by O E Tearmann
Kevin read through the outline, nodding to himself. "Okay. Could any of them request legitimate Vacation Visas to leave the city limits for a camping trip?"
Aidan shook his head. "Three of them had their Citizen Standing numbers drop. They're too low for travel privileges now. The rest don't want to risk asking. I agree with them."
"Mm, it would look suspicious," Kevin agreed. "But if they could all get closer to the edge of the Grid… Have you considered going with the AgCo train system? Usually lower security around passenger trains in the stations, and there's a station within walking distance of everyone's residences. It's not unusual for people to take a weekend jaunt out to see the test breeding gardens at Sunnyvale. Plenty of crowds to confuse the cameras as well."
Aidan leaned in. "Where's there a station near…?"
Kevin ran his finger over the hologram, and the icon lit up.
"Oh, right," Aidan muttered. "But then they'll just hit the fences around Sunnyvale."
Kevin glanced up with a thin smile. "We have a few tricks to use there. All we need to do is time it according to the drone patterns. If I act as their liaison and guide them in... here, try this."
Step by step, they worked through the plan they would use to get the people off the Grid. It surprised Aidan how much he calmed as they talked the ideas through. He'd been sure a group who screwed up something as simple as picking up food couldn't handle a mission like this. He'd been debating sending Sector a notice of mission non-functionality and sitting this one out.
But, as they tossed ideas back and forth, something that actually looked like a working plan emerged.
The clock read eight forty-two when Aidan sat back. "So, I guess we'll go with that," he stated, still surprised. He glanced at his logistics officer with a smile.
"You had something you wanted to go over when you first came in, right?"
Kevin held up his tab. "Can I show you a bit of code?"
Aidan shrugged. "Sure."
Kevin nodded. A few clicks later, they were watching code slide by.
"So, what am I looking at here?" Aidan asked, watching the lines of characters flicker.
Kevin glanced at him with a light in his eyes. "What you're looking at is sheer artistry in action, si-" He cut himself off with a quick smile, "Sorry. Aidan. This code is amazing, as good as, or possibly better than, most of the Corporation code work that's available. It's designed to seamlessly hijack the electronic funds transfer process from vendors using National Banking's systems and send the transaction through a proxy mirror that will make it appear that funds have been exchanged.
"There's a subroutine that allows us to entered drop points by address, or longitude and latitude, and overwrite them with addresses the system delivers to on a regular basis in the ISP records. We'll look like legitimate buyers to every Corporate system in existence."
Aidan watched as the enter and overwrite windows popped up and disappeared while his logistics officer explained, "These codes are going to make our lives incredibly easy on the supply requisitions front, and they won't lose potency unless the base code for National Banking's underlying credit exchange systems is given an overhaul. And whoever wrote this, my contacts tell me they're selling their work for a thousand."
Aidan's brows shot up, and he raised his head to look the other man in the eye. A jolt ran through him as he realized just how close they'd gotten leaning over the tab, nearly nose to nose. He leaned back.
"Do you think it's some kind of scam? Maybe it's got a virus? Or is it supposed to get us interested and catch us in the open when we try to go back for more code like this?"
"Mm." Kevin considered the words for a long moment, fingers fiddling absently with the cloth he used to clean his glasses. Then he shook his head. "I really don't think so. I've sent it to Sector, they popped it up the line to Regional, and it's been thoroughly vetted for any virus or subprograms. There aren't any. And the Corps would be making an incredibly asinine assumption handing us software this powerful as bait and thinking they could snag us before we could disseminate it. Sowing that kind of whirlwind wouldn't be worthwhile to capture a Sector hub, much less an individual base like ours. Besides, I trust the source of these codes."
"Whirlwind?" Aidan asked, bewildered again. Was this guy always going to talk a mile over his head? And what did 'asinine' mean? He was starting to feel like an idiot around his logistics officer.
He blinked as Kevin lowered his eyes, that bright blush of his staining his high cheekbones again. Aidan wished that look didn't make the back of his neck tingle.
"Sorry," Kevin demurred with another quick smile, "Cavanaugh Corporation kid originally, you know. They have high educational standards for their future workers. Mother from Britain to boot. I'm afraid it's left me with a bit of an elevated lexicon."
"Unh-hunh," Aidan managed, watching the other man. He had no idea what lexicon meant, but if he pretended long enough maybe something would make sense.
Kevin glanced up, and Aidan flicked his eyes to the tab.
Way to go, Aidan thought, just keep staring at the guy until he realizes how much of a freak you are. He scraped the bottom of his brain for something to fill the silence with.
"I thought Cavanaugh paid for medtech on all their people. You've got scars."
The statement came out flat, too blunt, and Aidan immediately wished that he could grab the words out of the air. Could he sound any more like an ass? "Sorry, I just noticed that square scar on your wrist," he added lamely.
Kevin gave a small, dismissive snort, one hand covering the scarred wrist. "I imagine we all have scars in this vicinity. Our skin reconstruction tech isn't the height of fashion, though I'm working on that as and when I can. One more reason to get these codes in play and improve our supply chain." He pushed red hair out of his face, a weary gesture.
Aidan glanced away. Great. Now not only was he noticing everything about how the guy looked, he'd made it obvious by talking about where he had scars. He cleared his throat.
"So, did you want written approval to start using this for your division?"
"It's a little more than that actually. I was hoping to get your approval to set up a meeting with the creator." Kevin poked the code, making the hologram judder. "If we can contract or recruit this coder, the edge we would get would be… Well, phenomenal. My code equates to crayon drawings, for the sake of analogy, and the hub coders at Sector paint in watercolors. Regional can pull off oils on a good day, but… Whoever this is has painted the Mona Lisa, and then done it a few more times. What we couldn't do with someone like that on our crew."
Aidan stared at the tab, running the idea through his head, turning it over. If his logistics officer was wrong, the code could be a weapon against their base when it was installed in their systems. But Kevin had checked it with Sector, who had checked it with Regional. If they marked it clean, the code itself was clean. He could relax about that.
But what about the coder?
If he gave his approval to set up a meet and it was a trap, the worst outcome was Kevin got killed. Then he backtracked his thinking with a shake of the head. No, the worst outcome was that his logistics officer was caught and everything he knew wrung out of him, which would give the Corporation who caught the man information to sell to other Corporations or a chance to take out a Duster base. Either way, it could get the Wildcards killed.
But if it was legit…
"Sir?"
Aidan drew a sharp breath. "Sorry. Sorry, just thinking about it." He hadn't noticed how tight his chest had gotten until he'd tried to speak. He was going to need to get out of his binder soon. His binders were too cheap to wear for more than eight or nine hours without problems.
He took another breath. "So, I've got a lot of concerns here. Have you activated the code yet?"
"I was waiting on your approval," Kevin returned quietly. "Bu
t I've got a stolen Grid-attached tab with the GPS access removed ready to test it on as a safety measure. If it acts normally there, Sector has given their approval for us to use it on our own systems."
Aidan nodded slowly. "Okay, yeah, run the test for a week, see how it goes. And if it's really that great-" He glanced up from the screen. Dammit, they were almost nose to nose again. How had that happened?
Aidan swallowed, but he forced himself to sit still and study Kevin's face. "Explain to me why this doesn't feel like a trap to you."
Kevin smiled thinly, poking the hologram with one finger. "Several reasons. First, Jazz supplied the intel, and I trust her. Secondly, this code is just too good to be cooked up for the purpose of baiting a line. See this little glyph? That coder's signature was also on some amazing access software that we've used recently. Working on the supposition that the first batch being effective and safe lends some validation to the next, I've got confidence. I've also got an eye for dissimulation, and Jazz got cagey with me at several points. She's set up similar meetings with GreyNet coders for me in the past without blinking. Adding that to some of the comments she made, I'm ninety-nine percent sure that she feels some kind of loyalty or protective instinct towards this coder. If Jazz has taken enough of a liking to them to feel protective, I've got high hopes."
The taller man shrugged. "In fact, it's part of my reason to feel confident. I don't see a teenager selling cut-price code in the CPS districts as a very credible Corporation plant. Any Corporation. So, what do you think?"
Aidan's binder seemed to get tighter around his chest. His throat felt tense. What did he think. What did he think? He thought it could go wrong in so many awful ways. But if it went right…
"Okay," he began, not sure how the sentence would end. "Provisionally, I want to give my approval. But I need some time to think about it, and I've still got some concerns. For one, I know you know this contact, but if that 'cagey' thing was her hiding a Corps payoff instead of a friend who codes or something, we're toast. If we go ahead, I'm going to have to ask you to run this one solo. If it goes bad, I want as few lives on the line as possible. And you know it's a risk, if it does go bad. I mean if you got caught-"
Kevin cut him off quietly. "Sir… Aidan, I've got an implanted neurotoxin emitter set to lethal levels around my brainstem. It's code-word locked. Damian did it for me. Trust me, I won't be taken alive. You don't need to worry about that."
For some weird reason, the suggestion that his logistics officer had a coded implant he could use to kill himself at will did make Aidan relax. Either that, or the way the guy said it did.
"So I'll wait on your approval to go ahead?" Kevin asked.
Aidan nodded. "Yeah. I understand you need time to plan a run for this. I just…" He shrugged. "You know, can't be too careful."
"Care and caution, watchwords to live by," Kevin replied with a quick smile.
Aidan couldn't help but return the expression.
Kevin blinked, snapped his fingers. "Oh! By the way, I was able to fulfill the last requisitions request we discussed."
"Which one?" Aidan asked, his mind scrambling for that conversation. All he could remember was Kevin looking like he wanted to kill the dart board. What had they talked about?
"New vids," Kevin explained with a smile.
"Oh!" In Aidan's ears the syllable came out like a gunshot. He wished it hadn't come out so loudly. "Um, great. What'd you get?"
"I can show you, if you'd like?" The redhead turned the statement into a question halfway through, a brow quirking behind those weird glasses.
Five minutes later, the vid screen in the rec room lit up. The movie was ancient. It was weird. But it was surprisingly fun.
Kevin sighed as the movie ended, and glanced at Aidan, grey eyes dancing. "So what did you think?"
Aidan grinned. "Honestly, I think you better not show that to anybody else. They'll give you shit."
Kevin rolled his eyes. "This is nothing new by any stretch of the imagination. They always give me shit," he agreed with theatrical weariness. "They believe sticking pins in my ego is good for me."
For a moment, they sat and watched the credits roll on opposite sides of the couch.
"I actually have a lot of vids in my collection nobody else can stand," Kevin remarked eventually. "Any time you'd like to see something new and unusual, check in with me, will you?"
Aidan's eyes widened. One heartbeat passed in silence. Two. What do I say? Aidan's brain asked itself frantically. What do I say that won't sound weird, creepy as hell or totally idiotic? What do I say to keep this from getting weird? All right, weirder?
He swallowed. "They aren't all this bad, are they?"
Kevin shot him an acknowledging smirk. "Ouch."
Aidan grinned as his muscles relaxed. Joking. He could do joking. He could do this.
"Anyway," Kevin added with a gesture at the screen. "The rec room is usually fairly free on Tuesdays. Maybe we can institute a Movies That Don't Rot Your Brain night for base members with taste."
Aidan sat frozen, staring straight ahead. Check in with Kevin. Regular vid nights. For the whole base, he scolded himself. A regular vid night for the base. Not for the two of you. He's not asking you out. He has no reason to ask you out. Get your head on straight.
"Yeah. That sounds good," he managed eventually. It took all his energy to turn and give his logistics officer a smile, but he managed it. "I don't know a lot about old vids, so maybe I can learn."
The smile he got from Kevin made the effort worth it.
"I'd be happy to provide a bit of an education," the officer replied quietly.
Event File 18
File Tag: Operational Maneuvers
Timestamp:13:00-5-1-2155
This heat could drive you crazy.
Lying in the rabbit brush, Aidan could feel the sun pounding through his slick poncho, making his chill vest hum into overdrive.
This heat could drive you out of your mind.
Breathing in, he caught a nose full of dust, coughed, and cursed himself for an idiot as he lowered the visor of his riding helmet. It wasn't fun breathing recirculated air, but it was even less fun trying to breathe hot dust.
"Anything?" he asked into his mic.
"Fifteen minute ETA," Kevin's voice murmured in his ear.
Lazarus shifted in the brush on his left, adjusting the small slick tarp that hid his rifle's barrel. His slick poncho rippled as its nanowire fabric adjusted, making Aidan blink reflexively as his eyes tried to focus on something barely visible. The munitions officer said nothing, all his focus on the tab recording drone signatures in the area and the view in front of him.
The disused maintenance shed behind the warehouse sat and baked on its concrete slab. The nanomesh of the fence between them and it glinted in the hard sunlight, shifting on its struts as thin breezes moved its fabric. The nanomesh was enough to keep Fringers from trying to raid the little suburb full of American AgCo botanists, plant breeders, crop-drone programmers and information analysts. As a side benefit, it made sure no one started thinking about leaving their area of the Grid without a visa. If the warning signs posted eight feet from the fence didn't deter them, the scattering of small bird and animal corpses were a reminder that touching the fence was a really bad move.
"Just finished the garden tour. We're on our free exploration time, now." Kevin's voice whispered in Aidan's ear. "Ten minute ETA."
"Roger," Lazarus's voice agreed quietly. Shifting, the other man slid like an eel out of the brush and jogged up to the nearest electrified strut. Keeping his position, Aidan checked his tab.
"Reading?" Aidan asked quietly. In the pause between question and answer, he could hear his own blood pumping in his ears.
He counted his breaths. Relax.
They'd planned every detail of this for a week. Kevin had spent two days on Grid making arra
ngements. Nothing was going to go wrong. Relax.
Lazarus read slowly, flickers outlining where he stood scanning the strut with a repurposed digital multimeter. "Looks like two hundred milliamps, and the mesh is on network. Yeah, there it is. Network's at five GHz. Fragmentation threshold for the mesh's at twenty-three six, beacon interval's at ten."
Aidan put the information into the algorithm on his tab. "Right. Set the EMP for alpha setting. And… go."
He held his breath. If they didn't get the EMP charge right, or if American AgCo had upgraded the nanobots forming the mesh, the microscopic machines would recover from the signal interruption and send up an alert far too soon.
There was a soft thunk. The hairs on the back of Aidan's neck stood up.
"Out," Lazarus stated in his ear.
Aidan breathed again. "Okay. We've got thirty minutes starting now. Kevin?"
The answer came hesitantly. "ETA five minutes. Sir, we have a potential issue. Health related."
Aidan's gut clenched. "Mission impacting?"
"Possibly."
Aidan drew three slow breaths. In. Out. In. Out. Stay calm. "Okay. Just get them to the fence. We'll assess from here."
"Roger. ETA three minutes."
Aidan focused on keeping his breathing slow.
And there they were. Nine people scuttling behind the prefab shed, Kevin bringing up the rear. They huddled behind the building as Kevin held the nanomesh fabric taut and Lazarus began to slice. It didn't take long to cut a hole large enough for a person to duck through.
Kevin ushered the refugees through one by one. Aidan could hear him in his mic as he coached four men, two women and two girls with quick, cheerful words. "Right this way, folks. Mind the edges. The mesh can cut. Ladies, quickly now, thanks. And-"