Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten

by Richard M. Heredia

  Ahead the monstrosity that was the South Bay Artery loomed. It was by far the largest throughway in Angel Free Town, towering an incredible thirty-six levels on each of the fifteen levels of the city. And… every single one was twelve lanes wide, traveling in either direction. At the ground, it was the only highway with on- and off-ramps reaching directly up and out to the four lower levels of the city. It connected traffic on a whole different scale than all the other highways.

  Estefan smiled tightly as he gazed upon the megalith, remembering when it had been called the 405 freeway. Even way back in his youth, the 405 Freeway had been titled the busiest freeway in the world.

  If only they could see it now…, he thought, as second before he sent the “go” warble over the GUARD channel. Like dancers in a ballet, the five Glide-cars weaved around one another four more times, and then rocketed away from one another. Each used a short burst of the afterburner to attain maximum speed within seconds. Their car could’ve gone faster, but Flavia didn’t want to make things easy for their pursuers. Flavia knew this without being told and made sure they went no faster than the others as each driver took a different connecting bridge to the South Bay Artery, one even got off the highway system altogether.

  Estefan used his Neuro-Nanoswarm screen to feed him the live shot from directly behind their vehicle. He watched, waiting for the curvature of the bridge to terminate, so he could see if the dark sedan was still following them.

  Flavia reduced their speed to match the traffic she was merging into and tucked into the flow of vehicles on the lowest level of the Artery.

  Just before they wedged in between a Transport skiff and a gaudy looking street racer, Estefan saw the extra-long Glide-car. It rounded the last curving section of the connecting bridge in plain view.

  “It’s a Fermonist alright,” said the Keeper. “The cocksuckers are still on our ass.”

  “Crap!” cursed the woman in black.

  “And the mobile Null-unit, where is it?” asked Estefan through pinched lips.

  Flavia’s eyes followed something on her ‘Swarm screen he couldn’t see, her brow creased at first, but then seemed to go wide with surprise.

  “What is it?” asked her one-time step-brother.

  “You’re not going to believe this, but it’s parked in the VIP section of parking bay 167 at the spaceport.”

  “What the fuck it is doing there?” demanded Estefan.

  She shrugged. “How the hell am I supposed to know, those things run completely autonomous, complete with hard-coded programming. Their sub-routines are localized remember?” she lectured. “I seem to recall it was you who wanted them built that way, am I wrong?”

  “No, you’re not wrong, god damn it! But the fucking VIP section, do we even have access to it?”

  She turned to stare at him directly.

  He wished she’d keep her eyes on the damned road. Then, he held up a hand to forestall. “I know, I know, stupid question.” He shook his head, disgusted with himself. “Is it a quiet place, right?”

  “Should be, it’s freakin’ VIP parking, what the hell do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think right now, Flavy.” He rubbed his bald head with his hand. “I’m getting too old for all of this madness.”

  “Oh, bullshit, stop acting like a baby,” admonished Flavia. “Come one we got work to do.”

  At her side, the Keeper sighed. “Make for the Null-unit; hopefully we can make the transition from the car to the unit without everyone in a two-block radius getting shot to pieces.”

  “You never know, the night is still young, my dear.”

  “Ppsssh!” hissed Estefan through his lips. It still didn’t stop him from running a quick inventory of the weapons they had with them.

  One didn’t get to the ripe old age of three hundred and eighty-four by acting like an idiot.

  He didn’t have more than half a second before he caught sight of the first contrail at the corner of his eye. Contrail? he had time to ask himself when a second missile erupted from the extra-long Grav-car. Who the fuck used missiles anymore?

  Neither Flavia nor he moved, though. They didn’t have to. Their vehicle acted for them.

  “Threat Ten! Threat Ten! Modified Stinger Block Nine SAM inbound,” chimed the –car.

  He was only half-listening. His fingers were flying across the virtual keys only he could see.

  Technology as outdated as “seeking” missiles of any sort could easily be thwarted by the pervasive use of gravity. The latter half of the twenty-fourth century was a time thoroughly entrenched by the manipulation of that force in every sense of the word.

  At the rear of their Grav-car, a small, circular, hole snapped open and a spindly, four-inch appendage shot forth. It’s’ tip was nothing more than a super-condensed version of the Grav-lifts keeping them floating above the surface of the highway. Once arrayed, it went from dull gray to a brilliant cerulean.

  To either the driver or the passenger in the car, there was nothing to be seen. To the missiles though, the effect was immediate. As if grabbed by an invisible giant, both streaking projectiles stopped in mid-air. Their twin-rocket engines screamed in protest. So loud, Estefan could just make out the sound through the atmospheric insulation of their Grav-car.

  The missiles only remained static for a short moment in time. Before he could follow, the gravity-well, holding them in place, flipped. And then, just as suddenly, evaporated, sending the non-ballistic darts hurtling back the way they’d come.

  The driver of the other car must’ve anticipated this, because he was swerving and braking the instant the missiles had been caught. Both rockets flew past it. One smashed into a Grav-hauler, pulling four containers, the other flying off into the night. The blast from the first sent the entire –hauler molten in a hundredth of a second, debris and shrapnel exploded every which way. Estefan watched through a thickening brow as scores of vehicles were unceremoniously tossed aside, dozens of secondary and tertiary blasts rocked the massive superstructure of the Artery.

  “Sonofabitch!”

  “We making much too big of an impression in Angel Free Town, Effy,” remarked Flavia.

  He grunted, then squinted slightly when the second missile detonated five miles out over the farms, its’ proximity fuse having gone off. For some reason, their enemies hadn’t removed the safety measures on the missiles before launching. Why? They weren’t conscientious bad buys if they were content to blow up the entire goddamned highway. Who were these guys, fucking amateurs?

  He received his answer a second later.

  The front quarter-panels of the Grav-car unfolded abruptly. Two sets of weapons racks emerged, bristling with dozens of dark and very modern looking pointed cylinders. The Stingers had been a diversion. These guys were well-funded professionals.

  Estefan felt his stomach tighten. “Flavia!” he called.

  “I see them!” She waved her hand over yet another sensor, putting their vehicle into full-auto, maximum defense/evasion-mode – all at once. She spun out of her adaptive seat. Faster than the Keeper could follow, she dove for the backseat, a Command Stick firmly gripped in the palm of her right hand. Command Sticks created state-of-the-art Weapon Modules out of thin air, in just about any space, provided there was three cubic feet of it.

  “You’re gonna have to move your ass, girlie! We got bad news coming.”

  “You don’t think I know that!” yelled Flavia as she held the Stick before her, lightly touching both sides with her pinky fingers.

  “Threat One! Threat One! TARP launch! TARP launch!” wailed their Grav-car, a high-pitched warble that gave them the impression the conveyance, itself, was frightened.

  Well, it should be…

  “Fuck,” groaned the Keeper aloud.

  TARP’s (or Triangulated Replicant-Grav Projectiles) were the absolute worst. They were designed to specifically penetrate all gravity-related defenses. They had made such countermeasures obsolete the moment they’d been deployed by
one of the Aegis Synod’s most voracious competitors in the field of armaments. It had been a triumphant day for Milandry Enterprises. After many years, the Synod’s own weapon’s division had been “one-upped”. TARP’s had sent thousands of engineers, scientists and specialists employed by the Keeper scrambling to keep up.

  Any gravity-well used against a TARP was instantaneously nullified by sensors on the weapon itself. These sensors were programmed to apply a similar “well” in response, only this one would be in direct opposition to the one being used upon it – “cancelling out” the defensive measure. Propelled at hyper-sonic velocities, there was only one mechanism capable of safeguarding against a TARP and, even then, it wasn’t one hundred percent reliable.

  “D-Shields deployed!” screamed their Grav-car’s ‘Swarm.

  “This better work,” urged Estefan.

  Flavia was too busy to respond.

  D-Shields were “genius level”, self-duplicating preventative measures. They were the only technology that could hope to stop a TARP. Actually, they didn’t stop them in the true sense of the word. Rather, they deflected them until they were contained.

  Truly remarkable, and manufactured solely by the Aegis Synod, D-Shields were forged of next-generation, smart Diatainium. This was a neat way of saying the ‘Swarms programmed into the Shields were so mighty, they were borderline, self-aware. Their probability matrices were so fast, they fired nearly as fast as the Neurons of a Human brain.

  Once a TARP impacted upon the deflecting field of a D-Shield, the ‘Swarm within the Shield would predict where the hyper-sonic bolt would head next and, immediately, it would move to deflect it again. By every third or fourth deviation, the Shield would be able to duplicate itself, leaving yet another surface to literally “bounce” the TARP away from its’ intended target. Over a relatively short duration, a complete “cocoon” will develop about the TARP, effectively containing it within. When the dart finally lost its’ velocity, it would merely “fall” to the bottom of the now spherical D-Shield – harmless.

  Problems only develop when the probability matrix of a given Shield improperly predicts a ricochet. Since TARP’s are so incredibly dangerous, the outcome of such a miscalculation could sometimes be horrendous.

  Estefan was glued to the virtua-HUD on his sim-screen.

  Eight TARP’s, four from each weapon rack, burst to life and streaked from the pursuing –car. A quarter of an eye-blink later, eight D-Shields “popped” from the rear bumper of their vehicle. At once, the Shields expanded. They oriented themselves at precisely fifteen degrees upward relative to the oncoming missiles. By now, the TARP’s had been reduced to molten slag within a high-powered electromagnetic field set to disengage upon impact.

  The Keeper braced himself as everything seemed to happen simultaneously. All eight TARP’s struck a corresponding D-Shield. Their Grav-car swerved across seven lanes of traffic, going afterburner to make the maneuver without hitting anything. Flavia settled into a Weapons Control Module that hadn’t been in the backseat seconds before. He counted as all eight D-Shields “caught” their respective TARP’s, each beginning an intricate dance of deflection. Each slag-bolt ricocheted off the impenetrable Diatainium surface of the Shields, only to ricochet off another – again and again. The D-Shield spheres began to form almost at once, trapping the TARP’s, lifting them up into the night air, above the flood of traffic on the highway.

  Then, eight more flashes caught his attention as the extra-long Grav-car banked suddenly, bringing their conveyance into range - eight more TARP’s were catapulting toward them.

  “D-Shields deployed!” quailed the ‘Swarm.

  The scene before him repeated. Eight interceptions, eight containments as the TARP’s were lifted above the congested freeway.

  “Flavia, do something!” he ordered, accessing the city-grid, trying to see if Public Safety had been alerted to this mini-battle on the Artery. They had! There were at least two score ground units dispatched and double that in the air. Shit, things are going to get really bad, very soon.

  “I’m trying! What do you think I’m doing here, picking my ass?”

  Eight more TARP’s flashed.

  Fuck!

  Their enemy was done playing games, hoping to overwhelm their D-Shields. Eight more TARP’s fired on the heels of the second volley, followed by eight more, then eight after that.

  Estefan re-opened their private channel on Angel Free Town’s CommNet, feeling the back of their Grav-car vibrate as an equal number of the Shields “popped” to block the incoming slag-bolts. “Michael, you still there?” he asked into his sim-screen.

  The first D-Shields began to interact with the TARP’s.

  “Never left, sir,” came the clipped reply. The blinking pixel once again turned into the fuzzy video feed from before.

  More Shields “caught” their targets.

  “We need Synod security forces down here at once,” commanded the Keeper.

  More interceptions, more deflections – their enemy fired another round, then another.

  “Already en route, Lord Keeper – ETA: twelve point two minutes.”

  More Shields arrayed – a lot more! Their Grav-car’s ‘Swarm must’ve anticipated the enemy’s tactics. It was jettisoning many more of the countermeasures than was necessary. It was smart, though.

  More TARP’s screeched from the weapon rocks behind them.

  Estefan frowned. “How is that possible?”

  The entire freeway behind them was now clear of vehicles, all twelve lanes were filled with Shield spheres. The TARP’s were bursting with brilliant cascades of light each time they rebounded off a Diatainium surface.

  “Lord Keeper, Synoddess Cervantes has been monitoring this transmission for the past four minutes. She’s using a passive trace, designate Alpha-Omega 1, Priority Delta, Serial Number 02. That makes her Aegis Synod grade…” He paused to clear his throat. “…Just as you, my Lord.”

  Still, more TARP’s came.

  Estefan didn’t reply. He minimized the video feed back down to a single pixel, shaking his head. Well, she was only in orbit above the earth…, he was thinking when one of the D-Shields misinterpreted the course of its’ TARP. The molten slag streaked upward into the underbelly of the highway above them. The electric storm that followed was so bright, it hurt Estefan’s eyes – and that was a hard thing to do to a Heavy.

  It was a horrific thing to see – the slag-dart ripping through the two middle lanes of the twelve-laned freeway, the explosion and the bolts of generated-lightening striking into the traffic below. Hundreds were electrocuted, cooked alive in their –cars or –buses or –skiffs. The Grav-fields failed at once, sending every vehicle down into the emergency suspension-nets a meter or so below the former surface of the road. Most of them were saved. A few, though… the heaviest of the transports couldn’t be helped and unseen generators squealed in protest to keep those ponderous monsters aloft – to no avail.

  Another round of deflections flickered behind them as huge Glide-haulers, over-long bus-trains, Grav-trucks and many, many more specialized conveyances fell from the upper level and onto the level they were traversing. Collisions, explosions, pulverized bodies, tremendous heat and flames stretched back as far as the one-time brother and sister could see.

  “Do you have them?” asked the Keeper through clenched teeth. Though they had left Angel Free Town years and years ago, it was obvious Estefan was still possessive of it. It had been, after all, his hand that had raised it from the ashes of war and famine.

  Flavia didn’t answer. Her fingers, like a pianist above his keys, never stopped moving over the Weapons Interface. Suddenly, their Grav-car shuddered beneath them.

  The Keeper watched as single Mark 97-Super G, anti-Grav Torp ejected from a hard-point somewhere within their vehicle. Its warhead was already searching for the specific gravitational signature of the elongated chase car. The Guardian had been imputing its frequency the entire time.

  The chasing Gra
v-car turned aside violently, trying to avoid the large weapon. Its occupants hastily raising a Beam-Shield, hoping its electronic “thrum” would be enough to confuse the Super G’s homing mechanisms. It worked – almost.

  Instead of a direct hit, the torpedo slammed into the rearmost section of the –car. It wasn’t a killing blow, because it mostly exploded in the storage compartment of the vehicle, which, unfortunately, was armored. Thus, most of the Dia-Therm Hybrid warhead’s detonation was contained within. It did serve, however, to disable one of the rear Grav-lifts, which had to be compensated for by the other three. This was no easy task. It forced the extra-long Grav-car to hover at an angle ten degrees to the right. It also meant, their enemies couldn’t travel any faster than one hundred and fifty kilometers an hour.

  Estefan and Flavia quickly left them behind. There were few vehicles that could keep up with their modified Merc-Ford 5500 at full capacity. A hobbled –car simply couldn’t manage it.

  “Someone’s going to feel my foot up their ass for this,” grumbled the Keeper as his one-time step-sister extracted herself from the Weapons Module and snaked her way back to the driver’s seat.

  She flipped her hair behind her ears, settling into the adaptive chair. “Fucking audacious,” was all she’d say.

  “Imm-hmm,” agreed the Keeper through pursed lips.

  She didn’t take over navigation of the Grav-car right away. She left their conveyance in auto-mode and began checking all of its many systems instead.

  Estefan had anticipated this. “Our course is still true. We’re spot on for the Null-unit.”

  “We gonna need it,” she said, nodding her head at the hundreds of flashing lights as Public Safety descended upon the scene.

  “Go stealth, Flavy, and get us the fuck out of here.”

  She flicked her fingers over the correct modulator and took control of the –car, the Spaceport already in sight, though it was still some ten kilometers away.