Chapter 62 – Montrose
Thursday, July 30, 2308
First Lieutenant Grey arrived at the Montrose cabin in the late afternoon. He anchored the massive tank at the end of the row of similarly anchored tanks. Their phase-cam caused them to shimmer in his Micronix-enhanced vision.
Grey landed on the deck and deactivated his phase-cam before opening the sliding glass door. Reverend Wolfe and Ambassador Becket were both present, also wearing their Black Willow armor. It had been some time since either of them had been serving members of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.
“Kilo,” Becket nodded.
Wolfe rose and nodded as well.
“Gentlemen. What’s the situation?”
“King and Snow are in the stew,” Becket answered. “Ross is on over-watch and Reid ran out to prep a server farm for degaussing.”
“What are we doing?” Grey asked.
Secretary Croswell came into the living room from a hallway leading to one of the decanting tanks.
“We have a very urgent task before us, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, Sir. How can I help?”
“Gentlemen, we need to find a way to jam this Micronix scanner of Bergstrom’s or we are sitting ducks.”
“Well, let’s not all congregate in one place,” Grey joked.
“And you wonder why you haven’t soared up the ranks?” Croswell smiled.
“Actually, I don’t. And you’ll never hear me complaining. I’ll stick it out as long as they let me. I live for the shit, you know that.”
“Animal Mother,” Becket laughed.
“Hoorah,” Grey smiled.
“The issue at hand?” Croswell asked.
“How’s it work?” Grey asked.
When King infiltrated, Bergstrom said something about being able to hear and smell it. We figure he’s got some particle reflection algorithm or something.”
“Or something, huh?” Grey looked at the ceiling.
“It works like old school radar. Snow was able to spoof it by tethering to her battle suit and sniping them from a thousand feet over head.”
“So she looked like one blip?” Grey concluded, smiling. “Well, the obvious conclusion is to saturate the city with the op sys. How fast could we do that? Could we even do that at all? And barring that, what about altering the signature?”
“How’s that?” Croswell asked.
“I read that briefing material, doesn’t this guy Von Kalt have an amplifier?”
“It’s corrupted,” Croswell said. “He’s already burning out from exposure.”
“He was piloting one of the wolves. Why didn’t his Metachron set off the scanner? Obviously Bergstrom used it as a model, as a reference point.”
“Obviously?” Croswell asked. “You’re just plug-full of attitude aren’t you?”
“I’m right. You know I’m right,” Grey said. “You want my help or not?”
Croswell looked over to Becket, “What kind of figs are you feeding him, out there in the holy land?”
Ambassador Becket raised his hands. “He’s his own man.”
“If you want to jam it, here… Give me your amplifiers.” Grey held out his hands, his own amplifier in his right palm.
“Wait, what about Ross, Reid and the kids?” Becket asked, handing Grey his Micronix, as Croswell and Wolfe did the same.
Grey held the amplifiers in his hands and closed his eyes.
“It’s done,” he said a few moments later, returning the devices.
“What’s done?” Croswell asked.
“Let me forward it to the others… There, done and done.” Grey smiled.
Croswell raised and eyebrow.
“I wrote a script. It will react if pinged. It was easy enough to check the amplifier’s history. Bergstrom’s scanner is operating at 608-614 megahertz, the medical emergency band; it’s mostly empty. The next time he turns it on, it will over heat and burn up, if not blow up.”
“You’re sure?” Croswell asked.
“I’m sure,” Grey answered. “He used a similar device back in eighty-five. I read about it. That one operates on a parallel oscillation of airborne terillium. This will cause the process to double exponentially and melt his components.”
“So you’re saying our phase-cam is tight again?”
“Yes, Sir. Speaking of, my platoon was holding some desperate ground when I pulled out. I should be moving, unless there’s more I can do here?”
“Do you think you could leave your tank here?” Croswell asked. “We lost a couple, and you can’t exactly go exposing top-secret assets on the front line….”
“If I can have your permission to swing by El Toro Nuevo and pick up a couple mortar platforms, that would be a very fair trade, Mister Secretary, Sir.”
Croswell laughed. “Take what ever you need son. Good luck out there. We appreciate your sacrifice, Lieutenant.”
“Say Hello to the rest of the team for me.” Grey rose from the couch and shook hands with the senior men. “If the situation changes, please don’t hesitate to call.”
Grey exited the cabin and vanished, flying to the southeast, headed for the massive Marine Corps anti-gravity air-station.
“Fucking smart ass,” Croswell muttered ad looked over at Becket. “What does he know about Andrew?”
“Not a thing. He was given a cursory introduction to the Micronix and believes it to be a neural interface with the battle suit. He has no idea what the amplifiers can really do,” Becket answered.
“Keep it that way. “He’s too smart for his own damn good.”
Becket laughed. “He’s harmless.”
“Harmless? Hence the nick name, Kilo, right?” Croswell smiled.
“Is that a true story?” Reverend Wolfe asked.
“Oh, it’s true all right,” Becket answered.
“Didn’t work out the way he expected, though, did it?” Croswell laughed.
“You could promote him,” Becket said. “He probably just saved our lives.”
Croswell gave an exasperated sigh and rolled his eyes. “Not today, and don’t you go expanding his permissions either. He doesn’t need anymore access than he’s already got.”
“Oh, relax.” Becket said.
Reverend Wolfe leaned forward. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you trust him because you need him and you distrust him for the same reasons. How do you expect him to react?”
“Yeah, thanks buddy.” Croswell smiled.
“I don’t mind sticking around a couple of extra days.” Reverend Wolfe offered.
“Me either,” Becket said. “You guys should have called us in sooner.”
“It kind of unraveled all at once,” Croswell explained. “To be honest, I’d hoped we could keep a lid on it.”
“But it had to fall to Reid?” Becket said. “You let Fox and Ana get killed, King and Snow are in the tank? Really?”
“You should have called us when they went after Kelly the first time,” Wolfe said.
“Thank you, Captain Hindsight. It happened how it happened. And all for the best, I might add. Dr. Te has agreed to share his bots,” Croswell nodded to Becket. “Thank you for that. And Fox had a real break through while he was out in the desert.”
“What do you mean, breakthrough?”
“He forwarded the details, but if you’ve been that wrapped up hunting demons, I guess it’s possible you might not have noticed.”
“What?” Becket asked. “I haven’t had any time either.”
“Fox did it, boys. I think he truly ‘expanded’ for lack of a better word, beyond the confines of his body.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Stanwood took him prisoner out at White Sands for a few weeks. By the time we found him, Fox had manifested a second body out of sand and was out walking around, beyond the perimeter.
“From there he visited Conway in the Oval office and tried to bring him onboard. Conway gave him clearance to take the Centaurs out to the Hammered Bracelet to do som
e terillium mining.
“He also, apparently hinted that while Stanwood might be something of a thorn in his side, but that he couldn’t be charged with murder until he’d committed murder.”
“So that’s was why Fox blasted us all with that Don’t Fire Until Fired Upon bit? He was taking one for the team?” Becket asked.
Croswell touched his nose.
“God, what’s that done to the kids?” Wolfe asked.
“Which catches us right up to the present,” Croswell said. “Oh, I did give Stanwood a bit of a belly washing the other day. I’m sure he’s still pissed about that. Probably walking with cane too, but he earned it.”
“Why not just kill him?” Reverend Wolfe asked.
“He’s President Conway’s nephew,” Croswell answered.
Becket whistled and rolled his eyes.
“He and Fox have hated each other since grammar school and Epsilon was just the excuse he needed to paint Fox as unstable,” Croswell said.
“Well, dragging Bergstrom into it was a mistake for sure,” Wolfe said.
“Yeah, but it was a good one. Fucking great mistake,” Croswell said.