It was a beautiful, but chilly night. The weather system moved out of the area. Nigel gazed upon the largest moonrise he’d seen in a very long time. It was a blood moon, and it rose against the horizon like a vampire ready to strike. He checked his gear; everything was accounted for. He had extra battery packs for his laptop and the physical tools to ensure his success. He tucked away a red USB drive containing a crippling malware release that would lock Doc Chop out of all systems. His high-tech marvel would be a huge paperweight, and Nigel would have full control if all went well.
“How do you feel, Nigel?” Blanka asked.
Nigel thought about the answer for a long moment. The truth was, he didn’t know. A year ago, he would have been freaked out by these feelings. Now he embraced the unknown as if it were an old friend. He pulled out a bottle of Newport’s Finest and drank it down in two enormous gulps. The drink was his only proven method of combating the nanites, and he’d be damned if he was going to fail because of it.
“I just want the world back to the way it was. I’m prepared to do what it takes. Even if it means to pay the ultimate price,” Nigel said.
“I love you, Nigel Watson,” Blanka said.
His heart ached. He wanted her. More than any woman he’d ever met. More than Natasha or Jet. He would do anything for Blanka.
“I love you, Blanka.”
She gave him the most passionate kiss he’d ever received and Nigel was ready to step up and answer the call. He didn’t know when it happened, and he was powerless to stop it. Their lovemaking was as real and natural as the moon rising above them. Nigel knew he was an active participant in their embrace, but he succumbed to the moment. If he died this day, he still would be the happiest man alive.
“We’re on approach to our target,” Sally said.
“Oh, ready for action—I mean for the mission,” Nigel said, stumbling on his words.
“Right, I can see that you were,” Sally said, chuckling.
Blanka blushed and giggled. Nigel had never seen this side of her before. His heart was as light as the wind, and she was his sail. Nigel gazed upon the most unusual aircraft he’d ever laid eyes upon. It was a perfect square. The light of the blood moon gave it an eerie luminance. It was almost as if it were glowing. Blanka removed a device that resembled a flare gun. It was connected to a bundle of wire that would release when the operator blew the release cable.
“Ready?” Blanka asked.
Nigel nodded, then held his breath as Blanka launched the zip line, then traveled down the line. He followed. Just as he cleared the helicopter, something grabbed his neck so hard he almost let go of the line.
“What the fuck?”
“Wheee!”
Nigel turned to find Jerry hanging on to his back. The boy looked like he was having the time of his life.
How did he… ?
Nigel didn’t know how the kid had even managed to smuggle himself aboard the helicopter.
“Brace yourself, kid!”
Nigel and Jerry landed on the shiny surface of the square. The boy tumbled and rolled. His landing reminded Nigel of a stuntman show he’d watched as a boy. The guy who played the stuntman always seemed to land in the right spot and remain unhurt. A pain shot through Nigel’s right side, but Jerry seemed okay.
“How did he get here?” Blanka said, astonished.
“You said I could help,” Jerry said.
Nigel looked around to make sure that April wasn’t hiding in the landing gear.
“How did you get aboard the helicopter without us seeing you?” Nigel said.
“While you were planning and looking at the map, I was playing hide and seek,” Jerry said, laughing.
Nigel noticed that Jerry’s hand was turned the wrong way. His palm was facing up. His wrist had turned 180 degrees.
“Your hand; doesn’t it hurt?”
Jerry’s expression changed to a look of astonishment. It was as if he saw one of the great wonders of the world for the first time.
“Oh, I have an oop-see,” the boy said, turning his hand to its normal position.
“Are you a cyborg?” Blanka asked.
“My daddy said that I was special, like you, Nigel.”
Yeah, except that I’m not a cyborg!
Nigel stared at the boy for a very long time. Everything made sense now. The sudden night vision in the woods, the boy surviving on his own before Jack took him in—every unusual fact about this kid came into stark focus.
“We need to get inside,” Blanka said.
Nigel nodded. He snapped out of his shock and would need to process the boy’s revelation later. He followed the wiring harness to a junction point. An electronic circuit panel with a smooth surface with no markings appeared before him. There were no access ports that he could see.
“What’s this?” Jerry said as he put a hand on the smooth surface.
“Don’t touch…” Nigel trailed off.
The smooth surface retracted, revealing a metal catwalk.
“Neat!” Jerry said.
Nigel and Blanka shared a concerned look. Jerry jumped in and disappeared into the craft. Nigel followed and landed unevenly on the metal surface. A jolt of pain shot through his foot. Blanka landed gracefully behind him.Nigel rubbed his foot for a moment, then the pain went away as quickly as it came. Looking around, Nigel noticed Jerry was nowhere to be found.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Where did he go?” Blanka asked.
“I don’t know, but I have a feeling that the kid is one of Doc Chop’s creations. I don’t think we should trust him.”
Nigel crept along the catwalk until they reached an intersection. He was about to follow one of the passages when he saw something that gave him pause. A USB port was soldered into the wall.
Is this a maintenance port?
Nigel removed his laptop and spare cable pack. After a moment, he fished out a compatible cable, plugged it into his laptop, and launched the computer. He received an error message: Warning: This device may contain malware or other unwanted programs. Would you like to proceed? Nigel selected the “yes” option and booted into an alternate partition on the device that he used for malware analysis. Since the system logged everything, he wanted to see if a dynamic analysis was possible. Nigel examined the interface of his Hally Ninex toolkit. An image of a red demon head was overlayed on the external storage icon. He moved the cursor to the scary image, right-clicked, and chose the analysis option.
System Message: This system is infected with Sledgehammer: Variant B.
Nigel’s heart skipped a beat. The only one who had anything to do with the Sledgehammer code was dead—or was he? Is Gregor alive?
Nigel sandboxed the malicious code into a Datasploit analysis daemon. Moments later, he received an analysis report. Several years ago, when working for the Collective, Gregor had been tasked with showing Nigel how the hacking group organized its code. Gregor always signed his custom creations with his signature 1337SHammer moniker. A signature analysis revealed that this code had been created recently. Nigel slowly came to the realization that Gregor was alive and working with Doc Chop. Screams echoed from every direction. Nigel’s train of thought was shattered. Voices followed the screams. They sounded familiar.
Was that Vedrana?
Nigel closed his laptop, paused, then searched his pockets for the control program he’d loaded onto the red flash drive. He reasoned if the maintenance port was connected to the ship’s mainframe, then it could be pwned. Nigel inserted his payload into the port, then followed the narrow catwalk toward the sound of the screams. The passage ended in a curved circular semicircle. A grating made it possible to look inside each room as he traversed through the catwalk. He winced at the desperate cries for help, which intensified as he hurried through the crawlspace. A circular room with several people in it appeared below him. He cringed as Vedrana and Aiko came into view. They hung from the ceiling like a side of beef in a cooler. Eva was strapped to a table in the middle of the room. A woman dressed in black leather entered. She had a coil of something strapped her to belt.
“They’re torturing them!” Blanka said.
“I know. We need to help. But we need to be smart about it and not get caught. We need to wait for the right moment,” Nigel said.
A man in his late forties or early fifties entered the room. He had curly hair and a mustache—it was Doc Chop. He strode around the room, inspecting each captive. He stroked Vedrana’s hair. She wriggled as she tried to free her hands.
“You’ll learn to appreciate me. I’m going to recreate you into something special, and soon you’ll be willing participants in my new world order. We will do so much together,” Doc Chop said, touching Vedrana’s face.
She screamed in fury and tried biting him. He ignored her plight and refocused his attention on Eva.
“I see that you’re already partially enhanced,” he said, inspecting her cybernetic arm. “Who worked on this? It’s quality work I have not seen since… Clem. Did Dr. Clemmant work on you? I can’t see anyone else performing such quality work. Except for yours truly,” Doc Chop said, chuckling.
I’m going to hurt you! Nigel seethed.
He motioned for Blanka to follow him. As they made their way across the catwalk, Nigel looked for openings into the room below. Toward the end of the passage, a panel was ajar. Close examination revealed that one of the bolts was loose. Nigel rummaged in his backpack for his toolkit. He grabbed a wrench and loosened the bolt. He tried to catch it, but it fell into the room and bounced off a wall before settling below Eva. He waited for Doc Chop to leave the room, then slid the panel aside.
“Now!”
Nigel dropped into the room, landing near Eva. Vedrana’s eyes widened as Blanka followed.
“Hurry, untie us before he comes back,” Vedrana said.
Nigel’s heart ached to see her tied up. He began to unravel her bonds. He blushed at her lack of clothes; she was naked from the waist up. He reached into his bag and tossed her a T-shirt. She immediately covered herself. It was a bit large on her, but she didn’t seem to care. Nigel was about to give Vedrana a boost to the grate when Jerry emerged from the shadows.
“Well—hello Nigel!” the boy shouted.
Nigel recoiled as the boy’s voice carried through the room. Blanka untied Eva as Nigel worked on Aiko’s restraints.
“Well, our guest of honor finally showed up,” Doc Chop said as he entered the room.
“Father! Do you recognize me? It’s Jerry!”
The doctor put on his glasses.
“I thought I’d lost you in New York, my son.”
“Son? You’re his father?” Nigel asked in disbelief.
The doctor opened his arms. “Come to me, my boy.”
Jerry squealed with delight as he jumped onto his father. Something stirred in Nigel. He had been played by the boy since he’d met him. Vedrana drop-kicked Doc Chop. The man stumbled and hit the wall. Blanka hit him in the throat, and Nigel’s spirits rose as the man fell to his knees.
“Father!”
Jerry slammed into Blanka, knocking the wind out of her. Nigel grabbed the kid, but he was much stronger than expected and wriggled away. The little demon leaped onto Vedrana’s back and pulled out clumps of her hair. She backhanded him, and the kid fell to the floor. He charged her again, but this time, she was ready. She dodged and performed an acrobatic maneuver that reminded Nigel of a performer with disfigured limbs. He was impressed with her flexibility and was oddly aroused by the sight. Jerry, not expecting such an action, plowed into the wall. The kid fell over onto a heap on the floor, knocked out.
“Find something to tie these two up,” Nigel said.
“We need to be ready for Anya,” Aiko said.
Before Nigel could ask who that was, a shriek emitted from the hallway. A woman about the same age as Blanka charged toward Nigel. His heart sank as the glinting of metal shone from two clawed gloves. She looked like a lioness ready to pounce. Blanka smacked her from the side. The woman stumbled, then regained her footing. Aiko and Vedrana pummeled her at the same time. She fought back like a wild animal. The girls did a good job at avoiding the claws, but Aiko’s arm was sliced open. She screamed as rivulets of blood oozed from a nasty-looking wound. Eva leaped from the table and punched her with her metal arm so hard that two of the woman’s teeth were knocked out.
“Aiko, come here,” Nigel said.
He took out a first aid kit and retrieved a handful of bandages, then wrapped her wound and applied a tourniquet to help slow the bleeding. The newcomer screamed as Eva removed her claws, and Vedrana stepped on her neck. Blanka hogtied the assailant. Vedrana kicked her in the face for good measure.
“How did you know to bring a first aid kit?” Aiko asked.
“The last time we were together, the fight against Doc Chop didn’t end so well. I came prepared. I hate seeing people I care about get hurt,” Nigel said.
Aiko inspected the bandage, seemingly checking Nigel’s work. She gave him a look he hadn’t seen from her before. If he didn’t know any better, he’d read more into the situation. Women were a mystery to him.
“We should talk… after all this is over,” she said.
Her statement was almost inaudible. Nigel wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t hearing things, but he took it as a good sign that things were looking up for a change. Jerry moaned and stirred.
“Tie him up before he gets loose,” Nigel said.
No sooner than he got the sentence out, the kid kicked Eva in the shins, then climbed the walls and into the open vent like he was an insect. Vedrana and Eva sat near each other and stared at Nigel.
“How did you know, Nigel?” Blanka asked.
“Because this bastard made him,” Nigel said, kicking Doc Chop in the side.
“What now?” Aiko asked.
Everyone in the room looked at Nigel expectantly. He opened his last bottle of Newport’s Finest and drank it in two gulps. He was so proud of his companions. They’d all come a long way in a very short time. But this wasn’t over yet.
“We need to secure the prisoners, then take control of this ship.”
Spare rooms were few, but they found a small closet filled with networking equipment to store their cargo. With any luck, the malware Nigel had uploaded to the ship’s maintenance port would give him full control. Since this vessel was designed by the US government, the ship had several defenses. The program he used to infiltrate would call the network for helpers. It was his job to help the program look for its friends. To do that, he would need to find the ship’s control center.