CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
"It may be that reality is an illusion of movement in an eternal, static, multidimensional universe." - H. G. Wells
Captain Jackson's surviving soldiers accepted Lieutenant Kieran O'Shea's authority without question, or so it seemed for the moment. Honeymoon period? She was concerned they might challenge her authority when the going got rough, and it was about to get very rough. Perhaps I'm just a little nervous, she thought, new group and all. She was thankful Greg had trained them well; they did have discipline. Let's see if they can follow me now. Mother-General is right to put me in this position, Greg, but where are you now, my friend, as the battle is about to begin?
.
While on another part of the battleground...
"Well, I see you're still here. Can't do any harm now," the Shadow said mockingly.
Winston was still all dressed up like a Christmas tree with grenades for ornaments.
"Where do you think I'd go all dressed to kill? Don't you think you could have made the wires a little tighter? They're cutting off my circulation."
"I see I should have gagged you, too."
"You were gone a long time. Now what?"
"You're very brave for a man tied up in a room with a very mean soldier."
"I don't see a lot of hope in my situation," said Winston. "If you are a soldier as you say you are, why aren't you with the other soldiers?"
"I don't know why I should tell you."
"Just curious as to your role in all this. Those who about to die should have a right to know."
"Fair enough...I got separated from my men. I salvage tools and weapons. I thought I had a dead factory, but it was a trap. I barely made it out alive. Most of my team didn't that I know of. Now, Makr and his cyberts have my heat signature, my image and plenty of information if any of my men were still alive to torture, which I doubt."
"The monster!"
"Yeah, monster."
"Are you sure they aren't alive? You escaped."
"Not likely after the explosion."
"The cyberts blew up the factory?"
"No, I did."
Winston was silent.
"Yes, I killed them. I killed my own men. Had to. Cyber can't know the extent of our weapons knowledge. Had to kill the cyberts before they uploaded information to Makr. I had to."
"I'm sorry about your people, but what about us here? If Makr knows you... won't He be able to locate you wherever you hide?"
"That's pretty much it, but that's why I hijacked your hovercar. I need the mobility. I hope it's fast enough."
"Me, too," agreed Winston as he looked around, desperately hoping he didn't spot a cybert of any kind.
"Not to worry. I left you here so I could create a safe zone of electronic chaff to confuse cyber sensors. We should be okay for now."
"Makr isn't connected to me out here. You could just let me go. You can have the hovercar. I can walk."
Winston winced as he thought the Shadow was going to strike him. Instead, he just continued talking. His tone was surprisingly less threatening.
"Rumor has it we're about to fight our last battle—the one we've all been waiting for. Like it or not, you're going to help me."
"What? Not me. Do I look like a soldier to you? I'm an indoors kinda guy."
"Our children become soldiers at sixteen," Jackson said, referring to the Nest.
"Well, I never..."
Winston squirmed in his wires, but the sharp pain of them digging in made him stop quickly. What have I gotten myself into? he thought.
"Better decide which side you're going to be on," said the Shadow. "Bio or Cyber?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"No, but I'd rather have a volunteer."
"Why the hell not?" Always go for the gusto, he thought. "Okay, I'm your man. Now, will you get me out of this thing before my hands slip?"
The Shadow took the grenade from Winston's left hand then let it drop harmlessly onto the floor with a thud. He did the same with the one in the right hand.
"Duds? Duds?" Winston blustered and struggled to free himself. "You made me sit there and sweat for nothing?"
"Kept you honest while I reconnoitered and laid my Cyber traps."
"Are you going to release me from these bindings? It's getting a little hard to breathe."
"Then don't breathe," said his captor.
There was a pause as Winston just looked at him. It was almost a pathetic look, although Winston would have glared at him if he had thought it would do him any good. That would have fit his personality, but it wouldn't serve his purpose. The grenades were gone now and the Shadow soldier was armed again.
"Look, you have your job and I have mine," Winston said.
"What job?"
"Uh...Doesn't matter really. The important thing..."
"Listen, little man, I don't have time to make you my friend or my ally. You have landed yourself in the middle of a battlefield. The important thing, like it or not, is that you're in it."
"I don't even know what this is all about."
"Most of you Insiders don't, and if you do know what's happening out here, you don't care as long as your asses are safe. I doubt if anything you were going to do for Makr will be of any value now, but I can tell you in a few hours, we'll either be dead or sifting through Makr's ashes."
Kieran had found a way down to the Nest from above. The manhole cover was heavy, but she used the sharp steel lip on the butt of her laser ax to pry it up. Moonlight cast a continuous shadow along the street, making her soldiers nearly invisible. Her combat-modified laser ax was at the ready, cradled in her arm; she had it set for a narrow condensed beam for use as a weapon rather than its usual flat beam. She looked around 360 degrees and listened intently for any sound that might indicate Cyber movement. Nothing.
She lowered herself down the manhole, stopping just short of the shallow brackish water below. No crocs here. It's quiet. Too quiet. C'mon you're being paranoid. Just because it's quiet...No creature is stirring, not even a mouse. Harry had said that to her once and now she had a literal reference. She smiled at the thought, and the smile took the edge off of her anxiety.
She checked out the tunnel area visually and listened as before. Darker than usual though. Not enough luminous lichen to light the way. We'll have to feel our way for a while. Just hope there's nothing resting on these walls. There were always a fair amount of nasty bugs in this sector, but the only ones to really watch out for were the arachnids—spiders, very large and extremely poisonous. As she listened to the tunnel's natural sounds, she heard a rhythmic sloshing a little too regular for the crocodiles. Sounded like Cyber were heading toward Carlos!
She changed her setting on the laser ax to infrared, and aimed the weapon upward through the manhole. Three flashes ought to do it. Hopefully, Cyber weren't looking for that. She boasted to herself, we can be adaptable and spontaneous-that's what makes us better than all of you bastards!
As her soldiers began their orderly descent into the tunnel, she changed the setting on her weapon back to full power. She lowered herself into the cold, filthy, shallow water as silently as possible. The others followed suit. When all were down she signaled a huddle, making a circle in the air with her Stealth-gloved hands.
Her team consisted of 25 soldiers now, including herself. Sixteen men and nine women. Ten, including Jackson, had been missing in action for a week or more. This group was not his most hardened batch of combat soldiers. Although every one of them was strongly disciplined and savvy as Jackson would have trained them to be, they were relatively inexperienced in the tunnels and in combat with cyberts. Their combat experience had been limited to a few skirmishes in the surface shadows, but mostly they had been engaged in scavenging for weapons. They know the battle plan above better; she would be the one lacking in experience, but down here she knew her way around. They'd just have to help each other.
"We have less than an hour before we strike the factory above. Here's where we begin. We will make our
way to Captain Montoya's Nest. We lost Mother-General's signal thirty minutes ago. We hope she is just maintaining radio silence, but even if you haven't spent a lot of time in these tunnels, you know how dangerous they can be."
"What happens if they didn't make it, Lieutenant?"
"We're on our own and we go to Plan B—which is to make our way to the top and do as much damage as possible. At that point, the more noise and confusion we cause, the more damage reaches Makr's mainframe and database."
She didn't tell them that the main reason she had led them here was to find Harry and Marlene or Jana whatever-her-name-was. Mother-General spoke of the two newcomers as if they are the key to our success or failure, she thought. In Kieran's black and white reality, they were gray and out of focus. Regardless, she knew her duty. If either of the two did anything the least bit suspicious, she'd do what was necessary.
Plan A was for her and her team to stay topside and wait. When the 'go' was given, they were to keep as many cyberts as possible out of the action in the primary cyberserver quadrant. Attacking there would send as many defensive cyberts as needed to repel the attackers. But there was time, she thought, to help her own Nest before the final battle, and to help Carlos if she could.
Acting on a hunch was not particularly scientific. It was risky even. That's what we humans do best. We take risks. Thanks to Harry, she'd learned that essential difference between Cyber and Bio. From an Insider! She couldn't believe it herself, but there was something about Harry, something in the way he thought, something in what he said that had meaning for all. Not just Touchable or Shadows but everyone. Maybe he is the one they've been waiting for, she thought, and then tried to shake the ridiculous idea from her head. What she did know for a fact was that she had spent her life trying to figure out the qualitative difference between Shadows and Cyber. Now, she had an opportunity to prove it.
She cleared her mind so she could concentrate fully on the task ahead. So far...slow going, but no incidents. No bugs. No rats. No sizzle or zap—the telltale signs of the cybert-exterminators. But...this list of what was not present—was not good.