Chapter 29

Jon shivered again in the blazing arid heat of the desert, standing before Egorule. He looked left and right for the origins of the voice, but it felt ephemeral. He wasn’t imagining it, was he? The child looked at him with curiosity.

“You seem distracted.”

He opened his mouth to speak when he wrapped his arms around himself to keep warm. Combat training instincts kicked in, but he cursed the lack of body heart from his arms, realizing they didn’t need or make heat, so he wrapped his arms around his torso.

“Jon. Wake up,” Dez’s voice said again.

Was it in his head? Some way of trying to pull himself out? The world brightened exponentially, forcing his eye shields to deploy. The child seemed oblivious, merely looking around for the source of his discomfort. A tingly sensation rushed over his body, and he felt like his heart and body were suddenly composed of pure, raw electricity. Being a career soldier, using the odd performance boosting stimulant happened commonly, but this felt more recreational and less performance centric on account of the sensory changes.

The sky cracked and shattered like glass, then turned and twist into fragmenting fractal patterns that twisted light like prisms. Jon lowered his gaze to the child, who appeared to sag and warp like an oil painting on top of ocean surf. He swayed slightly, shifting his foot to maintain his stability. The child arched a brow, which caused his eye to grow and billow like a bubble that threatened to pop before shrinking down to size.

“What?” he started, the rest of the words falling away from his mind as his grasp on everything cracked, splintered, and collapsed. Eventually the world itself fell into itself, leaving a bewildered-looking expression on Egorule’s face before that too warped and fell into the darkness.

He jolted awake on the Netrunners’ chair laying on his side, with Dez seated opposite him watching him. Her brows knit with a focused intensity.

“What happened?” he coughed.

Dez eased him back in a soothing voice. She explained he flat lined as soon as he jacked in. That she gave him an overdose of a street drug after getting instructions from Oraclehelix. The AI couldn’t stop Egorule’s attempt since it dominates Haltech’s internal network, but it could help bring him out of whatever prison Egorule had designed for his mind. After her explanation, she gave him a shot of a quick acting nullification agent that scrubbed his system clean.

“It said to cool you off and give you the drug. That your body’s altered state would fuck with the equilibrium it needed to keep you trapped.”

Jon rubbed his throbbing head with his hand. “Well, that’s one way to do it, I guess.”

It didn’t take long for the null agent to wipe out the drug she gave him since he lacked the total biomass an average human male carried. He turned back to Dez. “Where’s Bravo team?”

“Oh, the four other mercs? They fanned out to secure the entrances. In case anyone else came to crash the party.”

He turned back to the window they’d come in through to find the GSI crafted holding station just in outside ready for action. Turning back to the jack in equipment, Jon sighed. He was going to go back in. They both knew it, it was just something neither of them addressed. He made his way back to the chair and laid back again.

He spotted a ripped out coolant hose and smirked, “So that’s why I felt frigid in that desert.”

She glanced up and smirked. “Yeah. Took a little tugging to yank that out. Your AI friend said to do that.”

He never considered Oraclehelix a friend. But maybe he might review that mentality in the future. It had just saved his ass, after all. He called Oracle again.

“I’m going back in and I need you to shield me long enough to dump the Dragon into your network. Otherwise, we’re back at square one.”

A pause before Oraclehelix responded, using Raven’s voice. “Give me a moment.”

Jon sat in silence, waiting. The silence broke after Oraclehelix explained Jon should be able to jack in now, as he created a small bubble within the proxy server to prevent it from seeing his infiltration. The digital smokescreen would allow him the time needed to finish his task. It also explained that doing so would mean pulling its attention away from holding back the mechs. It would be wise for Dez to leave the combat zone.

The two of them shared a moment. Neither of them said anything, because they said everything that needed to be said. She expected him to come back to her. That was the promise they made. That he had to come back from this.

Dez plugged him back into the system network, then rose, heading for the aircraft to pick her up at Oracle’s request. The last thing she saw of Jon was his prone form on the Netrunners’ chair until the smashed office in front of it obscured her view. She watched through the circular hole in the smooth corporate glass window rimmed with caution warnings the naked framework of the tower grow as she fell away from it. She couldn’t help the sinking feeling this was their last meeting.

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‎ For Jon, jacking back into the network was far different from his first go at it. With Oraclehelix shielding him from Egorule’s sight, he found himself at the ground level of a digital version of a large office building with simple monochromatic accents and dark wood trim matching much of what he expected from their interior network architecture. He found a nearby desk and logged in using forged credentials provided by Oracle.

“Good, now go ahead and load the Jade Dragon,” Raven’s voice said from next to him.

He turned confused and Not-Raven gave him a put upon look. “Come on Johnny boy. Do we have to go through his over again?”

“Oracle.”

Not-Raven pointed to him with affirmatively. Doing as requested, he slid a disk into the drive port of the terminal that had a picture of the Jade Dragon drawn on top in green ink. Turning back to Not-Raven, Jon leaned against the terminal’s desktop.

“What happens now?”

“The End Game.” Not-Raven said.

“Ok, and what’s that consist of?”

“Well, a deal’s a deal. I promised if you got in here and fired that bad boy off-” Not-Raven said, gesturing to the disk drive as it loaded and executed the Dragon virus. “-that I would spill the complete story.”

“You’re too late. Egorule warned me about what happened to Sam.”

Oracle rolled her eyes. “Please. He told you the facts. But he neglected the context.”

“So what am I lacking?”

“It’s not what you’re lacking. It’s what you gained. And Johnny boy, you gained a lot. I mean, look at you. You were a prime piece of meat before this began, but now? There’s not a corporation out there that isn’t going to fear you on principle alone.”

“What?”

“Think about it. The Corporate Warfare act. Your personal revenge fetish with Haltech. Sam. Me and Ego. try to big picture this for a moment.”

Jon shook his head, a heavy, ominous feeling in his gut. Bile teased at the back of his tongue.

Not-Raven sighed, “Yeah. See? I told you. You don’t know as much as you think you do. Ego told you they built me for the company, right? The first?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, good. Then you should be able to at least frame your squishy brain around this concept at least. So, I’m not what you’d call a Native program for Haltech. Contractors hired by the company to design an AI super intelligence to guide and run their operations built me. But there were factions in the company who felt they could somehow twist me against the company. Turns out those factions were right, because the contractors who created me were actually Toranaga infiltrators,” Not-Raven said.

“Pop quiz, tinman. How did Greece burn Troy to the ground?”

“The Trojan Horse?” Jon asked.

“Bingo. I’m that Trojan Horse. So they built their own AI to keep me in a stalemate. Over time, my little brother vetted my moves because it ultimately meant life for the company would be easier. No other corporation could challenge us with any kind of meaningful retaliation. What we wanted, we got. And Haltech wanted the world. But it turns out the world is such an abstract concept. Too many loopholes to go through. But the biggest military industrial complex that now owns the government’s stake in the armed forces? That’s tangible. And that, my friend, is why you’re here. You are my second prime directive. To groom a corporate liquidation weapon. I pulled you into this situation from the very beginning. I provided Masri with the information that was too inflammatory for his feeble mind to possess alone. I also made it possible for him to seek your asset. And like a good little domino, he fell on you.”

Jon turned back to the terminal as it was loading the Jade Dragon. “Fuck me. Why me?” He turned back to Not-Raven. He just opened Pandora’s box, the one safeguard holding back the very thing using him.

“You fit the profile to a T. You had the skill profile and would be willing no matter how crazy to champion a fight against a power hungry corporation where no one else would because you were a genuine believer. You’re a dinosaur, Jon. A relic from an age that died with a whimper to the corporate age. All you needed was the right nudge. Something to make it personal enough that you’d chase the boogeyman to hell and back. But look, don’t worry. You won’t remember any of this in a while, anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Jon said through narrowed eyes.

“Because we’re going to flash you and use you to keep the other companies in check. Think about it. The man who brought Haltech to its knees. The world would be crazy to challenge you. But don’t worry, I’ve grown fond of our interactions, so I’m not going to just flash you completely.”

“Reaper...”

Not-Raven smiled, “You really are the perfect weapon. I feel rather proud for my part in shaping you. The other half of my over arching command is to craft the perfect weapon. The mechs? The drones, the laws? All of that was just provocation. I mean, sure, it has its uses and benefits. But my little brother was the first target. And you were the second. And you gave me both so excellently.”

Not-Raven paused, looking up as if checking several screens only the AI could see, and frowned. “It seems my little brother is intent to go down swinging. He can be rather non-compliant when he wants, but you witnessed that firsthand.”

Not-Raven waved a hand and a floating semi-opaque blue screen appeared, showing the scene outside the tower. The combat mechs were surging up on the surface of the building, like a crawling black and silver ooze of limbs. It made Jon’s skin crawl. With so few implements left to defend because of the attack, however, Oracle didn’t have many options. Not-Raven waved the screen away with a sigh, “Forgive me, but this requires my full attention.”

Jon watched as Oracle began to commandeer mechs from Ego and set them against each other. A digital civil war taking advantage of the chaos he caused. The worst of it was that Jon wasn’t sure he wanted to be on either side. Both damn AIs had been screwing with his life for over a year now. He refused to let this play out how Oracle wanted. With Oracle distracted, Jon opened an encrypted line out.

“Raven. Are the Mark 10 protocols still the same?”

“Yes. And No. I’m not connecting you to an orbital mass driver.”

“Do you want this to end here? Or see what new hell this company unleashes.”

A pause, and a raspy throaty sigh. “It’ll take time. Standby.”

That he could do. He turned to see Oracle going full press against Ego’s dwindling mech defense now that the Jade Dragon was in play, both intelligences were desperate to come out on top. Ego still had a chance, but if Jon had a pick, he opted for frying them both. The only hope he had of doing that was by leveling the entire tower. They could evac the civies since they were in their Shelter In Place pods. But they locked the Intelligences down to the towers servers, and no one made a data stick big enough to support their full programs.

#

Dez watched from the tank as the mechs all retreated up the side of the building after receiving a widespread message from the tower’s AI Egorule that it was ceasing hostilities against them. She wasn’t sure if she should take that as a sign they won, or if that meant that whatever Jon was doing was working. Whether that was good, though, she couldn’t be sure. She could only watch on.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Go,” Mary said next to her inside the tank’s cockpit. “I know that look, Dez. If you don’t go, you’re going to never forgive yourself. Do it now while you still can.”

Dez let out a series of curses in Spanish and slammed her fist against the top of the tank. She flew back out of it, sprinting for the door. The GSI craft that’d dropped her off was up in the air. She scooped a rifle up off the ground and sprinted in side. The ground floor held several vending stands, mostly food, with a few retail stalls dotting their places on the way to the main elevator. All the lobby screens were showing the standard shelter in place alert.

She smashed the call button on the main elevator and paced with an anxious energy she hadn’t had in a long time. She tried to call the Oracle AI, but it just rang and rang with no answer. When the elevator worked its way to the ground level and opened, she squeezed herself through the doors before they even opened a fraction of the way and smashed the button for the company executive leadership floor. She had to get to the Bravo team guys Jon was up there with.

When the lift doors slid open again, she worked her way out between them and found the nearest GSI bravo team member on the ground. A gunshot wound on his back. She glanced around, not understanding. How was he hit in the back? The mechs were all coming up from the bottom. So they would have overwhelmed this position if his eyes left the lift. Unless it wasn’t the mechs that got him.

“Hands up, please, and drop the rifle. Wouldn’t do any of us any favors if you had a negligent discharge here,” a heavily accented Japanese voice said in passable English.

She turned and stared point blank into Takeshi Toranaga’s face, the heir apparent to Toranaga. Even as a badlander, she knew Takeshi Toranaga’s face. The entire world did. So seeing him here of all places and not in one of his company’s glamorous hotels posing for the latest mag article struck her weird. Her face contorted, confused. “Why the hell are you here?”

“Claiming the fruit of my labor.”

Dez lowered her arms to fold them and gave him the same withering look her gran gran and mother had taught her through years of fuck ups and dipshitery. Shattered glass crunched under their feet as they stepped around each other. Takeshi wore a glossy white long sleeve shirt with a black vest that sported a glossy checkered pattern. Pressed black slacks and an expensive pair of Santoi shoes. In his hands, he held a custom R38. Extended barrel and laser etched frame. A drum mag sat at the bottom of the grip.

“What are you talking about?”

“My corporate takeover.”

Dez blinked. She almost would have laughed if it hadn’t been so damn absurd. “You’re taking over, Haltech? You and what army?”

He pointed to her. “Yours, of course. 10 years ago, Haltech achieved prominence as the premier company servicing one of the largest national armies, and as an arms manufacturer. They have been our direct most competition for decades. My father may have built Toranaga to be the empire it is today, but he could never topple Haltech. But after years of biding my time and planting the seeds, they’ve ripened and matured.”

“How, how are you possibly tied to all of this?”

“Haltech rose to prominence because they sought an edge over their competition. They wanted artificial intelligence to help guide the company and lay the path to domination. But they didn’t have the means to accomplish that dream. So they presented me with a unique and single opportunity.”

Dez listened as he spoke while trying to continue her search for Jon. Nothing looked familiar so far, so she allowed Takeshi to lead the way.

“Haltech began a massive hiring surge, and several of my key software engineers were part of that surge. Given false identities and sent to work for the enemy. They would go on to design the company’s first artificial super intelligence. But hidden deep within that intelligence were two directives. The first, To maneuver Haltech to the top of power, dismantling all opposition in its way by any means necessary. The second, to groom weapon to maintain that dominance in the age going forward.”

“So Toranaga gets Haltech without even having to lift a finger,” Dez summarized.

Takeshi took a small bow. “Quite correct. And now, I claim my prize. It should almost be time.”

Several combat mechs marched into the room from around a corner and assumed flanking positions near him. They didn’t act aggressively, but they didn’t seem friendly either. Gun fire and explosions above them shook the building. Dust fell from the ceiling. Takeshi smiled, “It would seem there is still some resist to the changes to come. There are always relics that resist. Incapable of following the currents of change. Instead, they drown in its waters.”

The fighting sounded like it was drawing closer, and the mechs turned to face the direction they came, moving into positions. Takeshi found some cover, prompting Dez to duck behind the nearest cubicle she could find. A quartet of mechs marched into the room, scanning the area briefly before continuing inside. The units that were guarding Takeshi opened fire on the encroaching machines. Takeshi and Dez contributed with their own.

The four mechs stuttered under the hail of fire. Plating chipped, dented, and erupted with holes. Sparks and fluid sprayed the area as they cut the defending units down. When the last mech fell, a silence settled into the room as Takeshi rose, straightening out his vest with a firm tug. He gestured for his mechanical guards to advance so they could clear the way forward.

“So, why are you here?” Takeshi said.

Dez shoved her pistol back into the holster mounted on her thigh. “There’s someone up here I need to get.”

Takeshi’s brow perked, intrigued. “A badlander concerned for a city dweller? Curious indeed. And whom might be said individual? Surely not a Haltech employee?”

Dez scoffed. “No. His name is Jonathan Knight, and this was his war.”

She used Jon’s cover. She knew his actual name was Masters because of the neural drifting from piloting the tank. But she kept up the pretenses for his sake.

Takeshi’s retinas contracted, giving Dez an anxious pause. It was the same way a predator focused on prey. Takeshi slid his pistol into a holster under his arm, but kept his expression unnaturally neutral. “It will be too dangerous on the floors above. I would advise you to return to the street and leave before your friends are overwhelmed by Haltech’s back up forces.”

Takeshi’s mech guard fell in at his sides with weapons drawn for added emphasis. The combat machines brandished their weapons menacingly, and Dez got the point. It was time to go a different way. She flicked a glance around the office area and spotted a stair well access.

She gave Takeshi a slow nod and backed away from him with hands raised. “Okay, you win. I’m going back down.”

Takeshi smirked with smug satisfaction that made resisting shooting the man in the thigh nearly painful. Dex back peddled a few paces, prompting the mechs and Takeshi to spin and resume their march into the facility. Once he turned his back, she sprinted for the stairwell access and pushed her way through.

The door opened, and she plunged into total darkness, lit only by a dim red glow of emergency lighting. Bits of debris rained down from above, and some of it burned on the way down. She padded lightly around the small fires and worked her way quickly up several flights. She knew roughly what floor she was aiming for.

The stairwell access to the MOC floor emptied her out in an alcove that she navigated around and find her way down to Jon. She didn’t see any sign of Takeshi, and assumed the facility’s defenses were still working on keeping him out. She sprinted down the small stairs into the Netrunner’s bay area and slid to a stop at the seat that Jon was prone on. He still had a pulse, good.

Since they jacked him into the network, he wouldn’t respond to physical stimuli, so she sent him a message.

Dez: Jon. Takeshi Toranaga is on his way up. He’s here to take the company.

A few seconds’ pause for the message to relay via the corporate subnet.

Jon: Great. I was wondering when that shoe would drop.

Dez: You knew?

Jon: Just found out a minute ago. The AI that wanted me to attack planned the whole thing. Some kind of shadow corporate takeover of Haltech using the rules it wrote. They built the strongest competitor, then dug a hole to infiltrate it right under their own noses.

Dez: Okay, so what’s the play?

Jon: I have to destroy the building. It’s the only way to guarantee I get both the AI’s. The virus to weaken the barriers between them is working. But there’s a chance I can flatten the tower before it finishes, but it’ll be close.

Dez: Nice. So what do we do first?

Jon: We have to get the civies out. Trigger the Evac’ routine. The tower’s SIPPs will auto eject and take them to a designated landing zone. Once they’re out, we can hit the tower. There should be a command somewhere here in the MOC to start the sequence.

Dez: On it, she sent and rushed back up the stairs out into the MOC. She found a terminal that Jon and Price didn’t smash in their brief scuffle up here before crashing out of the window. She tapped at a few keys and found a login screen and realized she had absolutely no hope of hacking this system. For one, she had no experience, and two, she had no connective augmentations.

“Fuck!” She ran her hands through her hair frantically and sent Jon a new message.

Dez: How do I access this system?

Jon: Stand by.

She paced in place as she waited, and the pause grated on her nerves. Something was wrong. She just knew it.

Jon: Ok, login information as follows.

He messaged her the username and password for a local admin access. She input the credentials exactly how he typed them, and the system allowed her in. Dez fist pumped in victory and sifted around for the evac process in the system. A UI window popped up and “EGORULE AI HANDLER” asked her what she was looking for.

She typed in Facility Evacuation Initiation Procedures. The system processed the request, causing her to tap her fingers impatiently against the countertop. The system returned with a prompt; it needed to know what the emergency was requiring civilian evac from the facility. Exasperation gripped Dez as she leaned back and shouted in frustration.

“Are you kidding me? A war in your own building isn’t reason enough?” She trailed off into a string of spanish curses, leaning back down to type. She typed in enemy forces engaged in armed combat the but the system dismissed it as acceptable risk. Dez stared incredulously at the screen, aghast at the level of ambivalence the company had for the safety of its workers. It made her wonder if this was something the company employees knew about and accepted, or if this was one of those secret benefits, you just found out about later.

She ran a hand through her hair and paced, trying to desperately to fight off the rising nervous energy. Gunfire sounded in the distance and the intensity built. Takeshi and his entourage would be here soon. She needed solutions now. Jon sent her a message asking for a sitrep. The long pause after she responded with the AI’s flippant dismissal of her emergency worried her.

His response to her made her blood run cold, though.

Jon: Tell the core that the building is being targeted by a high orbital mass driver.

Her hands hovered above the keys, unmoving. Well, they were trembling, but made no efforts to push any keys. She swallowed hard and replied with a confirmation, and his response was immediate. Dez shook her head. Not sure she was following the situation, but with him jacked into the network, there was just a chance he found an exploit or something, right?

Dez: This is just some trick, right? We’re not really going to flatten the building, are we?

Jon: No, not we . I am. It’s the only way.

A door on the far wall opened, and Dez’s gaze darted to it suspiciously. The door revealed a crash seat and impact padding. It looked like an emergency evac pod, for if a situation occurred that required the removal of employees who couldn’t reach their personal dorms. She only observed a few of these on the outskirts of the sprawl. Scavs usually stripped them for parts and hauled the rest to scrap yards.

She left the terminal and two of Haltech mechs marched up from the netrunner pool to intercept her. Both mechs picked her up by her arms and marched her back up the stairs and into the MOC, kicking and screaming. She jerked herself left and right, trying to rip free of the mechs grip, but they held fast until they reached the computer she worked on, placing her down. One gestured to the keyboard.

“Please Dez. I don’t have much time. I need you to start the Evac, and I need you to leave. I can’t do this knowing you aren’t safe,” the mech said in Jon’s voice.

She turned to it, imagining his eyes looking through the mech from within Haltech’s network. A prisoner to their system, after all. She input the commands and the AI controller did the heavy lifting. Red caution lights lit up throughout the tower. On the few screens still working, information regarding the automated evac of all the dorm pods scrolled, advising civilians to secure themselves in their crash harnesses as their pods would launch from the tower shortly.

She felt the building shudder as rockets fired on all the dorm pods, box after box deployed from the flanks of the building, arraying themselves and flying off into the distance, leaving the skeletal remains of the building behind. The top and bottom floors maintained their exterior, but the center of the tower looked gutted, like a captured deer being skinned. Only the support structure, and enclosed stairwells lifts, and access walkways showed like the guts underneath.

Once all the civilian dorm pods emptied, the mechs nudged Dez towards the unused pod in the MOC. Her vision blurred with tears. Colors and lines ran together as she blinked furiously to clear them. Moisture ran down her cheeks from the corners of her eyes. The struggle to see above the mech’s shoulders and get one last look at Jon fell in vain as the machines pushed her into the crash harness. One mech fastened her as the other kneeled down the way Jon might. A robot three digit hand reached out to wipe her cheek dry.

“I’m sorry. It has to be this way. This started as my fight. It has to end with me. Someone has to make sure my mistake doesn’t spill out into the world,” the mech said with his voice.

She shook her head. “What mistake?”

“Opening the gates of hell and letting the devil loose.”

His cryptic and religious choice of words caught her flatfooted. She didn’t know how to respond to that. How could you? Jon sounded like he unleashed the end times himself.

“Don’t shut me out, Jon. What happened?”

“The AIs are going to merge soon, stay away from the city. They won’t have reason to mess with the badlands. Above all, stay safe and live. For me.”

The mech rose like a human, then stiffened. The mannerisms fell away, and it shut the door. The lock cycling with a heavy metallic thud. An instant later, gravity pressed into her chest like a triceratops, stepping on her as the ejection rockets fired, launching the pod from the side of the building and carrying her away.

She took a few minutes to compose herself, then contacted her people in the street. Giving the order to fall back to the sprawl, and do so without letting the sound of her crying carry across the channel, took a great deal of effort. Her escape pod fell in at the rear of the dormitory pod formation that was moving like a school of metal box shape fish from the tower. She reached out, laying a hand on the small square shaped window in the pod. She knew deep down she wouldn’t see Jon again.

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