Chapter 26
At the edge of the Sprawl and the Badlands, the desert and concrete of Capital city clashed together. Most of the housing units were sand-swept, and few tried to keep up with the intense weathering, instead allowing mother nature’s wrath to play out unimpeded. In the parking lot of a hotel more often used to run guns and house those looking to lie low from CCPD, Jon and Dez sat in her truck patiently with the air on.
They hadn’t been waiting long since Dez didn’t want to broadcast their position if anyone was looking for them. Unfortunately, this cut down on the time Jon could do surveillance on the area and ensure no one else was looking for them. He played the hand they dealt however him and sat with Dez waiting. The plan was simple: get in close, conduct the handoff, and then fall back and link up with his people.
“You’re sure this’ll work?”
“If you mean work as far as making sure it’ll keep the rest of the corporations out of the fighting and keep the CCPD out of it? Yeah. I think.”
“That didn’t sound terribly confident?” Dez said. Her voice tilting upwards uncertain.
He shrugged, wagging his hand side to side. “I’m like 80 percent confident.”
“Okay, and what’s the other 20 percent?”
“Bribes, corruption, and or an overwhelmingly tempting target.”
“That’s fair, I guess,” she said.
“Basically, we use Haltech’s own rules against them. They played this game to legalize every shitty move they want to make. Well, it’s time we make them play by their own rules.”
“We don’t own a company, though? Your closest shot was Roth, and BioPharm steam rolled them.”
“You’re right. We don’t. Not yet, at least.”
This plan was a gambling longshot, and one of his biggest Hail Marys he ever attempted. That, and it hinged on Raven’s decision. She had the veto power with this, and if she used it, that’d force him into a bind. Not an impossible one, but it would put him in a tough spot to decide in.
A few more minutes of waiting passed and a shiny blue sedan pulled into the parking lot. A sleek luxury ride that was all curves and gloss. The door slid out to the side and rotated skyward. A woman in a sleek business suit stepped out with a briefcase. As she got out of her car, Jon matched her movements. Exiting Dez’s truck and smoothing his black long coat out.
“Mr. Knight?”
“One and only,” Jon said.
“I have your paperwork here. Just sign here and please wait.”
Doing as she asked, he set the pen down and glanced at the woman curiously. She wore a navy suit that almost matched her car, and Jon wondered if that was intention. She combed her jet black hair smartly down the right side of her face. She’d shaved the left side of her scalp low, revealing a neural augmentation above the tip of her ear that ran to the back of her head. She stared into space and her eyes turned blue and he realized what was happening. She was a telepresence worker. A moment later, the woman’s gaze focused and turned back to him. The expression looking him back was a perfect imitation of Raven.
“Jon. We don’t have long. The paperwork is all here. Are you sure you want to do this? If you move to Haltech’s corporate tower, or in any other overt way, there’s no coming back from that.”
“Positive. This is the only way to keep everyone else out of it, so we can make it as even as possible. I’m not asking for a win. Just long enough to kick them where it counts.”
The telepresence woman nodded in that same crisp manner that Jon grew accustomed to seeing from Raven and had to catch himself from thinking this woman actually was Raven. No, Raven was just renting her body, so she didn’t have to be here physically. Cracking open the briefcase on the roof of the blue sedan, Raven withdrew an official corporate notice. Skimming over the print, Jon could see this was the declaration that she was nominating him acting executor of the company.
Dez leaned over, squinting as she read what she could see, then glanced up at him and grinned, “You sneaky gringo. I didn’t know you had access to another company.”
“Well, I didn’t think it was smart to reveal until I knew Raven would help. It’s technically hers, I’m just borrowing it to hit Haltech with,” he said.
The telepresence woman nodded to Dez. “Ms. Acevedez, I understand you and yours have agreed to help Jon with his little stunt.”
Dez’ brow perked up. “Well, she’s well informed. I don’t even think I told you my last name.” She gave Jon an impressed look.
“It’s my job to be well informed. I trust your people have made the requisite preparations?” Raven’s stand in said.
“Oh, we’ve got some surprises for those corpo rats,” Dez said with a grin.
Not Raven nodded with a pleased look at Jon. “I trust you’ve done the best you can and wouldn’t be going in if you didn’t think you stood a significant chance.”
“As good as we’ll ever get, at least.”
Not Raven frowned. “I just can’t shake the feeling like this is all just marching to someone else’s beat.”
“Well, Oraclehelix wants me to take a shot at Haltech, and Egorule has been making it damn hard not to want to.”
“Fair. Right. These signatures should mean that under the new law, no other companies can intervene, and it will force the CCPD out of the violence. Though I expect Egorule will try to draw them into it somehow, so extra diligence on the Outriders’ behalf is of course always merited.”
“We’ve got it. Jon’ll hit that tower. Outriders word.”
“Will you be deploying the rest of the GSI crew?”
Not Raven puzzled that over for a moment and nodded. “I debated against it, because of Snyder. But I think you’ll want them on hand. They worked with him closest. And don’t worry, they’ll take orders.”
“What assets do they have?” Jon asked.
Not Raven tilted her head for a moment, no doubt scanning an inventory. “We have an old Toranaga VTOL troop ship, and trucks. Not much since we run a light crew.”
“Prep that airship. I’ll use them as an irregular unit. Having that airship means we can punch them in wherever we want.”
“Wait, what do you mean, punch them in?” Not Raven asked. Hearing the UK accent through someone else’s voice was definitely a new one for Jon.
“Oh? Nothing,” he said. He grinned mischievously and Not Raven wasn’t having any of it.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“What? It worked for them,” Jon pouted.
“You are not crashing my only air support troop ship into the side of that damn tower.”
“Sure. Sure,” Jon said, crossing his fingers behind his back for Dez to see. The latina could not stifle a snort laugh. Not Raven wasn’t oblivious to this and folded her arms.
“Swear to me.”
“How about a very convincing, maybe?”
Not Raven simply stared at him coldly.
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He sighed in return and nodded. “Fine.”
The telepresence woman gave him Raven’s studious expression. “There’s something else,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“You spaced out and had that concerned and thoughtful look. What is it?”
He rubbed his temples, unsure of how much he wanted to go into this. “There’s more to the AI’s. Oraclehelix gave me a piece of soft. From what I can tell, it’s one of the most advanced intrusion viruses I ever laid eyes on.”
He flicked it to Not Raven to inspect. She reached out and turned something invisible around in the air in front of her, her eyes narrowing, then glanced up at him.
“Where did you get this?”
“Like I said, Oracle, the AI that wants me to hit Haltech gave it to me.”
“It’s Chinese make. Built by one of their AIs at a guess. Not sure how your friend in Haltech came across it. But this is one hell of a silver bullet to be fired off. I don’t like, but it’s our best option of getting in and taking Haltech down. With Snyder MIA from GSI and Director Wilson taking a temporary leave of absence, it’s safe to assume you’ll run into them in that tower along with Price.”
“Great. Well, at least I’ll get a chance at payback.”
“Indeed.” Not Raven reached out and hugged him. “This may be the last time we talk, then. As you can see, things are tight. It took a fair amount of negotiating to sort this telepresence model. Good luck in there, and if it all goes well, you’ll see us on the other side of this.”
Not Raven. Then tucked the paperwork back into her briefcase and got back in the car. The blue glow in her eyes dimmed, and the woman’s expression returned as she blinked her eyes several times. She then backed the car out of the parking lot and drove away, leaving Jon and Dez there in the parking lot. Turning to face Dez, her own eyes lit up, and she was nodding. Then glow then faded too, and she apologized, explaining that Alek had called to say that all the preparations were underway.
After Not Raven’s telepresence model left, Jon guided Dez on a tour around Haltech’s main corporate tower. They marked firing positions for Masri’s anti-air elements so they could maintain positive control of the air. Jon didn’t want them tearing his people apart from above. With sufficient coverage mapped out, he made the call for those advance positions to be set up. Those men would be emplaced and staged to fight by the time the main body arrived.
Dez folded her arm in the warm air. The smell of exhaust and cooking vat meat billowed past. She sighed as taking in the sight.
“Kinda like staring down the devil’s castle or something.”
Jon glanced up from where he was kneeling with a nod. “Sauron’s tower.”
“Huh?”
“The eye of Sauron. Big tower in the Lord of the Rings,” he waved at it. “That’s what it reminds me of. The point of all evil.”
“So you think if you tear it down, you can save the world?” Dez said with a smirk.
“Maybe not save it, but slow down its descent into whatever it is we’re plunging into,” he said.
She turned back to the tower, sleek and black. Some of the signage on its sides displayed paid ads for its product lines. Most of it combat hardware of various types. She forced herself to look back at Jon, trying not to dwell on the dark and foreboding spire. “I didn’t take you as such a nerd.”
He looked up from the rooftop, finishing up a cross mark so Masri’s men would know where he wanted them. “Oh, yeah. I read books like it was my job as a kid. Saw all the movies too. Even though it was fiction, Tolkein wrote his books after the first World War, and there’s a lot of that influence in his writing. The way a world comes together to fight back against a spreading dark evil.”
“See? Nerd,” Dez said with a nod.
“Yeah. But this nerd can kick anyone else’s ass.” He stepped onto the roof’s ledge, leaning on his knee as he gazed out at Haltech’s tower. The hustle and bustle of city life ebbing and flowing below them without a care for their presence. “History always grabbed my eye. I’m not sure anyone was ready for the directions we went down, and I haven’t really found any signs that things went this way in the past.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged, the hopelessness of his cause creeping out a little. “Just all of this. How the government is gone in all but name. The way corporations are staging themselves to take over. The way people are just mindless slaves to these massive corporate machines. Just grinding people up and spitting them out with no care for anything but the bottom line. I thought I could try to stop it, but now I guess the best I can hope for is just slowing it down, maybe. I don’t know.”
Dez turned, finally understanding. She couldn’t help but bark out an amused laugh. “You truly are hopeless, Jon. But still. I think that’s what I like about you most. Yeah, you’re out here to burn these assholes to ground for fucking with your friends. But you’re also out here because you still see yourself as the good soldier.”
She wrapped her arms around him, holding close against the backdrop of the Tower they planned to attack soon. The dim glow of the surrounding city pushing back the black velvet of darkness. Jon pulled back, and she didn’t resist. His expression was a thankful one, and she patted his chest.
“Alright soldier boy. We should head back so you can kick this party off.”
“I’m going to make them pay for Sam. For all the bullshit they did. For all the lives they ruined. Especially for mine.”
Jon and Dez loaded back up into the truck and drove back out into the sandy wastes of the badlands. As they drove, the roads deteriorated to where it was mostly just orient yourself where you want to drive. Outriders typically used their own landmarks in the badlands, and once you knew what to look for, navigation was fairly easy.
The designated staging point put them close enough they could move their entire force at top speed and give Haltech as little reaction time as possible. Beyond the solar fields, trash fields, into the wastes, the makeshift fighting force sat in a hasty camp. The Hammer sat centerline with Capital City. To its right, the Outrider vehicles. To the left, the troop transports that would ferry in Masri’s fighters.
Everyone knew their role and what their objective was. Now it was just a matter of marshaling his forces. Jon was no stranger to combat and troop leadership, but for this mission, he needed to run independently of his forces. He used the airship that GSI had as a recon craft to direct his forces and then plan an insertion into the building.
An hour of waiting and the GSI airship began roaring into the distance. The rippling effect of the heat shimmer from its engines gave it a nearly surreal look. The swirls and warping of the horizon brought to mind old school painters and surrealism. Pink and orange waves rippled across the atmosphere, bobbing in the wake of the stout airship on its approach to the LZ.
The airship descended, kicking up a hazy cloud of dust as it did. The Outriders guided it to the designated landing location some distance ahead of the Hammer. The roar of the vtol engines died down as the airship lessened its throttle into an idle position, and the sliding troop door in the middle opened up. A merc with a nametape that read “Winslow” marched down the small ramp of the airship onto the desert floor with a half burned cig in his mouth. The cheery glowed with an inhale for a moment, casting his face in an amber glow in the waning daylight hours. He had a pair of night vision gear cocked back on his head. Standard milspec gear for his kit. Vest and webbing gear, with a tech rifle slung across his back.
“You Knight?” Winslow asked.
“That’s me,” Jon said.
“Raven says yer tha new boss now.”
“Yeah, just for this op. Then she can have it all back.”
Winslow nodded, flicking the cig ashes aside, “So, yer lookin to kick Haltech in the dick, eh?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Alright then, ready to do this?”
Jon turned back to face the forces he amassed. He saw Dez, and Mary standing on top of the Hammer’s cockpit. Alek and the rest of the Outriders who’d volunteered to take part in front of their cars and trucks. Masri and his band of insurgents. So many peoples all gathered together for a single cause. They were here because of him. His fight was their fight.
Taking a last look to review his friends and allies, he gave a hand signal for everyone to mount up and move out. He turned to Winslow. “Let’s get to work.”
Jon followed Winslow up the small set of metal stairs into the GSI airship. Once inside, the stairs withdrew into the hull of the craft as the sliding door rolled shut. Winslow took a seat in the troop racks while Jon worked his way forward to just behind the cockpit, holding onto the leather loops hanging from the red lit interior of the craft. He swayed from side to side as the craft rose from the ground. The progressive increase in the whine of the jet engines mounted stern and aft of the craft, angling to keep the thrust vectored at the ground until it rose to the pilot’s desired height.
Below on the ground, the Hammer surged forward, flanked by the Outriders and Masri’s men. As the formation of vehicles picked up speed, the Outriders outpaced the Hammer and Masri’s trucks. He nodded confidently, having factored that into his assessment. Looking up, he watched as Capital City grew in the distance quickly. The glass and steel towers cutting into the sky like artificial teeth growing from the base of the city.
As the sand and grit of the badlands slowly gave way to the concrete and metal of the sprawl, the roads emerged from beneath the shifting sands. The convoy of vehicles fell into single file. It was time to broadcast the message. Now that they were inside the city limits, Jon’s signal came back. He uploaded his pre-recorded declaration.
“My name is Jonathan Knight. I’m the acting CEO of Global Security Incorporated. Considering Haltech’s actions against a close ally of ours, Roth Industries, we’re declaring Haltech under attack per the rules of the Corporate Warfare act.”
With his declaration made and delivered, he locked Haltech into an engagement now. Just like they did to Roth. And this time he was coming for them as hard as they came for Roth. In a short amount of time, there’d be a reckoning for Haltech. It was time to pay up for their sins, and Jon planned to collect that debt personally.