Reboot

by Larry Buenafe

  “Getting back to your original question, though, The Meta do most of their underhanded stuff, like snatching your dad and making you do all these ‘missions’, in secret. They justify doing bad stuff by saying it’s for ‘the greater good’. In other words, from their standpoint, it’s okay to do bad stuff, even horrible stuff, if you’re doing it for a good reason. They would say, and probably mean it when they say, that they’re ‘just trying to make our country a safer place’, or something of that sort.”

  “But… but that’s not logical. You can’t do something good by doing something bad.”

  She chuckled and said, “Out of the mouths of babes. Uh-oh.”

  She reached for her air sickness bag again, and I turned away because… well, that’s gross.

  17

  DIRECTOR’S NOTES

  CONVERSATION WITH SVC

  121452 01:23

  -Okay, say that again? I don’t think I heard you correctly.

  -You heard right. Somehow, the former Pakistani ambassador to Great Britain and LFP member, (JR), got wind of our boy’s mission. You’ll remember that his last mission was in Pakistan, and he became acquainted with the ambassador and his son while there. (JR) is exceedingly well-connected, as you know, including some higher-ups in Brazil. His son is traveling there as we speak.

  -Do any of them know who the son really is? And what was his name again? Wasn’t it Hasheem?

  -Hassim. And as far as we’re aware, no one knows about his… interesting background.

  -They don’t know about his MI-5 training? Speaking seven languages, including Portuguese? The chemical, umm… enhancements?

  -We don’t believe the Americans know of him. And it’s MI-6.

  -And we assume he’s going to help the kid?

  -It appears that they struck up a relationship during the Pakistani mission and have bought in to the effort to rescue the boy’s father.

  -This is good, right? Do the kid or any Bright Hand agents know he’s MI-6? Any negatives we know of?

  -As far as we are aware, none of them know about his MI-6 training. It could complicate matters; muddy the waters, so to speak. We could prevent him from going, I suppose.

  -Hm. No, I think we let it play out. I have an intuition about it. It’s getting awfully late, isn’t it? Time for a late-night snack, and then a little shut-eye. Tomorrow will be a busy day. Oh, wait, it’s already tomorrow. Today will be a busy day.

  ****

  B efore too much longer, Cheri fell asleep or passed out, I’m not sure which. As she snored softly, Ava continued to fill me in on the US history that doesn’t get reported in the history books, and the more I understood, the more confusing things got. There was a logic to why things are the way they are, or at least a pattern, but it occurred to me that unless something big changed, they were doomed to fail eventually, and when it happened, they might take the rest of the world down with them. That people couldn’t see that, or even worse just ignored it, was the most confusing thing of all. It has to be that there is something I just don’t understand yet; maybe it’ll get clearer when I get older.

  We landed in South Africa to refuel, but weren’t there long enough to see anything, and almost immediately were back in the air. It was so smooth and quick that Cheri didn’t even wake up. “Ava, how long is the rest of the trip?” I whispered.

  “Well, let’s figure it out, shall we? We’re traveling roughly eight-hundred kilometers per hour, and it will take us about ten hours to get to the outskirts of Brasilia. We’re against the time zones, though, so actual time on the clock will be different. The earth spins at approximately sixteen-hundred KPH, so how many hours on the clock, not actual time in the air? Come on, Mr. Robot, that should be easy for you.”

  “I’m not a robot.”

  “Neither are you a comedian. Come on, just do the math, Einstein.”

  Einstein? Oh, boy… “Okay, if we’re going half as fast as the world is turning, then we can cut half the hours off, right? So, we’ll get there in five clock hours, even though it will actually take ten hours. Hey, that was good.”

  “Yes, amazing, you can divide by two.”

  “Okay, I’m not sure, but that seemed kind of sarcastic.”

  “Well done, sonny boy. You’re catching on. Tomorrow’s lesson: mockery.”

  We chatted for a while longer, but eventually I asked Ava to show me more cartoons, followed by martial arts videos. I found that if I watched those videos, my body could do the moves without practicing them; it just sort of automatically memorized them and knew what to do.

  I dozed off for a few minutes, and when I awoke Cheri was staring at me with an odd smile on her face. “I’ve never seen you sleep before. I think maybe you have sleep apnea; you go a long time between breaths, but at least you don’t snore.”

  “It’s probably just because I don’t need as much oxygen as a normal person. You snore a little, but it’s not too annoying.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. My biggest fear is being annoying. Hey, look, we’re passing the Brazilian coast.”

  It would be well past dark when we got to our jumping-off point, which was what we wanted. Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, is near the center of the country, and much of the city is surrounded by Lago Paranoa, a massive artificial lake. Finally, we neared the city, and we began to ‘gear up’, strapping on our bags and stripping down to our full-body black heat suits and helmets. As the pilot dropped the jet to a much lower altitude to minimize depressurization, I whispered, “Ava, are we ready?”

  “Ready, willing, and able, sonny boy. Let ‘er rip.”

  What am I supposed to rip? Oh, it’s a saying…

  We gave the pilot and his copilot the ready signal, and the jet dipped yet again, the side door popped open, Cheri screamed, “Wohooo!” and out we went. We fell crazily for a few seconds, spinning and tumbling as I got my arms and legs extended; then we caught the air and glided in circles as we lowered our altitude almost to treetop level to avoid any detection by radar. We flew over a mixture of agriculture and forest as we approached from the east; I activated my heads-up display and zoomed in to the city, which was mostly on the western side of the great lake, and it appeared clean and modern in the center, deteriorating as it got further out until it became slums on the outskirts.

  Eventually, we found our landing spot: a deserted country road several kilometers from the edge of town, surrounded on both sides by thick forest. Clouds obscured the moon as we glided in, and Cheri raised her feet as I drew in my legs and tilted my arm wings to jog to a stop on the heavily rutted pavement.

  “That got kind of wild there for a minute,” Cheri whispered as we quickly changed out of our heat suits and put on our disguises. As she took off her heat suit, I spun away, and she giggled as she usually does at my modesty.

  “You’re such a prude. I have underwear on, you know. I’m not naked.”

  “That’s bad enough.” The truth is, I probably would have liked to peek, but I didn’t want to be some kind of weirdo; she’s pretty much like my sister by now.

  I was going to use my teenage girl disguise, and Cheri was going with her male tough guy look. I had Ava make some girlish enhancements to my body as she had done before, thinning out my eyebrows and making my chest and behind a little bigger and my waist a little smaller. When the changes were complete, I put on shorts and a tank-top. I turned, and Cheri already had her disguise on; she said, “Hey, who’s the hot chick?” in her best male voice.

  “I’m not a… oh, that was a kind of joke, right?”

  “You’re catching on, Lucas. Well, we have a long walk ahead of us, we might as well get going.”

  I gazed at her for a moment and it amazed me to see how completely she could disguise herself. If I was just seeing her for the first time, I wouldn’t be able to tell that she wasn’t a man. Even her voice, and the way she carried herself, were totally convincing, and she wore her clothing so that her lack of an Adam’s Apple wouldn’t show. She held her one good
arm out toward me, bent at the elbow; I didn’t know what that meant, but she said, “Take my arm, dummy. Let’s go.”

  I put my hand through the crook in her elbow, which only made me a little uncomfortable, and we headed toward the outskirts of Brasilia. Man, I hope this works… otherwise, we’ll both be dead…

  18

  DIRECTOR’S NOTES

  CONVERSATION WITH SRB, SVC, EXTRACTION PLAN COMMITTEE

  121452 08:05

  -Sorry for inviting myself to your committee meeting, but like all of us, I’m getting a bit anxious. Starting five minutes late, or in other words right on time, I see.

  -(SRB) Thank you, Director, of course you’re welcome to join our committee at any time. We’ve made some progress.

  -I’m aware that you have worked on a few different scenarios. Fill me in on your most promising.

  -(SRB) Yes, first we’ll have (MZ) report on the most current data we’ve been able to uncover. (MZ)?

  -(MZ) Uh, yeah, uh, basically, it’s mostly what we thought. They lock Area 51 down tighter than Fort Knox, and I mean that literally. One jet in in the morning, one jet out at night, and that’s it. No one else gets near. No wireless going in or out, either. Everything is by wire. Even in the facility, there’s no wireless. All the computers are hard-wired. They do access the internet, but good luck hacking. They’d find you and shoot you in the head before you got in. No cell phones on premises. The only wireless devices are walkie talkies the security use, and that won’t help us much.

  -Uh huh. So essentially all things we already knew.

  -(SRB) Yes, well, it’s still nice to verify the situation. Let’s have (AH) fill us in on their weaponry.

  -(AH) Thank you. Mostly conventional, and relatively sparse for such a high-level facility. It appears that only security has projectile weaponry; they limit the rest of the staff to short-range devices. There are several tactical lasers, although they are large, old-school COIL units, twitchy and difficult to move. Their biggest weapon is geography. It would be exceedingly difficult to get in or out quickly.

  -Interesting. Not possible that they have weaponry we don’t know about?

  -(SRB) Area 51 holds many secrets. It’s always possible they have some bloody alien weapons at their disposal.

  -(General chuckling) Yeah, that’s funny now, but it won’t be so funny if someone gets fried like a quail's egg during an extraction attempt because of faulty info. Not only that, but we only have one shot at this. If we fail, he’ll disappear and we’ll never find him. I can’t speak for the rest of you, but I don’t really want our timetable delayed by twenty years or so. Speaking of eggs, you hologrammers are all over the place, but it’s time for breakfast here. Keep going, I’ll eat and pretend I’m not disgusted with your plan.

  ****

  T he sun was rising in an overcast sky as we reached the outskirts of Brasilia. We walked through an area that Ava told me they called a Favela, which is Portuguese for slum, and it looked like one. Tons of tiny houses and run-down apartments squished together, and they made some of the structures out of plywood and stolen street signs. It reminded me of some areas I had seen in the US, except there the people would have been in tents instead of the little thrown-together shacks. We kind of stood out, an Asian man and blonde teenage girl, so we did our best to walk around the area on our way into the city. It was early, so few people were out, but here and there would be someone who waved and gave us a friendly ‘Obrigado!’ or ‘Bom Dia!’ We had been warned not to walk through areas like this, but maybe because of the early hour, people who might have caused us problems were still sleeping. Lucky so far…

  Eventually we found our way to the edge of the artificial lake, and it was impressively large and clean. Across the expanse was most of the city, modern and colorful, at least from a distance. There were quite a few boats zipping around, even at such an early hour, and about a kilometer to our right was a massive, futuristic suspension bridge spanning the distance across the lake.

  Our plan had been to walk across the bridge to the main part of the city and look for protesters, but we had been walking several hours and Cheri was wearing down. “Hey Lucas, let’s stop just for a minute and get a little something to eat, okay?” she whispered.

  There were little shops and restaurants all along the shore, and we stopped at a tiny house with tables set up in front right next to the great bridge. A strong scent of fish, shrimp, and coffee was in the air; I had to admit that I felt a little hungry too, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten. A middle-aged lady was hustling to bring out bowls of a fish stew to the few locals sitting at the plastic folding tables in front of the house, and two young girls cleared the tables. The lady noticed us standing nearby, and said something in Portuguese, which Ava instantly translated: “Come in, sit, sit.”

  We did as she said, and in moments she stood in front of us. “Look at you, so pretty. You are a lucky guy,” she said, and Ava told me how to reply in Portuguese: “Thank you. The food smells wonderful.”

  “You sit, I bring. Five dollars.”

  She disappeared into the little structure, which must have been nothing but a kitchen, and quickly returned with two bowls of the fish stew and two cups of coffee. I had never tried coffee before, so I took a sip but did not like it at all and couldn’t understand why everyone seemed so crazy about it. The stew was tasty, though, and I actually ate about half of mine as Cheri slurped up every bit.

  “Oh, man, that’s good. Are you going to finish yours?” she mumbled, her mouth still full as she reached across for my bowl.

  We gave the lady ten dollars, and she thanked us, saying, “Please come back, American friends!”

  “How did she know we were American?” I whispered as we walked toward the bridge to wait for a passing bus.

  “Probably our clothes. We might want to find something different. Let’s watch the people on the bus and see what the average people wear here.”

  We walked to a group of people just at the edge of the great bridge, and they waved frantically at a bus as it approached. It screeched to a stop, and the group rushed to enter, appearing not to notice or care when other people pushed or bumped them as they got on. We waited at the back and entered last, paid our fare, and had to stand in the packed front as the bus roared away.

  Hmm… these people dress mostly like Americans, but like from ten years ago, and a lot more colorful… my tank top and shorts blend in okay, but Cheri is wearing all grey… “Cheri, I think it’s you,” I whispered in her ear.

  “It’s okay. It’ll make me stand out when we meet up with whatever protesters or dissidents we can find. Besides, my girlfriend can protect me, right?” she hissed, with a wink at the end.

  We hopped off the bus just on the other side of the bridge and walked toward the gigantic Eixo Monumental, the main thoroughfare through the heart of the city. They set the main part of the city up kind of like a plane or a giant bird, with the Eixo Monumental being the body, and the curving wings are hundreds of residential apartment buildings. All around us people rushed to work in conservative suits, while vendors set up to cook and sell food out of shopping carts and old ladies displayed woven bracelets on pieces of cardboard.

  “Impressive and depressing at the same time, isn’t it?” asked Cheri, and she was right.

  It took about an hour to walk the length of Eixo Monumental, and at the end were the massive government buildings. Ava had shown me images, but it was more impressive to see it live. Ahead loomed the Three Powers Square, with the Congress building, the Presidential Palace, and the Supreme Court building in a row.

  “Okay, here we go,” Cheri whispered. In front of the huge buildings were several hundred people carrying signs and shouting in Portuguese, protesting the incarceration of Monica Kovitski, who they believed was the rightful president but had lost a rigged election. They had imprisoned her for ‘creating social unrest’, and protests had raged ever since. The president, Mr. Leitao, a fiery demagogue and tota
litarian tyrant, had been using the many natural resources of the country to enrich himself and his family while angrily labeling any who opposed him socialists or communists.

  Soldiers surrounded the government buildings, but they didn’t appear to be paying much attention to the protesters. In fact, it almost looked like, although they were standing mostly at attention, that they were sympathetic to the protesters. We were still a few hundred meters away from the huge buildings, too far for a normal person to hear or see much, but I zeroed in on a soldier who seemed to be talking to a small group of demonstrators.

  “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do right now,” the soldier said, his voice low as he patted one of the strikers on the shoulder. “We must have patience. This can’t go on forever. Much of the military is on your side, but no one wants to get killed. We have to wait until the time is right.”

  She looked into his eyes and said, “If this goes on much longer, life will hardly seem worth living, anyway.”

  “I know, I know. Look, if we get orders to clear all of you out, make sure everyone just backs off, okay? We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  I took Cheri by the arm as before and whispered, “Do you see that small group talking to the soldier, right next to the pillar?”

  “Are you kidding? My eyes aren’t telescopes like yours. What about them?”

  “That’s our group. I’ll keep watching them, and we’ll contact them when we get up close.”