The Sword

by J. M. Kaukola

  Kawalski nodded. She glanced down to Firenze and ordered, “Stay.” To Hill, she gave a quick flex of the hand, towards the door, a rapid series of sign-language commands. Hill nodded back, swung his machinegun through the gap, and let rip a long burst. Kawalski followed with a grenade.

  Smoke vomited from the door, thick and filled with razor debris.

  The team flowed past Firenze, a dense line that fanned from the hardpoint, into the smoke. Goggles up, rifles hot, they pushed past him. Gunfire returned. For the third time, they assaulted the control room.

  He couldn’t bring himself to look.

  Have to get back on the net. Have to get control!

  With all of his willpower, he forced himself to peer around the corner, so slightly, one eye and a strand of hair past the jam. The server room was a hellscape of strewn cables, showering sparks, and mangled bodies. The first time they took it, it had been so easy. It went perfectly according to plan, even smoother than the drills. They should have seen a trap.

  It sprang when Captain Lee took the teams into the processing center.

  The moment they found the Strand harvester, parasited onto the Dirac cycler, Firenze knew something was wrong. He knew it was wrong, because creepy-ass Berenson had been right, but more because the fundamental assumptions of the operation were now incorrect. He’d done research work. He’d spent enough time in the sciences, that a basic truth had been grained into his bones: if the results are ‘impossible’, your experiment is broken.

  Maybe the others knew it. It was hard to tell, through stern faces and terse orders. The Captain ordered an advance, to scout the cycler chamber. He’d ordered Firenze into the net. There wasn’t time to step back, analyze, and retry. It was all ‘in the moment’.

  Then everything went to hell.

  The network changed. Physically changed. A switch got thrown, and a parallel system took over. New security. New defenses. We were played. The enemy had tipped the the wrong hand. They’d learned the wrong data. In an instant, Firenze was locked out. The net went down, and every team was cut off.

  TACNET is hosed. He'd kept it up, locally. That meant a physical verification of each unit. Hard connection, through his assist box. Anyone he couldn’t touch, he couldn’t reach. Which means every other team is blind. I need to get back into the server.

  Kawalski popped around the corner. She shoved him back, hard. She snapped, “Stay down, damn it! We need you alive!”

  Shame warmed his cheeks. He begged, “I need to get on the terminal! Two rows up! I get there, I can link everyone back in-” he tried to point, but a gunfire clattered. He jerked back, clutched his fingers, and counted. All five were still there.

  “No way!” She replied. “It’s hot. Here!” She shoved a subgun against his chest. On reflex, he clutched it. She said, “Three mags, so don’t get stupid.”

  “I need to get-”

  “You need to stay alive. Anyone but us comes through here…” she nodded towards the gun. “Do your best.” With that, she was gone, back into chaos beyond the door.

  He had to do something.

  Seated on the cold ground, he popped open his computer. With a flick, his goggles synced. Before the trap, he’d been jacked in. When the enemy breached the control room, he’d lost the link. At least they let me log out. Didn’t just pull the wire and fry my brain. The goggles flashed, loaded. This was too slow. He’d never beat the Phalanx without the direct link. The enemy had all the cards.

  He wiped his sleeve over the goggles, tried to wipe his sweat from the lenses, tried to carve a path through the dirt, dust, and cordite. He pulled them tight.

  Lines of data flashed over the HUD. No pseudo coding, now. No intending. He was outside the net. This is raw, stone age writing. He tried to follow the flow. He grabbed a snapshot. Another. Comparison algorithms flashed.

  There, a burst of erratic data.

  There, again, a split second later.

  He called them out, pulled the samples into a new window.

  They’re trying to crack into my net. Those were simple ping-respond probes, the first step of finding a system to target. He called up a virtual box, sent a fake reply. His phantom server sprung to life, and began to talk to the enemy. It’ll take them a minute to realize they're talking to damn ghost.

  He traced the source, followed it back, through relay after relay. All internal. The enemy was running the connection, directly, not routing it from external proxies. Better response time, but no anonymity. They must have relied on the ambush for advantage. You're mine.

  The probe was coming from a workstation on the command deck, near Alpha team’s targets. If only I could call them… He scowled. Gonna have to do this the hard way. He pulled open his virus kit. Let's dance. A list appeared, an array of logic bombs and garbage filters. No time for anything fancy. Just brute force. Calculate pi, asshole. Square a circle. Do these a million times a second.

  The below line is true.

  The above line is false.

  Eat a bag of dicks, rook.

  Inside the maze of code, Firenze could almost tune out the gunfire. He was somewhere else. He was focused.

  The intrusions on TACNET slowed. Good, bogging him down in bullshit. Now, the attack. Let's see, clock settings? Erratic. Voltage? Much higher. Heat control? Ooh! I can see his thermal plan! Let's just disable that. No alarms, either. Fucker. Enjoy your barbecue. Seize the display. Not using a jack? Kiddie league. Let's see how you like a wall of obscenity on every monitor you've ever thought of touching. An evil smirk blossomed on his lips, far away from the fear and threat of the meat world.

  Someone slapped his shoulder. Hard.

  In an instant, he was back. Back in the fear. Back in the stink.

  His windows dropped away, and he glanced up. Hill stood over him, motioned through the door. The soldier said, “We’re clear! Jack in!”

  Firenze bolted to his feet, nearly left his gun behind. He dashed through the debris, the shattered consoles and dangling cables. There, on the wall, Kawalski pointed to a functional link. Firenze raced it it, caromed off the wall, hands in pockets as he fished out cable. He said, “I’m going in!” The dataport clip slipped into the assist. “Cover me?” He asked.

  Hill nodded. “We got you. Just get in there.” He took up position, down and right.

  Kawalski added, “Get us a SITREP, Princess.”

  Firenze clipped the jack onto his arm, sat down, and closed his eyes.

  He was falling. Spinning. There was no easing into the net, not this time.

  His body was too wired, too heightened, too far out of parameters. He rose and fell, was pulled in a million directions, burned and frozen. He could smell the colors. He could taste the silence.

  He fell faster.

  Nothingness rushed by him, and he tried to scream, to wake up, but he was still falling-

  He stood in a pleasant lobby, wood floors and panels, and gorgeous views over a rolling ocean. Lauren pulled him to his feet. “You're hurt.” She said. “Your biosigns are far outside of tolerance. You shouldn't be here.” She was dressed in armor, not medieval like last time, but modern RCA, just like Firenze, complete with spidersilk underweave and Kawalski's pixie cut hair. So no one can grab your hair in a brawl.

  “Too much- no time.” He tried to speak, but the world swirled around him, twisting up at the edges. Pieces of the wood peeled back, turning black, then slammed back into place. The colors shifted. He shifted, and found himself a meter to the right. “No!” He screamed. He raised a hand, locked the data. “I’m here! I need to be here!”

  The world pitched, twisted, like a painting wrung in acetone.

  Lauren caught him, held him up.

  She said, “This network is hostile. I've detected numerous threats, all converging.”

  The light grew, beyond the windows. They’re trying to lock me in. “Lauren? Scrambler!” He commanded. The windows tinted, and the searchlight moved on.

  Beneath his feet, the floor began to sof
ten. Node poison. He turned his attention to the floor, one board at a time. Solid. You are solid. The ground firmed.

  A siren wailed, from deep inside the walls.

  A quick gesture, and his power saw sliced the wood apart, revealed the disembodied speaker. A flick, and it fell silent. He opened it, made a door, and stepped inside.

  The wires became a packed highway, as the assist rendered the virtual world in terms his mind could easily grasp. Some people might have seen a rail track, or carrier pigeons, but for him, it was always the South Beltway.

  He vaulted through traffic, waded through the swarming cars. They didn't react. They couldn't see him. His scrambler held, and he was invisible. Have to find the source. The cars sorted, changed color, make, and model. Each was appropriate to its function. He pressed upstream, stepped over the speeding cars, like a ghostly giant at rush hour. There, far ahead, box trucks flowed from an on-ramp. He took a long step, and the world flowed past him-

  He was on another highway, filled with police. ICE. They could see him. All turned, sirens blared, tried to ram his ankles-

  He raised his hand, and the first cars shattered against an invisible wall. He pushed, and the silent wave tore through the cruiser fleet. He pressed forward, using the screen as a plow, pushed the barrier ever deeper into the system. The cars parted, in streams of crumpled steel.

  The system adapted.

  The cruisers gained ram-bars. The next wave burst his barrier, popped it like a bubble, and rushed him.

  Landmines appeared, tore the cars from his path.

  He pointed, and one of the cruisers disintegrated, the wheels and glass, then the body, then the frame and engine. He swept the beam across the highway, sent out seekers to dismantle the ICE.

  He advanced.

  The sun grew brighter. His skin cracked and blistered.

  Somewhere far away, a young man slumped against a terminal, his vital signs began to waver.

  Burner virus. Targets the user’s wetware.

  He was prepared, this time. Clouds covered the sun, brought soothing rain.

  The highway bucked in front of him, threatened to shear apart.

  He reached out, locked connections. The pavement flattened, reinforced. You're not cutting this line. Not now. He stepped from the highway, towards the main server-

  He was in the walls of the airship, watching. He was in every camera, every sensor. He could see Clausen's team, battling through engineering. He could see Colonel Halstead, leading the attack on the control room. He could see Berenson, standing in the center of the bridge, ahead of the main assault, casually dealing death to a dozen men.

  Holy shit.

  Even in this distant place, far from his fears, he felt the chill run through him, as Berenson did his macabre work. He'd never seen anything like it. Every shot was a kill. Nothing could touch the man. It wasn’t that Berenson was dodging bullets, that would be impossible. Rather, it seemed that Berenson was simply never in the place the shot went.

  Every move was perfect, every step was exact. The deadly ballet was fast, a split second from first shot until the last merc dropped. It was smooth, organic. It must have taken longer, but it hadn't. His work complete, Berenson dropped his spent rifle and walked away, without pause or glance to the fallen. Like a farmer, observing dead weeds. I just saw the reaper work his field.

  Firenze didn't have time to stare. He was so many places at once. He could see Charlie- all of them were dead, laid out in charred rows. What hit them? He jumped from one camera to another, desperately searching. Rows of clicking, treaded metal monsters, a wall of cutting tools and energy weapons. Killbots. Sweet Christ, they have killbots.

  That wasn't all. He could see Captain Lee's unit, pinned down in the processing chamber, taking fire from a half-dozen angles. TACNET. Give them TACNET, and that will help them most.

  He was in the nerve center, the hive. Find the locks, break them.

  From here, it was easy. He could see everything. TACNET, with its unique communications signature, was very difficult to block. If you locked out one channel, it would simply rotate over to another. If you tried to hack into its stream, it would shut you down, fire off a few counterattacks automatically, and then refuse to communicate with your device. Which meant, if you wanted to jam it, you had to be actively rolling your interference, staying one step ahead of it. That sort of ICE was obvious, if you could see its deployment code.

  From inside a system, that was easy.

  Three entire highways and one canal were covered in great brick walls, high as the sky, trembling with silent rage. I can't attack the wall directly. Too secure. He searched the node, for any connection-

  The wall had strings.

  The cables ran, from the shaking bricks to the utility poles outside. He latched onto the post, fell inside of it. Server on the recreation deck. What a location! He pulled the power.

  The wall was gone.

  Somewhere on the ship, there was panic.

  Firenze didn’t know it, but his body was smiling.

  He found the strings to the second wall, traced them to a substation in an air purifier. He pulled the power. The second wall fell.

  The third followed, then the final.

  Information will flow. You cannot stop it.

  The canal filled. The waters deepened, sped. They licked at the shore, lapped at the rim - they burst.

  TACNET restarted.

  Somewhere near a young man in the server room, slumped unconscious on the deck, there was a muted cheer. One of those grateful soldiers clapped the unconscious man in congratulations.

  Firenze didn't notice.

  He could feel the ship. He was the ship. He skimmed over the waves, coasted along the subtropical air.

  But he was sick.

  Something was very, very wrong, deep inside. His guts were twisted. The ship's control systems screamed: WARNING WARNING WARNING!

  He could see it, hear it, feel it. He was dying.

  No, not he. The ship. Not him.

  He pulled back, returned to the highway, gasped for breath as the corruption spread from the core. It came, as a black wave. It poured over the cars, rolled into the drains. It balled in the sky, in a great dismal thunderhead-

  He had to get out.

  The cars flickered. Some vanished. One plunged through the earth.

  Lauren was with him, pulled him back - the ground raced past him, as he raced through the air, pulled by the great bungie cord at his back. Kilometers whipped past. The black followed.

  He landed, at the end of the Beltway. In the distance, there was only twisting dark. Lauren stood with him. She pulled him around, and said, “It's coming.” She looked sad. Masks can't be sad. The two thoughts existed at once, mutually exclusive and equally true.

  He couldn't dwell on it. There was a tide coming, rushing through the systems, a purging wall, liquid black death like he'd never seen. She shoved him, away from the doom, and severed the connection.

  That should not have been possible.

  He was fell upwards, the world receding below his feet. Cars stripped apart, left only faded skeletons. The pavement melted, left only withered ink.

  Lauren stood on the highway, alone. She reached up, to embrace the black tide-

  She screamed as it splashed over her. Then she was gone, torn into a million whirling fragments of code-

  He opened his eyes.

  He was on the deck. Kawalski helped him breath.

  The ship is dead. He tried to warn her. We’re going to fall-

  His mouth wouldn’t work.

  He tried to scream. No sound emerged.

  Everything shook.

  The world went dark for a moment, and he lifted from the ground, hovered over the deck-plates.

  Then he fell.

  His mental voice, distant and calm, informed him: No, the ship stopped falling.

  He slammed into the deck, hard enough to taste blood. Someone crashed into him. Screams and cries came, from all around.


  The lights came back up.

  A clipped, precise computer voice stated, “Emergency Lockout is in effect. We apologize for the turbulence. Please remain calm.”

  “What the flying flaming fuck was that?” Hill demanded, as he tried to extricate himself from a pile of debris.

  “Crash.” Firenze managed to spit out, before the coughing started.

  “System crash? Please tell me its not what I think-”

  “We're crashing!” Firenze choked, then began to shake. Kawalski tried to hold him down with her knee, as she raised her rifle to fire at some distant target.

  She demanded, “Son of a bitch! Did you-” Dust blew from the rifle as she fired. It settled over him, scorched his skin.

  “No!” Firenze cried. He tried to stand. “We're not going down fast, but this ship is broken.” Stay on mission, relay data. “Good news, TACNET is up, but the Captain's under fire in processing, one section forward.” Oh, dear God, what just happened to Lauren? He reached to jack back in, but the assist box blinked red. “Net's cooked, I'm gonna have to do it manually.” Oh God, oh God.

  Near the main door, the Lieutenant called out, “Alright, Dag, keep your team here to protect Princess. Everyone else, we're going to assist the Captain.”

  Kawalski nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Firenze tried to hook himself back into the computer, just through his glasses. So many relays were blow out, the jack would be useless. Why would they do this? It had to be purposeful, the way the whole system fell apart. Why, what do they gain? They lose their leverage. A terrible hypothesis dawned on him. Unless Berenson was right about the damn bomb.

  He couldn't think about that, not now. He had to focus on the problem.

  He dug into the terminal, tried to find a good link. Finally grasping a connection, he logged into the security net, maneuvered through his old backdoors into the server. He could see Captain Lee's position, their desperate stand. The main defense force was holed up – no, they were falling back! Why were the mercs falling back?

  He flipped to a wider view, pulled in nearby feeds.

  Death came, slowly, down the halls.

  Deep in the utility access, where the loading ramp fed the processing center, three armored figures marched towards the firefight. The two on the flanks were impressive enough, cloaked in armored greatcoats, barely concealing layers of heavy body armor. Their jackbooted steps rang from the deck plates, the servos and motor assists hummed and hissed inside under the armor. Their faces were hidden by massive rebreathers - a great tube that ran to their chest, where the purification system thrummed. Both monstrosities carried crew served weapons, backpack battery/fuel cells linked to emitter tubes, covered in radiators and parabolic mirrors. Acheron Mark Two Directed Plasma Projector, fed from Mark Seven liquid salt battery pack and reaction chamber. The voices from the imprint sang out the name. It's a damn plasma caster.