Cyber Dreams 1.35 - Drones

Here's today's installment! Hope you're all having a good day. I cut my knuckle on a sharp edge while moving a reclining chair yesterday - what an annoying place to get a cut! Every time I bend my finger, it starts bleeding again, which is kinda slowing down the old typing.

Enough about me :)

Enjoy!

-Plum

Juliet and Honey crouched near the base of an old, dried-out cholla cactus skeleton. Down the slope before them, maybe half a mile distant, Vikker’s compound was abuzz with activity. “Way more people than I would have thought,” Juliet subvocalized into their team channel.

“My PAI says there are fourteen outside—can your implants pick up heat signatures in the buildings?” Honey replied, also silently.

“Angel?” Juliet prompted, and then her vision changed over to the infrared spectrum. She stared at the garage building and the ranch-style house, but the spots of color she made out were from the vents and doorways, the solar cells, and the battery banks.

“Your implants aren’t sensitive enough to read through those exterior walls, Juliet; I’m sorry.”

“No dice,” Juliet subvocalized. “My implants are decent, but not that good.”

“Hang on,” Honey replied, fiddling with a setting on her new goggles. “Oh, nice! No wonder these were so pricey.” Her excitement bled through into her words, and though she was trying to subvocalize, Juliet heard a word or two hiss out through her lips. Juliet looked at the sky, well aware that there were no less than three drones up there scanning the area for movement, heat signatures, and sounds.

“So,” Honey said into their comms, her lips clamped shut, “Fourteen outside doing various things, and I see three in the garage and five in the house. All of ‘em are moving around except for one signature in a room toward the back of the house. A bedroom, maybe?”

“Maybe Ghoul?”

“Maybe.”

“No wonder this guy was so cocky—he’s got a damn army here.” Juliet wanted to sigh in exasperation, wanted to smack her fist into her hand, but knew that a plume of hot air or the noise might draw a drone’s attention.

“It’s not impossible, though,” Honey replied, surprising Juliet. “I mean, there are a lot of them, but let’s keep watching. Those guys in the yard are up to something with that truck. Maybe some of them are going to leave.”

Juliet nodded, then subvocalized, “Yeah, I just wish I could get control of those drones.” Angel had tried connecting to the drones, but they had pretty good shielding and only took connections on a single encrypted channel.

“On that subject, Juliet, I’ve been doing some research. If we can get closer to the compound, my attack might be more successful if I can breach the drone’s base station. Someone is operating them from a hardened deck—if you could connect me it, we would own the drones.”

“That’s a big if, Angel,” Juliet replied, then into their team channel, “Honey, where would you put the control deck for those drones?”

“The garage,” Honey replied almost immediately. “That building is big, has lots of workspaces, according to your description, and I see a few people moving around in there, but one that seems relatively stationary. I bet it’s the drone operator. He, or she, I guess, occasionally paces a few steps but keeps returning to the same spot.”

“If I could connect to that deck, I could own the drones, and then we’d have a solid basis for a rescue op. We could spend tomorrow studying everything the drones see and hear and then make our move.”

“How the hell will you do that?” Honey almost chuckled. “You think you can slip into that garage with all those people moving around?”

“Not without a distraction . . .”

“Oh god. What’s your idea?”

“Well, they don’t know you, right? Suppose you drove by, innocently looking for a party you heard about out here.”

“Suppose they shoot me and try to sort out who I was from my corpse?” Honey frowned.

“Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. It was a stupid idea.”

“No, the general idea wasn’t stupid. We just need to think about it some more. How could we distract those guys?” Honey ran a finger under her chill suit hood where it was pressing into her cheek, trying to relieve an itch or allow some blood flow. Juliet could commiserate—the hoods weren’t very comfortable.

“I have an idea,” Juliet replied. “I feel like these guys aren’t doing something they’d want a lot of attention on, right?”

“Right . . .”

“So, what if they heard chatter about Helios corpo-sec coming out here to investigate a potential terrorist threat.”

“That would stir things up, for sure. How can we manage that, though?”

“Sec,” Juliet subvocalized, then, “Angel, can you spoof some net chatter about Helios heading out this way? Like on those public access sites that post the corpo-sec radio comms?”

“Yes, though it might very well garner some real attention, if not from Helios, from people that monitor those stations.”

“Yeah, but they’re not here yet, and we are. We can do our thing, then get out while Vikker’s cousin puts a lid on things.”

While she’d been talking to Angel, Honey’s frown had deepened, and her voice came through Juliet’s implant, “What if he’s connected to Helios? Aren’t they, like, into everything in Tucson?”

“Yeah, but does this feel legit to you?” Juliet nodded toward the compound down below.

“Not at all . . .” Honey paused, glancing to her left where Juliet could see some kind of nocturnal rodent rustling through a dried-out scrub. “Are we sure we don’t want just to grab Ghoul and run for it? I mean, if you make a good distraction?”

“No!” Juliet almost said aloud. “We’d be back at square one, with these guys still holding leverage over Ghoul. No, we have to do this right, and step one is owning those drones. You keep watch here, Honey. I’ll creep up to the garage, which will probably take an hour if I move slowly enough to avoid the drones noticing. I’ll spoof the corpo-sec chatter when I'm in position, then try to slip in and hack the drone box.”

“Hah. You’re sweet to try to keep me clear, but I’m coming with. If we need to subdue a person or two, I’m a hell of a lot better at it than you.” Honey reached over and squeezed Juliet’s wrist, adding, “C’mon, Juliet. You’ve only had a couple of sessions at the dojo. Trust me, okay?”

Juliet nodded, then, by way of answer, started creeping over the hard-packed desert ground toward the back wall of the big, metal, prefabbed garage structure. They had to crawl in slow-motion, moving their hands and legs one at a time, careful not to trigger the motion detection of the drones. Angel kept tabs on the drones' locations, and when they were moving in an arc that didn’t cover their approach, they’d speed up a little. Still, as Juliet had predicted, it took nearly an hour to cover the distance.

From her previous visit and their earlier observations, Juliet knew that the garage had three possible entrances—the metal door she’d perforated with the electro-shotgun, the big, closed bay door, and a side door that was probably locked. When she and Honey were finally crouched near an old sun-rotted garden hose and a pile of empty pallets, she subvocalized, “Let’s get eyes on the side door.”

Honey nodded and started crouch-walking, gently trailing her chill-suit-clad fingers along the structure's metal rear wall as she moved to the corner. The bay door and main entrance faced the ranch house, but the other door was on the opposite side, just around the corner from where Honey and Juliet huddled.

Honey subvocalized, “Not seeing any heat around the corner. Gonna take a peek.”

“Careful,” Juliet replied, holding a palm to Honey’s lower back, steadying herself, and letting her friend know she was there. Very slowly, Honey poked her head around the corner, then pulled it back. A second later, Juliet received an image file, and when she opened it, she saw the door and the lock in high-res. It wasn’t a smart lock—just an old-fashioned deadbolt.

Juliet gently scraped and tapped at the structure's metal, thinking about her vibroblade, then shook her head. “I can get through that lock pretty easily, but it would make a lot of noise and destroy it. They’d know we were here.”

“Good thing you brought me, then,” Honey replied, reaching through the zipper on her chill suit and pulling out a pen-shaped, plastic, and metal device. “Should be easy to pop that lock. Looks pretty old-school.” She grinned at Juliet, and her big smile beneath the heavy black goggles brought a similar expression to Juliet’s face.

“You’re straight nuclear, Honey,” she subvocalized.

“Damn right, I’m a nuke! Now you do your thing.”

“Right,” Juliet nodded. “Angel, can you do it? Send out the fake messages about a raid?”

“Oh yes, Juliet. It’s done. I had it primed and ready to go.”

“You’re the best.”

“Indeed! I’ve yet to meet or even read about a PAI that comes close to my capabilities,” Angel replied smugly.

“Oh, God, Angel! You should read an article about humility!”

“I was hoping you’d say I was nuclear,” Angel replied, and Juliet’s heart almost stopped.

“Angel, I’m sorry! I should have realized you were just messing around. You are nuclear! You’re a planet buster!”

Angel did have a reply to that, or at least she’d chosen not to reply, so Juliet smiled and leaned a shoulder against the garage wall and subvocalized in the team chat, “Now we wait. If this guy’s as connected and paranoid as I think he is, he’ll quickly see the fake chatter. Any ideas on how we might get rid of the drone operator without people realizing with we’ve done?”

“How much time will you need with the deck?” Honey replied.

“Angel?” Juliet asked.

“Not long, Juliet. With a wired connection, I can overwhelm the port with attack daemons and gain access in seconds. I should start teaching you how these things work, now that you mention it . . .”

“Sure, but not tonight, please, Angel!” then to Honey, “Just a few seconds.”

“Let’s see what things look like. Maybe he’ll step away.”

Juliet nodded, and they crouched there, long enough for Juliet’s thighs and knees to start to burn, and she was just beginning to contemplate shifting to sit on her butt when a shrill whistle sounded from the front of the garage, and shouting voices echoed into the desert night. “It’s working!” she breathed, no longer worried about the tiny noise of a whisper.

Before Juliet could caution her to be careful, Honey nodded and slipped around the corner, and jammed her tool into the deadbolt’s lock. Juliet watched from the corner and heard the little device whirr and click, then Honey violently twisted it to the left, and the deadbolt thunked home. She grinned and nodded to Juliet, ever so carefully turning the doorknob and opening the door just a tiny hair to peer through.

Juliet wasn’t too nervous yet—Honey had infrared imaging that would show her if anyone was near the door. She inched forward, ready to move when Honey said to, and she’d just gotten close when Honey quickly pulled the door wide and slipped inside. She paused at the threshold to motion Juliet in. Juliet hurried after her, and before looking around at the inside of the garage, she reached back and carefully pulled the door shut.

Honey was crouched behind a fifty-gallon drum filled with long pieces of scrap wood and aluminum. An ancient, boxy arc welder was nearby, so Juliet scooted behind it, peering over the top. Angel helpfully highlighted the two individuals in the garage and the seven or eight moving around outside the open bay door.

“Let’s go! Let’s go! Move your asses! Get that goddamn truck loaded and outta here!” someone shouted outside in the yard. Juliet scanned the garage and saw the little table with a deck and terminal set up on it, saw the heavy-set woman with pigtails sitting in front of it and saw the very chromed-up guy pacing around near the bay door, a huge, multi-barreled gun attached to his belt via some kind of hydraulic arm.

The woman sitting at the desk had her feet up on a cardboard box—her gaze was trained near the ceiling, and every so often, she’d chortle. “Is she watching a vid or something?” Honey subvocalized.

“Seems like it,” Juliet replied.

“I don’t like the look of that guy,” Honey’s voice said in her ear, her black-clad arm pointing to the man with the enormous gun.

“Just wait,” Juliet subvocalized, “They’re getting ready to move out that truck; maybe this guy won’t stay in the garage.”

“Someone’s coming,” Honey said, pointing to the wall near the open bay door. Juliet assumed she saw someone’s heat signature approaching.

“Bull,” a man’s voice said, and then crunching footsteps on gravel announced the arrival of a tall, lean man wearing black fatigues. He had steel gray hair, combed back from a high widow’s peak. He looked angry, and though he seemed fit, Juliet could see, with the help of her optics, that he had dark circles under his eyes and the tell-tale waxen complexion of a man using every trick in the book to fend off old age.

“Yeah?” the big man with the gun replied.

“I need you to take our guest downstairs. Sit with her in the cooler and keep her quiet. I don’t know what kinda hair Helios has up their asses, but they might come by and do some scanning.” He turned to the pigtailed woman and raised his voice, “Anything on the drones?”

“Just coyotes and owls. I need a break soon, Reynold.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve been sitting on your ass all night. I’ll have Wendy bring you a coffee.”

“A coffee and a snack—a couple of cookies would be good if there are any left.”

Reynold grunted and said, “Close this bay up and get in there,” to Bull as he turned to walk away, boots crunching on the gravel. Bull moved to punch the button to lower the bay door just as a heavy truck engine came to life outside, and the sounds of big tires on gravel filled Juliet’s enhanced hearing, drowning out the snippets of conversation she’d been trying to hear.

As the bay door came to rest, further obscuring the noises outside the building, Bull turned to the drone operator and said, “At least you don’t have to sit in the fucking cooler.”

“Sucks to be muscle,” the woman replied, snorting and waving her hand in front of her eyes, working with her AUI.

“Sucks to be muscle,” Bull mockingly replied, then smashed his hip against the metal door—the one still sporting hundreds of holes from Juliet’s shotgun rampage—and stepped out before it could rebound and slam shut with a resounding clang.

“Jeeze,” the drone operator said, “somebody give that man some zens.”

“Now?” Honey mouthed to Juliet.

Juliet shook her head and subvocalized, “Wait ‘til her snack gets delivered.”

Honey nodded, and the two of them continued to crouch there, waiting. The woman kicked her feet out again and leaned back, crossing her arms, and from her occasional chuckles and soft-spoken comments, Juliet knew she was back to watching her vids. The minutes ticked by, and Juliet began to grow worried that they’d realize the Helios raid was a false alarm and that activity in the garage would ramp up again. “Maybe he forgot about her,” Juliet subvocalized.

Honey just looked at her and shrugged, leaving the ball in Juliet’s court. One thing was sure—her legs were on fire from crouching for so long, and that might have been the main impetus for why she slowly, carefully, reached her hands out to the concrete floor and began to crawl around to the left of the woman’s desk. She was still twenty or thirty feet away, heading for a tool chest, when Honey’s voice came into her ear.

“Someone’s coming!”

To her credit, Juliet didn’t panic, didn’t scamper for cover. She picked up the pace a little and carefully crawled the rest of the way to the tool chest, crouching behind it so the drone operator’s desk and the door were both out of her line of sight. She hugged as close to the red metal as she could and tried to hold her breath as the heavy, perforated metal door swung open again.

A woman’s voice said, “Hey, Belle. Got you some leftover chicken and a brownie. Reynold said not to give you a beer, but fuck that. It’s been a long couple of days.”

“Oh shit, Wendy! Thank you! Where’s he at?” Juliet heard the drone operator, Belle, scoot back her chair and walk toward the door.

“He’s in the den, calling everyone and their granny, trying to figure out why Helios is coming out here.”

“There’s nothing going on as far as the drones can see. Here, sit down with me,” Juliet could hear their footsteps moving to her left and knew they’d be able to see her, so she crawled around the tool chest to the right. She put too much pressure on the red metal, leaning with one hand, and it rolled on its casters an inch. She froze, afraid she’d given herself away, but the women kept walking, and then she heard more chairs scraping and Belle’s heavy sigh as she sat down again.

Juliet wiped her forehead and brow, catching her sweat about to roll into her eyes and wondering what the hell she’d do if those women spotted her. Kill them? Try to knock them out? Run for it? She hadn’t thought that far ahead. She was about to ask Angel what was the best way to get a look at the women when a window appeared in her AUI, showing Honey’s view of things.

She saw herself kneeling behind the tool chest, and off to the left side of the main door, she saw Belle sitting at a small square card table hunkered down over a plate of fried chicken. The other woman, Wendy, sat with her back to Juliet. She was young, maybe early twenties or even a teen, with copper-colored, long, straight hair, a strand of which she absently twirled around her finger while she chatted with Belle.

Knowing where the two of them were looking, Juliet poked her head around the tool chest and scanned around, studying the last fifteen feet or so to the drone deck. “Angel,” she subvocalized, “can you map a route to the deck that keeps me out of their LOS?”

“Yes, I believe so,” Angel replied, and, a pair of heartbeats later, Juliet saw glowing orange arrows on the concrete floor that led away from her toward another scrap barrel. Juliet crawled over the arrows, following them from obstacle to obstacle until, two minutes later, she was crouched behind the long, plastic table that served as Belle’s desk.

She still had Honey’s view in her AUI and saw that the two women were still chatting while Belle ate, so she pulled out her data cord and reached up to the deck, carefully slotting it into one of the open ports. She didn’t bother to tell Angel what to do next, trusting her to be quick.

For some reason, Juliet started counting down from twenty in her head, perhaps to keep her mind off of how open she was. If either woman stood up and glanced toward the drone station, they’d see her kneeling there with a wire hanging out of her arm. She’d counted down to seven when Angel said, “Juliet, I have full control of the drones.”

Juliet didn’t hesitate, reaching up to pull her cord out and then, as it retracted into her arm, retracing her crawling route back to the tool chest. Her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears by the time she got there, and she was so intent on getting the hell out of that garage that she almost didn’t pause when she heard Honey’s voice in her ear. “Wait!” her friend’s voice said. Juliet froze and glanced at the view Honey was sharing with her.

The two women had stood up from the card table, and Wendy, the young one, was holding a plate with several bones on it. Rather than registering that she needed to hide, Juliet absently wondered where they’d gotten real chicken. Then her brain snapped into focus, and she scooted up close to the tool chest, keeping it between her and the women and the door.

“Please ask him how much longer I have to watch these drones. I mean, I fucking set them up to alert me—no reason to sit here like a dumbass when I could be inside on a couch.”

“I will, Belle. I’m sure he’ll relax after dealing with this alarm. They got the explosives out okay, so it’s not like we really need to worry about corpo-sec, anyway. Later.” Juliet heard the door open and slam shut again, and then Belle’s heavy sigh and stomping feet as she walked back toward her desk. Juliet inched around the tool chest, keeping it between them, and when she saw, in Honey’s view, the woman stretch out her legs and stare into space, she crawled back to their first hiding spot.

“God,” she subvocalized, “I think I lost ten pounds in sweat.”