Cheatc0de

by Mikey Campling

  Mervin takes a breath, releases it slowly. This is an enclosed space: He won’t miss his targets, won’t give them a chance to fire a shot. His body tenses as his muscles remember what they need to do. He takes one last glance at the green targeting selectors in his HUD, fixing their position in his mind. But before he can spring into action, something impossible happens. His threat indicator flickers once then goes completely blank. “What the hell?” Mervin breathes. This can’t be happening. The threat is real—isn’t it? His mind spins, and he lowers his rifle, leans his shoulder against the wall to steady himself. Real soldiers don’t just disappear. That cannot happen here. So he must’ve made a mistake. That’s all. Just a mistake. But as he stands and stares at the gray wall opposite, it blurs and shimmers, fading to black. Mervin blinks and looks away, raising his eyes to the ceiling. But the pristine white ceiling tiles are gone, replaced by a flaky layer of mildewed white paint that hangs down in tatters. Not now, he thinks. Don’t let this happen now.

  He shuts his eyes tight and focuses on the rifle in his hands: the smooth metal of the trigger against his fingertips, the solid weight of the stock. “Come on, Mervin,” he whispers. “They’re counting on you.” For a moment, he thinks of Jerry, his old friend, sitting next to him in the War Room. “Are you all right, Merv?” Jerry whispers.

  Yes, Mervin thinks, I’m fine. And he opens his eyes. He’s back in the corridor, and he glares at the wall, defying it to disappear. But he doesn’t wait long. He still has to check the corridor and the main door. He cannot neglect his duty.

  Mervin raises his rifle then slowly, he peers around the corner. Nothing. The corridor is utterly empty.

  Kilgore tilts his head, listening. “It’s all quiet out there,” Kilgore whispers. “He must’ve given up.”

  “I very much doubt it,” Jamie says. “Best guess: the room is a dummy, off the map.”

  Kilgore raises his eyebrows, wrinkling his brow. “Did you know that would happen?”

  Jamie looks thoughtful. “I thought it might. We often had to find places to hole up—Dale and me.”

  Kilgore nods and looks away. It’s too soon to think about Dale, too raw to remember his courage.

  But Jamie carries on, oblivious, “We’re not out the woods yet. We might’ve thrown them off the scent for a second, but that’s not much help if they start checking the doors.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We keep them busy,” Jamie says. “Use AIPR0N. There’s a decoy. Find the command, and deploy the decoy two meters away. That should put it in the corridor. Quickly now.”

  Kilgore frowns, but when he accesses AIPR0N, the decoy commands float immediately into his mind. Once again, he has the uneasy sense that the mod is reading his thoughts. A reticulated circle appears on his HUD, and as he turns his head, the circle responds, rotating to follow his movements. This must be the targeting system for the decoy, and Kilgore guesses it’s going to deploy some sort of electronic countermeasures. A message flashes up:

  AIPR0N: DECOY OFFSET DISTANCE?

  Kilgore thinks about the distance to the corridor. Two meters is, like, two yards, isn’t it?

  DECOY DEPLOYED

  “I think I’ve done it,” Kilgore says.

  “Open the door a crack, and peek through,” Jamie whispers. “Carefully mind.”

  Kilgore eases the door open a fraction of an inch and presses his eye to the gap. What he sees there startles him so much he almost cries out.

  Immediately outside the door, Will is standing, facing down the corridor, his rifle in his hand. Kilgore swallows hard. What the hell is going on?

  Jamie tugs at his sleeve. “Don’t worry. That’s just the decoy.”

  Kilgore turns to look at Jamie, but he doesn’t have to ask the question that’s on the tip of his tongue.

  Jamie grins. “Don’t forget, I had AIPR0N myself for a while—until Will snatched it away.”

  “What do I do next? The GDL must be very close right now.”

  “OK, let’s swap positions first,” Jamie murmurs.

  Kilgore steps back from the door, and Jamie takes his place, moving with surprising stealth considering his wounded leg.

  Jamie presses his face to the crack in the door. “Now, turn to face north. Use your HUD, and tell the decoy to do the same. Use the decoy’s orientation system to help you.”

  Kilgore turns to his left and lets his mind engage with AIPR0N as the targeting circle rotates. Jamie smiles as the computer-generated version of Will turns in the corridor. The decoy is a perfect replica. It even stands realistically, shifting its weight from foot to foot, changing its grip on its rifle.

  “Stay where you are!”

  The command echoes down the corridor. Jamie glances back to Kilgore. “Set the decoy’s mode to evade.”

  Kilgore nods, and Jamie risks another peek through the slim gap between the door’s edge and the frame. The decoy suddenly takes to its heels, sprinting toward the building’s entrance. Jamie raises his eyebrows at the sheer speed of the thing, the way it hurtles out through the door and into the yard beyond. A shot rings out, incredibly loud in the confines of the corridor. It’s followed by the sound of someone running fast, heavy boots thudding on the tiles. Jamie silently closes the door and leans back against it. Even with the door closed, the rhythmic thundering of footsteps in the corridor is loud enough to make him flinch.

  Kilgore and Jamie lock eyes, both men holding their breath as the sound grows closer and closer. For a moment, the footsteps falter and stop. Kilgore and Jamie share a look. Surely, the patrol has realized something isn’t quite right. Perhaps the GDL can tell when a keypad has been hacked. In a heartbeat, the door will be kicked in and all hell will break loose.

  They wait. Another shot rings out, and Kilgore flinches, but then the footsteps are in motion again, pounding along the corridor and fading away into the distance.

  Jamie turns back to the door and squeezes it open a little to take a look. “OK,” he whispers. “The coast’s clear.” Both men exhale.

  “Do I leave the decoy running?” Kilgore asks.

  “Yes. It’s got basic collision detection. It should cause some confusion for a while.” Jamie hesitates and then opens the door a little wider to peer after the patrol. “Huh! It was just one man after all. Still, he’ll be out of the way for a few minutes. Let’s go.”

  They slip out into the corridor. “Lead on,” Jamie says. “I’ll watch your back in case our GDL friend comes back sooner than we might like.”

  Kilgore nods and starts walking. He sets up the thermal imaging enhancement in his HUD and starts scanning the doors as he passes.

  “Pick up the pace, lad,” Jamie says. “Run. Don’t stop until you find that command center.”

  Kilgore doesn’t reply, he just breaks into a jog. Jamie’s right. These doors are giving him nothing; a quick glance is all he needs to reject each one. I shouldn’t leave Jamie behind, he thinks. But at least he’s got my back. The thought gives his confidence a boost. The Brit knows what he’s doing, and with Jamie guarding the corridor, Kilgore can concentrate on finding the right door. Sure, he could easily run headlong into another GDL patrol, but somehow he doesn’t think so. The place feels empty: not so much abandoned as brand new and unused. It’s as if the whole building is merely the set for a movie that will never be made: the rooms empty, the doors just for show. But Will claims his precious key is somewhere inside, and Jamie is certain they’ll find a safe place where they can log off. Keep your eyes open, Kilgore tells himself. Stay sharp, and move fast.

  He jogs a little faster, but when he comes to an intersection in the corridor, he stops moving. There are side corridors leading away to the left and the right. Should he take one of those routes or carry on straight ahead and stay on the main corridor? Logically, the command center ought to be on the central corridor, but it might be safer to take the smaller side route and stay out of sight. Will told him to take a right turn and perhaps, if the key is hidden in that d
irection, there could be other high-value assets in the same area.

  He glances back at Jamie, but the Englishman is a long way behind already, and anyway, Jamie’s made it quite clear he wants Kilgore to move fast. Kilgore scans in all three directions, but there’s nothing in his HUD to suggest one way is better than the other, so all he can do is make a snap decision. He looks back to Jamie and gives him a quick wave, motioning toward the side corridor that runs west. Jamie acknowledges him with a raised hand.

  Kilgore turns to face west and heads around the corner. Yes, this is the general direction Will told him to aim for, but he hasn’t taken the exact route Will laid out. He’s not following Will’s instructions. There’s no way that’s ever going to happen. He’s looking for the command center. Nothing else. Just the command center.

  CHAPTER 29

  Too Old for This Shit

  MERVIN STOPS RUNNING and scans the yard, cycling through the readouts in his HUD. Somehow, he’s lost the intruder. True, the man ran away with surprising speed, but even so, it’s hard to believe there’s no trace of him at all. The yard offers no hiding places, so the intruder must’ve run back past the barracks. Mervin frowns. I’m getting too old for this shit. And if the guy is headed for the barracks, he’ll soon be someone else’s problem. Unless he somehow imagined the whole thing.

  Mervin recalls the sequence of events: the targeting selectors that disappeared, the empty corridor, the sudden appearance of the solitary soldier. And it was strange, the way the intruder stood still at first, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Then, as soon as he was challenged, he took off with an awe-inspiring turn of speed. And now what? He’s just upped and vanished? Again?

  Mervin shakes his head. None of it seems plausible. “But I saw him,” he whispers. “I know I saw him.” He looks up and scans the yard once again. Something’s wrong. Ordinarily, he’d call it in and wait for orders, but the comm link is still out, and he’s on his own. It’s up to him to put this right. But where the hell should he start? He’s supposed to be patrolling Central One. He ought not to have abandoned his post.

  Mervin’s mind races. I should never have skipped my damned meds. He heaves a sigh. Sometimes, when he needs his meds, he gets muddled, imagines things. He tries to hide it from Hank, but it’s hard. The flashbacks are more vivid than the rundown house, more real than the bleak neighborhood. Is that what just happened? Did he wish away the boredom of a lonely shift and slip into a more dramatic daydream?

  “No,” he murmurs. “The breach was real.” And that’s the crucial point. He needs to go back and check the main door. When he ran outside, the door had clearly been smashed open. That could’ve been an illusion—just part of the imaginary backdrop to his muddled daydream. But if he checks the door carefully, and it really has been breached, he’ll know for sure someone managed to break into Central One. Then it’s just a matter of tracking the sons of bitches down and putting a couple bullets in them. After all, it’s not as if the bastards can log off—not from here.

  Mervin sets his mouth in a grim line. “Nobody is going to get past me,” he growls. “Nobody.” Then he turns around and heads back toward the main door.

  CHAPTER 30

  Just a Coincidence

  WILL STANDS AT THE EDGE OF THE MINEFIELD and stares at the notification in his HUD. “So, he’s using the decoy. That’s pretty smart.” He thinks back to the last man who tried that technique to evade capture. It was the Brit, wasn’t it? Will looks down at the ground for a moment. It’s just a coincidence—that’s all. But he doesn’t like coincidences. He doesn’t like them at all.

  He looks out across the minefield. Of course, there is another way through the mines. All he has to do is shoot into the ground until he sets at least one mine off, and the rest of the networked devices will erupt in an earth-shattering explosion. It’s tempting. Hell, it might even be fun. But if he does that, every drone and every GDL do-gooder in the place will descend on him before the dust settles. And he doesn’t even have his defensive wall, which is a damned shame.

  Still, if the kid is using the decoy, then it looks like he’s still trying to get the key. There is that hope to cling onto. But unfortunately, it also means there’s nothing to be gained by taking AIPR0N from him. “I’ll just have to wait,” he murmurs. And though he’s had just about all the waiting he can stomach, there really is no other choice.

  CHAPTER 31

  Take the Shot

  “THERE’S GOT TO BE SOMETHING,” Kilgore mutters. But this side route is just as dreary as the main corridor: nothing but a succession of unpromising doors, all blank except for their numbers.

  He arrives at another intersection and slows his pace, glances back over his shoulder. There’s no sign of Jamie, but that need not matter. If he finds the command center, he can head back and help Jamie along. Time is the critical factor here. They’ve been lucky so far, but they could be discovered at any moment. The sooner he can find the damned room, the sooner they can get out of sight. But right now, he needs to make another snap decision.

  If he goes straight ahead, the corridor is short. There’s a row of doors then it ends in a concrete wall. If he turns right, he’ll be heading back toward the main entrance on a route parallel to the main corridor, doubling back on himself. That doesn’t feel like a good use of his time. So that only leaves the left turn, but if he goes that way, he’ll be heading south, following Will’s instructions.

  Kilgore shakes his head slowly. I don’t like it, he thinks. It’s as if Will is somehow controlling him, pulling his strings. But that’s nonsense. Superstition. And he doesn’t have time for that.

  Kilgore takes the left turn. It’s a long corridor, running the length of the huge building, so he moves on as fast as he can, scanning the doors as he goes. “Thank Christ for that,” he murmurs. He’s almost at the end of the corridor, but a couple yards ahead there’s a door on his right with a definite tint of color showing in his HUD. He can’t be sure of the cause, but this is the only sign of warmth he’s found. This must be it. He stops outside the door and changes the sensitivity in his HUD. Yes. There’s a definite heat trace from within. And there’s something else—unlike all the other doors he’s passed, this one has no number.

  It also has no obvious handle or lock. Kilgore switches his HUD to scan for hidden objects then makes a quick sweep across the door and all around it. The telltale pattern in the paintwork tells him the access panel is set into the wall on the left of the door. Kilgore swipes his hand across the place, expecting the same alphanumeric keypad he saw back at Room 285 and alongside the gate into the yard. But this is different. There’s only one button: a large, red square of glossy plastic. Above it, there’s a small screen, but the screen is dark. Kilgore scrapes his hand across his face. What the hell kind of lock is this? And more importantly, can AIPR0N hack into it?

  He accesses AIPR0N’s security interface, but the mod’s response is too swift to be good news:

  ERROR: UNABLE TO DECODE VOICE-ACTIVATED LOCKING MECHANISM

  “Shit!” Kilgore hisses. He might’ve known it couldn’t be that easy. He found the room far too easily, and the game always has a fifth ace tucked up its sleeve. He glances up and down the corridor. Jamie is nowhere in sight, so he must still be struggling along the main corridor. Maybe he should go and fetch him. Despite his weird sense of humor, the Englishman is levelheaded when it comes to making decisions.

  Kilgore turns around to head back, and that’s when he sees it. It was behind him when he was trying to hack the voice-activated lock, but as he moves, the sign on the room opposite catches his eye: Room 001.

  “Jesus Christ!” Kilgore breathes. He gave up reading the room numbers a while back, but now, here he is, standing right beside the rainbow’s end. Beyond that door, according to Will anyway, there’s the secret to more wealth and power than Kilgore can imagine.

  Kilgore’s heart beats against his ribs; his mouth is dry. Just imagine it! He pictures the house he’ll buy, th
e car he’ll drive. He can see the beautiful girlfriend at his side. Hell, he can see a whole entourage of beautiful girls following his every move, competing for his attention. “I could go somewhere nice,” he murmurs, “somewhere hot.” He shakes his head and snorts at his own stupidity. It’s ridiculous. Foolish. Of course it is. But somehow, despite his intentions, he crosses the corridor and stands in front of Room 001. He looks down, and there’s his hand, reaching out to touch the wall on the left of the door, where he’s sure the access panel will be. He’s going to do it. He has to know what’s inside that room.

  “Step away from the door!”

  Kilgore wheels around, shouldering his shotgun, his finger already on the trigger. The GDL soldier is standing in the corridor, but although the man is easily in range, Kilgore cannot shoot. While the soldier is pointing his assault rifle at Kilgore with his right hand, his left arm is wrapped tightly around Jamie’s chest, pressing the Englishman’s body close to his own, using him as a shield.

  “I suggest you do as I say,” the GDL man growls. “Step away from the door, and lower your weapon.”

  Jamie’s face is a mask of frustration. He looks Kilgore in the eye. “Take the shot. You can do it. Use the enhanced targeting.”

  Kilgore hesitates. It’s too risky. Even with the enhanced targeting, the GDL guy still has the drop on him. “I’m sorry, Jamie. I should never have left you behind.”

  “Never mind that,” Jamie says. “Just take the shot!”

  The soldier glances briefly at Jamie and lets out a dry chuckle. “Oh, one of our Trans-Atlantic cousins. You know, I served with an English guy once—he died.” He raises his weapon a little higher, pointing the muzzle squarely at Kilgore’s head. “Lower your weapon, and I’ll see to it you’re escorted safely out of this area. But I’m warning you, if you engage in a pissing contest here, we’re all going to wind up dead.” He pauses. “It’s not really a choice, is it?”