the group for several years. Her name… Chaakwa?”

  Molly looked at Joel for confirmation, and he nodded in agreement. She glanced back at Maya who was taking a note. “Okay, got it,” responded Maya.

  Molly glanced around the table. “Anyone have any questions?”

  Brock raised his hand. “Do we still have training today?”

  The mood in the room lifted a little. Molly sat down, waving her open hand to Joel.

  Joel considered it for a moment. “Yes, training in half an hour. We’ll keep it tight, and then you can get on with prep for the mission.” He glanced over at Sean. “I guess we wait for you to give us our window?”

  Sean nodded silently, but definitively.

  Brock sat back in his chair and Pieter glanced over at him with a glare. “Way to go, reminding them of training,” Pieter huffed comically.

  Molly remembered there were other items. “Ah, one second, people.”

  She looked over at Maya. “Maya, you need to close the loop on your life on the surface. You can’t let anyone know where you’re going to be, but you probably want to let the people who care about you know that you’re safe and well. And better give your boss a heads up so he can disappear for a little while. Don’t want him getting caught up in any backlash, since he was one of their pawns.”

  Maya nodded.

  Joel had a suggestion, and leaned in a little again. “We could always go do that today, so that it’s out of the way before we strike? Make sure we’re not missing anything, or leaving her boss vulnerable in our efforts.”

  Molly agreed. “Good thinking. Okay, perhaps you want to do that after training.”

  Joel nodded. Maya looked down at her notes. Molly couldn’t see her face, but she needed to wrap up the meeting. “Okay,” Molly announced, “the rest of you can go get ready for physical training.”

  The room became a hub of activity as the team stood up and started chatting.

  Molly called over to Maya. “Maya, can I have a word?”

  Maya got up and tucked her chair out of the way as the rest of the team emptied out of the meeting room.

  She ambled round to Molly’s side of the table. “Hey…”

  Molly smiled, and perched on the table’s edge. “Hey. You okay? You seemed… well… something, about having to go down to surface.”

  Molly waited for Maya to speak.

  Maya nodded her head quickly and smiled weakly. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just… I know we agreed that I’d stay up here. And this is truly what I want. I’m just… I didn’t think I’d have to say goodbye to my friends so soon.”

  Molly looked down at her feet as she processed. She looked up. “Ah, I see. I can understand that. Your boss?”

  Maya had a hint of sadness in her eye. “Yes. He’s been like a father to me.”

  Molly felt her sadness. She tried to contain her emotions, though. “I get it,” she said sympathetically. Molly hesitated, trying to figure out how to handle the situation. She imagined what Joel would say, and then just repeated it as she heard it in her head. “Just know that you’ve found a new family now. We’ll take care of you…” She hesitated, and then made an effort to pat Maya’s upper arm, awkwardly. Then she smiled. Equally awkwardly.