Cyber Dreams 2.36 - Steady

Some action, some slight twists . . . let me know what you think :)

-Plum

“They’re scattering, and I’ve lost two from the drone feed; I’m not sure how,” Angel said, her voice calm and clinical.

“Lost two, Sarge,” Juliet said, “Tracking the remaining four.”

“Paint the one in the front there, the one with the long gun.” Juliet watched as Angel complied, following White’s request. A yellow X appeared on the prone figure as it tried to deploy a long-barreled weapon on a tripod. The X moved from his head down toward his lower back as Angel sought out a clear line of sight for White’s shot.

“Clear to fire,” Angel said.

“You’re clear, Sarge. All adjustments made . . .” Juliet started to say, but White’s gauss rifle barked again, and the *whistle-crack* of his projectiles ripping through the canyon made her words superfluous.

Juliet refused to look away, watching her vid feed as the spray of hyper-accelerated needles turned the man’s mid-section to a fine mist and sent his lower half flopping away from his upper torso and arms, still gripping the rifle. “God,” she breathed. How could such tiny projectiles do so much damage?

“Houston, you probably have incoming—two of the targets went dark and likely are highly speed-boosted,” White said as he waited for Juliet to paint the next target.

“Roger. We’re set.” Houston sounded sure, and Juliet wanted to access his or one of the others’ feeds so she could see how they were set up, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the drone footage; she had to set up White’s next execution. She swallowed hard, then picked one of the remaining three scattered individuals; they’d spread out around the dry creek bed, and this one was crouching behind a large boulder. Unfortunately, she’d—the figure looked feminine to Juliet’s eye—underestimated the height and angle of White’s position.

As she selected the crouching infiltrator, Angel painted her with a yellow X, and ten seconds later, she’d been erased from existence. “Jesus, Sarge,” Addie said aloud, “that gun is sick.”

“You’re supposed to be watching for incoming; keep your eyes outta the drone footage.”

“Sorry,” Addie said, abashed. “Nothing moving on the trail up this way. I mean, we’re a half-hour hike beyond Houston and the others . . .”

“Cut the chatter.” White’s words were soft and steady, and Juliet knew why; he was getting ready to blast her next target. The gauss rifle barked, the shots resounded through the canyon, and another crouching figure was crossed out on Angel’s feed. “One more,” he said, “Then we need to back up the others.”

“They’re two klicks from where you shot the first guy; you think these people would really charge up and not run for the hills?”

“Always assume the worst, Hunter,” White said, then growled, “Roman, I’m waiting for that target!”

“Right,” Juliet said, and then Angel put the yellow X on the final visible infiltrator, a prone figure lying next to a thick, fallen tree. “He’s covered by that tree.”

“Ayup. Firing two bursts for certainty.” White’s gun barked twice, and the canyon echoed with the sound of his projectiles. Juliet saw the tree burst into a shower of shredded wood and mist from the moisture it had retained, and then when it cleared, she had to struggle to make her mind reconcile the bits left behind with the person who’d been hiding there a moment before.

“That’s five,” White said, standing up and hooking his gun to his belt. “Move the drone to cover Houston and the others.”

“Right,” Juliet said, trusting Angel to carry out the order.

“Hunter, I know you can get down there faster than we can, but stay with us. I don’t want you to burst into a firefight alone until you’ve had more experience.”

“No arguments, Sarge,” Addie said, surprising Juliet—she’d seemed so gung-ho earlier. Maybe watching five people get shredded like lambs to the slaughter had tamped down her eagerness. They hustled down the path at a double-time pace, White leading the way and Juliet bringing up the rear. She felt a little sick in her stomach, and she knew it was because of her role in the long-range executions.

She tried to shake it off, to put the thoughts in a box and deal with them later, and she partially succeeded. Still, she kept seeing their gray-scale bodies coming apart in a spray of mist, and Juliet had to furiously force herself to focus on Addie’s back, concentrating on something tangible to keep her mind from painting those pictures. She knew she’d feel differently if she were certain those people were hostile, that they’d come to kill her, but right then, it just felt like they’d murdered a bunch of people for trespassing.

“Contact!” Delma’s voice came through the comms, quick and edged with panic. Gunfire sounded from somewhere below them and to the left, far off and echoing against the canyon walls.

“Anything on the drone?” White asked, further increasing his pace.

“Angel?” Juliet subvocalized.

“No . . . I see Delma and the other two. She seems wounded, Juliet.”

“No eyes on the bad guys, Sarge, but Granado looks injured.”

“Frag out!” Houston said into comms, and then a tremendous boom echoed up from below, and Juliet glanced at the drone footage to see a plume of smoke coming up a dozen meters south of Delma’s position. “Think I got one . . .” His words were cut short, and more gunfire sounded.

“One hostile down,” Jensen said, cool as ice. “Granado and Houston are out of commission.” His words spurred White to further abandon caution, and he started to run down the hill, pell-mell. Juliet and Addie followed, the steep decline causing her running steps to crunch and pound, jarring her knees and forcing her to focus on the path; she couldn’t spare a glance at the drone footage.

“Talk to me, Jensen!” White said.

“Not now, Sarge,” Jensen said, and Juliet could tell he must be subvocalizing; there was no strain in his voice, no breathing. His PAI was synthesizing his words. Juliet followed the others around a final switchback and raced past the Grave encampment, charging down the trail out of the saddle toward the parking lot. Juliet knew that, even at their current pace, they were still ten minutes away from being able to help Jensen and the others.

“Angel, tell me what you’re seeing; I can’t look away from the trail right now,” Juliet subvocalized.

“I lost sight of Jensen. I can see Houston and Granado, and I’m sorry, but Houston appears dead; his body temp is rapidly falling. Granado is still moving—she’s crawling through some wreckage, seeking cover in a burned-out motor vehicle.”

“White,” Juliet huffed, raw emotion straining her vocal cords, “Houston’s hurt bad . . . at least!”

“Roger,” was all he said as he continued to motor down the trail, and Juliet remembered they could all see his vitals. Feeling stupid, she glanced at her unit readout, saw his heart rate had flatlined, and felt her eyes start to burn as tears streamed out of the corners of her eyes. She wanted to blame it on the wind, on the exertion of running down the steep trail, but she knew the truth—Houston was dead, Delma was in trouble, and she wasn’t handling it well.

More, rapid, staccato shots rang out, and Angel said, “I see the infiltrator; he’s shooting toward Delma!”

“I’m pinned . . .” Delma gasped into comms, but she was cut off by Jensen.

“He’s down. That’s two dead here. Are we clear?”

“Angel?” Juliet huffed, not caring who heard her talking to her PAI.

“I see no others. There are seven hostiles down, matching my first count.”

“I think we’re good. Jensen, we’re almost there; check on Granado and Houston!”

“Already on it.”

“Juliet,” Angel said as the trio continued to pound down the trail, running hard, “I have footage of Jensen killing the final infiltrator. They had a knife fight, and Jensen moved faster than any human I’ve seen.”

“Faster than Don?” Juliet asked, remembering the twitchy operator from a lifetime ago.

“Yes, significantly.”

“Right,” she subvocalized, “Don’t fuck with Jensen. Got it.”

“Sorry, Sarge,” Jensen said into comms, “Houston cashed in his last chips.”

“Goddammit,” White growled, and Juliet had to bite back her urge to utter some useless platitude.

Instead, she asked, “What about Delma? Are you there, Granado?”

“She’s here, but she’s really low on blood. I’m trying to stop it . . . shot through the thigh.” Jensen’s voice betrayed some strain for the first time. “Correction—shot twice through the thigh.”

“I’m calling things in. Still no reply from Garza. Commander Anderson’s PAI is sending me a canned response that he’s on vacation. Fuck it, let me see if Polk’s recovered enough to talk.”

Juliet ran behind White and Addie, her mind racing, wondering who might have sent this squad to the canyon, but knowing, somewhere in her gut or heart or the back of her brain, that it was Gordon. That bastard was still trying to clean up loose ends for Vance; she was sure of it. Her thoughts were interrupted by White as he spoke aloud, clearly only half of a conversation.

“Hey, Sarge! . . .Yeah, I know . . . What? . . . You’re goddamn shitting me! . . . No. Nobody’s checked in with us . . . We just put down a kill squad, but Houston’s dead . . . I’m not calling him . . . Not happening, Sarge . . . Seriously?” White looked over his shoulder at Juliet, and she experienced a sudden chill. “Our watchdogs are offline? They don’t show offline. Well, it’s a moot point; she didn’t make it. Yeah, I’m sure. Okay, thanks for the head’s up, Sarge. See you after cleanup.”

“What?” Addie asked, clearly as intrigued as Juliet.

“I’ll brief you guys later. Right now, let’s help Jensen.” White gestured ahead, and Juliet saw the ancient sign labeling the trails and knew the parking lot was just around the corner.

“Angel,” Juliet subvocalized, “is the watchdog offline?”

“It hasn’t sent or received data for more than twenty hours. I believe it may have been severed from the network. Why would they do that?”

“So they could clean us up without having any evidence on file?” Juliet frowned, wondering what else Polk had told White. As they jogged into the parking lot, she raised her voice and said, “So Polk was okay?”

“Not a hundred percent, but better than we feared,” White replied, then ran over to where Angel had marked Houston’s body on the drone map. Juliet could hear Jensen urging Delma to hold on, so she charged over the blacktop sliding behind a burned-out old sedan, and there she was, lying in a pool of blood, Jensen working to tighten a tourniquet around her thigh.

“Gimme a fucking hand! Sprinkle some bleeder dust in these holes!”

Juliet fumbled in her belt pack, found a packet of the cauterizing powder, and knelt next to Delma’s ashen-faced form. “This is going to burn like hell,” she said, but Delma didn’t respond. Were they too late? Juliet held the packet between her teeth, then reached down and dug her fingers around the bullet holes in Delma’s pants, yanking to rip the fabric wide. That done, she brushed some of the bubbling blood aside to expose the wounds, then took the packet, ripped the corner off, and sprinkled half the pack into each injury.

It sizzled and bubbled, but Delma didn’t move, which worried Juliet even more. “Is she breathing?” she asked, her voice shaking with stress.

“She was . . .” Jensen said, then he held his fingers to Delma’s neck. “Sarge, dammit, we need a medivac!”

“I’ve called the fluttercraft in. We’ll be airborne in three minutes. Is she stable?” His question reminded Juliet that she was hearing him through her implants and that he wasn’t nearby. Rather, he was on the other side of the old parking lot, dealing with his dead friend.

“My HUD says she has a weak pulse, but I’m not feeling it,” Jensen said, then he sat back and blew out a breath, clearly frustrated. “She wasn’t ready for this shit.”

Juliet frowned and nodded at Jensen’s words. Delma wasn’t ready for this shit. She didn’t deserve to die because Gordon and Vance had a mess to clean up. She paused to wonder why she was so sure this team had come from them. She shook her head, deciding it was the only thing that made sense.

She leaned over her friend, looking into her waxen face, and then, following a strange urge, she pressed her forehead against Delma’s, feeling the cool flesh, the faint tingle of electricity that always accompanied the touch of another person. She could feel her in there, knew she wasn’t dead. She whispered, “Delma, I’m going to make them regret this. I’m going to make sure they pay. Don’t let go.”

After her whispered promise, she sat up and saw Jensen regarding her appraisingly. He gave her a nod, then pointed up and to the west, where a black dot was rapidly growing larger, accompanied by the signature buzzing whir of a fluttercraft. “Just hang on a little longer,” she said, squeezing Delma’s hand, then standing up.

“Okay, team, get Houston and Granado ready to load up. Roman, I need to speak to you,” White spoke through comms, but Juliet could see him standing off to the side, near the rough, broken road that led down through the canyon. She jogged over to him, wondering what Polk had told him, wondering if this was where he tried to kill her.

“Sarge?” she asked, stopping a few feet from him, her enhanced arm tense, ready to reach for her vibroblade.

“Relax, Roman. I don’t know what’s going on, exactly, but Polk told me Garza’s missing. She also told me that, before she went missing, Garza told her that Gordon wanted you dead.”

“Sarge, seriously, what’s going on?” Juliet was fishing, hoping she’d learn a little more.

“Some kind of fuckin’ coup, I guess. We’re collateral damage. Our watchdogs are off, by the way—Polk didn’t know diddly squat about what we’re going through. My buddy is dead on that pavement over there because of some bullshit vendetta or housecleaning that Gordon’s got going on. As far as I’m concerned, you died in this firefight, understood? You were hit with an RPG, and we couldn’t pick up enough scraps to bring home. I’ll make the others understand. If that asshole’s going to turn off our watchdogs, then I’m going to take advantage of it.”

“Seriously?” Juliet’s mind was at war with itself—half wanted to feel panic, and the other half was surging with relief. “What am I supposed to do, White?”

“Seriously. I’m sorry I don’t have more advice for you, and I’m sorry to cut this short, but you gotta get outta here. Hope we meet again someday, Roman—best if you disappear for now.” He gestured toward the undergrowth between the trees, jerking his head toward the rapidly descending fluttercraft, and Juliet took the hint. She nodded curtly and jogged off the cracked, brittle pavement, slipping into the brush. She was sure the fluttercraft sensors would pick her up, but if White was covering for her, he could lie about who she was.

“Angel, make sure that watchdog doesn’t come back online. In fact, delete it,” she said as she jogged through the old, dry pine needles and broken, deadwood twigs. She kept running until she came to a twist in the canyon road and followed it as she heard the sound of the fluttercraft fading away.

She wondered what Jensen and Addie were thinking, wondered if they’d follow White’s lead and lie about her dying. She had a strong feeling that Jensen would, and Addie seemed different than before, more subdued, and certainly more friendly. Maybe she’d toe the line.

“What will you do?” Angel asked as Juliet slowed her jog to a brisk walk, still heading down the road.

“Well, Angel, I could probably make a report to Rachel and get paid. I could take that money and clear out, but I feel like I’ve got too many damn loose ends at Grave Tower. I feel like there are too many people who deserve a little justice, and, well, I made a promise to Delma just now.”

“Did she hear you, though?”

“I heard me. Do me a favor, will you, Angel? Can you please go through those GARD personnel files and pick the highest-ranking female.”

“That would be Doctor Angela Chaudhry.”

“Show me a picture.” A window opened in her AUI with a photo of a woman, probably in her middle years but still quite young-looking. She had long dark hair, augmented irises that shone like polished silver in the light, and a complexion a shade or two darker than Juliet’s. “Hmm, close enough. Start altering my hair, irises, and prints to match her file, Angel.”

“It’ll take a couple of days to get your hair that dark and long.”

“That’s fine. I’m in the damn wilderness; I’ll probably need a day or two to get back to Phoenix.” Juliet looked at her drone footage, frowning as she directed it out over the mouth of the canyon. “White is a damn good guy, you know that, Angel? Can you make sure this drone isn’t sending out any signal other than the one to you?”

“Yes, but it won’t last too much longer. Its battery is good for another ninety-seven minutes.”

“Long enough. Please navigate me to the people White shot near the creek bed.” In the spot vacated by her deleted watchdog, Juliet saw a small map appear and a dotted line directing her. Angel helpfully counted down the meters as she approached; at that moment, she was 1564 meters away from the first body. “While I’m jogging, please keep an eye out with the drone, make sure White didn’t double-cross me or, worse, that Gordon didn’t send a second team.”

“I will.” Angel sounded terse, and Juliet frowned at her tone.

“Something wrong?”

“I’m just worried about Delma and sad that Houston is dead. I’m angry at the people at Grave that decided they were expendable. Juliet, I’m proud of you for wanting to deliver justice.” A lump rose in Juliet’s throat, and her heart skipped a beat as she nearly stumbled.

“Angel! I . . . I’m sad too!” She felt her eyes flooding with tears, and she shook her head. “I’m not thinking about Houston and Delma right now! I’m trying not to think about what Gordon did to Cherize! If I give myself a chance, I’m going to sit down, and fucking lose it. I have to keep it in a box right now. Do you hear me? I feel it too!”

“Thank you, Juliet; I’m glad my feelings aren’t abnormal.”

“No, Angel, they’re not abnormal. Any person would feel that way, and it makes perfect sense that you do, too. I’m so goddamn mad right now . . .” Juliet shook her head again and steadied her pace—she’d begun to sprint. “I have to keep it together, though, and be smart. I want to make sure Gordon and Vance pay, and I want to put an end to any research or data GARD has on the GIPEL. We need to stay steady. For now. For now, Angel.”