by John Conroe
“And you’re here to…” I asked.
“To thank you, AJ. Thank you for saving my family and me,” Astrid said quickly before Trinity could answer.
“Anytime, Trid,” I said. “Anytime.”
She smiled at my use of my old nickname for her. It was mostly that unless she pissed me off. Then I just called her Ass.
“That’s Astrid’s reason for being here. I tagged along because I want you to reconsider coming on the show,” Trinity said. “I’ll beg if I have to.”
I became the center of a whole lot of eyes, watching my reaction. Three times before, I had shut her down. I stalled.
“Why were you guys even there? And so early?”
Astrid turned to Trinity, letting her handle the question. “We got a lead on some stuff that was supposedly at the Stock Exchange. Seemed like a quick in and out,” Trinity said.
Lots of really good comebacks to that one popped into my head. I squashed them ruthlessly, on account of, you know, my mom and grandma.
“You still got that exemption to bring non-licensed people into the Zone?” I asked. Mom frowned, the twins looked surprised, and Trinity’s gaze sharpened even further. Astrid looked confused.
“Yes, of course. Why?” Trinity asked.
“Yeah, why?” Mom asked.
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “’Cause General Davis yanked my license to enter the Zone. They’re on to me and I think they’re trying to force me to teach their men what, ah, I do,” I said, looking at my mom.
“What do you mean on to you?” Trinity asked.
I didn’t answer, instead watching Mom. She knew all about Rikki, had, in fact, had been the first to tell me it was okay to use the weapon that killed her husband in order to provide for his family.
“Did you recover your salvage or wasn’t there enough time?” she asked.
“It’s out in the hallway,” I said. Mom was my partner, at least as far as information and money went. She knew all the details of every recovery. She knew that while this payment would be a good one, it wasn’t enough to give us independence. She gave me a slight nod.
“What’s your thought?” I turned to Trinity, who was watching our byplay with absolute fascination.
“I thought we’d interview you about what happened. About everything you did up there in that building. About what you do that no one else seems able to do. But you’re wondering about going in like the guided hunters, right?” Trinity asked, a greedy light coming into her eyes.
“Just an idea. Brad wouldn’t likely go for it,” I said, glancing at Astrid, whose eyes were pretty wide.
“Oh—I don’t know about that. He can be reasonable. What would your role be? Observer?” Trinity said, smiling like she had me in her crosshairs.
“I’d roll out of the LAV partway in and set up overwatch. Like my dad used to.”
That caused a frown to replace the smile. “That didn’t work out so well last time, according to my sources,” Trinity said, glancing at Astrid.
“Yeah, the big baddies started to hold back a bit. It became just the little ones. Not as much threat,” I said with my own smile. “Not as much bounty.”
The frown got deeper. “And now is different?”
“Oh yeah. Lots different. The Spiders have come out to play.”
“We only have your word on that. You didn’t actually kill one for proof.”
“How many times have the drones set traps for salvage crews?” I asked. “ And please don’t tell me that a cable across the road isn’t a trap.”
The answer was none and she knew it. She sat, staring at me, wheels turning.
“Not sure that’s enough proof,” she finally said.
“Okay.”
“Okay? Okay what?” she asked, glancing at my mom, who just stood, arms crossed, face expressionless.
“Okay. You asked, I offered. I can wait. Got a payday from the recovery in the hall. Let’s see what happens the next time one of your crews goes in. Probably hear from General Davis in a week anyway. Maybe it’s time to work as an instructor.” I shrugged.
“Yeah, well, it’s not gonna be me driving,” Astrid said to Trinity. “If AJ says there’s Spiders setting traps, then there’s Spiders setting traps.” She glanced at me and gave me a nod. I nodded back, an indescribable feeling in my chest that she believed me.
Trinity looked dangerously thoughtful. “Would you still consider the interview?”
“Does it pay? Got bills to pay, mouthy debutantes to feed,” I said. Behind Trinity’s back I saw Gabby start to raise her middle finger but Mom’s head swiveled to her and she had to abort mission.
“Oh, it will pay. Let me get back to you on all this. Either this evening or tomorrow morning. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said.
Chapter 9
She got back to me before dinner. Both women were gone by the time I got done showering and cleaning up. My AI announced the email as I sat in my favorite chair, leg up, a bowl of Aama’s dal and a plate of her famous momos in my lap, feeding my face.
Everybody was around, Mom working from home, Aama cooking, and the twins making up homework that one of their friends brought over. Mom lets them stay home from school if I don’t come out of the Zone the previous day. Even if I send in an all okay message, they still won’t be any use in school. We pick on each other mercilessly, but they already lost Dad to the Zone. Losing their big brother is a real worry.
My AI announced the email and I told it to read the quote. The number was kind of ridiculous.
“Is that shacking for real?” Monique asked.
Mom was so shocked, she didn’t even notice the language.
“Wow. Who knew television paid so well,” I said. That much money would do wonders for our family’s FU fund and buy a lot of time for me to get my license back.
“When are you delivering the recovery?” Mom asked.
“I told them tomorrow, mid-morning. They wanted it today but I said I needed rest. Supposed to meet at a coffee place a couple of blocks from here.”
Mom raised her eyebrow.
“I’ll get a ride if my ankle’s still sha—messed up,”I said, getting a single motherly nod in reply.
“You gonna do it, AJ? The interview?” Monique asked hopefully.
“That much money, how could I not.”
My mom looked conflicted but she didn’t say a word. That single interview was worth as much as my last four trips into the Zone combined. More, even.
The next morning, I had the place to myself. The girls were at school, Mom was out meeting with her boss from the translation company she worked for these days, and Aama was at the market.
“So Zone War has announced an upcoming interview with the sharpshooter. What do you think about that, Jeremy?”
“I think, Lynn, that I’ll be glued to the screen for that interview—like most of the world. As we’ve already discussed, there have been rumors for years of people that entered the Zone on foot, but to actually have one intercede to help the Johnsons and then to escape the drones… well, that story is gonna be intense.”
“The shooter is named Ajaya Gurung,” Lynn said, my high school senior yearbook photo popping up on the wall screen behind and between the two talking heads. “We know this because of this piece here—"
Anyone who had ever watched the Zone War show would immediately recognize the inside of the Johnson Recovery armored vehicle, which was apparently in motion.
“Who? Who the hell was that?” Martin Johnson asked. He looked like he might barf.
“Has to be Ajaya, Mart. You said yourself that you saw him enter a couple of hours before we did. Plus, who else shoots like that,” JJ said, frowning.
“He doesn’t like us enough to help,” Martin protested, still looking like he could spew at any moment.
Brad moved behind him, up toward the driver’s section, where the back of a blonde female head could be seen. Brad looked pissy, or maybe just extra pissy. Hard to tell.
“Correction. He doesn’t like most of us. There’s one of us that he likes a great deal, aye little sister?” JJ said.
Astrid gave him a real quick glare over her shoulder, then went back to concentrating on her driving.
“That was pretty sophisticated shooting, JJ,” Brad Johnson said, frowning.
“Do you remember Vermont, Dad? He was what? Nine? He cleared the range you set up faster than anyone, including his own father,” JJ said. “Pissed me off big time, but you said it yourself. He’s a natural. Got a gift.”
“That was shooting .22 rifles, JJ,” Brad said. “Big difference.”
“And he’s now twenty, same as Astrid. And we know he shoots .338. Those were heavy rounds to do that much damage. No way was that a 7.62.”
The camera pulled back as the video segment froze.
“So they know him. And it makes sense. Brad Johnson’s first salvage company was called Johnson Gurung. His partner was Baburam Gurung, ex-British special forces whose specialty was… sniping. Baburam was killed in the Zone two years ago, his body brought out by his only son, Ajaya. Which makes him one of the few people whose body was ever retrieved from the Zone,” Lynn, the blonde news anchor, said. “But let’s talk about that shooting. As our consulting expert, Jeremy, talk to us about the shots.”
A holographic image of lower Manhattan popped up on the table between them, zooming down to Broadway with a frozen image of the Johnson LAV caught on the cable between the two tank killers.
“Lynn, we’ve recreated this from the camera footage of the episode itself, plus the enhanced video that the Zone War production staff put out immediately after the live show ended. Here you see the LAV caught on a heavy steel cable between two Russian Tank Killer units. The aerial units are all just approximations, as the action was too fast to be sure of their movements, so just ignore them. The real danger in this situation was always the heavy machine-gun and, to a much lesser degree, the high-output laser.”
“Why, Jeremy? Why not the anti-tank missiles on that one tank killer?”
“The laser would have to burn through the ablative armor on the Johnsons’ LAV, so it wouldn’t be an issue, at least not for a long time. And missiles always need to travel a certain distance before going live. Arming distance, in military vernacular. On anti-armor systems, it is typically somewhere around sixty-five meters. As you can see here, the TKs are both only twenty meters or so away. But here’s the interesting thing, Lynn. Should the LAV driver, Astrid Johnson, get free from the cable and pull back, she’ll only create distance, distance that the tank killer will use when it launches its two remaining missiles.”
“That’s… that’s terrifying. What would they do? How could they have escaped?”
“Well, all that they could do would be to attempt to damage the missiles with their mini-gun before they could be launched at the LAV. So here’s the fascinating part about that overwatch shooting. The sniper takes out the aiming module on the TK heavy machine-gun, instantly degrading its ability to damage the LAV. Then he punches holes in both missile engines, effectively removing that threat, before finally making a shot on that one eight-millimeter cable almost straight down. He did all four shots in a little over six seconds, then had to deal with his own problem, incoming aerial assault drones. Talk about combat pressure.”
“But the floor he was on blew up?”
“Well it certainly blew out, that’s for sure. See all the windows blasting out? And here you can actually see two of the drones getting blown back out of the building.” The hologram zeroed in on the seventeenth floor and zoomed enough to pick out individual drones being thrown backward.
“Back up and freeze video at beginning,” I ordered my AI. “Copy holograph and rotate for head down view.”
A separate window opened up next to the broadcast and showed me a satellite-type view of the same holograph. “Calculate camera angles from production units secured to the LAV hull.”
A set of red lines showed where the cameras could and couldn’t see.
“Place a red X on the Spider’s position on the Customs building per my notes.” A bright red marker showed the seven-legged horror’s position. No camera angle was close enough to pick it up. The Spider had picked a perfect blind spot for its vantage point.
“Save to new file, titled spider. Play broadcast from last point.”
“So this shows us the bomb had plenty of blast and pressure but that power wasn’t directed at damaging the building but more likely at the drones.”
“The sniper set a trap for the drones? How’d he escape?”
“That’s the billion dollar question, Lynn, one I’m dying to find out. My guess… stairwell or maybe inside an elevator car, or perhaps another room on the back side of the floor, but he’d have to be awfully fast to get that far away. Olympic sprinter fast, at least.”
“Jeremy, Congressman Numer has made a statement to the effect that this episode is exactly why salvage should be discontinued and his Zone Reclamation bill be pushed through Congress. What do you think?”
“Lynn, having served our country as an infantry officer with actual combat experience, I would say that the congressman has no idea what he’s asking, or if he does, then he places zero value on human life. His bill would send active military units into the Zone to fight street by street to eliminate the remaining fifteen thousand estimated functional drones. Urban combat is hell. Urban combat against drones of that quality is a bloodbath. Could our military do it? Yes, but at the cost of how many lives? Personally, the reason we didn’t go in right after Drone Night is still just as valid now as then.”
“But what about all those people who lost property and wealth, just leaving it to be salvaged by anyone who goes in? And if you remember, the other part was the drones were supposed to have an active life of five years. Ten years later, they’re still killing people.”
“Do I really have to answer that? Either hire someone to go get the stuff you think is so important or go in yourself. Me, I did three tours for Uncle Sam. I wouldn’t go into the Zone in a tank with aerial support. You saw what I saw. That was an out-and-out trap. Everybody knows someone who died on Drone Night, lost property, or both. Nah, I’d hire this Ajaya to go get it. He’s been successful like no one else.”
“How, Jeremy? How can anyone be so successful in that environment?”
“You’d have to ask him, Lynn. I, for one, can’t wait to find out what he says,”
The footage froze itself. “Thirty-five minutes until scheduled meeting with Zeus Global Finance, Ajaya,” my AI dutifully reminded me.
“Status of email account?”
“Nine thousand, seventy-two emails. Fifty-three percent new salvage requests, twenty-seven percent requesting human remains retrieval or identification, eight percent what might be classified as fan mail, six percent potential hate mail, three percent random dialogue, and three percent spam-slash-phishing.”
Who knew sniper footage made great advertising material?
“You are still responding that we are not taking any new cases at this time?”
“Correct.”
“Please continue on that path. I’m heading to my meeting.” I paused at my next thought. “Also start a private web search for any and all mention of live person sightings in the Zone over the last ten years. Any and all rumors of people actually living in the Zone. Name file Ghost.”