While the light from the unlucky warship in orbit hadn't been able to make it through the clouds, the shot from an anti-orbital railgun certainly did. The recoil was immense, I had to remind myself the facility was built to withstand it.
The dust that had scarcely settled when it was blasted back into the sky, a concentric cloud howling as it expanded across the surface. The Martian atmosphere proved no impediment to the thirty kilo tungsten rod, one that let the spaceships above know, in no uncertain terms, that having the high ground was far from everything.
I wasn't sure how long it would take, but several seconds later, the effect was obvious. The dim red sun had just threatened to rise, yet, for a brief instant, was supplanted by a brand new sibling, the actinic blue light prompting my visor to dim itself even from this safe distance. Plasma expanded, whirling along artificial magnetic field lines before discharging itself as arcs of true lighting that made the skies quake.
"Machina? Why are we still here?" I asked nervously. Surely a retaliation was imminent.
"So we can shoot some more?" He said glibly. I shook my head, and debated making a run for it on foot if only that didn't mean I'd just die tired.
The sheer heat from the current had melted even the powerful superconductor in the rails, Machina had supercharged it ridiculously past tolerance for its critical magnetic field. Likely the reason that the ships above hadn't paid us too much heed, they'd trusted their defenses to deal with it. Normally you'd need dozens of rounds for the effect we'd had with one.
The facility still came with spares, and before the metal had cooled, a new lining was inserted, and then the railgun boomed again.
And again.
And again.
"Okay, we should make ourselves scarce." Machina told me. I mildly embarrassed myself by sprinting out, only to be left waiting as he approached at a sedate pace.
I don't know what gave him the confidence, but he was right, because the Patriots and I managed to clear the facility by a good few kilometers before another deity fired back. The impact sent our hulking craft a good few feet off the ground, and my tailbone wasn't happy about it. The only person who was, was Raul, because a squealing Florette had bounced up and landed on his lap, wrapping her hands around him in her fright.
He had a schoolboy's grin on his face that was immediately dispelled when the snake in her voluminous hair hissed at him and reared its fangs. I fucking knew there was a snake, I told you. Still, he was a brave man indeed, only gulping and staring adoringly at Florette till she gently removed her arms and sat back down in her seat.
I was growing to like these people. I didn't like that. We were allies of convenience, and I dreaded the moment I might have to turn on them, or they me.
Still, I didn't express my feelings, the mood inside was ebullient, all cheers and high fives, and NCOs turning their gaze away as the men broke out flasks of liquor.
Did they think it would all be this easy?
"How the fuck did you know they wouldn't blow us up immediately?" I asked Machina.
"I spread FUD. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I had a line to one of the ships, managing to crack security on an unsecured transmitter. I had the "AI" broadcast a distress signal saying it was being compromised by Prometheus, and for the next few seconds, every other ship in orbit was too busy firing at it to care about us."
"Fucking hell dude. Have you got no chill? How many ships did you knock out?" I asked in awe. Remind me to kill him first, if I even could.
"Four. Three from direct hits, and the rest fragged their own fleetmate. I'm sorry, but if you're looking for chill, Frost is right there." He told me, pointing at the back.
I suspected the cheeky bastard was lying about not having a sense of humor, but for all I knew, some AI in the circlet was feeding him the lines.
"Anyway, that trick won't work again, not unless the "hijacked" ship opens fire first".
I wish I could tell you that we saw burning ships falling out of orbit, trailing a comet's worth of vaporized metal as they crashed into the surface. Well, that didn't happen, because things in orbit tend to stay in orbit, especially when they get nudged from below. Orbital dynamics, look it up.
It was a very pretty light show, so we'll both need to settle for that.
Since about a million radars and other sensors were hunting for us, we drove into one of the dearly departed Silt's tunnels, descending at grossly unsafe speeds into the bowels of the earth Mars. This tunnel was clearly not up to spec, because I jumped multiple times at the sound of crumpling metal as we scraped off bits of our roof at the tighter segments.
Did Mars have a building code? I'll have to look that up myself.
"Dr. Sen, we've organized transport for you as planned. Are you sure this is the mission for you?" Raul asked me. He seemed to have warmed to me, a little, but whether that was because I'd proven my dedication in battle, or because I had stoically resisted more of Florette's flirting in front of him, I'll let you judge.
I stepped out into the spacious cavern, looking at my ride.
"This might sound hypocritical of me, but I don't want to kill friendlies if I can help it. I'm going to turn myself in, and I'm pretty certain I can make it to the UN fleet. Then, I hope it goes as planned." I told them.
"That's character development, I'll give you that. Could you have done it before you killed my people?" He asked haughtily.
I shrugged. "BULWARK has a time traveler I can borrow? If not, no."
For the record, they didn't, nor did anyone else we knew about. It seemed that for all the seemingly arbitrary and capricious tricks that metahuman powers could perform, resetting the past wasn't one of them. You should be grateful, keeping track of parallel timelines is a PITA even for someone with an augmented brain like me.
I shook hands with Machina and Frost, declining Beacon's offer because I strongly suspected it was just a deniable way of leaving me with a nasty burn. He didn't seem put out about it. I saluted Raul, perhaps a relic of our mutual time in the military, and to my mild surprise, he returned it. I let Florette peck me on the cheek, content in knowing that I probably had the right antivenom on hand, and then got into my little car as we parted ways.
I slept on the drive, had a snack, and listened to the abominable tunes someone had downloaded in a playlist before giving up and tuning into something my own lace played back in my brain.
Miles of endless tunnels passed by uneventfully, I was practically hypnotized. There were no cave-ins along the route, so I emerged several hundred kilometers away, not too far from Moshowitz.
To say the place was worse for wear was an understatement, it seemed Sanders had set off that nuke after all.
I clenched my ass-cheeks as the vehicle gave up on finding a road and took me cross-country for a good while, till we ended up on Martian Highway 19. It was deserted for good this time, not even automated haulers to be seen.
I arrived at the charming town of Minas Tirith, true-scale props and decor both out of place because of their presence on Mars as well as due to the absence of anyone to appreciate them. I stepped out of my vehicle after donning a new environment suit and managed to do a few laps beneath Saruman's tower, before a USMA patrol's drone spotted me. It flew before me, seemingly eager to kill, but after a quick scan found no weapons on my immediate person, it hovered above, likely calling for backup. Another one of those blasted Crafter toys that masqueraded as good old fashioned AI, far too alive.
The patrol followed shortly, I refrained from dimming my visor as overly powerful flashlights shone in my face, and I did my best to seem like I had nothing unusual to report as the Grey Men trudged over.
"Dr. Adat Sen? You were reported MIA two days ago." The leader asked me. His visor was opaque and featureless, the same bland grey as the rest of his suit.
"I've had a few adventures along the way, but as you can see, I'm alive, and I have important information to report." I let a great deal of the weariness I felt leak into my words. He seemed unmoved.
"Standby. Echo Actual, this is Osprey 1-1, we've found a HVT in Minas. Orders?" He was kind enough to let me hear him.
"Acknowledged. Sir, we're bringing you in. Anything to report?"
"I have weapons in the vehicle. I took them off the Patriots I killed."
He stopped for a moment to process that, likely speaking over personal comms with his handlers. "That's fine sir. I assume there's nothing that's autonomous or dangerous?"
"They're firearms soldier, they're supposed to be dangerous."
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Now, unlike Machina, this guy wasn't pretending to not have a sense of humor.
The next MRAP was as cramped as ever, but I was used to it at this point. Cyborg legs made it a lot easier to bear.
I spent the journey being debriefed by some CIA spook, a distant relation to Sanders, and just about as only here for business and not pleasure.
My story wasn't airtight, but it was close. It helped that there was a dead body in the back of my car, bullet holes and all, with a biometric ID that matched with a known Patriot. Half Chimera's work and half mine, though my contributions were the bullet holes. It had been extremely disconcerting to shoot the human drone, for all that it was a blank slate under his control. It had put up no resistance as I put round after round into, only dropping dead when Chimera told it to.
To paraphrase a very long and a little fake story, I'd left Sanders and run with Riley, ending up at a house that, unbeknownst to me, belonged to the same Patriots I was running from. They'd tried to bag me, hit me with a Parrot, but I broke free and killed them, finding the gear upon their persons as well as plenty of juicy data. Then I stole a car and drove here as fast as I could, using tunnels they'd uploaded into the autonav.
The best lies have a dollop of truth in them for flavor.
My lace corroborated all this, painstaking deepfakes helped hold up to thorough scrutiny, once again courtesy of Machina.
Then I was back at New Washington, the place clearly unheeding of evacuation orders, even if the civilians were only under curfew. The Firmament was past dying and now outright rotting, massive grey flakes gently drifting down like I was a mouse in a snowglobe. I could see more signs of violence, paint fresh on the streets. More Grey Men and shimmering cloaked drones stalked the empty streets, and my decision to abandon my US citizenship all those years ago seemed prescient. We'd even debated moving to Mars, it was what all the cool kids were doing.
Administrator Shen was waiting for me in the lobby of a hotel far more upscale than what UNSEEN had booked on my behalf. The halls were deserted, luggage scattered around and no drones in sight to pick them up.
He looked like I felt, to the extent that a person who happens to be a complete cyborg barring cerebral life support could look like he was ready to keel over.
His paintjob had taken a beating during the last nuclear blast we'd shared, and now, it was accented with bullet holes. Amateurs, I hoped it wasn't some fool with the sudden urge to join the Patriots, but not in time to get sufficient training. To take a clanker like him down, you needed something much bigger and meaner.
"Sen. Is what you said true?" His voice boomed, resonating in the abandoned lobby.
"You're looking at me, don't I look worse for wear?" I replied, noticing a guard closing a door in the face of a curious hotel concierge. You'd think they'd use robots, but this place was fancy.
"Admittedly so. I am sorry, for what it's worth. Consider this an apology on behalf of me, Wallace and Sanders. She didn't make it." He informed me as we walked towards a conference room.
Here, there was real activity, over-caffeinated interns running around like their hair was on fire. The more experienced staffers were taking it easier, they had the grim fatality of people who knew their efforts weren't making a difference.
"It means a lot to me. I suspected Sanders was dead, she took a nuclear football into the hornet's nest. But if you didn't know, there are more Centauri Warforms out there."
He nodded his gigantic head. "Not news to me, if only you'd reached civilization a day ago. It's bad out there Adat, we've lost men we can't replace, critical infrastructure is down, and now Turing has convinced Chang to divert most of our forces in a fruitless wild goose chase for the rogue Centaur AI. We need them right here, if the Patriots attack in force, I'm afraid New Washington won't hold."
"Surely it's not that bad?"
"Worse. I had a member of my own staff try and kill me. They're everywhere, sleeper agents that we can't catch. We lost power to a bomb hidden weeks ago, had to call the military back in to hook us up to a portable fusion plant. I don't trust my own men, and that's not a position I ever wanted to end up in."
"What's Chang telling you?"
"I'm well beneath the notice of the President, thankfully. But the Secretary of Colonial Affairs has been having conniptions, and I have about a million conflicting directives to wrangle. Reclaim popular support, she says. Stamp out the sympathizers while you're at it, suspend Habeas Corpus if you need to. Bloody hell, if it's gotten to this point, why don't they hand over the colonies on a silver platter?"
It spoke to where they were at that he spoke so freely about his bosses. They had bigger things to handle than his kvetching. Maybe he didn't expect to live long enough to see punishment.
I felt bad for the man, he seemed like a good person doing his very best to make the most of a terrible situation. I hoped he felt the same about me.
"Cali? Tex? China and India? Euros?"
"One at a time, please. To sum it up, everyone's been less than helpful. I wonder why nobody is rushing to help the Federal United States.."
The sarcasm was thick even with his usual deadpan, especially when he used the deprecated name.
"Nothing?"
"No, they have their own optics, they can't do precisely nothing. Instead, citing multilateral concerns, they've handed their forces over to the UN, who are doing precisely nothing with them. When this is over, I'm going to resign and go back to Earth."
Jesus. I thought my week had gone poorly.
"OK, last question, I'm really out of the loop. Turing?"
"Fucking Turing. They come in, shit the bed, make the sheets over it and look at me like they want my unreserved praise. I told you they've diverted most of my troops, and now they're doing such a number on our comms that I can barely get through to anyone outside Hellas. I found out about the rebellion in Solace Fields only after the Patriots took the town hall and police station. Anyway, they've stopped being so nice when they saw I can't help them. They've got spooks on the ground, like this fine lady here, and then a Kill Star in orbit." He gestured at a woman I could have mistaken for a statue. She was rigid, her eyes covered by wraparound shades. She stank of ozone, something was channeling her, and it wasn't as gentle as Purple.
"Turing apologizes. We have our mandate, and we must fulfill it." She said, not shifting an inch except for the working of her jaw.
"Fuck Turing! What are you even doing here, you literally pissed your pants an hour back! Just, just fucking leave, before you shit them next."
Yeah, he was angry. The more sensitive interns ran away as soon as they could, his voice too loud by far.
"Turing apologizes, but Agent Yglesias is to remain. You may present your case to the Oversight Board via the approved channels if you wish."
A giant metal finger flipped her the bird, and he took me into a room that had clearly been hastily turned into an office.
"I've forwarded your request to the UN, we're putting you on a shuttle in a hour. It's my turn to apologize again, we have none free a moment sooner."
"It's alright. Is the hotel bar still stocked-"
A Grey Man kicked the door open, it was lucky for me that Shen was in the way. A man's weight in walnut bounced off him, not even budging him an inch.
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"On your knees! Hands where I can see them."
I fought every instinct to bolt, maybe jump out the window and hope the twelve story fall wasn't too bad in Martian gravity. Wouldn't have worked, there was a big fuck off drone outside, the cloaking disengaged, and gun pointed straight at me.
Another line of Grey Men were stacked up behind the first, guns leveled at my face. This brought back memories, painful ones. It had been faceless fucks like these who'd snatched me when I'd gone to visit my parents in DC, dragged me to their little blacksite and then worked me over till Anjana turned herself in.
Yes, that anger was well and truly back, and it was a testament to the importance of my mission that I restrained myself. I probably couldn't have taken all of them in a disadvantageous fight, not without the gear waiting for me with all the other luggage below.
"Shen, what's going on?" I looked confused more than anything else.
"Administrator, please step aside. He's a military grade cyborg and a serious risk to your safety." Another featureless man stated. In the background, the Turing Agent had slowly turned around to look at me, her crotch still damp.
"I have had enough. In case you didn't notice, I'm a fucking military cyborg too. I can handle myself, and I remind you that in Hellas, I'm the one in charge. Explain yourselves."
Most of the Grey Men didn't move a muscle, still locked on to me. One at the back stepped up and transferred data to Shen with a cable, clearly not trusting the local networks.
"Are you shitting me?" He sounded incredulous.
I did my best to look cool, and succeeded in both senses of the word. If they had bioscanners, they would see a perfectly normal heartbeat, albeit mildly elevated, not the palpitations I'd be having if my systems were less robust. Sweat, skin conductance, everything was within range for a career UN bureaucrat confused about the whole affair.
How the fuck did they know? A mole? Why would the Patriots betray me? Lumen? Bulwark? Clairvoyants?"
I kept my hands raised and didn't shift at all. What was I looking at? Court martial? Gitmo? No, they'd have shot me if they could. My position as a UN representative gave me some claim to due process. I hoped I'd get a lawyer with powers, and ideally not end up in front of Xiao.
I'm sorry Anjana. I did this for you.
Shen had locked himself stable as he processed the data, before pivoting his entire upper torso at the waist to face me.
"Is it true? Adat?"
"I'd like to know the allegations first, and then have a lawyer assigned please. Even an AI will do."
"Money laundering? Counterfeiting?"
Record scratch.
"What the fuck?" I didn't have to fake it.
"Sir, there's no error, it's been triple checked. The FTL comms were down because of Turing-"
"Turing apologizes for the inconvenience" A dull voice said.
"-so it came over snail mail. Order was put out 3.5 minutes ago, 05:43 EST. He's on the Special Circumstances list, Immediate Liquidation list, the Un-American-"
Shen shushed the man by rapping him on the visor, forcing him to step back. "This your idea of a joke, Sergeant? You're accusing Sen of, what's this, fabricating more money than exists on Earth? No, the entire Solar System? It says here the crime was committed 3.5 minutes ago, or rather an hour if you count from commit to ledger. I can assure you, Sen has been in our custody for far longer."
The Grey Man seemed flustered. "We double checked, the order is valid. I need to request that you step aside, sir."
"No."
"Sir, this is a matter of national security-"
"I said no, Sergeant. Sen has more important things to do than play along with your malarkey. He's just provided critical information on the Patriots and BULWARK, and if the Secretary wishes to take it up with me, I've got a time slot open before the next comms package. You're under my orders, Sergeant, and I declare that he's boarding the next shuttle. Wait, you have a shuttle held up for you don't you? Not anymore you don't. Sen, I'll see you out."
I almost smelled the smoke coming out of the anonymous Sergeant's ears, and the gears losing teeth as they ground against each other, the unstoppable motive force stuck on the immovable object that was a direct command from Administrator Shen.
"You didn't do it, did you?" Shen asked me as he kept his word by walking me to the shuttle bay.
"Of course not! What the absolute fuck, money laundering? Maybe jaywalking and driving without a license after I killed that Patriot. You could put me down for Grand Theft Auto if you like." I informed him.
He laughed, full throated, or at least making good use of his speakers.
"I don't really care. If it's true, I'll try and put in a word for you with Chang, for a pardon. I'm sure there's been some error, they must have meant like two hundred thousand or something, maybe you skipped something during your account setup. But that much? They're having a giggle."
He clapped me on the back, aiming to be gentle, and since I wasn't knocked off my feet, I accepted it.
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, Administrator. If you're ever looking for a new job, UNSEEN is hiring. But then again, if you see the salary, you might understand why I laundered the money." I winked at him, before waving farewell and taking my seat as the space plane spooled up atmospheric engines.
Yeah. He wasn't a bad guy. Shame he wasn't a better judge of character, then his intern wouldn't have shot him, and I'd be in jail.
Money laundering? Eh, he's probably right, just another glitch in the convoluted USDC system. I'm just a traitor.