“Captain, there is no active surveillance at this time,” ADI reported.
“Okay, guys,” Marc said as he went to the safe and opened it. “We’ve got some nice goodies here to hand out. This stuff is brand new high-tech gear, so keep it confidential.”
“Not a problem,” Liz said.
“First, you have to decide if you want to keep your existing phone or replace it with the new comm. It will mimic whatever UI you have on your phone, and Catie can transfer all your apps.”
“No reason to carry two phones,” Kal said.
“I agree.”
“Good, unlock your phones and give them to Catie. She’ll get them cloned.”
Kal and Liz both handed their phones to Catie.
Catie turned away and focused on the phones. “ADI, clone Kal’s phone first,” she whispered. She accepted the new Bluetooth device prompt, then let ADI do all the work. “Now take care of Liz’s phone.”
After ADI was finished, she turned back to the group. “Here you go. Your old phones are unregistered, you can do whatever you want with them.” She handed Kal and Liz each a new comm unit.
“That was fast,” Liz said.
“We have it automated,” Catie explained. “Now it will register your fingerprint. You can use any finger, so give it all ten,” Catie said, “anywhere on the glass, and you only need to do it once.”
“How do you turn it off?”
“You don’t,” Catie said. “You can put it in airplane mode, or quiet, so it doesn’t ring and bother you, but it’s always on.”
“What about a charger?”
“The battery will last over a week. We have a wireless charger; you should get one of those,” Marc explained. “The computer is super-fast, and the voice recognition is almost perfect. There’s an app on the home screen for you to train it. You should do that right away.”
“Looks just like my old phone,” Kal said, “except it’s just a bit bigger.”
“It’s smaller than my old phone,” Liz said, “but the UI is the same.”
“We have cases for them,” Marc said. “They’re kind of non-slip, and I just leave mine in my pocket unless we’re going to be active, like today. They’re also pretty unbreakable, you can’t even scratch the glass.”
“That is definitely nice,” Liz said. “I’ll take a case so that I have a choice to go without my purse.”
“I’ll take one, too,” Kal added.
Marc handed Liz and Kal each a case and an earwig. “Here you go. Now you put the earwigs into whichever ear you wish. If you press it for three seconds, it will seal to your ear and turn on. Three seconds toggles on or off, and an eight-second hold will make it release from your ear. Like Catie said, it’s all waterproof, so I just take mine out when I want to clean my ear.”
Liz and Kal pushed the earwigs into their ears and looked at Marc expectantly.
“Can you hear me?” Marc whispered.
“Loud and clear,” Liz said. “That is definitely better than anything I’ve used before.”
“It must do some kind of sound leveling,” Kal said, “otherwise Liz would have blasted my eardrum.”
“I hadn’t noticed, but I guess it does,” Marc said.
“Now for the pièce de résistance,” Blake said as he handed each a set of wraparound glasses. “These babies are like a combat pilot’s heads-up display. You use your eyes like a mouse to change the display, answer your phone, etc. Catie will give you a rundown later. They are set to automatically adjust to the ambient light. You can also set them to be reflective or not depending on your mood.”
“Wow, this is some serious tech,” Kal said.
“Nothing but the best,” Blake said. “They even have cameras pointing forward and to the rear, so the comm unit can analyze a three-hundred-sixty-degree view. They will sort of bond to your head and hair if you press on them here above the nose. Three seconds to attach, three to let go. So, you don’t need to worry about a lanyard.”
“Wow, that’s way better than we had in Iraq,” Kal said. “Where do you get this stuff?”
“Another one of those things we’re not ready to share right now. Suffice it to say it’s experimental but very rugged, but it does take some getting used to.”
“You’ll pick it up right away,” Blake said. “Especially you, Liz, since you’re already used to a HUD. Also, I had mine set to camera-only during our exercise. That means they’re opaque, and all I can see is the video projected on the lenses. That way, it compensates for my missing eye, eliminating the blind spot I would normally have.”
“Oh baby, come to papa,” Kal said as he put his on. “Cool, so how do I activate the menu?”
“You focus on the choice you want, then blink,” Catie said. “If you double blink, they’ll bring up options, just like a mouse.”
“Oh man, and you say you can make them show video?” Kal asked.
“Yeah, you can watch a movie on them,” Blake said.
“Even in three-D,” Catie added.
“I definitely could have used these in Iraq,” Kal said. “I’d probably still have my legs and be some kind of general even.”
“They are super cool. We can do some practice and games to get better,” Catie said. “Dad really needs to practice more.”
“Some of us actually have work to do,” Marc said as he gave Catie a light tap on the back of the head.
“Okay, so for next week, we focus on using the comm. I’m not sure we can handle much more.”
“Well, you can set it to highlight in red where it hears a noise or detects movement,” Catie added. “I had that on during paintball.”
“Is that how you caught those guys?” Kal asked.
“I saw them at the same time,” Catie said. “Maybe a second later. But being able to tell Dad to help, made the difference.”
“It sure did. Okay, when can we meet to do some practice before the next paintball exercise?”
“How about tomorrow afternoon? That way you two can get comfortable with them before we meet here.”
“You can meet early with me,” Catie said. “That way Dad and Uncle Blake can work on getting things ready for Antigua.”
“Okay, we’ll see you here at one o’clock,” Liz said. “We do an hour with Catie, then we can do team practice after.”
“It’s a plan.”
◆ ◆ ◆
On Saturday morning, Catie convinced her father to introduce the surveillance pucks to the team. She pointed out they could slide them into the room and get a full three-hundred-sixty-degree view without having to expose anyone to fire. Since it was consistent with the capabilities of the wraparound specs, Marc didn’t see how it would compromise anything they weren’t already sharing, so he agreed.
Sunday, Liz came over and spent the day with Catie while Marc and Blake got the Mea Huli on her way to Antigua. Liz spent some time teaching Catie a few Krav Maga moves while Catie helped Liz get more comfortable with the comm gear.
◆ ◆ ◆
On Monday, they all met up again at the paintball arena. With their new tech, Kal had upgraded them to Advanced. Expert was the only higher level, but they were still a new team, so he didn’t want to push their luck too much.
The operator led them to the arena entrance. “Okay, these guys are the A-team of the advanced group. They specifically asked for you after hearing from the team you guys took out Friday. Like before, they’re already dug in, you get three extra lives. Let’s see if you can come back clean this time,” he added with a smirk.
“We’ll try our best,” Kal said.
“Okay, a quick review. Call signs are just our first names, except for Catie, you okay with Cat?” Kal said. “We like to keep it to one syllable.”
“Fine by me,” Catie replied. She had her game face on; Marc had never seen her look so grown up.
“Okay, and I guess Marc will answer to Dad as well,” Kal added.
That gave everybody a chuckle. “As long as she doesn’t call me Pops
,” Marc said, getting another laugh from the group.
“Okay, same as before,” Kal continued, “except Blake will slide a puck in when we get to a room or new corridor. Catie, you recover the puck once everything is clear.”
Blake, Liz, and Marc had each programmed their HUDs to give them a view of the room for ten seconds after the puck went in. Then it would fade the view out so they could see normally, but still be able to pull it back up. Catie and Kal were back-cover, so they didn’t want to be distracted by what was going on in the room. They had added a menu item to their HUDs so they could bring up the puck’s view with a flick of their eyes.
They entered the first hallway after the puck showed it clear. Like yesterday, there were three rooms, but unlike yesterday, there weren’t any doors on the rooms. They quickly cleared the three rooms, the puck showing each of them was completely empty. No furniture or doors.
“I don’t like no doors,” Kal said over the comm.
“Me either. You figure they have a barricade set up?”
“Exactly, probably one on each end of the corridor when we get to the T.”
“What should we do?”
“We’ll go check it out and then make a plan,” Kal said.
The team followed Blake down to the T. He slid a puck out into the hallway. It was exactly what Kal had expected. About ten feet down each branch, there was a door propped up as a barricade with the opponents crouched down behind it.
“Damn, that’s going to be hard to crack,” Kal said.
“What are our options?”
“We can try lobbing paintballs over the barricade or bouncing them off the ceiling. They’ve made one mistake. The doors are completely horizontal, so it doesn’t do much to cover something coming at a high angle or arc.”
“Okay, so we start lobbing paintballs, then what?” Marc asked.
“We charge them and hope we take them out before they recover,” Kal said.
Catie was holding her hand up, almost doing a dance as she tried to get Kal’s attention.
“Okay, Cat, what are you thinking?”
“Let me show you,” Catie said. “Dad, give me your rifle.”
Marc handed Catie his rifle. She held it in her right hand, with her rifle in her left hand. Then she walked up to Marc’s left side. “UP!”
Marc looked at her a little shocked then shrugged his shoulders. When she was little, he used to raise her up by putting his hand under her butt and lifting her. It was a favorite thing for her to demand at parades, and anywhere a little kid had trouble getting a view. But this time she was asking him to pick her up backward. He bent down and put his hand out. Catie sat on his palm and texted, “UP.”
As Marc started to lift, Catie hopped up. He continued lifting her, thankful for the bounce. She was a lot heavier than the seven-year-old he’d last lifted. Catie wrapped her legs around Marc’s arm and she leaned back, and extended both rifles. “On full auto, I should be able to get a few. They’re looking at the floor or just above it. They’ll never see me.”
“Looks like a plan,” Liz said, “but set her down first.”
“How good are you going to be with your right hand?” Kal asked.
“She’s ambidextrous,” Marc said.
Liz had pulled off her four-X1 paintball harness and removed two Velcro straps. “Let’s stabilize these rifles.” She wrapped a Velcro strap around the stock and Catie’s forearm for each rifle. “Now, Cat, you go paint ‘em blue.”
“Okay, Marc, raise her up again. Slide her into the hall slowly, we’ll watch the puck sensor and tell you if you need to hurry. Cat, you have the hall up on your HUD?”
“Yes,” Catie replied.
“Let’s do this. Blake and Liz cover left and right; poke your rifle in to create a bit of a distraction, but be ready to charge in and cover Cat.”
“Roger.”
Marc raised Catie up, and she leaned back. She kept the rifles crossed over her chest so she could immediately deploy them once her shoulders were into the hallway.
“Easy, easy. You’re still good,” Kal called out as he watched the surveillance feed from the puck. “You’re weapons free.”
Catie extended the rifles and pulled both triggers at the same time. The rifles were on full auto and started dropping paintballs on the guys behind the barricade.
“Go, Go, Go,” Kal called out. Blake and Liz jumped into the hall, each turning to their assigned barricade. They ran along the edge of the hallway. When they came to the barricade, they each found two paint-covered opponents glaring at them.
“I’ve got two,” Blake whispered.
“Same here,” Liz said.
“So that leaves one bad guy,” Kal said as he entered the hallway looking each way. “Any thoughts?”
Marc let Catie down, and she walked over and picked the puck up. “We’re still missing one door,” she added.
“They’ve got one guy as a backstop in case we got by the first group. Okay, we’ll go left first. Really watch our backs, this guy could be waiting for us to move so he can sneak up on us.”
“Should we take the doors with us?” Marc asked.
“I don’t think so. We can always come back for them, but they’d be awkward to carry, so let’s just keep them in mind. Lay them flat, so we’ll have plenty of time if we see someone trying to sneak up and use them.”
“Gotcha.”
The team worked their way down the left hallway. There were two rooms they had to clear first, but both were empty. When they got to the turn in the hallway, Blake signaled a stop.
“I’m thinking he’s going to be behind this corner,” Blake said.
“I agree, slide the puck out,” Kal said.
Blake slid the puck into the hallway.
“Oh, that’s clever,” Kal said with a whistle.
“What?” Catie asked. She wasn’t looking at the puck feed since she was covering their backs.
“He’s got that third door sitting on top of two partially open doors. They make a Vee, which gives him stability, and he’s lying on top so he can catch us coming around the corner.”
“Should I go up again?” Catie asked.
“No, I don’t think that would work this time. Besides, I think all we have to do is start lobbing paintballs at him. He seems to think we would be coming around the corner without looking too much. Even with just a mirror, we’d have him. The puck makes him a sitting duck.”
“Okay, Marc and Liz, you’re up. Liz, you go high, Marc, you go low, keep your heads back.”
“Kal, do you want to take my place? You were complaining about not getting to shoot anyone. Besides, I’m sure you’re a better shot.”
“Sure, you help Catie cover our rear.”
“Why, there’s only the one guy?”
“First rule of combat is never trust anything, not even your own intel.”
“Roger that,” Liz said.
“Here, this will help,” Blake said as he stuck a surveillance puck on the wall so that it was sticking about two inches into the hallway. “Use that with your HUD, it’ll help you line up the shots.”
Marc lay down, but let Kal take the first few shots. It only took him three tries before he managed to catch the guy with a paintball right on his helmet.
“That makes five,” Kal called out. “Anyone else still up?”
“No, we were only five,” the guy on the door called out. “Good shot.”
“Thanks. Nice traps you guys set up.”
“How did you guys get by the first barricades?”
“We’ve got someone light enough to lift,” Kal said, pointing at Catie. “So same principle as your door there. Shoot from above where nobody’s looking.”
The operator walked up to the group while they were talking. “Hey, I’ve got some ticked off customers who say you’re cheating,” he said.
“How are we cheating?” Kal asked.
“They said you have some device you’re using to get an edge. Apparently, you slid it i
nto the hall before you took them out.”
“I’m amazed that a crack team would be distracted by a hockey puck,” Kal said as he held out a surveillance puck. “What they should really think about is mirrors,” he added, as he pulled a mirror from a pocket in his combat vest. “I would think anyone playing at the advanced level would be carrying one.”
The fifth guy laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s probably Bill complaining. He hates to lose, especially when it was his plan. You’re right, we carry mirrors,” he said. “By the way, my name is Aaron.” He extended his hand and shook with Kal.
“I’m Kal, and this is Blake, Liz, Marc, and our gymnast is Catie. Call sign Cat.”
“Like Cat Woman,” Aaron said. “I like that. Ron, they played well. Don’t let Bill confuse you. Doesn’t matter what tech is, you have to plan for everything, and Bill’s plan didn’t cover Cat here.”
“She’s our secret weapon,” Kal said.
Catie smiled at the praise.
“Anyway, see ya around,” Aaron said as he headed off.
“Hey, you guys have to put the doors back on,” Ron yelled.
“I’ll take care of it,” Aaron hollered over his shoulder.
Ron looked at the MacKenzie team. “No paint this time either.”
“You did tell us not to mess them up,” Blake laughed. “We try to do our best.”
“You guys are going to have a price on your heads now.”
“What’s that mean?” Marc asked, not looking happy at the comment.
“They’ll form up an A-team picking the best of the best to take you on, then they’ll bet on everything from the number of survivors, to how many paintballs they use.”
“Tell them to bring it on,” Kal said.
◆ ◆ ◆
The third match happened on Thursday. They had been asked to come and meet with the opposition before the competition. They arrived thirty minutes early.
“Hey guys,” Aaron said. “Surprised to see me?”
“I guess not,” Kal said. “So, what do you want to talk about?”
“Just wanted to review the rules and see if you agree.”
“Sure, what’s the deal?”
“We get six people, and you guys don’t get any extra lives.”
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