“Negative, sir!”
“No, sir!”
Only Kanoa is missing.
I race down the stairs, scaring the private manning the TOC—another private, wide-eyed and not quite twenty years old. “What alerts have we got?”
“None, sir. Everything’s quiet.”
I cut behind the desk, drop into a chair in front of the TOC, call up the current status of perimeter sensors.
All the sensors are off.
Fuck.
This is exactly how we got through the Apocalypse Forest to hit Thelma Sheridan. “Status listening,” I say to alert the TOC to voice input. “Display angel sight.”
The monitor goes black except for a caption:
C-FHEIT SECURITY DRONE LIVE FEED. CHANNEL: NIGHT VISION. CHANNEL CLOSED.
“We are on our own!” I shout up the stairs. The upper floor rumbles with activity: shuffling feet, the thumping of plastic locker doors, grunts, and soft curses. I spin out of the chair, circle the desk, and sprint to the door. I open it cautiously. Just outside, the night is quiet, but farther off I hear the rumble of a small armada of heavy-duty helicopters, probably Black Hawks.
I close the door and turn around. “Private, I want you to roust everyone on the first floor. You will get them down into the basement within two minutes. Understood?”
Her eyes are wide, her mouth a small round O, but she snaps off a determined “Yes sir!” and runs for the dorm rooms, shouting and banging on the doors.
I look up the stairs to see one of my soldiers—I’m pretty sure it’s Tran—fully rigged, HITR in hand. “We’ve got at least three Black Hawks incoming,” I tell
him. “Get everyone down here. We need to issue heavy weapons—”
The front door opens. I jump out of the way and bring my weapon up, training it on Kanoa as he comes in.
He’s half-dressed like me in trousers and T-shirt. He’s got boots on, but they’re still untied. “What part of ‘unarmed’ do you not understand, Captain?” he barks. “Put that weapon away.”
He stomps across the lobby. I follow on his heels. “Major, we are under attack—”
He catches sight of Tran at the top of the stairs. “What the
fuck
are you doing rigged?”
“Gen-com is down,” I insist. “Bryson’s been compromised.”
“Gen-com is locked down pending the result of an imminent inspection.”
He trots up the stairs. I follow him. We find 7-1 in the hall, rigged and ready.
“Get out of your gear!” Kanoa roars.
“Major, you cannot be accepting Bryson’s communication as a legitimate order.”
He turns to face me, inches away, as the sound of the Black Hawks becomes audible through the insulated walls. Kanoa isn’t any taller than me, but he’s a bigger man all the same, and he’s furious. “We don’t have a choice, Captain. Mr. Helms has relayed a full report on our existence and activities. I just got off the phone with the colonel in charge of the oncoming forces. They are US Army.
Legitimate
army. If we engage, we will be fighting our own. We will be fighting against overwhelming forces in a battle we cannot win.”
He turns again to the soldiers of 7-1 as the Black Hawks’ muted thunder trembles in the walls. “Stand down, all of you. Leave your rig and your weapons in
your quarters. Form up downstairs in uniform only, no armor. Move!”
The hallway empties as my soldiers duck back into their apartments. Kanoa cuts past me, shoves open the door of his own room, and disappears inside. It’s only me and one rigged soldier left in the hall.
“Let’s move, Fadul. You heard the major.”
She lifts off her helmet and looks at me. Not exactly with panic. Call it a desperate suspicion. “What the fuck?” she asks. “Did the Red just cut us loose?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” For damn sure, we’ve been betrayed—by Cory, Bryson, Delphi, or the Red—who knows? “Get out of your rig. Get ready.”
I return to my room and rack my HITR. I get on a jacket and a cap. I don’t think about wearing boots until Kanoa sticks his head in the door. “Footgear!” he shouts.
A minute later we are all downstairs. The TOC is unmanned. Kanoa has gathered the regular army personnel along with 7-1. No one is to stay behind in the building.
“We will report as a unit,” Kanoa informs us. “In good marching order.” He eyes me. “We will obey all orders issued by our superior officers.” He opens the door and leads the way as we exit into the roar of the approaching Black Hawks.
Their lights are on, three blinding white beams focused on the parade ground. I half expect to be gunned down there on the sidewalk, but it doesn’t happen. We march to the flagpole in front of the Cyber Center, where we form up, facing the quad and the oncoming gunships, with 7-1 in the first row and the support personnel behind us.
We brace against the buffeting of the gale-force winds generated by the Black Hawks as they settle to the concrete. Troops pour out. None of them are rigged in dead sisters, but they’re wearing helmets and visors, and they’re armed
with HITRS. They spread out in an arc, facing us. I count twenty-four, everyone with their weapon trained on our formation.
It’s impossible to hear orders over the roar of the engines, so gen-com gets switched on again—a one-way link that allows a gruff male voice to speak directly in my ears. “You were to present yourselves unarmed.”
Of course they’re using standard threat detection to scan for hidden weapons.
Kanoa is on my left. He turns to look at me, but I’m not the one who’s armed. Fadul is standing on my right, staring at the massed troops in front of us. The Black Hawks’ blinding white searchlights are reflected in her eyes and in the sheen of sweat on her cheeks. Her lips are trembling.
I raise my hands slowly, palms out, the gesture of surrender, of no resistance. Then I lean over, put my lips close to her ear so she can hear me. “Give it up.”
She turns to look at me, her eyes wide, the only soldier in 7-1 more fucked up than me. “Why is this happening?” she shouts over the noise. “Why are we going along with it?”
“Give it up or we’re dead.”
“Maybe that’s better.” She starts to reach inside her jacket.
“No!” It’s like I can feel the pressure of twenty-four fingers tightening on triggers. “Remember where you are. This is not the Sahel.” I know what she went through. I’ve felt her hidden scars, thick under my fingers. There are scars in her mind too that no skullnet will ever heal. But tonight we are not facing a mob of untrained teenage irregulars jacked up on speed and hate. “You don’t have a reason to kill any of these soldiers.”
“It’s over for us, Shelley.”
“Only if you’re stupid.”
That earns me an angry glare.
But then she turns her gaze back to the array of weapons directed against us, and she raises her hands into the air.
I feel like I can breathe again.
“Facedown on the concrete,” the voice on gen-com says.
We do it, and then gen-com gets shut down again.
• • • •
Lying prone, my cheek pressed against the concrete, I don’t have a good perspective on the activities around me. I can see a soldier—rank of specialist—a few feet away, with a HITR trained on Fadul. I assume there’s another watching over me with similar focus.
I see other soldiers cautiously entering the barracks, using the muzzle cams on their HITRs to survey the interior before they advance inside. It pisses me off, knowing my room will be searched, my clothes pulled out, my gear, my weapons, and my rig inspected. But there’s bitter satisfaction too, because that’s all they’ll find. There’s nothing personal to me in the barracks. The stuff that defines me is all in the Cloud—videos, photos, music, books, messages—all stored in encrypted files where they can’t get to it.
After a few minutes, the Black Hawks shut down. My guess? The ongoing inspection has turned up no immediate threats, so the ability to make a quick getaway is no longer a priority.
In the relative quiet that follows, we are issued orders by direct voice. “You will not move until your name is called. When your name is called, you will stand up slowly. You will remove your jacket and let it fall to the ground. You will place your hands on your head and await further instruction.”
They call my name first.
“James Shelley.”
I do as instructed. I stand up. I look to my left for Kanoa,
but he’s not there anymore. I get my jacket off, but when I start to put my hands on my head, two MPs step in with new instructions—“Hands behind your back.” Quickly, efficiently, they use padded cuffs to lock my elbows and wrists together. Leg shackles go on next. “About-face.”
I turn, to find that the support personnel have already been taken away. Kanoa is there instead, with his hands behind his back. Maybe he’s cuffed, I can’t tell, but he’s not wearing shackles. He’s standing beside a colonel. Automatic facial recognition identifies him as Colonel Jason L. Abajian, United States Army.
Like his troops, Colonel Abajian wears a desert-brown combat uniform bulked up with chest armor. But his helmet is old-style—no visor, no electronics. He’s wearing farsights, though, with clear lenses. His gaze is fixed on me, his expression an odd mix of annoyance and greed.
If he’s running standard facial recognition, he won’t find my name or the names of anyone else in ETM 7-1. We’ve all been scrubbed from the usual databases. But a custom query that compares my face to a known image of James Shelley will confirm who I am. It takes him a few seconds, but he gets there. “My God, it’s true.” He turns a fierce look on Kanoa. “What did I just step in?”
“You didn’t step in it,” Kanoa says. “You waded in. You’re up to your hips in it.”
The colonel raises a bushy eyebrow above the glittering lens of his farsights. “No, it’s worse than that. Whatever the fuck this operation is that you’re running here, it is
swimming
in bullshit. This is beyond black ops. This is alternate-dimension, voodoo ops. This base is supposed to be
closed
. Will, you are supposed to be dead. I went to your funeral.
“And now here you are, claiming to be in command of ETM Strike Squad 7-1, which does
not
exist. You do
not
belong to anybody.
No one
has stepped up to claim this operation. There is no chain of command. And I am told by those who profess to understand these things that there
is no explanation for your budget
.” He lifts his chin. “Or maybe you funnel that in from another dimension too?”
“I’m not in finance,” Kanoa says. “I just operate on the budget I’m given.” His hands are still behind his back, so he probably is cuffed, but that hasn’t intimidated him. The way he addresses the colonel, it’s obvious they’ve known each other for years. “Damn it, Jason, my people did not have to cooperate with this boondoggle. We did so only out of professional courtesy and regard for the lives of your soldiers. I respectfully request the same courtesy be shown to us in turn. Take the shackles off, and we can talk.”
“We can talk,” Abajian says. He signals the officer in charge of the MPs. “Captain, move the prisoners inside.”
• • • •
We are taken into the Cyber Center, where we’re sorted into separate rooms. Most of the office space has never been occupied or even furnished, so there is no lack of little bare windowless cells. A chair is brought in for me and I’m told to sit, but the cuffs and shackles remain on. Two MPs stay in the room with me, flanking the closed door. They are silent and anonymous behind their black visors, but they’re not rigged—I haven’t seen any soldiers in Colonel Abajian’s operation wearing dead sisters. And perhaps as a gesture of fraternity or professional courtesy or some bullshit like that, they left their HITRs outside and are armed only with service pistols.
I check gen-com, but it’s still shut down, and my overlay still shows a red X with no menu options.
I occupy myself by looking up Colonel Abajian’s
biography in my onboard encyclopedia and confirm that he and Major Kanoa share a similar background in military intelligence.
After only a few minutes, one of the MPs speaks. “Captain Shelley, we’ve received authorization to remove your restraints. If you would stand up, sir.”
I do it. No point in being an asshole—especially when I know Kanoa is trying to negotiate a deal. After the cuffs and shackles come off, I’m asked to sit down again. I do that too. Twenty-one minutes go by.
“If you’ll come with us, sir.”
They escort me to the conference room we use for debriefings. It’s furnished with a rectangular table and ten chairs. Abajian is at the head of the table. He’s removed his helmet, but he’s still wearing his farsights. Kanoa is at his right hand; Cory Helms is at his left.
I read fear in the angle of Cory’s hunched shoulders, guilt in the tentative glance he throws in my direction. Cory was supposed to be on our team, but he went outside the circle. He gave us up. That’s not something I can easily forgive.
Logan is brought in behind me. He freezes when he sees Cory.
“Shit,”
he whispers.
Kanoa says, “Sit down.”
I take the chair at the foot of the table. Logan sits at my left hand. Cory stares down at his laced fingers, hands clenched so tightly they’re white-knuckled.
The MPs close the door, remaining outside in the hall. It’s just the five of us—but Abajian doesn’t appear at all concerned that he’s outnumbered. He leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Gentlemen, Mr. Helms ignited some concern yesterday afternoon with his report—a full report, I should add—on the existence of a rogue militia openly occupying C-FHEIT, which records
show to be a mothballed base.” His gaze fixes on me. “Is this a treasonous organization, Shelley?”
“Not so far, sir.”
Kanoa gives me a dark look, but Abajian nods. “Points for honesty. I’ve reviewed the missions you’ve conducted and I’ll agree they have not been directly treasonous. The fact remains that you are unaffiliated with the United States Army and are operating independently of the chain of command.”
“The official chain of command,” Kanoa says.
“That’s the only one I know about.”
I trade a look with Kanoa. I want to confer with him over gen-com, ask him what he’s already discussed with Abajian, but despite the lack of restraints, we are still prisoners and a private conference is not an option. Kanoa senses my question anyway and answers it aloud, “Colonel Abajian has already been fully informed of our operations.” I can’t help it. I look at Cory. But Kanoa ignores him. “Consider this a debriefing. Speak freely.”