Specter Protocol

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Chow time was over, and the base’s staff resumed their duties for the evening, running patrols near the airfield, examining the barbed-wired fence, or chatting when things got boring. The RW’s AIs became part of the many objects Ray’s glasses listed as vulnerable targets to his apps. He saw what the RW duo could see on his laptop’s screen, and that included what their HUDs displayed, optical scans, and facial scanned profiles. And if Ray was feeling bold, he could hijack the RWs cyberware so long as their AI was offline. Their car shook slightly when the snowy and blustery conditions outside picked in intensity. The drive back would not be a smooth one.

  An emergency had the base’s staff on edge. Ray couldn’t gain the full details on why, other than it happened during their car ride over while he had put his laptop away, having grown bored of watching the base’s staff eat and chat.

  As a result, the RW duo’s patrol put them inside the facility, making security checks of its halls, brightening empty rooms with their flashlights, and ensuring they were clear of hostiles. They approached a large sliding door, larger than the other doors seen in the base. If Ray were to guess, it was used to move bulky objects through rather than just the base’s staff. The duo entered. Ray’s vision underwent a transformation triggered by what they saw.

  He was in Arianna’s body again, dressed in a lab coat. She stood in the Indonesia jungle facility run by Zhang Industries, and a trail of dead men and women lay behind her. A lone mind-controlled lab worker carried out her will when she demanded it. The Arianna in his vision took a glance at what Zhang was developing, the weapon. The weapon with its blueprints, and other related data, were buried deep in Ray’s brain. The layout of the lab Arianna was in, like its equipment and computers, bore a strikingly similar resemblance to the one the two RWs walked into as part of their patrol route, seen from his laptop’s screen—

  “Malaka!”

  Ray shook his head clear of the vision. He was himself again. “What?”

  Theo was looking back at him from his seat upfront on the passenger’s side. “You blanked out for a minute. You okay, bro?” Ray nodded and Theo pointed to the base off in the distance, his index finger hovering near the TEK suited patrols searching the flaming remains of other TEK suits. “Got a plan for them? Or any idea what happened to the base?”

  Ray faced his laptop’s screen, and his hands typed across its keyboard and moved its mouse. He activated a communication sniffer program. He doubted it could intercept and decode military-grade communication channels, but it was worth a shot. He paused halfway through loading the program. The RW’s duo AI picked up telepathic brainwave activity.

  Ray grimaced. “Fuck.”

  “That’s a no,” Theo snorted.

  “No, something else,” Ray said and returned to the RW’s data feed. Since the virus corrupted the AIs of the two RWs, it could not send the warning Ray intercepted. “There are telepaths nearby.”

  Bashiir and Theo faced one another. And then both faces were on Ray. “How close?” Bashiir asked.

  “Close enough for the patrolling RW’s AI to pick it up and not alert them thanks to my virus.” Ray took a long look at his laptop’s screen. The RWs made their rounds throughout the base and were oblivious to the fact telepathic IWs were nearby. The TEK suited patrols outside were unaware as well from what he could see. “Yoshida doesn’t recruit IWs, not even into their private military.”

  “Maybe they did since that avatar project shit is Yoshida’s doing,” Theo said.

  “Or maybe…” Ray accessed a map of the area. The Port of Alaska was off to the west. “Maybe our IW friends from overseas aren’t dead yet. I think someone attacked the base when we were driving here. Get ready you two. Things are about to become interesting.”

  Thirty-Three

  Miyuki

  Porter, Brown, and Wu were the last Specters that armed themselves by pulling their snow-dusted plasma rifles from the lifeless hands of the remaining TEK suit patrols. Serge dashed ahead through the growing snowstorm’s blowing winds. He stopped near the body of a dead TEK suited soldier and lowered himself while running his tablet above the smoldering wreckage of the TEK suit like it was a hand scanner. Yanmei didn’t seem to care and ordered Miyuki and the rest of the Specter team to the base’s central building.

  “Hold on,” Serge said. “His suit’s still linked to their network.”

  Yanmei stopped to look back and eye him. “And?”

  “And.” The screen on Serge’s tablet pulsed. Miyuki saw what looked like a download completed message flash on it. He stood and joined the Specters on the march to the building. “I got his command codes. Should be able to bypass a few Yoshida PMC security protocols.”

  At the building’s main entrance, Serge located a computer terminal mounted to the wall beside the sliding door. He jacked his tablet into it, fiddled with the touch screen display for two minutes and then jacked it out.

  The gates slid open. Yanmei took point and entered, the rest followed with their weapons ready, and their steps silent. The gates shut behind, silencing the howls of the arctic winds. Miyuki hoped searching the base would take several hours, the heat from the base’s interior was blissful. The warm air restored feeling to her numb hands.

  Yanmei stopped the group, one fist raised up. Someone was coming amidst the sounds of the alert sirens ringing. The Specters needed to take cover. They did by ghostwalking. Serge, however, couldn’t since he was human. He ran to a corner near the closest four-way intersection in the halls, tablet in one hand, a pistol in the other.

  “Two RWs,” Yanmei said, pointing down the hall. “Down there.”

  “Oh boy,” Serge said, and brought his tablet to his face. “She’s right; I see ‘em on the cameras.”

  “Proceed with extreme caution,” Yanmei said, taking point again, rifle raised for action. “If their AI senses our MEP, or telepathy from ghostwalking, they can and will block us.”

  Brown snorted. “Only temporarily until our AI counters.”

  “Which could take hours,” Yanmei said. “An RW only needs seconds to kill you if they catch you in an ambush.”

  They were on the move again, plasma rifles powered and ready, exploring the halls of a military base they had no right to be in, risking a war if the Alliance knew where they came from, all while fearing the two patrolling RWs.

  “Eh, not like they’d ever ambush us, right?” Serge whispered. “It ain’t like you Specters can use mind control or any of that junk.”

  “We make them sense us the way we want them to, remember?” Yanmei whispered back. “They can’t see or hear us because we’re in their heads. If the RW AI blocks us, we will become visible to them—”

  The twin patrolling RWs spun, looking back at the group. Serge dashed out of sight once again using the walls at the nearest four-way intersection to cover behind. Miyuki and the Specters, not so much. The patrol caught them out in the open. She wondered which of the team would get hit by a nanite swarm first.

  The RWs continued their patrol. They took no action against the Specters, not even when they parted to the sides and allowed them to move forward.

  Miyuki lowered her plasma rifle. “They didn’t see us.”

  “Strange,” Yanmei said. “Their AI should have detected us by now.”

  When the RWs were out of visual and hearing range of Serge he rejoined the group, waving his tablet. “I think I know why,” he said. Yanmei stood with him as he showed her the screen, pointing a finger at diagrams and numbers from his app. “Their AI’s been compromised by malware. According to this, they’re both vulnerable to cyberattacks.”

  Yanmei grinned, her face still looking at the tablet. She looked at him holding the grin. “Someone hacked them.”

  Serge shrugged. “Not sure, RW hacking is bloody hard. You’d need to have access to Yoshida source codes for that and get lucky with the AI not blocking you or its nanites—”

  “Partington.” Yanmei blurted, her words strong enough to make the team stop a
nd look at her.

  Serge made another shrug. “Meh, long shot really.”

  “It has to be,” Yanmei said. “Who else knew about this place?”

  “One of the other ETG hackers maybe,” he said. “But only Ray Partington was gung-ho about learning about it. Everyone else didn’t care… so yeah, maybe he did show up after all.” They continued through the halls of the base. Serge’s head shifted about, eyeing the architecture of the place. “But where in the hell is the bugger? Why compromise ‘em, then not do anything?”

  “Perhaps he’s moving in now.” Yanmei pointed at Liu, Saito, and Nakamura. “You three, search for Ray Partington.”

  Saito nodded. “Roger.”

  Yanmei pointed at the remaining team members. “The rest of you return outside and give me a sitrep on what the rest of the base is doing.”

  Nguyen confirmed. “Roger.”

  The Specters dispersed, vanishing into the base’s dimly lit halls. It was Miyuki, Serge, and Yanmei now left to venture through the interior. The three stopped when they approached its central chamber. Massive sliding doors big enough to drive a vehicle through halted their stroll. Serge hacked the doors open, and bright light from the chamber beyond shined upon them. The chamber was a lab. It had various computers lining the walls, and glass tubes beside them with naked bodies floating within. They all stepped in, their boots echoing with each step as their spooked gazes never looked away from the sights around. At the far end of the lab lay an inoperative TEK suit with bits of its wires and internal gears exposed. The suit was under construction.

  This sight of the suit had Yanmei smiling. She gave a nod to Serge, sending him off to one computer. A tap through one of his apps and he hacked into it. He placed his tablet on the desk before him, stretched his fingers, and worked its console, bringing up files and logs on the computer’s screen.

  “Holy shit,” Serge said, looking away from the computer screen. His eyes met the incomplete TEK suit. “This is it.”

  Miyuki looked at the TEK suit, tilted her head to the left, puzzled. “What’s it?”

  “Zhang built a facility in the jungles of Indonesia,” Yanmei said, walking circles around the TEK suit. “Inside was a lab that resembled this. Then Yoshida sent in one of their avatars and destroyed it, stealing its secrets.”

  Miyuki winced, her eyes never leaving the incomplete TEK suit. “Is this what my brother was here for?”

  “I guess so,” Yanmei said. “I assume his mission was to prevent the avatar from delivering the intel to Yoshida, intel that Zhang was building this suit. What happened afterward is speculation.”

  “I’m tellin’ you,” Serge cut in. “Partington was dating the avatar, Arianna Kounias. She gave him the secrets of Zhang before disappearing.”

  “Well whatever happened looks like Yoshida got a hold of it, somehow,” Yanmei said. “Yoshida built this lab to reconstruct what Zhang was developing.”

  “Not somehow,” Serge said, tapping the computer he hacked. “According to this, Yoshida found a memory sphere Partington had after they lost track of him. It held a portion of the data stolen from Zhang, including early designs of what was being constructed in Indonesia.”

  Yanmei laughed, still facing the TEK suit. “Is that so?”

  “Aye. So, like I said, I was right. Ray Partington started posting stuff on his blog, suggesting he knew what was going on. He got the intel from Arianna Kounias, the avatar. That must be why Nobuo caused all the shit in the Alliance. He was looking for Partington when he couldn’t find Kounias.”

  “The tables have turned,” Yanmei sneered. “Smith, destroy the data.”

  “You got it.” Serge paused. “Don’t you want a copy of it at least?”

  “And if you’re captured or your data is stolen, then what?” Yanmei said. “We have the prototype suit now. That’s all that matters now. Don’t be like Partington and walk around with data Yoshida, or others, will kill you for.”

  Miyuki and Yanmei were standing shoulder to shoulder while Serge faced the computer, both his hands were interacting with its terminal. Zhang’s secret project in the Indonesian jungle was a TEK suit, and it made little sense to Miyuki. TEK suits weren’t secret. The Alliance made them standard for their military, as did the Federation, New Soviet Union, and private military companies like the ones Yoshida and Zhang owned. The prototype suit ahead, with several parts missing, was different. In what way she didn’t know other than it got her brother killed trying to reacquire its blueprints and bring it back to the Federation in an act that was to be a great gift for Miyuki.

  Regardless, the discovery warmed her heart. She found what her brother couldn’t. She was finishing his work. Why he had to take back the prototype, and who he was working for was still a mystery, one she was now a step closer to finishing. Someone in Zhang Industries knew why, and perhaps they’d be kind of enough to tell her when the Specters present the prototype back to them.

  Miyuki looked at Yanmei. “We should return it to Zhang.”

  “Of course,” Yanmei said, reaching forward to unplug the prototype’s power cables from its testbed. “Smith, any ideas on getting this out?”

  “Eh.” Serge scratched his head, face colored blue from the computer’s screen. He fingered a map he brought up on the screen a minute later. “Best I see here is the launch pad outside. There’s a short-range shuttle parked, it's used to transfer supplies to the base.”

  “Can we fit this inside?” Yanmei asked gesturing to the TEK suit.

  Serge glanced at it, and then back at the screen now displaying the stats of the idle shuttle. “It’ll be cramped but doable.”

  “Can’t we take it back to the Kobayashi?” Miyuki asked.

  “By now, someone figured out what’s happened to it,” Yanmei said shaking her head. “That shuttle’s our only means back to the Federation.”

  “Yeah, no,” Serge interjected. “That shuttle’s an STS, Short-range Transport. It’ll be a bloody miracle if it made it to Hawaii, even when fully fueled.”

  “Then pray for a miracle.” Yanmei picked up the prototype suit. It had to have weighed hundreds of pounds, but she slung it over her shoulder like it was a small child, the cyberware parts in her arms whirled. “Guide us to the launch pad—”

  The lab’s doors opened, and it wasn’t by one of them opening it.

  Serge, Yanmei, and Miyuki spun around in unison, facing the open door. Two individuals stood ahead of it.

  It was the RW patrol. Miyuki and Yanmei weren’t ghostwalking.

  Yanmei dropped the prototype suit. It hit the floor with a loud thud. All three spread out and covered behind computer workstations amidst the raging rifles the two RWs held and sprayed into the lab. Computers sparked and caught fire, while the walls were perforated with holes. Yanmei returned fire first. The RWs retreated behind the walls separating the halls from the lab next to the door, one on each side. Blasts from Yanmei’s plasma rifle vaporized holes in it.

  Miyuki added her rifle’s power to the fray, hoping to hit them in their cover. Not having to reload felt nice. She held the trigger longer. Then the rifle stopped working, its lights and screen powered down, the battery spent. The downside to energy weapons. And there wasn’t a single fresh battery in sight, nor the time to plug it into a recharge station. It forced Miyuki to reach for her rifle, the one she left outside… out of reach. Miyuki drew her pistol instead.

  The RW on the left peeked from his cover behind the half-melted wall. His rifle pointed at Yanmei. The muzzle flashed, and it forced her to keep low. They pinned Yanmei down. Miyuki gripped her gun, stood, acquired a target, and fired. She hit the RW twice in the face. He kept shooting away.

  “Shit!” She looked at her firearm. Nothing seemed wrong, yet she shot him twice, and nothing happened. Twice.

  “It’s Defense Matrix,” Yanmei yelled from the computer station she hid behind. “Don’t waste ammo with that, use your energy rifle.”

  Miyuki covered again, her back pressing again
st the console. “It’s out!”

  “Your rifle then.”

  “Left it…” Her voice lowered. The feeling of embarrassment was too much.

  “Arg!” Yanmei raged and returned fire when the RWs covered to reload.

  The RWs returned shooting, seconds later. Like her, Yoshida outfitted the RWs with cyberware. Reloading a rifle could be performed in a snap. She had no choice but to keep shooting, hoping each bullet weakened their impenetrable Defense Matrix. Miyuki emptied a whole clip into one. He just staggered, and returned fire, this time at her. She got his attention.

  Yanmei and Serge had only one RW to deal with now. Miyuki ejected the clip and went to reload. She sprang up to take aim, then lowered the weapon. One of the RWs unleashed a flood of nanites into the lab. Her heartbeat increased. Who was the target of the nanites? They were dead if it hit.

  The swarm turned for Miyuki. She was the target. She had seconds to live. She shot into the air, her finger pulling the trigger rapidly, hoping a stray and lucky hit might take out a few nanites before they entered her torso. It didn’t work, all she did was empty a clip into nothing. The swarm surrounded her.

  “Miyuki!” Yanmei cried out.

  She wanted to cry for help as her hands flailed trying to fight off the swarms of nanites entering her head. Her skin crawled as if someone dumped billions of ants on her, ants that entered inside her with malicious intent. Her HUD went haywire, flicking on and off, alerting her of rising temperatures. Incinerate was about to start. Every particle in her body was spinning faster by force to make her burst into grisly flames—

  Something pushed her to the floor. That something held her down. And then something long and painful penetrated her left shoulder. She looked to see what it was. It was a long needle and following it she saw it came from Yanmei’s wrist who kneeled overtop her.

  Her HUD reported new information, her status was returning to normal. A friendly target had deployed nanites into her and eliminated the hostile ones. Yanmei stood up, pulling the needle from Miyuki. She’d say thanks, but a new nanite swarm arrived. Yanmei was the target of the RWs now.