An Eighty Percent Solution

Implement—Phase Four



Back in his underground cell, Tony sat with a hangman’s noose twisting his guts and Vise Grips on his vocal cords.

“…bomb went off at a particularly bad time as the shift change in an operating room caught nearly twice as many heroic medical workers at their post,” said a computer tablet sitting on an old-fashioned maglev table between him and Linc.

“The CEO of Colonization Unlimited, the parent company of Mercy Hospital, insists the perpetrators will be caught and punished.” Linc leaned back in his disposable chair with half a grin.

The picture on the solido tablet panned across the blackened chairs, walls torn in half, and a melted desktop. A woman cradled her bloody arm to her chest, ignoring the fact that it no longer connected to the rest of her body. Two small children of indeterminate sex, wrapped tightly in one another’s arms, shuffled along through the gray rubble with blank stares on their face.

“This kind of barbarism isn’t a form of warfare, but rather large-scale murder. None of these victims carried a gun. None of them threatened anyone.” The scene switched to show a morgue, where a row of corpses lay in body bags, and then flipped back to a hospital emergency room, every surface covered in gray dust where people paced or sprawled on the floor, weeping and crying.

A vile taste crept into Tony’s mouth. From never having even struck someone, to a multiple murderer in a single stroke. He regretted eating the soup before Linc picked him up. He regretted it even more when he doubled over and the contents of his stomach ejected from his mouth and nose onto the floor.

“In the end, however, it’s only a matter of time and resources. We’ve increased our private security by seventy-five percent.” The picture snapped to thousands of Pinkertons in shiny-gray riot gear receiving special weapons and instructions. “We will find them. We will try them. We will execute them.”

“To wrap up here, the Green Action Militia has claimed responsibility for a bomb that killed seven and seriously injured twenty-seven in a midmorning bombing of Mercy Hospital. Updates as they arise. This is Cindy Bindle reporting for CNI.”

“Thank you, Cindy. We return you to your regular programming currently in progress…”

Tony wiped his mouth on his sleeve as Linc stopped the solido playback.

“Congratulations. One of the best kill counts we’ve had from such a small device.”



* * *



Brown plastic boxes piled at random acted as impromptu chairs and tables for a loudly debating quorum. Linc, Suet, and eleven others, none bearing any resemblance to the next, sprawled amongst the crates in a loose circle. Sonya sat on the floor in a perfect lotus, her simple white cotton dress loose around her.

“So he lai’ one farging bomb. Anyone can ’o. I say he’s a prob’em.”

“He questioned the orders.”

“He doesn’t know anything about security procedures. Just let him go.”

“Yeah, he’s a corpie. Corpies can’t be trusted.”

“Vape him and let’s get on with our work.”

“How could he possibly have gotten away from the Metros?”

“Yeah, none get away from the peelers unless they are one…”

“Like I said, vape the…”

Sonya’s slowly raised hand stopped all of the discussion cold. In a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “Andrea, did you not go to the police when we first met?” The redhead sitting behind Sonya blushed pink all the way down the v in her blouse. Sonya didn’t even bother to look up at the people in question but rather stared blankly ahead, letting her comments do all her work for her. “And Linc, didn’t you try to blackmail Suet? Jonah, weren’t you a Metro when they framed you for murder?”

“That was—”

“And Beth, didn’t you try for a corporate bounty on Jackson’s head over there? My point is that very few of us started with trust in this organization. Trust must be earned in our business. Mr. Sammis earned his first piece today. And if that isn’t enough, he’s wanted by the Metros. Even if they didn’t post his picture, you know as well as I do that they have him on one of the seventy thousand cameras in that building alone.”

“But he can’t handle the work. He left his tucker in the cell.”

“And Andrew, how long did you retch after you shot Black Charlie?” Andrew squirmed under the full attentions. “How many nights of sleep have each of us lost for some of the horrible things we’re forced to do?”

“What do you possibly see in him, Sonya?” Arthur asked.

Sonya looked at a matronly woman with eyes looking like solid silver balls.

“My run on the nets show skills in first aid, explosives, and a stint with corporate security,” the elderly woman said, not looking at anyone in particular. “His physical prowess alone likely can be honed. He demonstrated leadership, individuality, and creative abilities in solving problems in his work.”

“And, if you haven’t forgotten already, he did save Jasmine before any of this happened to him,” Beth said with empathy dripping from her voice. “He cares.”

“I still say it’s too big a risk.”

“He has a furry.”

“Enough,” Sonya interjected before the discussion fed on itself. “How often have I been wrong? How often has a spy crept within our midst? Why do you think we don’t use the formality of a straitjacketed cell system? You’ve all seen that I know about people. Enough of this,” Sonya said softly. “It serves no purpose. I’ve made my decision as our leader. Unless you wish to proceed to a vote of no confidence, let Tony in. He has a right to be heard and give his voice to this council.” Sonya looked around confidently. Two of the ten looked like they had more to say but chopped it off, in one case with the look of an obstinate child and the other in resignation.

Tony stumbled over the doorsill and staggered against a box that clattered loudly. Several members snickered.

“Sorry,” Tony said pushing the boxes back into place. Sonya stood with a silkiness of movement that belied the bones in her body.

“Welcome, Tony,” Sonya offered warmly, extending her hand. “I’m sorry we couldn’t have started on a friendlier note. I hope you understand.”

Tony’s mind whirled as too many changes hit him one after another. “I do,” he replied, gently taking her hand. Her palm, callused in an unusual way, still felt exactly like a delicate ice sculpture. Impulse took him and he lifted her hand and gently kissed its back.

“Very cavalier of you, sir,” Sonya said only loud enough for Tony to hear. Then, louder, she added, “Let me give you some background.

“I lead our group in something similar to a parliamentary style. Everyone attending has an equal voice in decisions and a simple majority carries. As leader, I can change the decision by executive veto. If I do, the team can bring a vote of no confidence where a two-thirds majority would remove me from leadership.”

“How long have you been leader?”

“Since we began action, twelve years ago,” she understated.

“Oh.” A dramatic pause followed.

“Let me introduce you to the rest of our present team. You know Linc, but you may not know he was a private detective until he made the mistake of taking a domestic abuse case for the wife of a senior Metro officer. He’s had a price on Linc’s head ever since.

“To his right is Suet, who you also know. At the tender age of seven, a couple of corpie teens on a lark took their limousine through the ground neighborhood, shooting anything that moved with flechette guns, including her Nil parents. She learned quickly how to live on the streets. I’ll let her discuss her enhancements when you get a chance to talk to her on your own time.”

Tony waved tentatively at the emerald woman, who didn’t respond or even glance in his direction.

Turning to her right, Sonya pointed to a slight, swarthy man. “As head ranger of Big Basin National Park, Andrew tried to stop the expansion of the San Fransisco development. He put together a team to sabotage the lumber clearing effort. Unfortunately, his number two man was a police mole. Andrew got away only by luck.

“Arthur is the small man to your left. His wife died from a lift car accident because of cost-cutting by megacorp executives. Beth, sitting next to him, was a model until some corporate alchemy went awry.”

Tony looked closely, suddenly realizing why she seemed so familiar. Yes! You used to be the Bingo Condom Girl!”

“That was a long time ago,” she all but purred.

“Ahem.”

“Sorry.”

“Now, Jonah, Frances, and Colin were all Metros.”

Tony looked at the trio in surprise. He hadn’t expected to find ex-Metros in this company.

Sonya smiled briefly and continued. “Jonah, the redhead with the six gazillion freckles, had his partner frame him for murder. Frances and Colin, partners, both tried to be honest cops. You know what happens to those.”

“Tolly,” Sonya went on, offering a hulking blonde Adonis for his consideration, “came to us as a liaison from another social engineering group down under. Things are no better there, but his group disbanded because of internal dissension.

“Martin wishes us to return as much of Earth back to nature as possible. Some would say he has the purest motives. Many of the rest of us are vengeance motivated.

“Christine, to your left, is one of the unusual ones amongst us.” The pretty, unaugmented teen stood less than 150 centimeters tall and massed less than 40 kilos. “Christine is what psychologists call a biological sociopath.” Tony scanned Cristine’s deadpan face and shuddered. “She enjoys killing and has a talent for assassinations. Her loyalty for the group has been tested and is solid, but don’t have sex with her.

“Across from you is Augustine. Tina is our resident icebreaker.” Tony saw a woman who, if you removed the wetwire jack from her temple, looked like someone’s great grandmother with silver orbs for eyes. “She’s on the run from the time she almost got caught breaking into the NaBiCo executive database.”

“I only wanted the Oreo recipe,” she offered, smiling vacantly.

“Andrea,” Sonya went on, pointing at what appeared to be a twelve-year-old girl with the natural flaming-red hair that women would kill to have, “was an exceptional professional thief—”

“I still am.”

“My apologies. She is a gifted thief, until she accidentally left some DNA behind when she lifted a Norman Rockwell from a corpie bigwig.

“Jackson had the misfortune of being the valet for Goldstein of Goldstein, Hammons, Hammons & Funk fame.” Jackson, an older, bookish black man, nodded. “He overheard something he shouldn’t have and reported it to the wrong cop. He escaped only by the skin of his teeth.

“Carl can’t attend tonight but you’ve already met him briefly. Carl had the misfortune of being the victim of a he-said-she-said rape case involving the daughter of a very high-level corpie. That’s bad enough even if you’re a regular slob, worse if you’re a genetically engineered dwarf.

“I guess that sums up our action committee. There are many other members, but they aren’t part of this executive staff. The less you know about those right now, the better.”

“Hello all,” Tony said cheerfully. Silence greeted his wave. “May I ask a question?”

“Yes. Now that you’ve asked it…” Sonya said with a sly grin.

It took Tony just a few moments to realize he was being teased. He smiled back. “If there are support personnel, why did you put me with the action group rather than support?”

“We dug up your background. You know explosives. You know first aid. Both are skills vital to us here on the action side of things.”

“Oh, OK.” Tony leaned up against a nearby post, trying to look comfortable, but his stiffness betrayed him.

“Shall we get down to business?” asked Sonya, taking her eyes off Tony and glancing around the group. “Before we get to the agenda, let me just say the hospital bombing succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. Our hacks uncovered high level corporate communications on how aggrieved they are at their perceived vulnerability. We need to strike again soon to widen that even further.

“Now, we have two items on the agenda: a new safe house and our next target. Linc.”

“Safe house Zulu-Bravo has been set up in the sub-basement of Green’s Supermarket. To enter, go into the produce department and through the service doors. Announce that you’re from Petri Trucking and go down the stairs to the left. The combination to the door is seventeen left, fourteen right, eighty-eight left, and sixty-nine right. Everyone got that?”

“Seventeen, fourteen, eighty-eight, sixty-nine,” Tony muttered.

“And I know you’ll all forget it ten minutes from now, so I’ve created another nano implant. Zulu Bravo.” Linc held up his wrist and it glowed with the combination. “It’ll only trigger on the safe house name, just like the others. I’ll pass around this lick pad. Suet, as usual, yours will show up on your right breast.”

“Thanks, Linc. Anyone found a target in their reconnaissance?” Suet handed a notepad to Sonya.

“Sonya says that the Wintel corporate office building is too well guarded and has a state of the art air displacement scanning facility we haven’t been able to penetrate yet.” Suet nodded.

“We turned up what we thought was a weakness in the OldsTransport sensor net, but it only led to a loading dock. Beyond that, security increased beyond acceptable levels.”

“I have a possible,” Augustine put in. “My team and I stormed an ice list site. In it I found reference to an upper level management training facility in Ohio.”

“That sounds promising,” Sonya said.

“I thought it might. We raided their database last night. Tough security. Two of my people got injured, but nothing serious.

“The good news: The site houses anywhere from fifty to one hundred ten high-level managers training to be executives for any number of corporations.” A collective gasp went round the room. “The bad news is that it’s heavily fortified. The guard force payroll is over a thousand, and we found records for some heavy duty firepower, including mono-flyers, SCAP turrets, and much more.” Another more dejected sound went through the group. “It’s going to take all of us to make this one work, and probably not without a huge cost.”

“Could it be a trap?” Colin asked.

“Doubtful. We hacked some serious ice. I’ve had easier runs into dedicated corp mainframes.”

Sonya looked about the room. “This is almost too good to pass up. Any objections?” The room fell silent. “Let’s move on that, then. Colin, you’re chief of this op. My only requirement is that you include Tony. He must be part of our team.”

“As you will, Sonya.” Colin’s brunette curls bounced lightly as he turned to look at Tony. The steel gray eyes gave no indication of what went on behind them.

“Is there any new business? Yes, Andrew.”

“We’re low on explosives. Frances and I have been working out a plan for a raid on the Hillsboro Metro sub-depot—it has the least security. But that having been said, no plan has shown even a moderate chance of success.”

Tony stuck his hand up.

“Yes, Tony. This isn’t school—you may speak without raising your hand.”

Tony smiled. “Why raid a building when we can have them Fed-Exed to us?”

Everyone exploded almost simultaneously.

“Wha’ ya chomping at?”

“Nonsense. No one ships explosives, it’s too hazardous!”

“Should we just call them up and request them?”

“Why don’t we just invite the Metros to our executive meetings?”

“HOLD!” Sonya’s voice cut through the mass of hubbub with the power of a chainsaw. “Let him speak.”

“I wasn’t kidding. It’s actually shipped in special protective containers. When I worked for Down Put, we used to order our demolition explosives—up to a quarter kilo—and have it shipped overnight, sometimes even couriered.”

“So how in the farg we gonna ge’ them to ship ’o us?”

“We have an ice jockey, don’t we? It shouldn’t be hard at all. We just ship to fictitious demolition companies we inject into their own databases. We use random addresses and make sure we’re there for the pickups. Tenth kilo here, quarter kilo there, fifth kilo elsewhere, and pretty soon you have enough to blow this city off the map.”

Sonya smiled at him.



* * *



“I’m making this report to keep you apprised of the development of phase four,” Nanogate reported quietly to a recording device in his private office, this one decorated in wood and warm earth tones. A real polar bear rug lay at the hearth of a slate fireplace that crackled merrily. The fire was real, but the wood wasn’t.

“The subject was positively identified as the perpetrator of the Mercy Hospital bombing, and an audacious bit of improvisation at the Portland Metro Precinct. The simulations show a near unity chance he’s now ensconced within the ranks of the Green Action Militia. The odds that the GAM killed him, or he committed these acts on his own, are each on the order of one part in ten thousand.

“As a result, we should anticipate an increased tempo of GAM operations with increasing effectiveness. Projections now indicate a fifteen percent increase in losses, plus or minus three percent, before the weapon begins culling the membership.

“This is a full five percent higher than the original projections. However, we didn’t anticipate just how effective this perfect weapon would be.”

Nanogate paused the recording and pressed one of his call buttons. A meticulously dressed butler entered the office space. “You sent for me, sir?”

“Yes, Williams. In five minutes I’d like you to send in the natural redhead I purchased in Cairo.”

“Very good, sir. Should she be attired as usual?”

“No. I don’t feel like being bothered tonight. Nude will be fine.”

“Yes, sir. Will there be anything else?”

“No. Please make the arrangements.” Nanogate waited until his servant closed the door behind him before resuming the recording.

“In spite of the higher than anticipated losses, the project is proceeding down the most likely course to fulfill our desired end result.

“Signed, CEO Nanogate.”

As he shut off the recorder, the door opened almost as if on cue. A young girl edged in, just old enough to have spouted pubic hair and the barest roundness of breast, shaking and as unsteady as a newborn fawn, and wearing less.

“Come over here to the fire, dear. You should be comfortable.”



* * *



A sound like sheet metal being ripped in two reverberated through the abandoned basement. Mold and other less savory materials clung to all but one of the graffiti-covered walls.

“At least aim in the general direction of the target!” Jonah barked through Tony’s ear protectors. “How can you possibly be able to take down muggers with your finger and not even touch a target twice the size of a man at 20 meters with a gauss gun?” Jonah pointed off toward the wall with the big red target. A trio of 30 centimeter circles of scoured clean ceramcrete, 3 meters to the left of the target and not a single one within a meter of the other two, marked Tony’s shots.

“I think it’s because they were always within a meter and I never had to aim,” Tony said sheepishly. At least none of the other GAM members witnessed his lackluster marksmanship. “Just get my finger in the general direction and it blew a hole large enough to never have to worry about aiming.”

“Holy…” Tony watched Jonah’s freckled face go nearly as red as his hair. “I thought you’d be proficient with the gauss. I’ve had raw recruits that never held a gun before do better than that.”

“Sorry, but I wasn’t even good with first-person shooter hologames.”

The redness in Jonah’s face actually increased to a dark maroon. Jonah opened his mouth to say something but closed it unsaid. In fact, he didn’t say a word, but wandered around in circles ignoring Tony for the better part of five minutes.

“OK. We don’t have time to train you from scratch here.” He checked his watch. “The blue bellies could be here as quickly as ten more minutes. We’ll have to put you in the simulator for the basics. And we don’t have the time for even much of that before the op.

“Just for the record, what are you good at?”



* * *



Lightning backlit the floating fortress like a photo negative. Sonya realized they’d picked an exceptional night for their work. Rain poured down from the Ohio sky like some angry water god revisiting a flood upon the earth. The torrents of October rain, barely above freezing itself, scoured through the light dusting of snow, making the earth dark. Floating 10 meters above the ground, the fortress protected a 60 meter triangle of white crystals from the deluge.

Another bright flash in the sky preceded four almost simultaneous crashes that sounded at least a little like nearby thunder, if one wasn’t aware of their more sinister origin.

Sonya activated her wrist countdown timer, marking the best case response from Dayton Metro.

“Sniper Team reports guard towers neutralized. Explosives Team, you’re up,” came Colin’s crisp, businesslike voice over the sub-dermal links. “Assassin Team, prepare.”

Sonya motioned to Tony to take the lead. She wouldn’t let him out of her sight on his first joint mission. She knew his mind and heart were in the right place, but she couldn’t read his abilities the same way. Some things relied on the old fashioned methods—observation and analysis.

Sonya eschewed the multi-spectral night mission contact lenses the rest of the team wore. A few simple mnemonics, and her vision nearly equaled theirs without the technology. She watched as he moved well against the dark, wet ground, even at a dead run. She couldn’t tell if he consciously moved around the noisiest of the puddles or whether it came naturally. Even in a pounding run, Tony’s breath barely showed, even to the enhanced. His feet never slipped underneath him, even in places Sonya found herself taking tiny skids. Through the downpour’s sound, which swallowed up their noise and that of any passing herd of buffalo, Sonya watched Tony’s skills and up-ticked his value.

Sonya followed as Tony dodged to the left of a runoff waterfall twice the width of a bus and into the shadow of the building. In spite of being a hardened guerilla, Sonya sighed in relief from the continuous sheet of rain.

Sonya watched as Tony put a little bit of separation between them, leaving more of their muddy brown footprints in the white façade covering the earth. With 30 meters between them, Tony slapped at the grav belt activation switch and missed. Sonya read the curse that fell from his lips. He didn’t miss the second time, but overcompensated and leapt much too fast into the sky. Before she could radio anything, he modified his ascent to something more reasonable.

Sonya chanted a mnemonic to herself as she traced a single tattoo line down over each shoulder beneath her poncho. Spreading her arms she indulged in a spiral lift-off. For a brief uncharacteristic moment her mission awareness faded. Wind tickled her long lashes and caressed her cheeks. She never lost her joy for flight. She spent nearly a week in the air when her mentor finally beat this skill into her thick skull. She then spent nearly a month recovering.

As Sonya caught up to Tony’s height, her mind reengaged with the deadly mission. They both approached the underside of the floating citadel on either side of the faint golden aura that marked the boundary of two large grav fields impinging on one another and the characteristic ozone smell of the grav drive. She pulled explosives from beneath her poncho as she fought the urge to rub away the tickle in her nose.

Sonya could just make out Tony’s form pressed up against the roof on the other side of the distortion. Immediately, she realized that Murphy had bollixed up their mission. Instead of ballistic steel reinforced ceramcrete, a mesh of interlaced monofilament held the entire fortress like a giant net. Their explosives couldn’t possibly penetrate the monofilament that distributed everything done to it over its entire length.

Sonya tongued for her mic to abort the mission when Tony crawled upside-down in her direction, waving at her. She paused long enough for him to get close.

“Don’t abort. I can still bring this down.”

“How long do you need?”

“Ten to twenty minutes.”

“Too long. The blue suits could be here in twenty-three.”

“Then I’d better make it in ten. Let me get to work.”

Sonya just gave him an odd look. She realized moments later that no one in her team had ever brushed her aside so completely before.

Tonguing her mic she said, “Mission hold. Hold positions.” She watched as Tony, with the proper handling gloves, took three small filaments of the same material as the mesh from his pack and tied them each in a bow, one right atop the other. He then placed a very small bit of explosive on each of the exposed ends and loops.

“Monofilaments distribute all forms of energy at a remarkable speed throughout its entire length and width,” he explained. “I have to create a surge through each of these extra filaments that hits the same point at the same time. If I’m successful, there’ll be too much energy for it to dissipate quickly enough.

“I’ve done it twice before, but never without calculations and computer control,” he said, attaching the last of his bits of explosive. “Move back about 3 meters.”

Backing up himself about a meter, Tony flattened against the building and triggered a remote. A small crack and flash about the same magnitude as a pistol shot resulted. As she crawled up with Tony, Sonya saw he’d severed the junction of two of the monofilaments, their ends straining downward. Between the severed ends stood a 1 centimeter-deep hole in the ceramcrete.

Sonya couldn’t say she saw exactly what happened until Tony described it later one step at a time because now his hands were a blur as he spoke. “We don’t have time to rupture the entire net,” he explained, whipping out his own primed explosives and pulling them apart, a task Sonya would’ve done only with the greatest of care. Tony seemingly cared only about speed.

“So we’re going to have to destroy the grav generator in place,” Tony concluded. He tore open the nearly sealed end of the explosive, throwing the lid away into the dark before ripping the entire assembly out of the case. He squeezed the detonator out of its gelatin capsule, and the capsule from the plastique itself. Packing the box again with the moldable explosive, he hollowed out one corner.

Sonya started to object, because more was always better, but he interrupted her.

“Here, hold this.” He held out the excess explosive putty, wiping it into her open hands. Then he stuck the completed device into the gap in the monofilament web, keeping the open face against the bottom of the citadel with the hollow corner just touching the tiny divot.

“Give me your explosives.” While juggling, upside down, the putty in her hand, Sonya handed the two 25 centimeter cubes over to him.

“I’m building a quartet of shaped charges I hope will be powerful enough to blow directly through to the generator and turn it to slag.”

Sonya watched his hands fly through a repetition of the same motions. Each time the clump of explosives in Sonya’s hand grew larger and each time he stuck the completed box with the hollowed corner at the tiny dimple until, with the final one in place, he ended up with a two-by-two grid of boxes. If they had been one unit the boxes would have a hollow cone-shaped depression in the center.

“Give me back that extra plastique. Now for the hard part.” Tony broke the explosive into four blobs, rolling them into rough spheres. Each one he jammed onto the four farthest corners from one another on the underside of the boxes.

“I hope this works,” Tony said. “Time to make like a drum and beat it.”

Sonya spread her arms and swooped straight down. She beat Tony to the ground by about two seconds as she pulled up hard at her landing. Sonya counted out loud. Out from underneath the building they sprinted, once again covered by the cloudburst. On the count of thirty they both threw themselves into the muck.

She tongued her mic. “Fire in the hole.” Tony looked up enough to toggle his detonator. A flash preceded two sharp gusts of wind and a gout of expanding flame from a half-meter hole. Like a three-legged table with one leg suddenly yanked away, the entire mammoth complex began to tilt downward.

“You did it, Tony.” Sonya checked her timer. Five minutes remained. Not enough time, she thought, but they had to try. “Assassin teams, execute.”

The ponderous structure hadn’t even struck the ground when an even dozen dark-clad figures, in two loose groups, erupted from the mud and muck sprinting toward the falling corner.

Sirens began to wail and klaxons to bellow. “Yell and complain all you want, beast. You took one in the belly and you’re going down,” Tony said as the mass slammed into the ground with enough force to make every one of the assault force bounce almost 5 centimeters off the ground.

Sonya herself rolled during the impact, clogging her nose with mud. She spit and snorted as she watched a 10 meter corner of the platform actually snap off. This alone caused the closest tower to break free of its remaining moorings and continue the fall.

After she cleared her nostrils of the silt, she called out, “Good sim, Augustine. Fell within 3 degrees of your prediction.” Because of this, both the Assassin teams closed safely on either side of its deadly swath.

The platform, now canted at almost fifteen degrees, showed only sporadic areas still with lighting. Electrical shorts of blue-white flared out in random locations. Alarms continued to make useless noise. Loose material still slid around on the unnatural tilt. Sonya could pick up no deliberate movement by any of the internal response teams.

“Sniper Team, switch to covering fire mode.”

The first of the Assassin Team grav jumped up to the top of the first line of wreckage.

“Team lead, we have Dayton response team inbound,” Augustine called over the link. “ETA six minutes. Response team is heavy. Repeat—response team is heavy in Sierra, India, X-ray minutes.”

“Roger, Overlook. Assassin teams, abort. We can’t hold off a heavy weapons squad. All teams fall back to rendezvous point Bravo. Explosives Team will supply retreating cover and extract at Charlie.”

“Overlook en route. Extraction Bravo forty-five. Extraction Charlie ninety.”

“We didn’t get the prize, Tony, but you did well.”



* * *



“The Greenies once again perpetrated an outrage in a cowardly attack on a low-level computer training facility just outside the Ohio town of Fairborn.” The action committee of the GAM sat huddled around the tiny solido projector. From the large “LIVE” at the bottom, the feed presumably showed the listing and broken platform as it appeared right now. It looked different in the daylight. Firefighters helped injured people out of the wreckage as others shored up the rubble to make sure there were no other accidents. A line of ambulances waited off to one side. “The outlaw group butchered sixty-three, and wounded seventeen others.”

“What the fark?”

“Shhh,” several said in unison.

The picture switched to one man wearing the blue coveralls of a computer tech. His face bore red splatters of blood and wept even more from a bandage covering his left eye. “They didn’t even give us a chance. First there was this horrific bang and the world tilted. Next thing we knew, they charged in with flechette rounds flying. I saw one of those bastards fire into my buddy Ron after he put up his hands to surrender.”

“What is he blathering on about?”

“Shhh!”

“If it weren’t for the private security force SecWest,” the announcer continued as the view switched to show the tan and red uniformed gunmen keeping watch over the rescue operations, “the death toll would’ve skyrocketed.”

The screen changed to an overly beautiful reporter questioning one of the SecWest officers, who wore a bandage around his shoulder. Without prompting, he said, “We were only able to apprehend two of the suspects and we were forced to kill four more as they open fired on us even when we had them surrounded.”

“What a load of—”

“Shhh!”

“Captured? Are they barking mad?”

“Will you shut up, too?”

“…of our force lost their lives: Benjamin Anderson, twenty-five, and Celia Pauls, thirty. There will be a memorial in their honor Sunday at noon. At least their devotion to the sanctity of life and their ultimate sacrifice wasn’t in vain.” The view panned briefly to a grav litter, where the sheet pulled back to show what had once been a beautiful woman, now horrifically mutilated and torn apart across the throat. The image flashed back to the officer’s wounded shoulder.

“And what about your injuries?” inquired the reporter.

“Oh, this is nothing but a scratch. Not even worth worrying about. Honor Ben and Celia.”

Someone in the room let out a Bronx cheer.

“…is the security spokesman for WalMaCo, the parent company of the training facility, with a prepared statement.”

“‘This is another case of patience leading to victory. While the Corporate Protection Act of ’24 allows us to try these two villains ourselves, we believe it’s in the better interest of the public to remand them to the custody of the neutral agency of the Dayton Metro Police. In this way everyone can understand just what monsters these terrorists are through due process of law.’”

“I’ll give him terrorists…”

“Will you shut up!”

“…Director Atwell went on to say that the perpetrators were humanely questioned, revealing significant tactical data that may lead to further arrests. In other news…”

The solidoset snapped off with a mental command from Augustine’s implants.

“Well they didn’t cage or vape any of our people, so this cast is make-believe,” Linc said, jumping in again.

“So what? We move on. And keep going. This doesn’t mean anything to us.”

“No way. I go’ peeps insis’ing we’re hur’ing peeps.”

“Who cares,” Andrew said, standing on a crate and waving his hands vehemently. “Let them go to hell in their own way.”

“I have to disagree,” Tony said as he gently stroked the recently reunited Cin as she slept in the crook of his left arm. “This is concentrated propaganda intended to drive the people away from us; make us into enemies of the people instead of their savior.”

“What makes you so special, corpie?”

“Shut up there, Andrea.”

“Tony, you did a right smashing job on that training center.”

“Yup, he sure did. He took just long enough for us not to finish them. Maybe he had friends inside,” Andrea objected.

“Now, Colin, they have the right to whatever opinions of me they want,” Tony offered as nonchalantly as possible.

Sonya finally intervened by standing from her customary lotus. The room fell silent. “I’d like to make two things clear,” she began. “One: as leader of the explosives team I take responsibility for failing that action. Tony worked faster than I thought possible and accomplished more than I’ve ever expected. Had it not been for Tony’s quick thinking and expertise with explosives, we wouldn’t have even brought the training center down.”

Sonya turned and walked away, passing almost through the doorway before Linc spoke up.

“Wait a minute. That’s just one. Second?”

“I’d work with Tony any time against any odds. Any of the rest of you who won’t are idiots.”



* * *



The two static bursts Tony heard in his earpiece meant only one thing, “Patrol.” Nothing could be worse in the middle of a transition move. With no choice he hung by one arm from a ceramcrete cornice one hundred meters high on the outer façade of the NikInc Building while cursing to himself. No longer strapped to his chest, the 2 kilo explosive charge dangled from his left hand.

“I tell you, that girl from the Beaverton mailroom is shooting eyes at you,” came a voice below him. “I say go for it!”

Tony couldn’t move for fear of drawing attention to himself, pattern-mimicking clothing notwithstanding. His mission brief told him the guards carried gauss guns capable of flaying the entire building face to dust with millions of steel slivers. That thought alone gave him a healthy dose of respect.

“Chrissy would castrate me,” the other guard complained.

“She’s been leading you on for months now. She’ll never sign a cohab contract.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t I tell you what she told Cher?”

Tony’s right arm began to throb. Shotgun bursts of air batted against him like a kitten at a ball of fluff at the end of a string. He listened intently as the pair slowly moved around the perimeter of the football-field-sized landing platform.

“Yeah, yeah. That don’t mean nothin’.”

“I tell ya, it ain’t gonna happen. You got a smoke?”

“Sure, but don’t let O’Donnell catch you. You already have two reprimands. One more and you could get sacked.”

“O’Donnell doesn’t worry me. I got the dirt on him. He can make all the noise he wants but he can’t get rough with me.”

Tony could feel every crenellation of the cement digging into his skin. Fatigue rolled through his arm as his body rocked back and forth in the wind. Gritting his teeth gave limited relief.

“I can’t believe that little dance with Candy has made her that gun-shy.”

“I think it had something to do with the fact that you were both dancing on your clothes instead of in them.”

Tony couldn’t wait any longer. He passed back the emergency signal, four quick bursts with his tongue to the mic in the roof of his mouth.

He expected nothing more than Colin to run for his life while Tony tried something equally stupid to escape before betraying his presence. Instead, Colin walked out onto the platform in plain view.

“But it isn’t like we we’re doing—Hey! Who the hell are you?”

Tony didn’t hesitate at this break, quickly sliding the plastiques back to their carrier. Almost in the same motion, he slapped his nanite-coated climbing gloves and shoes against the wall. As designed, the nanites penetrated into impurities and pores in any surface they touched, giving him nearly perfect grip.

“Soy perdido,” came Colin’s perfect Spanish.

“Buddy, I don’t care if you’re lost or not. You stop right now or we’ll cut you in half,” the first guard demanded, training their guns smartly on the intruder.

“¡Arrepentido!”

“You’ll be sorry, all right. Kneel and put your hands behind your head.”

“Si.” A few grunts on the platform later, Tony risked a look back to see one of the security guards using a low-tech fiber-graphite binder on Colin’s wrists as he lay face down on the ground. The second guard stood professionally, 4 meters away, with his weapon trained on the prisoner. Another binder went tightly around each of Colin’s legs, with one loosely between the pair. The best he could hope for was a night of crude physical torture, and Tony couldn’t imagine the worst.

“Up on your feet.”

“Si, jeffe.”

“Walk straight through that door.”

Colin complied, never once attempting to resist. Tony watched in amazement as they walked directly beneath him and disappeared from sight. Nothing in his life had prepared him for someone willing to sacrifice for someone else. Nothing. Every fiber in his body screamed for him to plant the bomb and run. He hesitated, unable to move, his mind adjusting to something completely new.

His tongue flicked the mic on his right molar. “Augustine, I need you to break the security on the electrical hatch to my right. I need it in the next forty seconds.”

“Not asking for much, are you?” the old woman chided from over forty kilometers away.

“Are you going to work or are we going to jaw?”

“Door alarm disabled,” she offered almost immediately over his earpiece. “Paralysis gas and electroshock ice disabled.”

Sweat rolled off Tony’s brow because at Nanogate they wired two manual deterrent systems above those attached to the computer systems—a little tidbit he learned during his brief stint in the Physical Security Division.

Opening the door, Tony crawled into an oval orifice, barely larger than a sleeping capsule, pushing aside bundles of wires and fluid tubes. His eyes and mind focused on looking for traps. The temperature dropped as he belly-walked in. Again, his career broadening assignment paid off. Cooling the tube improved infrared sensor capability, but infrared sensors generated more false alarms than all other parts of a security system combined.

As Tony’s breath clouded the air, he spotted the sensor, right where he’d seen similar devices at Nanogate. Balancing on his elbows, he snapped off three silent shots from his automatic at the sensor three meters away before a tiny arc of electricity announced its demise. Holstering his weapon, he chose to assume security would be similar to what he remembered. In that case, the only boundary yet to deal with would be a nanite stream, a simple group of mindless microscopic robots continuously sampling for foreign DNA. Invisible, but not invincible.

Tony unhooked his Kevlar canteen and began running a thin bead of water on the floor. As he crept slowly forward he watched the water. The stream suddenly took a left turn as if a knife-thick wind blew it. Looking at his watch, Tony sloshed a larger amount of water, pushing the stream forward, breaking it briefly. Three minutes and four seconds later, the stream again interrupted itself for just a moment, letting him know the exact cycle time. Definitely not invincible, he thought.

He poured the entire canteen empty, breaking the stream significantly. Tony also blew on the water, scattering it even further. Precisely 183 seconds later, he scrambled forward as fast as he could. If his legs still lay in the stream, it would only be acknowledged when security of one type or another tied his own wrists with graphite bands. Just ahead another access hatch opened down onto an empty hall.

The 5 meter ceiling height caused an indecorous landing, but with no damage except to his pride. “I’m in,” he sub-vocalized. “Do you know where they’re holding him?”

“I’ve isolated a single room that has no net access, no room monitors, no halon fire suppression and no fire alarm. I’m assuming that’s it. Fifty meters and turn left. Third door on the left.”

The sterile white hallway demanded speed, not stealth, for his special clothing would be of no help here. Tony sprinted down the hall.

“Yup,” he agreed. Spitting out only a few syllables at a time, he managed, “Can’t imagine anything except a closet would be designed that way.”

“It isn’t a closet. Those are clearly marked on the plans. This is called a ‘utility room.’”

“Keep an eye on the alarms.”

“As if I wouldn’t. You pay attention to your job, son. I just disabled the tangle field you were about to run through.”

Tony didn’t have any more breath for chitchat, or to even choke out a thank-you. His breath came in hot, ragged gasps.

“What is your plan, anyway?”

As an answer Tony put the muzzle of his assault weapon against the lock and fired just as he slammed the door with his full body weight. The door exploded inward. Colin struggled, chained to a chair. Two guards wore surprised faces.

During his brief training, Tony’s marksmanship had improved from abysmal to merely awful. His first three shots stitched almost at random across the room, one creasing Colin’s hip and the last flattening against the chest armor of one guard, staggering him backward where he fell flat onto the floor. Colin screamed, falling backward in the chair, lowering his profile.

Tony’s momentum, barely slowed by the door, carried him right over the chest of the downed guard. Tony’s boots elicited crackling noises as he trod over the man’s head. In a classic mistake, Tony fanned his automatic like a death beam, spinning up and to the left with the recoil of the old-fashioned weapon. None of the bullets even came close to his target. The remaining guard, responding quicker than most would to the mayhem, drew his gauss gun and fired a burst, but he misjudged Tony’s headlong speed. Instead of ripping Tony’s head off, the guard’s shot tore a gaping hole in the wall behind his target’s maniacal charge. The guard’s second burst chewed a dinner plate-sized hole in the plaster ahead of Tony as he slammed into the wall with a loud grunt of pain.

One of Tony’s second bursts, wobbly and hurried from his impact, remarkably caught the second guard in the lower thigh between the armor plates and the knee. A second scream reverberated through the room as the he went down. A third cry followed as Colin rolled his chair over on the guard’s injured leg. Tony placed the red laser pointer dot on the man’s forehead and squeezed off the final projectiles of the battle.

Breathing hard, Tony checked the man he’d stumbled over, finding a boot-sized impression rapidly pooling with blood in the corpse’s head.

“You all right, Colin?”

“Good enough to get out of here. Find the cutters.”

With a certain amount of distaste, Tony scavenged through the deceased guards’ pockets before finding a pair of wire cutters.

“You have three alarms going off,” came Augustine’s voice. “Vital function monitors from each of the guards, and environmental alarms on the nanite stream.”

“We’re already on our way out.”

“Don’t tarry. You have less than a minute to clear the building before they lock it down, and you have less than thirty-four seconds before guards erupt all around you.”

“Not a problem.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.”

“By the way, what’s the third alarm,” Tony asked as he ran.

“Explosives detectors. You still have the package.”

It wasn’t conscious thought that grabbed the explosives from his chest, flicked the timer down to as short as it would go and stuck it in the first doorframe he ran past.

Tony thought Colin, even injured, probably set a new unassisted record for speed—less than fifteen seconds later the pair sprinted off the landing platform in a 300 meter base jump.

“Yeehaw!” Colin yelled over the abyss. Behind them a bass roar and gout of flame announced their mission accomplished, if in an unorthodox way.

Their chutes opened barely high enough over the ground to allow them a rough but survivable landing. Other than the quizzical looks of three nearby Nils, nobody noticed or cared. Tony and Colin cut off their chutes and quickly dove down a manhole. The remainder of the escape proved only silent professionalism.



* * *



After two weeks of walking nearly everywhere, Tony missed the comfort of the TriMet. Suet led him off the TriMet at Vancouver Tower. While no civilians moved away from the green warrioress, none actively crowded her either. Her body modification demanded respect.

“Where are we going, now?” Tony asked for about the third time.

“You run your mouth more than anyone I know,” Suet said in mocking tones about an octave above comfortable.

“Talking is one of life’s great—”

A jade-colored tentacle placed itself gently over his lips. “P’ease be quie’.”

Tony contained himself for the better part of the two elevator rides down from the platform by leering at his companion. Unlike the majority of men, Tony never carried a bias against girls who went for permanent body modification, not matter how far it went. Only the end result mattered. Suet’s form curved in and out at just the right places and the right amount. He didn’t care that it had been sculpted rather than grown. Her green emerald shape undulated and swayed just like real living flesh. Who cared that a diamond bit couldn’t drill through it? The tentacles in place of arms cooled his ardor just a bit, but not enough to matter.

Getting off at the thirtieth floor, Suet’s broad hips and natural rhythm forced Tony’s eyes into a pendulum motion as she sashayed along in front of him. Tony nearly walked into her as she stopped abruptly at a door marked 30117. “We’re here,” she announced without fanfare.

“We are? Where is here?”

“Home,” Suet said, using an electronic keycard to gain admittance.

Realizing his sudden lack of attention to anything but his female companion, Tony looked around and did a mental double-take. By United States codes, the thirtieth through fortieth floors were reserved for commercial and retail enterprises. Across the narrow hall from him, a door announced “Hentai Carpet Cleaning,” and the one adjacent to that read “Falcon Pewter Service.”

He shuffled through the door into an open warehouse brightly lit by hanging fluorescent illumination. The lighting didn’t do the room justice. Only the darkness of a morgue would help this place.

The space rose fully two stories high, filthy with dust, mis-sprayed paint, and bare ceramcrete floors bearing the mark of untold equipment dragged and dropped repeatedly. The only walls that marred the boxy space belonged to a tiny bathroom in the far corner.

“Whose home?” His voice echoed in the mostly empty space.

“Yours.”

Tony couldn’t help seeing the cherry on the top of a pile of dung—a nicely appointed full-sized bed occupied the corner near the bathroom, leaving twenty meters of emptiness between. He had been bunking in a comfortable bed in his old cell in one of their quiet underground safe houses. He didn’t see this as a step up.

“You are kidding, right?”

“No. We make some green for you to re’ecora’e,” Suet said, closing the door behind her. She ambled over toward the bathroom and peered in. Tony didn’t need to enter the bathroom to know there’d be decade-long stains ground into all of the fixtures.

“Does the cast of Makeover Thunder come with it?”

“No, but I’m sure others give assis’ance if you ask.” She plopped down on the bed. Tony heard the springs squeak even from the entry. His back gave a sympathy twinge at the thought. “We have a warehouse with sofas and other junk. You can pick and choose and we bring them here.”

Gawking his head in all directions, Tony shambled in. “Are you sure my fairy godmother isn’t a part of this deal?”

Suet ignored the impertinent question. “OK. I have more for you. ’ime for you to become someone e’se.”

“New identity?” he responded absently. “Maybe if I put in a false ceiling below the lighting, do some painting, toss in a few lamps and put up a few walls, I could make this place look a bit less institutional.”

“Your new nom of guerre is An’onio Kars’. Having same firs’ name makes it har’er to mess up.”

“Not a bad idea,” Tony said, still gawking about and visualizing changes.

“Here’s your chip, papers to this p’ace, and some convincing papers of your his’ory; break up papers, union receip’s, passing away papers for your mother, gym membership, and even a no clothes solido of your non-gir’friend. The usua’.

“Augus’ and her peeps scrub’ the memory p’aces an’ threw this junk back in. She’s thorough. No worry abou’ using them.”

Tony came over to the bed and sat down next to the mass of paper and plastic that suddenly redefined his life. “No, I don’t imagine that I do.” Suddenly he felt kinship to the echoing emptiness of the home the GAM gifted him with—everything emptied and ready for a new owner. He just needed to make it a home.

Suet grabbed him with one tentacle and pushed him to his back on the bed. Her lips locked with his almost at the same moment as he hit. Her other tentacle tore open the crotch to his pants.

“What?” he sputtered.

“Park your mouth. Jus’ enjoy,” she whispered into his ear as one of her appendages found its way around his genitals.

Remarkable, one part of his brain thought, it feels soft and silky, not rough like sandpaper.

“You think with all this biowear tha’ I no fee’ your sex?”

“But…”

“Hush up for once, will you?”



Tony hushed.



* * *