by Isaac Hooke
“Will do,” the Wardenite said, and disconnected.
From the closet, Rhea retrieved her hooded cloak, along with her utility belt, which contained a holstered pistol. She donned the cloak, attached the belt, and abandoned her remaining belongings—which were just clothes anyway. There would be water, food pills, and other supplies waiting in the SUV.
She willed the nano machines in her legs to part her thigh armor and retrieved the Ban’Shar from the storage compartments within. She slid them onto each palm, then left her quarters, entering the neighboring chamber with Will.
“I’m going to grab my gear,” Will said. “Give me two secs.”
“Wait,” Rhea said. “There’s gear in the SUVs.”
“Not mine,” he told her as he clambered the rungs on the far side of the chamber.
When he vanished from sight, Rhea went to the rightmost wall and felt around until she felt the grips for the hidden panel. She squeezed, and the locking latch disengaged, allowing her to slide the panel aside.
The small tunnel awaiting beyond edged into view.
Along with the humanoid cyborg that had been standing there waiting for her.
Rhea leaped to the side as it fired a plasma pistol, but was too late, and the point-blank bolt tore off her right arm.
She activated the Ban’Shar of her remaining arm, and cut upward, slicing the pistol away. Then she lifted her thumb, causing the plasma disk to transform into a backward-facing blade, and plunged it into the cyborg’s metal torso.
The assassin fell drunkenly to his knees.
Rhea removed the Ban’Shar and deactivated it. She rested her palm on his metallic shoulder and allowed the nano machines to flow forth.
The ant-like robots swarmed over her foe, and she grinned maliciously as they devoured the metal of his torso. Some of the machines traveled back into her body, and transferred the material to her other extremity, so that little by little, her severed arm regrew.
The light winked out in those eyes as the cyborg’s power source failed, and her would-be assassin slumped against the dirt wall of the tunnel.
She gazed searchingly into the tunnel beyond, looking for signs of attackers. She activated a LIDAR burst to map the darkness, but the white polygons that overlaid her vision indicated no further opponents. The Wardenites had created the tunnel to offer an escape from scenarios precisely like the present one, where the headquarters became surrounded by an insurmountable force, though the thinking at the time had been to protect her from the onslaught of some crime lord or other resourceful assassin who wanted to collect her bounty, not an entire military force. Also, the designers apparently hadn’t considered that an assassin might actually discover the backdoor and use it to gain entry almost directly into her chambers. That meant the guards who surreptitiously watched the exit were likely dead.
I got lucky, Rhea said. If he had attacked me in my sleep…
Then again, the cyborg was probably planning to do exactly that. The assassin had reached the wall panel and decided to wait until nightfall to attack. His plans had been ruined by the arrest warrant.
Still lucky.
Rhea remained in place, letting her nano machines extract the necessary metals from her attacker. She wondered when the others would return. She kept glancing between the rungs that led to the chamber, and the tunnel, keeping an eye on both.
Finally, her arm was fully formed. The nano machines automatically retreated back inside of her, and the tiny vents in the surface of her skin sealed.
She retrieved the remaining Ban’Shar knuckle from the hand of her severed arm and attached it to her newly built one. The nano machines that existed in the lost arm would have permanently deactivated as new ones were created from the cyborg—part of the limiting mechanism programmed into them.
She returned her gaze to the tunnel, sparing only a glance for the desiccated assassin she had defeated.
She heard the clang of boots descending the rungs.
She drew her pistol and trained it on the ladder. She glanced at her overhead map. The blue dots indicated Renaldo, Brinks and Miles.
She kept her weapon pointed at the rungs anyway, just in case.
Renaldo slid into view, followed by Brinks and Miles.
She holstered the pistol.
“What happened here?” Brinks asked.
“Another assassin,” Rhea replied nonchalantly.
“They’re everywhere,” Miles commented.
“I don’t mind,” Rhea told the albino. “It’s good practice. For Khrusos.”
Miles nodded. “But the question is, how many robots from the contingent above have made their way into the tunnel?”
“The assassin would’ve wanted to deliver the bounty himself,” Renaldo replied. “Which means he would’ve preferred no interference from Aradne security… so I doubt he told them and was likely very careful not to let them follow him.” He kicked at the body. “What happened to him, by the way?”
“Looks like you ate him for lunch,” Brinks commented. “You used your nano machines on him, didn’t you?”
She shrugged.
Renaldo looked up, as if listening. “Jairlin tells me the security forces are tearing down the Texas barriers.”
“Instruct the Wardenites to surrender without a fight,” Rhea told Renaldo.
The man nodded.
“Will, get down here,” she sent, glancing at her overhead map. He was still on the top levels, close to his quarters.
“On the way,” Will replied.
She heard thudding and loud bangs coming from upstairs.
“Sounds like they’re ransacking the place,” Brinks said.
“Will…”
“Coming,” Will transmitted.
She nervously followed his dot as it descended on the map. Horatio was with him.
She heard footfalls on the rungs.
“My map shows Will and Horatio,” Brinks said.
“Yes, but the military are known to use spoofing technology,” Renaldo said. Something that Rhea had known instinctively.
They all aimed their guns at the ladder on the far side of the room, ready to fire at any infantry robots that might show up. Instead, it was really Will and Horatio. They both wore backpacks.
Rhea and the others lowered their pistols in relief.
“Sorry,” Will said, raising his hands placatingly. “Had to drag Horatio out of his VR game.”
“I was just about to be crowned leader of my guild!” Horatio complained.
“You robots and your weird online games,” Miles said. “I almost shot you, by the way.”
“On purpose or accidentally?” Horatio asked.
“The former,” Miles replied.
She turned toward Will. “Did you get the CommNixer pistols?”
“Of course.” Will reached into his pack and produced one of the requested pistols. “Want yours now?”
“Hold onto it for me,” she said.
The weapon was a smart pistol, capable of firing multiple CommNixer disks at different targets simultaneously. Program in the targets ahead of time, point it in their general direction, and squeeze the trigger—the pistol handled the rest.
Horatio had worked with DragonHunter to come up with the design. The pair had also modified the range of the CommNixers themselves, so that a given disk need only attach within a meter of the designated target in order to disrupt the communications signal.
The weapon was great for shutting off surveillance tech like security cameras. She had originally intended to use the pistol on Mars, but it looked like she would be needing it far earlier.
Rhea stepped over the body of the cyborg and entered the tunnel. She kept her pistol pointed in front of her, leaving the LIDAR active so she could see in the dim light.
Will followed just behind her, and when he stepped over the body, he commented: “Another assassin?”
“How’d you guess?” Rhea told him.
“They keep coming out of the woodwork, don
’t they,” Will said.
Horatio, on drag, replaced the wall panel behind the party, and the way forward became completely dark; the LIDAR wireframes that outlined the tunnel guided her.
“Disable external network connections,” she ordered. That was to ensure none of them automatically connected to the Internet when they passed beneath wireless access points, should a signal somehow manage to get through. Connecting to the Internet would allow them to be tracked.
Rhea’s comm node was internal, while the comm nodes of the others were built into their AR goggles or visors. They would be relying on wireless mesh networking going forward, which allowed their comm nodes to connect without any Internet coverage.
“Hey, shouldn’t someone else take the lead?” Renaldo said. “I thought we weren’t allowing you to put yourself in any danger?”
“Considering that none of you will be able to do anything except serve as cannon fodder if we’re attacked in here, it’s probably best I’m in the lead,” Rhea replied.
“I think we were just insulted,” Will quipped.
“Do you have a weapon that can transform into a shield at the squeeze of a hand?” she asked him.
“I see your point,” Will replied. “Still, Renaldo is right, you shouldn’t be in front. Let me squeeze past. I’ll make a deal with you: if someone attacks, I’ll drop to the ground, so you can still take the brunt of the impact.”
“Kind of defeats the purpose of assuming the point position, if you’re doing it to protect me…” Rhea said. “Besides, if you drop down in front of me, and I block a plasma bolt, there’s a chance it could deflect right into you. Especially if I only have microseconds to react. So no, I’m staying on point.”
She kept her overhead map active. Though she had no Internet connection this far underground, her position still updated thanks to her internal accelerometer, and she watched the blue dots of the party creep underneath the streets and cargo containers that surrounded the headquarters until they reached an adjacent neighborhood two blocks away.
The tunnel sloped steadily upward.
Ahead, sunlight poked through a long, horizontal line, where the exit hatch was open a crack.
“Seems our assassin friend forgot to shut the door,” Will commented.
Keeping her pistol in her right hand, Rhea activated the Ban’Shar in her other, employing disk mode. Then she approached warily.
When she reached the exit, which was built into a horizontally sloping shed of sorts, she manually gated her vision, drastically reducing the brightness levels so that the horizontal line of light nearly became invisible.
Wait, Will transmitted on a mental channel over the mesh network. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this right. I’m coming in on your right. When you kick open that door, you go low, I go high.
How about I go high? she returned, not liking the idea of Will exposing himself above her shield.
Fine, he replied.
She felt him brush against her right elbow, and knew he was in place.
With her foot, she shoved the sloping metal door open to reveal the empty street beyond.
Since she’d already gated her eyes, the sudden change in brightness didn’t blind her, and she swept her pistol from left to right.
Meanwhile, Will had dropped to one knee beside her, and was similarly scanning the neighborhood from the ground.
The streets proved empty, while the lean-tos and cargo containers lining it were completely still. Apparently everyone had either retreated inside when the robots swept through, or they had gathered on the southeast perimeter of the neighborhood to watch the assault on her headquarters.
She could hear a distant buzzing, and the occasional clattering thud, like a toppling Texas barrier.
At her feet, the two Wardenites who had been planted to guard the exit lay dead next to their front operation—a shish kabob kiosk. Large plasma holes were burned into their chests, and their weapons were only half drawn from the holsters.
“Bill and Philip,” Renaldo said sadly. “They were good men.”
Rhea looked away. Though she didn’t know them, she still felt grief: the men had essentially died for her.
She gazed farther down the road. The getaway vehicle was still parked in the expected location.
She raised her hood over her head and leaned forward to peer past the upper edge of the shed that harbored the exit. That shed was squeezed between two cargo containers, and past their rooftops, toward the direction of the compound, she could see octocopter drones hovering in place—the source of the distant buzzing.
She quickly ducked once more and pulled her hood lower around her face. Then she emerged from the opening and, keeping close to the walls of the bordering cargo containers, she moved at a crouch toward the vehicle. There were no security cameras here—the Wardenites had specifically chosen this neighborhood for the exit because of its lack of monitoring.
Will and the Wardenites followed close behind her.
She reached the vehicle and unlocked it via the remote interface, which she was able to access via her mesh network. Then they piled inside.
The vehicle activated, and drove forward slowly, staying close to the bordering line of cargo containers. She was happy with the speed—any faster and they might draw attention to themselves.
The vehicle reached an intersection and turned northwest, heading away from the compound. Though she couldn’t see the headquarters itself, Rhea kept an eye on the drones above it via the righthand rearview mirror, and she watched the octocopters recede.
When the vehicle turned onto a side street and the drones vanished from view entirely, she exhaled in relief. Still the vehicle maintained its slow pace—spy satellites were recording everything from orbit above, and they definitely didn’t want to seem in a hurry. She kept expecting a drone to come over at any moment, to investigate them or to order them to step outside for identification purposes, but evidently the robots were still ransacking the compound and hadn’t concluded she had escaped yet.
The vehicle ground to a halt next in a neighborhood that was still only partially rebuilt since the Hydra attack. The Wardenites had chosen this district for the safe house again because of the lack of cameras.
On the dashboard in front of her sat a special AR visor designed by DragonHunter; this visor had a comm node that bounced data across hundreds of different encrypted nodes across the world, with each node providing a spoofed location and ID, making it almost impossible to trace. That cyber obfuscation technique was similar to what Veil had used when she had Mayor Grandas send messages on her behalf. It was also highly illegal.
Rhea retrieved the visor and handed it to Horatio, who slid the device over his own built-in visor.
“How’s it look?” she asked.
“A moment while I pull up the Sat Displacement Map,” the robot answered. That was a satellite position calculator, used to compute the positions of spy satellites based on the hour of the day. Horatio had all the satellite positions stored internally already, courtesy of DragonHunter, but the robot used the obfuscated visor to augment that data with live drone information—the other Wardenites would be keeping watch on the skies, and marking out the positions of any nearby UAVs, even those traveling at high altitudes overhead.
“I have two spy satellites overhead,” the robot said. “They have a partial angle on the street. There’s also a high-altitude drone in a holding pattern above the compound. I’m aggregating the data feed with that of the satellites, and as usual, I’ll mark the ‘go’ and ‘no-go’ zones on your HUDs and maps.”
She received a share request. After accepting, green swaths appeared on the overhead map, surrounded by red. Both areas revolved to follow the movements of the satellites and the drones.
On the street outside the SUV, the ground in front of the lean-tos on the right became hued green, as did the walls of the lean-tos themselves. Everything else outside was red. The green bands slowly grew slimmer with each passing momen
t as the spy satellites continued up the horizon.
The team members distributed the canteens and rations stowed aboard the SUV and exited the vehicle on the right side, entering the green zone. They proceeded at a hurried crouch, following the ever-thinning strip of green that resided next to the buildings.
A narrow, pedestrian only side street opened on the right. It was completely green. The group sprinted along its tight confines, until they arrived at the safe house: a nondescript lean-to, indistinguishable from all the others. The only reason she knew they arrived was because of her HUD, which overlaid a blue dot on the door.
She knocked on the door. A thin panel slid open at eye level, and wild eyes stared back at her. Then the door opened, and an old man with disheveled hair beckoned them inside.
Rhea and the others entered and took shelter on the far side of the lean-to, which opened into a common courtyard shared with the other buildings nearby. If she needed to escape in a pinch, the rooftops were low enough for her to reach in a single vault with her powerful legs. Horatio would make the jump, too, but the rest of her friends would probably have to stay behind, if it came to it.
The old man distributed refreshments, and was very reverential toward Rhea, constantly bowing before her, and proceeding any questions or comments with “begging the Warden’s pardon.” She smiled patiently at him, not wanting to offend the man, but also not wanting to encourage him. Truly, such treatment made her uncomfortable.
Horatio only donned the special AR visor periodically to get updates from the other Wardenites. The robot would put it on, and after receiving a situation report, Horatio would immediately remove it, shutting down the connection. After all, while the cyber obfuscation technique was nearly impossible to trace, there was still a chance that a determined enemy could find them, if he, she or it knew what to look for. Horatio intended to minimize that risk, at Rhea’s encouraging.
“Just heard from Jairlin,” Horatio said after about an hour of maintaining such sporadic contact. “We can’t stay here. The security forces are engaging in house-to-house searches, expanding outward from the neighborhood of the headquarters. They’ll eventually search every lean-to and cargo container in Rust Town.”