Chapter 17
As they passed what used to be Ryde, the roads straightened out, so Jack dropped down and opened Betty up. Blake and Cindy accelerated to chase, but as Betty stretched out, they started to fade into the distance. Jack looked in the rear-view as an explosion hit the side of the road a half kilometre behind him. Blake and Cindy blew straight through it, undisturbed.
“They’ve seen us,” said Blake over the comm.
“You don’t say. Thanks for the heads up,” said Cindy with a surprised voice that was probably masking the fear of what she had just witnessed. The shell narrowly missed the Ferrari.
“Stick to the plan,” said Jack. “When it gets too hot I’ll slow down to engage, but for now I’m outta here.”
With that he visualised the bend in the road three kilometres ahead and Betty accelerated hard to 390 kilometres per hour. Jack didn’t want to go past that in case he had to take evasive measures; he knew nothing short of a fighter jet could catch him, but he wasn’t going to abandon Sin.
A freeway on ramp came up, and he saw a half dozen vehicles clumsily making their way down. He was well past by the time they came around, no collision detection, but Cindy and Blake would have a scuffle. He only looked forward, visualising the road for the next twenty kilometres or so. The next bend came up fast, Jack dropped the bike hard and scraped his boot. The G-forces were heavy, real heavy, so were his eyes. Heavier, the road swept in, the stars dropped down, he snapped out of it as the bike straightened up. Looking up he saw the Corner Warning register fifteen G’s.
“Whoa, that was awesome!” He never meant to say that out loud.
“Jack,” Cindy interrupted, “we got a lot of company here.”
“Do I stop?”
“Negative, but be alert, they’re swarming.”
“Be alert? What the hell do you think I’m doing? We’re going to attack the most powerful organised crime in the region!” Jack swerved to miss a section of missing road.
As he went past he saw the ocean had started consuming the highway. He slowed to a respectable 300 kilometres per hour, and fired up HALO, in all the excitement he forgot he had it. The road was weaving inland now, rising up and away from the swamps and wetlands of the coast. He kept slowing, the road getting tighter, meaning more opportunities for an ambush.
Fifteen kilometres behind Jack, the road was frantic. Blake was weaving his heavy-amour GTX through blasts from at least a dozen vehicles ahead. He saw two older vehicles in front with personnel out of the roof facing back with projectile weapons. He accelerated hard into the first one, knocking it off its axis and into the second. It scooped under the chassis flipping the vehicle, bouncing across the lanes. Cindy accelerated hard and swept under it, the vehicle scraping the roof of the Ferrari.
“They make those cars tougher these days, huh Cindy?”
“Yeah, helps I skinned it with the same crap you’re wearing now.”
“Yeah, well I hope it’s a thick skin, ‘cos we’re about to get messed up!”
Cindy saw four bikes ahead, all had heavy weapons modifications, and were moving in a staggered formation, slowing to get ready to sweep around her and Blake.
“Not today boys,” she said.
“What?”
“Never mind, check this out, borrowed some software from the Airforce a few years ago.”
She reached forward and tapped a visual of all four of them on her holo heads-up. Leaning back she swept her right hand to the left as though to wipe the screen clear. Super-sonic darts from the front of the car hit all of the bikes at the same time, flipping them almost instantly into the air and throwing the riders off as though they were rag dolls.
Blake and Cindy swerved through the carnage. Blake watched one bike crash down onto a redundant roadside B4 booster. It may have been redundant, but had a massive charge. The explosion tore through the asphalt of the road, bouncing the GTX across a lane as Blake struggled to straighten it up with the warning sensors lighting up like the Fourth of July.
“Nice one Sin,” said Blake, in his best twangy ‘Jack’ accent.
“Sin?” she replied.
“Yeah, it’s growing on me,” he chuckled. “What say we blow this joint and go see what Jack’s up to?”
“I hear that. I’ve got EMP in ten seconds, drop … now.”
“Check, I’m dropping proximity mines for the stragglers.”
The two of them accelerated hard, pushing to get out of EMP range. Blake had red flashing lights on his screen warning of the EMP, Cindy just tapped a few buttons that shielded the Ferrari. As they got further down the freeway, Blake looked back to see their own creation of the Northern Lights, in what was left of a section of the road.
Further up the road, Jack was closing in on the HQ location. Although there had been some trouble on the road, it felt like a pretty lightweight effort by the Clan, considering the resources they had available.
“Jack, it’s Ping, you got me?”
“Yeah Ping, what’s up? I’m getting worked over on this road.”
“You didn’t go Seek’s route, it must be the Feds.”
Sure, thought Jack, ‘cos all the Feds ride bikes, hang out of cars and blow up vehicles on the freeway! Regardless, he knew it was Ping covering his arse. He thought, for what it was worth, he better carry on the charade for as long as he could.
“Yeah, sorry, got mixed up, I’m a little frazzled here. What’s happening your end?”
“No Fed activity at the facility.” Ping reminding him it was all Wing’Tan. “Just me, Seek, Loach and Tank.”
Seek came onto the comm. “Just get here Jack, we need you now.”
“Roger boss, en route, five minutes.” Jack heard the comm click out.
Cindy came on the comm straight away. “Right, we all heard that, not much support, should be an easy entry.”
“Not so sure, Sin. Ping is on our side, he wants out, but Seek won’t be so dumb. Expect a little more resistance than men with pea-shooters.”
“Oh, I’m always ready to sort out men and their little pea-shooters.”
Blake laughed. “Now I know how Sin knows you Jack.”
“Screw you, Blake,” replied Jack with his usual lack of tact or diplomacy. “Pillow talk aside, I think we just rush them with a full-frontal. They will know it’s not just me anymore by the little display on the freeway, so let’s just hit it hard and see what’s left when the dust settles.”
“Sounds like a standard Fed operation, huh Blake?”
“Apparently, Sin.”
“Well, my friend,” said Blake in his best Boss voice, “now is your time to step up and become a man. We are about to mix it up in a serious way. Get out your game face and load your weapons. Game on, son.”
“Now that you’ve got the pep talk aside,” said Cindy, “I’m going to lay down a comm scrambler, we’ll be eyes-only so hang back for us. I also have some proximity mines I’ll drop as we go in, so if the access road isn’t looking like Swiss cheese on our way out, blaze the road surface to set them off, no point escaping the facility to become road-kill ten seconds later.”
“Check, but hold the scrambler, may need to talk to them inside. I’d say Ping is in the lab down the ramp, it’s where all the comms gear is. Nowhere near Seek’s office, but we’ll deal with that later. Hopefully when we get to Ping he can disable the internal defences. If Ping is dead, we split. That place is like Fort Knox with defences in place.”
“Ahhh, Blake, got comms on your Fed friends,” Cindy sounded worried. “They know where the Wing’Tan base is, and they’re mobilising now. We’ve got fifteen minutes, maybe, before the whole place is a damned Fed convention.”
“Jesus. We don’t need them now.”
“Thanks, professor. What’s their protocol on nuke blasts?”
“Ummmm, we’re a little over our heads already Sin, you got a nuke in your trunk?”
“No dumbass, but I can get Angel t
o hack their servers and put up a fake blast now, giving high radiation readings in the area. Have to be quick, or they’ll detect there was no blast.”
“They’ll wait fifty kilometres out, relay a Sat for visual and direct radiation confirmation, then move in.”
“Right, that will take at least thirty minutes. I’ve programmed Angel for the raid now, they’ll be stuffed in two minutes.”
Jack saw Cindy and Blake coming up in his rear view, they were now only a few kilometres away. He hadn’t been ambushed at all, which probably meant there were heavy reinforcements at HQ. Weaving through the trees and over the undulating hills, he saw the faint glow of perimeter lighting appear. Slowing to a stop on the last rise before HQ, they were about 800 metres out.
“Holy CrapFuck !” Blake let out. “I think they know you’re not alone Jack.”
“Full of clever observations today, aren’t you Fed-boy?”
The three of them were stopped in the middle of the road, looking towards a clearing in the trees with the upper levels of Wing’Tan HQ sitting inside a plasma charged boundary fence. Beyond the fence were at least forty cars, bikes and a few hovers, all facing them. God knows what else was waiting that they couldn’t yet see.
“Uh, Ping, you there?”
“Yeah Jack, seems you have a little company.”
“Yeah, brought a few friends.”
“So did we. Care to get off Betty and walk down to have a chat?”
“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be doing that. You could all lay down your weapons now and give me the Biotronics data though. That’d be nice.”
“Yeah, sure J. Just come get it.” Jack got the message again, Ping had something ready; he was just hoping Seek wasn’t a step or two ahead.
“Cindy, Blake, you guys can turn back now if you want, you don’t have to do this.”
“Grab your balls, Jack,” Cindy sounded pretty hyped. “It’s just a few pussies and a bit of hardware. I’m going to hit that fence hard, my car will absorb the energy of that Plasma fence as long as it isn’t over about 1.2 gigawatts.”
“If it is?”
“You’ll have a roadside fireworks show, with me as the finale.” At that, Cindy floored it and accelerated hard. Jack and Blake hit the throttle hard as soon as she started moving.
Jack had dozens of targets coming up through TLM, it was overload for him, so he prioritised the targets. The plan was go straight for the ramp, Sin and Blake could handle the riff-raff outside. His visor cleared, and a few targets marked-up, then a few more. Jack had the darts loaded and set to fire automatically when in range.
As they got within 300 metres, weapons fire started raining in. A combination of projectiles, plasma and concussion blasts rocked the oncoming vehicles. Cindy was hit with a plasma blast but didn’t seem to stop. She returned fire, sweeping her free hand left and right, and selecting different weapons while driving. She hit the fence hard, her displays flashed so bright she shut her eyes; everything went hay-wire. Within a second she was in a pitch black rolling coffin.
“Boys if you can hear me, I’ve lost controls and weapons. Systems restarting now, I hope the skin holds out.”
“Hold on, Sin.” Blake let out a grunt as he was broadsided by an armoured car. “I’m going to shunt you out of the way and draw some fire.”
Cindy braced as he rammed the Ferrari from behind. The control systems lit up at the same instant, windows clearing in time for her to see a hover coming down hard. She swerved to the side and Blake kept going straight through. The charged ram bars on the GTX hit the hover square on, tearing the front end clean off before they got to fire. Blake looked to his right and saw Jack heading back up the road.
“Where the hell are you going arsehole?”
“Relax, I’ve got a plan, the ramp entry is blocked.”
Jack swung Betty around and accelerated as hard as he could, the bike morphing into the now familiar dart shape as he moved over 200 kilometres per hour. He had no idea if this would work; he was just as likely to be paste as get through. He looked to the right and saw Blake and Cindy drawing vehicles away, but getting a hammering in the process.
Jack was 250 metres out when at least six Military ion-plasma Drones whipped past, launching rockets at the vehicles on the ramp. Jack hit the brakes hard, fish tailing all over the ramp, and slowing to a stop fifty metres from the doors. He looked back and saw the drones whipping back and forth across the battle field, cutting up vehicles and shooters with hyper-sonic projectiles. Nothing was hitting Cindy or Blake.
“Your friends, Sin?”
“Not me, but I’m glad they turned up, I’m at fifteen percent power and leaking like a bitch.”
“Blake?”
“Negative. No idea who. It’s not Fed hardware, and if it’s standard mil gear, they kept it a damn good secret.”
“I’m going into the hangar. I’d appreciate backup when you can get down here.”
Blake targeted the doors in a half dozen locations with TLM. He was about to shoot when the doors started to open. Seek was standing there, with Tank to his right, and Ping to his left with a gun to his temple.
Seek shouted, “Get of the bike Jack, and take off the helmet.”
Blake did what Seek said, going through the options. He put the helmet on the ground facing the hangar, and slowly stood up. “We just want the Biotronics data, Seek. It’s not yours to own, and certainly not yours to sell.”
“And when the hell did you become a do-gooder, you son of a bitch. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be a puddle on the ground.” Seek was fired up to the point Jack could see the veins pulsing on his neck, even from this far out.
“Since I found out it was you that screwed me in the first place, and since I found out you were innocent people as your own private real-world testing ground.” Jack started walking towards them, but stopped thirty metres out as Tank held up an explosive charge.
“C’mon Jack, really? That actually means something to you? The government has been screwing people for years. They are the ones that created the ghettos we thrive in. They created the wealth gap for the Alphas to exist for us to trade with. We’re just levelling the playing field with them a little.”
“What, you’re taking over the government now? Bit ambitious isn’t it?”
An explosion hit the wall at the top of the ramp, nobody flinched. The scene was so tense nothing else around them existed. Jack could see Tank was waiting to run over and tear him into bite-sized pieces. But he wouldn’t, not without Seek’s command. His loyal terrier.
“We’re not taking over, we’re creating a little slice of anarchy. The people will take it over. We’ll just be there to guide them when they do.”
“Who is ‘we’ Seek? Last I heard Trina was vaporised.”
“Screw you, Jack.” Seek was seething at the comment, and the reminder of his loss. “Trina may have hid the truth of her position, but it was her position nonetheless.”
“And now what? Seek versus Australia?”
“No, I have many backers and followers, and not just in Australia. This country has a great deal of resources, technology and land, that many people will pay a great deal to be a part of.”
“Well, sorry Seek, I just can’t let you do that.”
“Then we have come to the end of our arrangement, Jack. Sorry you couldn’t be part of the A-team.” Seek raised his gun and hit Ping across the face, knocking him to the ground and swinging the gun back towards Jack. At that same moment, Jack heard a whistle and saw dozens of darts hit Seek and Tank, the explosive charge detonator getting disintegrated, much to Jack’s relief.
“Sin, you there?”
“Can see you bright and clear sweetheart.”
“I was hoping you had hacked the visor. Thanks by the way.”
“No problem. Tell me, what would you have done if I hadn’t hacked it?”
“Died I guess. I trust you, Sin.”
“Aww
, how sweet,” said Blake in his most blatant sarcastic voice. “Now that you two have finished, shall we grab Ping and get the hell out of here?”
Jack walked down the ramp to Ping who was getting up and wiping the blood from his eye. He helped him up, slung his arm over his shoulder and started walking back up the ramp.
“Jack, wait.” Ping let go and hobbled over to the bench. He grabbed a small computer, a few other devices, and bundled them into a backpack, slinging it over his shoulder.
“Just a little insurance in case the Feds catch up with me,” he smiled, but winced as the already forming bruise from the pistol got in the way.
“I’m all for insurance. We’ll be needing a lot of it later.”
“Help me up the ramp will you, this stuff is heavy.”
Jack took the bag and slung it over his shoulder, helping Ping up the ramp. At the top, Blake and Cindy walked over to meet them.
The drones swept over the building and shot up in a rapid ascent, before rolling down and moving into a wide ring-formation. They levelled out twenty metres from the ground in a hover, surrounding the four of them.
A white limousine with heavy modifications in the way of armour and artillery came over the hill and into the compound. The driver’s window came down, and a man wearing a black combat outfit held his hand out with a phone. Jack walked over and took the phone. The window went up, and the vehicle drove away.
As soon as the car left the compound, the drones all moved away in synchronisation and accelerated over the trees and beyond sight.
Jack turned to Cindy and shrugged his shoulders; the phone rang. Any sense of things being over were sure to be short lived. Looking at the others, Jack answered the call.
“Hello, who is this?”
“Hello Jack. Sorry for the old-fashioned device. Harder to track you see.”
“Yeah, sure. Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“Can’t be a friend, I don’t know your name.”
“My name is Tyrol, and I believe I just saved your life out there. So, if you’re not my friend, you’re at least an acquaintance.”
“Well, Tyrol, who are you when you’re not saving lives, and why are you getting into this?”
“Oh, I’m not getting in, I’ve been in for a while. Wing’Tan are bad people, Jack. I’ve been trying to get rid of them and their ilk for a while now. I’m glad you came along when you did, and relieved you picked the right side.”
“And what side is that?”
“The side of truth and peace.”
“I haven’t witnessed either of those for a long time, Tyrol.”
“Well, with my help, perhaps we can all achieve these things in due course. I will be in touch soon. Goodbye.”
The phone went dead. Jack tried to start it up, but there was nothing. It was a brick. He threw the phone to Cindy. “See if you can get this thing going, I want to know where the call came from.”
“Who was it?” Cindy asked.
“Trouble.”