The Hive Construct

by Alexander Maskill

  The explosions had also disguised the sound of another, smaller detonation in the basement of the GeniSec building. A hole large enough for a man to get through had breached the brick wall separating this block from its neighbour, and the operatives scrambled across it. Their fatigues stripped off to reveal street wear underneath, they ran past the ingredient store of the restaurant above, up the stairs into a large, shining kitchen, where food had been abandoned mid-preparation. At the back of the kitchen was a side door out into the street. Thana Yu cracked it open and checked her camera feed; it took in nothing but wave upon wave of fleeing civilians. In the distance, yet another bomb went off, loud enough to be heard from where they were. The operatives pushed open the door and ran out into the crowd, each in a different direction, until they were dispersed in the mob.

  Alice pulled off her headset and smiled. It wouldn’t take the Security Force long to realize that the hostages were unguarded, and only a short time more for roadblocks to be established, but every one of those operatives knew how to capitalize on that window of opportunity. For her, there was for now only the afterglow: the visceral rush that came from humiliating people who really deserved it. They’d exposed GeniSec and made fools of the Security Force. They’d attracted the entire city’s attention and still made it out unnoticed. What’s more, it was said the SecForce had begun to make use of the IntuitivAI protocol to coordinate their operations. An artificial intelligence equivalent to several people with genius-level IQs and linear thinking power beyond the capacity of any human, and somehow she had managed to beat it. Victory felt good.

  Around her, people were cheering: the technicians and coordinators, Maalik’s backup crew who were simply glad they didn’t have to go out and get into a fight, and the younger, newer members who were being trained up. In all the commotion, it took Alice a while to realize that the door to the sleeping quarters was open and her daughter had wandered out, rubbing her eyes. She got up from her chair, rushed over, and crouched down to look Ria in the eye.

  ‘Hey, sweetie, did we wake you up?’

  ‘Wazzgoinon?’ a groggy Ria murmured.

  Alice grinned and hugged her daughter to her. ‘We just made some very bad people get in trouble for the very bad things they were doing, and we’re celebrating. The good guys have won, sweetie!’ And she hugged her daughter tighter. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking but today seemed like a good day.

  ‘Does that mean Dad can come home now?’ said Ria.

  Alice paused.

  Not yet. Not tonight, please not tonight.

  Maalik’s voice came from behind Alice. ‘Ria, your dad’s doing a different mission right now. It’s a big, dangerous mission that only the bravest and strongest can do, so he was the person we wanted for the job. And he’s going to be away for a little while. It’s hard for him too, but it needs to be done, okay?’

  Alice could have kissed Maalik right then.

  ‘Can we go home then?’

  Alice responded this time. ‘That’s still a bit too tricky, sweetie. But Mum’s trying to make sure everything’s all right, okay?’

  Ria yawned wide and nodded. ‘I’m gonna go back to bed now, Mum.’

  Guilt gripped Alice tight, but she put on a smile for her daughter’s sake. ‘Okay, sweetie, I’ll come and tuck you in.’

  Then, from above the factory, in the street outside, there was the sound of roaring engines and gunfire.

  Everyone jumped. Alice instinctively pulled Ria to her chest and looked around for the source of the gunfire. Before she even had time to ask, she was having details yelled at her. There were two SecForce vehicles in the street above. They were grabbing civilians, beating them and demanding to know where the NCLC was based. Juri, seated at her workstation and watching the commotion through her network of compromised security cameras, described with horror a boy, aged fourteen at most, being beaten with rifle butts while he screamed that he didn’t know anything. Alice looked back to her monitor. She counted twelve SecForce troops, all with mid-range weaponry and body armour.

  Maalik spoke up first. ‘Kahleed, me and my boys can be ready to go in two minutes. We may need you two as well.’

  Tal rounded on him. ‘Listen, they don’t know that we’re even here, and neither does anyone else who isn’t one of us. We don’t need to go up there. They’re not going to find us.’

  ‘That’s what you think this is about?’ Maalik growled back. ‘They’re beating the shit out of random people in the street to get to us. They’re beating the crap out of random people because they think they can just waltz into Naj-Pur and knock the trash about when they’re angry. Christ, Tal, I thought this was why you and Nat quit the police in the first place.’

  Tal looked ready to explode. ‘You don’t know shit about why I left the police, old man. Right now, our long-term goals mean that we need this place. We’re not wasting it to go after the first people to rough up some civilians.’

  ‘They’re violent people, Tal!’ roared Maalik. ‘They only understand violence! They’re like wild animals. They need to be shown that they’re not in charge here any more, that they can’t keep making victims of us. We need to thrash it into them!’

  Alice couldn’t do anything but stare in shock. Ria huddled close to her, shivering.

  ‘Just, for five seconds,’ said Tal, frustration in his voice, gesticulating wildly, ‘stop trying to make this more violent than it needs to be! You don’t know anything about these people!’

  Maalik fumed. ‘No, Tal, you don’t know anything about these people. You don’t know what it’s like growing up afraid of every cop who walks down the road, not being able to go to the police when your child has been assaulted because they’ll just assume he’s a gang member. You have no idea what privileges you’ve enjoyed that some of us have had to go without. And your experiences don’t mean anything arou—’

  Kahleed yelled for them to shut up. They both wheeled round, shocked. Kahleed was breathing hard, his anger breaking out again. ‘GeniSec, the Security Force, they’re all puppets of Tau Granier. Let’s show him we’re the new power in this city. Get everyone available up in two.’

  Tal stepped forward. ‘Kahleed, they’ll—’

  ‘I don’t care if they find us. I don’t care if we have to move to one of the other safe houses. I just want my people, the people I grew up with, to be safe. If they’re not safe, what’s the point of all this?’

  Tal looked like he wanted to start yelling again, but contained himself and nodded.

  ‘I’ll get my crew ready,’ said Maalik, his voice returning to its normal pitch. ‘Tal, you’re a capable fighter. I know you’re opposed to it, but it would help greatly if you and Kahleed would take the trainees up and provide a diversion. My people will loop round and come from the other side so they won’t know we were right here. We can at least scare them off.’

  Tal agreed miserably and he and Maalik walked towards the armoury to equip themselves. Kahleed turned to Alice. ‘Put Ria back to bed, and get ready to coordinate our response.’

  Alice nodded and looked down at Ria. ‘Come on, the grownups have got work to do.’ Ria took her hand and the two of them walked back to the sleeping area.

  Alice had pushed two bunk beds together to make a double bed in which she and Ria slept. Zeno was right next to where Alice slept, in his pillow cot. He still slept most of the time and when he was awake, Alice knew she could rely on Ria to look after him. If she was bored or he was too much of a hassle, the accountant, Hoshi Smolak, was always willing to keep an eye on him. He’d had three children of his own, and his days were mostly spent waiting for hours on end for fund-transfer chains and money-laundering algorithms to complete. Hoshi had probably seen more of Zeno than she had, she realized.

  Alice tucked Ria in, then stopped for a second, and said, ‘Ria, sweetie? There might be more noise coming from outside, so I’m going to turn down your cochlear implant like I do with Zeno so you don’t have to hear anything loud, okay?’
/>
  Ria looked up at her. ‘I thought you were going to do that anyway?’

  Alice’s breath caught in her throat. She’d been unable to get more than a few hours’ sleep each night since she and her children had been here. From time to time she’d mute Ria’s ear implants while she slept so she wouldn’t be disturbed by Alice’s pillow-muffled sobs.

  ‘And you’re okay with that, me controlling your implants while you’re asleep?’

  ‘Sure. You’ve got the controls anyway,’ Ria said, smiling up at her mother. ‘Night night.’

  ‘Night night, Ria.’ Alice opened the controls on her portable terminal, found the volume for Ria’s auditory implants, and turned it right down. There’d be noise – total, utter silence does strange things to a person – but nothing to wake her. Certainly, the volume throttle would mute anything loud near by.

  Like gunshots or explosions.

  Alice shivered. She kissed Ria and Zeno on the forehead, and then headed back into the main room, closing the door behind her. Already, it was full of people in combat gear – body armour, roomy civilian clothes over the top and balaclavas. Maalik and the six soldiers in his backup unit looked completely at home, self-assured and prepared. By comparison, the four new recruits who stood with Tal and Kahleed looked out of place, even as the body armour moulded to their body shapes. They were all former factory workers, and with only a few days’ training under their belts, they really weren’t ready for this. But they were enthusiastic and angry, and that was worth something. Alice walked past them and sat once more in front of her terminal.

  Maalik stood in the middle of the room, addressing the group. ‘All right, everyone, the cameras put them right next to us, on the street just west of here. We’re going down the alleyway, looping around two blocks. Kahleed, your team will be Squad One. You attack from the north at the junction; my team circles round and attacks their left flank through the back street. They’ll think there’s loads of us, it’ll be great. We’ll cut their communications channel. Let them run if you can.’

  Armed and armoured, thirteen people who hadn’t thought they’d be fighting that day filed up the stairs to the factory corridor and out down the driveway.

  Alice watched on the main terminal monitor as they turned the corner and circled the block. They were in luck; an angry crowd had formed around the SecForce troops, blocking them from view as Squad One took position and Squad Two disappeared round a corner. A few warning shots and some errant rifle butt swings from the troops soon dispersed much of the crowd. Squad One leaned out from their points of cover and raised their guns. Tal fired two warning shots into the tarmac in front of the troops.

  ‘This area is under the protection of the New Cairo Liberation Corps! Leave now!’

  In response, the SecForce troops spread out and raised their rifles, as one of them in front yelled, ‘Drop your weapons and get on your knees with your hands behind your heads!’

  ‘Not going to happen! You’re going to leave here now before this goes any further!’

  ‘On your knees, hands behind your heads!’ the SecForce trooper yelled, moving forward, eye to his rifle’s scope.

  The first gunshot went off. It hit the lead SecForce officer high in the chest and he fell backwards, breaking his fall with the rifle. A stream of smoke rose from the barrel of the gun held by one of the new recruits.

  The street erupted. The NCLC operatives were already in cover, but the SecForce troops had intensive training, expensive equipment and were bio-augmented to the nines, with astonishing stability and accuracy. The NCLC operatives were rarely able to squeeze off a single shot between the volleys of gunfire. The SecForce troops fanned out, finding their way behind cars or small walls, keeping up their barrage.

  Maalik’s voice came through Alice’s headset. ‘Alice, get them firing now! They need to be holding the SecForce troops’ attention!’

  Alice nodded, and entered a command into the console. Clusters of chemical pads embedded in the new recruits’ body armour released a cocktail of adrenalin and dopamine subcutaneously and directly into their bloodstreams. Within seconds, they were shooting from over their cover as if the SecForce troops were firing paper balls. The sudden offensive caught the SecForce troops off-guard. One fell, hit in the chin. Alice watched the chaos through the tiny video feeds from the NCLC guns’ scopes and cameras on their equipment harnesses. The remaining troops moved back, attempting some suppressive fire in any gap in the NCLC fusillade.

  There came a sudden lull in the crossfire.

  ‘Drop your weapons, gather your wounded and leave now!’ Tal yelled over the concrete barrier he was crouched behind. Alice was surprised. Was he that scared of what Maalik would do?

  One of the SecForce troops dropped his rifle, flipped up his armoured visor to reveal his face, then, with hands raised above his head, walked out from cover, forward towards the first injured man. Slowly, his eyes on the NCLC operatives at all times, he knelt down, looped his arms under the wounded man’s shoulders and began dragging him back to where the rest of them stood. One by one, the other SecForce troops began to slowly lower their rifles to the ground and step backwards towards the truck they’d come in.

  Somewhere in the next street along, where Maalik’s group was waiting, a completely different storm of gunfire started up. Startled, the SecForce troops grabbed their rifles again. One of the new NCLC recruits let out a scream, his torso spattered with assault rifle fire, and collapsed backwards. The armour stopped the bullets that hit his head and chest, but his right shoulder was shredded, two shots forming one gaping exit wound.

  The screen in front of Alice showed that Maalik’s group had come across another, smaller squad of SecForce troops who had evidently taken exception to the armed men sneaking towards their comrades. With Maalik’s team occupied, Kahleed and Tal’s group were at a two-to-one disadvantage against opponents with far more training than they had.

  Kahleed fired from underneath the car he was hiding behind, hitting a SecForce trooper in the shin and foot. The man fell to the ground and, with another few bullets fired into his body, stopped moving. One of the new recruits sprayed an entire magazine of bullets at two exposed soldiers, hitting them both through sheer law of averages, before being knocked off his feet by a volley of return fire. Another recruit was hit through the meat of his thigh and slumped down against cover, screaming with pain.

  Kahleed and Tal were pinned down on opposite sides of the street. Alice quickly mapped a sequence of instructions to a single key on the keyboard, and the reverse sequence onto its neighbouring key. Tal leaned forward from behind cover, then fell back immediately as gunfire pounded the concrete barrier protecting him. With enemy attention focused on his partner, Kahleed quickly let off a burst of shots at an exposed SecForce trooper, which in turn drew their fire and gave Tal an opening.

  Alice was reminded of going ten-pin bowling as a young girl and the difficulty of a seven-ten split.

  Kahleed leaned out again and almost immediately ducked back behind cover. The remaining six SecForce soldiers were now covering both sides, giving neither the chance to counter, and began to move forward, gaining on the pinned-down NCLC operatives.

  Two shadows appeared behind the SecForce troops, disappearing around the corner of a nearby alleyway.

  Alice scrolled frantically through the video feeds she had available to try to identify these interlopers, but they were not in the field of vision of any of the networked cameras Juri had gained access to. Maalik’s group were struggling to finish off the last two of their combatants, but all seven of his team were still accounted for.

  The SecForce troops edged forward, guns trained on the corners Tal and Kahleed were behind. They weren’t far away now.

  A rapid salvo of gunfire came over their shoulders. Within seconds, all the SecForce troopers were dead. Behind them stood Anisa and Thana Yu, each holding a sub-machine gun. Nataliya and the rest of her group appeared at the end of the street. On the next street along,
Serhiy Panossian opened fire on the two remaining soldiers facing Maalik’s squad.

  Alice let out a great sigh of relief. Her sense of ease soured quickly, though, as the euphoria of deflecting a threat to her family gave way to the realization of how she had achieved it.

  The street was now littered with corpses, and the gutters ran red with blood.

  She had indirectly facilitated a massacre.

  Had it been worth it?

  Moreover, it had been carried out by people who were around her children every day, sometimes looked after them. This was somehow much easier to accept when the action was further away. Kahleed and Tal and Maalik, the people she spent time with, slept in the same room as and, in the case of the former two, had known for years, were in a strange way divorced from Kahleed and Tal and Maalik, the abstract figures she commanded on a computer screen. Something about the fight being adjacent to the very building she was in seemed to muddy this separation. She began to wonder exactly why she had surrounded her children with terrorists and killers.

  This was apparently the price she was willing to pay for safety.

  The sounds of gun chambers being emptied rang through the wall as the NCLC operatives finished off any SecForce trooper still clinging to life. Kahleed, Tal, the new arrivals and the remaining new recruit then picked up their dead or wounded compatriots and began to carry them towards the safe house. The members of the NCLC were heading home to see what would happen next.

  Chapter 12