by Kal Spriggs
She gave Captain Zhun a nod, “They’re going to take the bait. Put us at combat footing. I want all our people at full readiness. Start rehearsing contingency plans with our core teams. I’ll contact General Chou.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Captain Zhun said. “What about the Staff Sergeant? Should I have her executed?”
“No,” Colonel Givens said, “she may be useful, especially if they think she’s a useful tool. Transfer her out to the military liaison posting and notify Major Wei to keep an eye on her. If she makes some kind of move, it may give us some warning.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Captain Zhun asked.
“We will execute her after we trigger Operation Trojan,” Colonel Givens said. “We won’t need her after that.”
***
"I don't see it," Shaden said a few hours later when they reconvened. "The perimeter is too tight. If I go in during the day, they'll see me, if I go in at night, their perimeter sensors pick me up."
"If you knew how to operate a boat, this would be easier," Moira said. "A small boat would be easy enough to slip nearby...
"I don't," Shaden said. He didn't know if it was a gap in the training or if ESPSec had wanted some blind spots for him. "Anyway, the guard posts cover the waterfront pretty well. If we were going for an assault, I think it would be the best way in, but to sneak in..." he shrugged, "I'd have to make it through their internal perimeter, up this open slope."
He tapped the screen, "At night I could do that, but the internal perimeter's sensors will trip."
"You can't go in on the other three sides?" His mother asked.
"No," Primus shook his head, "too many sensors, day or night. The gates have guard posts and the interior patrol and sensors will pick up his movement." He gave a smirk, "This is a glitter neighborhood." He saw their looks of confusion, "Rich old people," he clarified. "They see someone strange, they call the police. Acts as another layer of defense."
Shaden nodded, "I could avoid that at night, but I'd still have to slip past their patrols and their sensors." He tapped a section of fence near the park. "This would be the best area, their inner and outer perimeter is the same, here." It was an old sports park inside the fencing. Janecek had taken him there a couple times for training and Angel, too. Each time he had seen at least a squad of security personnel on site.
"What if," Moira said, "you have some kind of distraction?"
"What do you mean?" Shaden asked.
"Well," Moira said, "I don't know much about ESPSec, but this has to be a pretty significant concentration of their forces, right? InSec normally has a battalion for an entire military sector. They take over normal police and military units when they need more punch."
Primus nodded, "They rely on the whiteheads here, too."
"So if they had something big go down, where the police weren't enough," Moira said, "would that draw some of their people away?"
Shaden nodded slowly, "Maybe." He looked over at Primus, "It would take something big, though. Something that overwhelmed the police..."
"How about a riot?" Moira asked innocently.
Shaden winced, "I'd prefer not to cause wholesale damage and destruction."
"It's not a bad idea, trotter," Primus said. "Lots of anger in the city, people mebbe want to hit the whiteheads. If we triggered that and ESPSec thought there were psychics involved..."
"How would they think that?" Shaden asked.
"Because my pack will be starting things," Primus grinned. "We hit the whiteheads hard, then ESPSec comes in, things escalate..."
"That's going to be awful hard on the people caught in the middle," Shaden said. "For that matter, what if things get out of hand?"
"My contacts can help get innocent people out of the area," Janis said.
Shaden couldn’t say he approved. It still felt reckless to cause a riot just to help him slip in to the facility. How many people's lives would be damaged, how many homes and businesses would be destroyed?
Primus spat, "Besides, whiteheads in the city are too lazy; we need to shake them up a bit."
"Okay," Shaden sighed, "but we clear people out as quick as we can when things start." He tried not to think too much about how the police and ESPSec would hammer any rioters they caught. Normals would face a beating and jail time, but ESPSec would probably shoot any psychics they found. Or even anyone they suspect is a psychic, he thought to himself.
Hopefully the rioters would run for it when things got serious.
"So," Shaden said, "Primus, your people will start things off, ESPSec sends people from their local branch..."
"I can hit them," Moira said with a grin. "They'll be looking for a psychic threat, they won't see a more conventional attack coming."
"One girl?" Primus asked. "You're a colonial, I suppose, so you'll use bombs?"
She gave him a glare, "What, just because I'm a Colonial, you think I'm going to blow something up?"
"Are you?" Janis asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well..." Moira laughed, "yeah, but I resent the assumption that all colonials are terrorists."
Shaden just gave a sigh, "Okay, so Moira hits the ESPSec reaction team and then they call for help from the facility." Karl helpfully brought up a map of the city on the holotable. "They'll probably head along one of these routes..." Shaden trailed off as he considered it. "It makes sense to hit them, too."
"Aren't we getting ambitious?" Janis asked.
Shaden flushed, "Well, it'll probably give Primus's people a chance to pull back before things get out of hand." He nodded at Primus. "Plus it will delay their response heading back to the facility."
His mother nodded slowly, "I can talk to some of my contacts. They may be able to help." She glanced at Primus, “Any of these vehicles work? We’ll need transportation.”
“If you can drive,” Primus nodded, “I can loan you the Beast.”
Shaden just hoped that the “Beast” wouldn’t be too conspicuous. "Alright, then," Shaden said. "We've got a plan... and at least they shouldn’t expect any kind of attack."
***
Colonel Alicia Givens felt a trill of excitement as her secure line connected. "Sir," she said, "Operation Trojan is active. I have multiple security flags and I expect infiltration or attack in the next few days
General Xin Chou took a long moment to respond. "Is the weapon operational?"
"Yes," Colonel Givens said. She will be when the time comes, she amended. She would do whatever was necessary to do ensure Operation Trojan succeeded. She would eradicate the psychic threat once and for all.
He went quiet then, so quiet that for a moment, she wondered if he had hung up on her. "I'll notify Major Wei to defer to you when the enemy initiates," General Chou said. "I trust I do not need to remind you that failure is not an option?"
She felt a chill at his words, not so much what he really said as what he didn't need to say. She had worked for the General for a decade and while she had benefited from that arrangement, she had no doubt whatsoever that he viewed her as a disposable resource. General Chou wouldn't hesitate to have her executed for failure. That she knew. "No, sir," she said, "I understand."
What terrified her more, however, was what their enemies might do to her if they captured her alive. She shuddered at the very thought. No, she would do whatever necessary to ensure the success of the operation.
"Good luck," General Chou said and disconnected.
This is it, she thought to herself, this is what I've worked towards for the past three years, the pinnacle of ten years in ESPSec. After all her sacrifices and long hours, she should have felt elated. Instead she felt... tired. Her fight against the psychics had taken such a toll. Soon, she knew, she could be done. Operation Trojan would turn the war around. After that... she didn't know what she would do.
I could retire, she thought, move to one of the core colonies and live on my pension... She snorted at the thought. She couldn't picture herself fat and old. No, she would finish the job. First she needed t
o strike the head from the body. The most dangerous threat to humanity would be coming and Colonel Givens would await them. She smiled coldly at the thought. They have hidden in the shadows, but I'll drag them into the light… and SIGIL will be no more.
***
Chapter 24
Family is strange. They’re both a strength and a weakness. They can build you up and support you, but you’ll always be vulnerable through them. I wonder if the man I once was isolated himself so much because he feared those vulnerabilities or if he did it to protect the people he loved. Either way, I think he made the wrong decision.
--Memoirs of Shaden Mira
Training and constant practice are the most important aspects of Project Archon. Through training, subjects unlock their abilities. Through practice, they strengthen their neuron interaction and generate stronger and more capable quantum wave functions. Powerful emotions: fear, anger, hate… these seem to further empower these abilities. Manipulation of fears, such as those of friends or family, could be key to building these weapons in strength.
--Dr. Jonathan Halving, Project Archon Notes.
“Why would I do this to myself?” Shaden asked as he stared down at his hands.
“Excuse me?” his mother asked. She sat reclined on the beat up couch reading a dog-eared book.
“I was a precog, a powerful one, right?” Shaden said.
His mother nodded, and set her book to the side, “Extremely powerful.”
“So unless I was totally blindsided… I purposefully turned myself in to have my every memory reworked and my personality erased.” Shaden shook his head, “I’m not even sure anymore if I’m… me.”
His mother sighed, “You aren’t, in many ways, Shaden.” She shook her head, “John was… different. Some of that came from his ability. He had a gift and a curse from that, and I wish…” She shrugged, “Well, it’s not important. But you… you are not John Mira. You’re a different person, now.”
“And who is that?” Shaden asked. He clenched his hands into fists and his eyes went distant. In his mind he saw the people he’d killed. He felt sick, sick and disheartened.
“You’re still my son,” his mother said. “Which is difficult for me, too, I hope you know.” She shook her head, “God, I thought it was difficult when my cousin Mark decided he wanted to be ‘Alice.’ I never imagined my son…”
“He loved you,” Shaden said. “Whoever I once was, he knew you cared, and he cared for you. I know he regretted the pain it caused you.”
His mother just nodded. She wiped at her eyes, “Look at me, crying over this after trying to comfort you.” She laughed slightly, then looked away. “So what do we know about Halving’s lab and its defenses?”
Shaden took the change in subject, and he closed his eyes, calling up all his memories of the facility. “It’s on Long Island, near Great Neck. It’s got a small boat harbor on the Sound. There are a lot of buildings and the suburbs have encircled it.”
He cocked his head, “Physical security will lie mostly in its position. They’ll have plenty of warning if any type of large force moves to attack it, especially with the limited approaches by land. I’d imagine they’ll have between fifty and a hundred normal guards, most of them just hired muscle. Judging from the handful I saw at meals, I’d say closer to fifty personnel on working shifts.”
He opened his eyes and saw the surprise on his mother’s face. He felt suddenly self-conscious, “I take it John didn’t have any base of tactical knowledge?”
“Though I suppose we can both guess why they programmed that into you,” she replied. He could tell that this additional reminder of how he’d changed bothered her.
Shaden nodded grimly, “It would be easy enough to program the basic knowledge, they must have exercised it somehow, worked on training my brain to use that information...” He closed his eyes again, and he remembered disturbing dreams of fighting and tactical situations. Had they run him through some kind of simulator and then erased the memories? He pushed those concerns to the side and went back to the task at hand. It felt easy, almost familiar, for his mind to evaluate threats, “I’d estimate between ten and fifteen psychics on hand, most of them probably used as security against me and—” He broke off suddenly, “An issue I hadn’t thought of is that there’s another experimental subject there.”
“Like you?” His mother asked.
“Maybe. I think she’s under a tight leash, and I know of at least one time that she realized what they’d done to us,” Shaden said.
“So… a possible ally?” His mother asked.
Shaden winced as he remembered how he’d slammed her against a wall to protect Janecek. “Maybe not. At the time, I thought she’d gone nuts. But she definitely will have little love for Halving.”
“Do we know if there could be others?” His mother asked. She looked suddenly pale, “How long has this bastard experimented on people?”
Shaden shook his head. His thoughts went to some of his “nightmares.” He thought about what he remembered of the tests and pain. “I don’t know, but I somehow doubt that they only started recently.”
His mother nodded, “Okay, then, where do we begin?”
Shaden grabbed a pen and paper off the coffee table and began to draw a quick sketch of the grounds. His mind provided a lot of the details, but huge gaps remained as he tried to pin down what lay in which building.
“From my memories of the place… I’d guess it was an old college campus, like Cezero’s hideout. I’ve got some vague memories of tunnels and underground hallways that connected different buildings… but I can’t guess where most of them lead.”
“So?”
Shaden shrugged, “He could have an army waiting down there, or extensive labs, or escape tunnels to wherever and when I go in, I’ll have to chase him through the unknown.” He frowned, “It sure would be convenient to see the future right now.”
***
“It certainly would be convenient to see the future right now,” Jonathan Halving said, as he watched Angel training Kandergain.
“Excuse me?” Colonel Givens asked.
Halving turned and gave her a pleasant smile. His perfect even white teeth had no effect on her, even as his handsome face had not. The woman would have made an excellent fairy tale ice queen, he thought darkly. “I wish I could see if the continued effort on this subject was worth it. I’m rapidly coming to believe that is not the case.”
“Oh?” Colonel Givens’ voice remained neutral.
Jonathan Halving felt more tempted than ever to try to slip through her mental screen. He knew he could do it, he just wasn’t sure he could do it without her noticing. Which still left him tempted, for he knew he could tamper with her memories once inside her head.
Then again, if he slipped up even slightly, he’d have to kill her. That would be… ill-timed, he decided, not without regret.
“She’s begun finding gaps in her memory, and has started to catalog real memories from false ones. She hasn’t started to fight her programming yet… but I think it is only a matter of time,” Halving shrugged. “Basically, we are approaching the point where we’ll have to wipe her clean again and start over.”
“That is unacceptable,” Colonel Givens said. The snap of her voice told Halving that she had not expected such news and that she didn’t like it at all.
Halving kept his expression detached, “I can only do so much. The more I meddle with her brain at this point the more likely she is to notice… and break the mental conditioning.” He let Colonel Givens chew that over for a long moment, “Of course, it is a shame; she’s progressing very well. I’ve noticed much of her mental stability increases around Angel. I believe the two have formed something of a bond.”
Colonel Givens grimaced in distaste, “I really could care less if one of your pets bonds with the subject. The pressure from above is explicit: we must have a fully functional subject before the project moves on.”
Halving mentally steeled himself, “
If that is the case, then perhaps this project will need to end.”
The Colonel’s head whipped around, “What?” The surprise and shock on her face shone through with none of her normal icy mask.
“I think that it will be impossible to do what you want with her,” Halving shrugged. “She’s certainly more functional than Project Kraken, but the long term repercussions of keeping her “as is” --without doubt-- outweighs the disadvantages of starting over.” Halving watched her behind hooded eyes as he finished his argument, “I think that unless we terminate this subject and move forward with a new batch, this project will end in an unavoidable -- and as such, acceptable -- failure.”
He watched her face flash through emotions. Halving noted each of them and filed them for later consideration. The shock faded and two red splotches appeared on her cheeks as she grew angry at his denial of her will. That anger vanished and her eyes shifted from brown to nearly black as she stared at him.
Halving realized that she’d seen at least some of his desire to expose her real emotions. That realization shot a short spurt of fear into his own heart, but he pushed that away ruthlessly and continued his study of his assigned overseer. He would not fear this woman.
When Colonel Givens finally spoke, she had leached it of all emotion, “Doctor Halving, I think we need to reexamine your notions of acceptable failure.”
“Oh?” Halving asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes.” Her dark eyes met his, “If this project is a failure, then certain members of the Security Council as well as my superiors will find reason for unhappiness.”
Halving shrugged, “They must understand that you and I have done our best to—“
“They will express their unhappiness with the full extents of their power, and they are very powerful people,” Colonel Givens spoke over him. “This project has attracted a great deal of attention, and those who seem to believe failure is acceptable will find themselves the center of that attention.”