The Last Hercules

by Ron Bender

  Damnit. It had been a risk. “Get him out. Find Lee and keep on top of him.”

  Alex says, “We have limited connectivity to Lee.”

  “Do what you have to. Don’t lose him.” The maglift opens and I make my way to my desk.

  The view of the city is overwhelming, my brain fills every AV with commando’s holding handheld rockets on their way here. As my desk rises from the floor, I swipe the controls that darkens the view. “Alex, an update on Picasso.”

  “He will live. Mr. Takashi was able to override the operatives medical monitor and used his direct connection to utilize Picassos blades to eliminate the immediate threat. Medical has the operative outbound and a medical pod.”

  “Good.” Losing friends right now would be even worse for how I’m feeling.

  “Lee has managed to escape the building.”

  “Activate the failsafe and get him back on a screen.” I could count on my own tech. But could I count on Lee to play along? “When you find him, hang back and let things develop.”

  “Da. Anything changes I will contact you directly.”

  I sit and watch streaming raw footage from six operations playing. I pinch them to one corner. “Jen?” The delay before she answers is tangible.

  “Yes, sir?”

  I stare at the mostly blank desk top. The void of darkened glass makes me feel nervous. “Open an infostreaming business feed.”

  “Yes.”

  My desktop explodes in visuals. I say, “Top stories only, focusing on developing ones please.”

  The screen unclutters until three main lines play along.

  I tap one into full screen and slide the volume up. The reporters voice echoes. “The corporate commissioner’s office has called for greater NWSPD involvement in the situation at the Living Memories offices in Core tower twelve as reports of sporadic gunfire continue to come in.”

  The images are of a dozen corp-cops and a command vehicle parked in the plaza for tower twelve. Employees are being efficiently partitioned as they surge out of the main doors. Employees of other corporations in the tower will be let go….

  “Jen, link me to Jimmy,” I say, my eyes unfocused on the crowd. Had I been too optimistic? Or had I not been paranoid enough….?

  “Yes.” Her reply is deadpan.

  “Hey boss.” Jimmy’s tone is full of bounce.

  “Jimmy. I need cam feeds in real time for corporate core tower twelve. Specifically, the Living Memory Incorporated offices.”

  “When do you want that?” he asks.

  “Now.” I narrow the focus on the screen until I can only see the front doors.

  “Uh. Give me a sec.” he says.

  “Jen, link the cams he opens to my desk please.”

  “Yes.” Her tone unchanged.

  “Whoa.” Jimmy yelps over the line. “What? Holy shit what’s going on?”

  The cam feed patches through. Teams of men in tactical gear are moving room to room, office to office, cubicle to cubicle. For a moment I think they’re police. That illusion vanishes as they find a group of huddled office workers. The armed men open fire.

  I tap a com button on my desk. “Operator. I need an immediate call check on every one of our contracts above a level three. I want a check in from our field ops hourly.”

  “Sir, that’s thousands of calls….”

  “Pull all off-duty call center staff in,” I say as the gunfire on my screen happens again and again. “Bring in assistance from everything lower than level three operations.”

  “Sir, I don’t know if we physically have enough call center locations in the building to do that.”

  “Find a way. This is now priority over everything but Command and Control calls.”

  The tac teams on my screen run into the corporate cops and promptly up the ante by wiping them out with grenades and gas.

  “Jimmy? You watching this?”

  “I’d say I’d rather not be.” His voice is distant. This kind of thing may be too close… it may trigger unstable memories from the feral lands. I need him on board and stable.

  Jen interrupts. “Sir, there are reports deaths of upper level executives and disappearances of hundreds of other individuals from across all continental Corporate Control Zones.”

  “Compile a list.” I watch as a second and third team are sent in by the commissioners. “Are any of them our clients?”

  “None at this time,” She replies.

  “If any of our clients or people end up in the ‘yes’ column tell me immediately.”

  “Yes, sir,” She says.

  “Jimmy make copies of this footage and sit on them.” I lean back and let the knot in my stomach relax.

  “Done,” he says.

  “And good job saving Picasso.” I can’t not watch the fighting. I lean over my desk again.

  “I feel bad about it,” Jimmy says. “I got him into the situation to begin with.”

  “Never mind that. You kept him from being unrecoverable.”

  “Um. Thanks,” he says.

  I cut the line with him. Images of carnage are unfolding all over the inside of tower twelve.

  Jen comes online. “The local PD are wondering if you would be available to lend assistance.”

  “Tell them to direct their inquiry through the commissioner’s office. If the commissioner asks, get six counterstrike teams in there.” I’m not jumping for anybody without authority anymore. Not since the council massacre.

  “Yes, sir,” She says.

  I lay my head onto my desk. Phil is pulling everything back. That’s what he meant during his call. He’s not leaving me anything or anyone I can move against or leverage; nothing to kick at.

  A brutal scorched earth tactic…. Except in this case the earth was actually people and businesses.

  He could still get to me through my clients, my operatives, or anyone on the street who knew me; and then there were the implants… the paranoia rises along with a bitter taste in my mouth. The twisting of the bayonet.

  The list of individuals I’d asked for stretches across the odd angle of my vision, the names flickering down and down as it grows. A second list starts, titled Missing or Unaccounted for. I could see people who’d want to hide until the fallout was over. But then again this was Phillip. These people could be black bagged, implanted and let go.

  Blinking hard as the list swarms past, I know my paranoia has hit a tipping point. Some of my thinking here will be accurate but ultimately my fear will paralyze me, get my people in harm’s way through bad command. Unacceptable.

  I need deal with this. I still run into the feeling that there will never be a good time to clean up. There will always be something pushing in on me, or my people, that I’ll need to address.

  Phillip’s dv call… comes to mind. I’m second guessing even my own thoughts and while irrational, that thought is still there. The thought that maybe somehow, I’ve been hacked, and that my own memories can’t be trusted. I get a hint at what Raven’s life must be like. That thought breaks it for me.

  “Jen.” I push my feelings as down as far as I can. “Hold all calls except emergencies from Greysen or any of the Ops rooms.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Send ….” I stop. What if she tries something? Takes advantage …. “Send for Vlasta. Let her know I want to deal with my situation. Have her bring whatever she might need.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ˜˜˜

  I was tapped into AlphaTek’s com channel from the moment got out of the truck. I know that Basillio will want me for a debriefing even if I’m not one of his contractors. The deal I made with Picasso was pretty much a farce and we both knew it. I need to find Bransen, get Maggie before he can. As soon as I head down the stairs I know I’m on a time limit to get everything done and get out.

  More than a decade ago I had my software upgraded by Arturo, the Hercules Project AI. His upgrades were adaptive, and thorough. When I first talked to Basillio in AlphaPlaza I had a scan running in
the background. It came up with a new item. My old software located a beacon that AT medics had installed. I know that if I leave the area of operations I’d have to take time out and dig it out from under my chest plate.

  At the bottom of the stairs I swap clips and stalked down the main hallway.

  Everyone milling in the dark are buyers. They deserve what I hand out for judgement in this place. I silently kill each of them by hand.

  They’d poured out of a string of cubicle-like side rooms on my left. Each room was filled with a single chair pulled up to face the opposite wall. There was a counter in front of each chair. On the wall above the counter was a window. Under the counter was a narrow crawl space that looked like it connected rooms.

  My com-link pips. “Lee?” Picasso asks, “You good man? Extraction’s waiting.”

  “Keep them on Standby.” I reply as I continue down the hallway. I nudge a groaning body with my foot and push down on his larynx until he stops moving. I say. “I’m keeping busy. Messy, but I’m good.”

  The guys hand drops off my boot as I check the wall at the end of the passage. Optical enhancements show me what’s going on a short way beyond it.

  A bigger problem manifests itself through the shadowed and panicked movement of people. The flickering outline of a lone male stares at me through the wall. He raises a middle finger at me and hefts an R.R.

  My rams push me back up the hall as I spin facedown, away from the blast. The recoilless-rifle round blows through the light concrete wall sending chunks of debris into every corner of the space.

  There’s a second-long gap but I know the shooter’s swapping weapons behind me.

  Crawling, I scramble to get into one of the side rooms. Gunfire follows me, slapping along my leg plates as I make cover.

  I toss a grenade out and scramble for the narrow hole under the counter. I drop one shoulder just to fit the space and push as hard as I can with my legs. My skull plate rings as I slam through a panel into the cramped performance room. The place reeks; the light metallic stench of drugs pushed out as sweat, fear, blood, and sex.

  Looking over my shoulder at the bank of windows I can see that the shooter is standing in the doorway of one of the rooms and firing at the glass. The sound of the rounds chunking into the glass grows in pitch. The window cracks part way to the frame. I see him drop a new clip in. The second cluster of shots does more damage. I jump the stained, smelly, mattress and a cardboard crate of random sex toys in the middle of the room and mule-kick the only door leading in here.

  The door explodes to chunks as my leg slams clean through it. The hallway on the other side of the door has functioning emergency lights. The light slashes across the floor behind me as I struggle to pull my leg free. I’m silhouetted, and pinned by my incaution.

  I hear the bullet riddled glass finally giving way as I’m still yanking my foot back out of shattered wood. One legged, I return fire, emptying half a clip through the newly opened casement. I pull my leg free.

  The fire I lay down keeps the shooter pinned while I shove through what’s left of the door.

  I time the lob of my second grenade for the far-side of the blown open window frame. My ears pick out a short yell of alarm mixed with the blast and then silence. I don’t wait around. I drop in another clip and keep moving. My com-link fades between encrypted messages, static, and silence. The building is old. Concrete and rebar mesh are enough to suck up the signals in the basement. Even if I wanted to call for back-up they might not hear me.

  I’m in a hallway with doors like upstairs except the spacing between walls is close. It smells of unwashed bodies, stale sex, and bad plumbing, all underpinned by a sweetly metallic pharmaceutical odor.

  I want to find Maggie but part of me doesn’t want her to be in this place. My optics can’t see the depth of each room. I won’t know for sure until I look.

  Busting the first locked door open a palm strike, I step in. The room is cordoned off with nailed up plastic sheeting for curtains. The smell of unwashed bodies is intense. Bed after bed holds a youth, some male, some female. All of them are handcuffed to battered beds, all of them lay in sweaty filth. The room holds the same metallic scent, an undertone of deep narcotics. The only things the victims have in common are physical evidence of drug injection and fat plastic collars with big numbers etched in black … tags for tracking merchandise.

  It’s the same in each room; if any of the victims are alert enough to notice me, they struggle to cower and scream when I flip their curtains aside. Then they fall silent as I glance and move on.

  No Maggie, I move to the next door and I step into a fight.

  The guy’s fast, armored, armed, and motivated. His zipper gun shreds though its clip. My arm over my face keeps me from becoming hamburger. I take some slices across my right jawline as flechette rounds scatter and ricochet around me, off me. My armor shirt goes to rags and my torso plates get gouged up.

  I fire two short bursts to get the shooter off me and then lunge at him, one hand pulling out my ax.

  He backs up, see’s he has no time to swap clips, ends up dropping the gun and pulling a fat bladed machete from a clip sheath.

  Spinning my ax in a tight hard underhand, I drive its edge up into his groin. He staggers back from trying to block my blow. I reverse the swings direction, instantly sweeping the ax back around behind me, whipping my arm over the top of my head and down. My other hand shoves his knife aside; cross body. My ax finishes its movement. The blade catches him between his right shoulder armor and the base of his neck. It sinks at an angle to just past his second rib on the opposite side.

  Following him to the floor I yank out the ax, and back up the hall to recover my assault rifle. Aside from the expected sounds of panic there’s no other contacts; nothing else happens at the moment.

  I give the body a quick pat-down. He’s got two items that slow me down. A can of clear neon spray paint, and a heavy metallic tool that looks like a key for the collars the prisoners down here are wearing.

  I leave the paint and bring the key.

  A second armored guy jumping out of a side passage is an easy kill. I finish opening the last of the heavy doors.

  A dozen prisoners who had been in those cells make a break past me. Heading for what must be an exit door.

  Some of them go through and try the stairs, others try to hold them back. I don’t understand the language but as the first of them gets part way up, the collar detonates with a ripping, fiery pop. The rest freeze and then mill around. Some make the conscious decision to go up the stairs rather than await their fate. More breakdown sobbing, and some even meekly make their way back to the room. I stop the closest one to me and lift the key. I show a second one how to unlock the collar.

  I check the rooms as fighting among the prisoners breaks out over possession of the key.

  Maggie isn’t here.

  I tell myself that the situation here isn’t part of the mission.

  A dark-eyed young woman stands at the end of the hall watching me. She’s already gotten her collar off.

  I turn down a side passageway and lean against the wall, fighting my guilt and anger at not finding Maggie. I remind myself that this wasn’t a sure thing. It isn’t a military operation.

  This is not; execute an incursion, neutralize resistance, recover asset, and withdraw.

  It’s the worst kind of mission, where a loved one, who should be at the target location, isn’t.

  Dialing my optics to track into the shadows, a crudely painted arrow leaps off the wall. I make my way toward it, switching visual frequencies.

  Clear neon. Paint only visible with UV projected spectrum.

  I throw off my useless armored shirt and pull my knife. The woman has followed me and watches silently from the corner.

  Keeping an eye on her, I release one of my chest plates and wedge the tip of the blade into my component rack below my ribcage. I carefully scoop the edge of the blade under the lip of the tiny part that shouldn’t be t
here. As I twist the blade to pry away the AlphaTek tracking tap I start a scrub-out program.

  The arrow is all there is to go on. As I pass by the woman I hand her the knife.

  ˜˜˜

  The chatter on AlphaTek’s scrambled frequency still drifts in and out on my com-link. The big news is that an extraction team with medical standby has recovered Picasso and that a recon unit is searching for me. I get the impression I’m not supposed to hear that part….

  The young woman with the knife follows me, hanging back about thirty feet. She’s nearly silent as she moves, but she still smells of addiction, fear, and hope.

  Waiving her off doesn’t do anything. She drops back further and keeps trailing along.

  I can’t worry about her. My clock is almost out of time. I poke check a corner. Navigation software indicates the wall across from me is close to the outer foundation of this place.

  There’s no resistance. No one gets in my way. I follow glowing arrows into a large utility room.

  The markings stop.

  A subtle shift in air quality, picked up by my filters, point to a possible direction.

  The opening is easy to find, tucked in behind a loosely pinned curve of floor-to-ceiling sheet metal. The hole looks industrial, deliberate, high up the wall, it has no grate, and is outlined in clear neon.

  The woman watches me from the outside the doorway.

  Swapping in new clips for my weapons I take a second to check my charge meter; still green. I wonder at what kind of trap I’m getting into. This might not even be the right direction.

  I use hand motions, trying to indicate the danger of following me. After two tries I give up.

  A short jump and easy pull up lets me look at the opening. It’ll be a damned tight squeeze… but I don’t have another option. I wedge myself in, fitting only when I twist into the duct on a diagonal. My shoulders softly scrape along on opposite corners. Crawling forward, I swap my optics to full dark mode.

  A hundred feet out, the passage widens, and turns into a downward curving dirt tunnel. This isn’t just an unfinished duct; it’s obviously trenched in by hand as an escape route. The tunnel ends with a louvered grate that’s been partly pulled off. A glowing arrow is spray-bombed onto the raw dirt.