Desperate Measures Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Five

July 18, 2230, En Route to Sol Hyperspace Transfer Point, Aboard Modified Space Yacht Beidou

Failure didn’t deserve mockery. Predictable failure

necessitated

it. Julia knew that, as did everyone in the Core, and those who worked closest with them.

Julia sat at her desk, reading a summarized report of activity on Earth, collected and collated by her most trusted agents. Her absence made it more difficult for her to control the unfolding events, but distance was no excuse for ignorance.

A fleeting thought sometimes taunted her, whispered to her soul about mistakes. Her desire for direct control created opportunities for attack. She couldn’t deny that, but humanity hadn’t yet been guided to a position where she could risk relying on any but a select few.

For now, Julia laughed at Shoji’s expense after finishing the report. She couldn’t be certain he was responsible for the incident in France, and he hadn’t sent her any messages since her departure from Earth. The lab was primarily his responsibility, both in supply and design, so it only made sense the devastating surprise raid was invited by a man who thought he was setting a trap.

An underling’s failure was the responsibility of their master. Leaders who ran from responsibility were cowards who would be destroyed by their fear and inability to select or guide others.

“What a foolish waste.” Julia shook her head.

The destruction of the facility was less the issue than its initial existence and all the time, money, and effort invested in it.

Every member of the Core differed in their opinion on how to best make sure of their resources for direct operations. Julia had never been fond of the Ascended Brotherhood. Tin Men were a dead end, and too resource-intensive for their intended use.

Shoji’s fondness for

yaoguai

filled a similar position in Julia’s mind. If anything, she thought they lowered the long-term chances of success. The extensive use of cyborgs and genetically engineered monsters encouraged the use of similar weapons by their enemies, which would reduce their differential advantage. The Core’s control needed to be complete before that happened.

The use of agents who could freely pass for humans was a good compromise. Their expense and the difficulty involved in their creation was a worthwhile tradeoff.

Julia waved a hand and dismissed the data window in front of her. Another sloppy failure, not unlike the assassination attempt on her. When evidence began to pile up and point in an obvious direction, only a fool looked the opposite way.

It was a good thing she was on her way to New Pacifica because she suspected she’d be forced to take drastic action.

“Oh, Shoji.” She sighed. “Why must you make this difficult for us?”

July 18, 2230, Neo Southern California Metroplex, Apartment of Erik Blackwell

Jia eyed Erik with suspicion from the other side of his couch. “You’re sure she said she wanted to meet here?”

Erik nodded. “That’s what Alina’s message said. Here at 2100.”

He preferred being debriefed in his apartment. Despite what Alina indicated, wandering around Neo SoCal to meet her struck him as more dangerous than meeting in a known location, a place with thorough infiltration of the systems by Emma.

“It’s 2100.” Jia frowned. “I wonder if something happened. She’s la—”

A light knock came from Erik’s door. Alina was punctual and deadly, a good combination for a government agent.

“A woman I don’t recognize is outside,” Emma reported. “Her gait and other relevant biometric identifiers don’t match Agent Koval’s, but I am receiving the appropriate confirmation code. She has looked directly into all cameras in the area, including the hidden one.”

“Let her in.” Erik stood, half-wondering if he was about to die because he didn’t have a gun in his hand. He could never decide if getting gunned down in his own apartment would be epic or pathetic.

The door slid open, and the woman stepped through. The sundress, light eyes, and blonde hair didn’t resemble Koval, nor did her face, though she was around the same height. She closed the door, her accusatory stare set on Erik.

“From this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be rememberèd— We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,” the woman quoted. She had a strange accent Erik couldn’t place, like the bastard child of Venus and Louisiana.

“Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed,” Erik quoted back.

He sat back down. He doubted any assassin would bother making him jump through Alina’s historical and literary hoops. They would have had the decency to gun him down already.

“What’s the point of all this, when you can just send a fancy confirmation code to Emma?” he muttered.

The woman shook her head, looking disappointed. When she next spoke, it was clearly Alina’s voice. “We’ve been over this. It never hurts to have redundant security protocols. There have been times I’ve avoided death because of something like this.”

“You’re sure it’s just not about you indulging your fetishes?” Erik raised an eyebrow.

Alina frowned. “Knowledge and respect for our literary past is hardly a fetish. My motivation for serving in the ID is the defense of human civilization.”

“You could be quoting beignet recipes,” Erik joked.

Jia cleared her throat to get their attention. “I’d like to move on to the debriefing. That’s the important part, remember?”

“Of course.” Alina wandered lazily to a chair and took a seat, unnerving Erik.

It took him a while to figure out why. It was her movement. Erik didn’t need to be Emma to perform his own subconscious biometric evaluation. Alina’s normal movements were graceful and lethal, like she was a deadly jungle cat always ready to strike, but when she was in disguise, like now, she often moved differently, even when it was unnecessary. It was a skill that came from decades of experience as a ghost, a reflex and instinct she often didn’t suppress, even when dealing with Erik and Jia.

Erik had spent his entire life never thinking about concealing who he was. His vague attempts to pretend had included non-painful sacrifices such as buying a high-performance flitter and de-aging. Disguises for ID mission and leads didn’t sit well with him.

Emma’s holographic form appeared, complete with an elegant high-backed chair. Inspired by the first code phrase’s origins in Plantagenet England, she had chosen a high-necked burgundy gown and an elaborate close-fitting white hat with a veil.

Erik had long since learned not to laugh at any of her choices. There was nothing more dangerous than an offended AI who could ensure you only got cold water in your shower.

“And you’re sure about doing this here?” Erik asked. “I know you’ve got people watching us, and we’ve got Emma, but we did just do an op. I thought you’d want to meet us underground, with everyone in disguise.”

“Don’t worry.” Alina smiled. “I’ve taken extra precautions, and sometimes it helps to poke them in the eye and remind them that

they

need to be afraid of

us

, not the other way around.”

Erik grinned. “You mean, you’ve got a whole army of ghosts and drones watching this place and looking for assassins in case they’re desperate and decide to take the bait?”

“Something like that.” Alina looked to the side for a moment before returning her attention to Erik. “Before we get into France, I wanted to mention that I’m approving Lanara’s request for more help. I can get her two or three other trustworthy engineers, but that said, I don’t want her doing any major mods to the

Argo

for the next several weeks. I’ve told her that. She responded with profanity and a string of numbers, but she understands.”

“You want us to be ready in case we need to follow up after the raid?” Jia asked.

“Exactly.” Alina nodded. “We’ve gotten good at trashing the conspiracy lately, but there are still a lot of things happening, and losing a factory, a lab, or Sophia Vand only seems to slow them down for so long. We don’t have the luxury of waiting around. Once we have a target, I want you two to be able to move and not wait three weeks while Lanara redesigns half the ship.”

“Sounds good to me,” Erik replied with a shrug. “Let’s find the next factory, lab, or Sophia Vand and take them out. I’m all for punching them in the face and kicking them in the nuts.”

“I love your enthusiasm.” Alina rolled her shoulders and leaned forward. “As you already know, most of the system at the lab was purged prior to the raid, but it was obvious they were relying on the self-destruct to finish their cleanup since there was enough left over between the remaining systems and some other information we collected from other operations to put us on new paths. I’m not going to go through all that because it’s not anything that’ll help you right now, but I’m confident we’re close.”

“That sounds good, but having another target would sound better.”

Alina raised a finger. “It gets better.”

“Better?” Jia lifted an eyebrow. “You have the names of all the leaders of the conspiracy?”

Alina eyed Jia. “I said better, not perfect.”

“Another facility?” Erik asked.

“Not quite.” Alina ran her finger over her PNIU.

An image of a somber-looking dark-haired man in a suit appeared. He was in the audience at a biotechnology conference. Erik didn’t recognize the man. Another leader of the conspiracy?

“This gentleman is a well-known molecular biologist who went into early retirement about five years back.” Alina nodded at the image. “He’s also the man you recently became acquainted with prior to his death.”

Jia leaned forward to stare at the image. “He doesn’t look like the man in Provence. Same build, but that’s about it. Is this a disguise?”

“No, this is what he used to look like.” Alina looked surprised. “We’re a hundred percent on this. We got a complete DNA match from the corpse, and we’ve double-checked the relevant databases to ensure their accuracy. For now, the rest of the world doesn’t need to know he’s dead.”

Erik didn’t care that the man was dead. He was a madman who had tried to kill good men and women with his monsters. Erik doubted the Provence raid was the first time one of Vincke’s pets had been set on humans.

Jia frowned. “They didn’t do something to prevent that? With all the trouble they’ve gone through in situations like the Ascended Brotherhood, I wouldn’t have expected it.”

“Yes.” Alina dismissed the image. “I’m surprised too, but we got lucky in this case. Besides the obvious surgery to alter his appearance, I don’t think they ever intended for us to be able to get a DNA match. They weren’t trying to be sloppy this time. It just worked out that way.”

“He was supposed to die in the explosion?” Erik suggested.

Alina shook her head. “I don’t think so. He was killed by a nano-adaptive virus we believe was intended to shred his DNA, too. No one goes to the trouble and expense of cooking up something like that if they plan to blow the target up. For reasons we don’t understand, maybe even freak mutation, the virus deactivated before finishing its job.”

“A good old-fashioned screw-up.” Erik chuckled. “It feels like people are getting desperate and rushing plans. I wonder if it occurred to them that he’d use his name?”

“Probably not.” Alina wrinkled her nose in disgust. “He had neural implants, and his genome had been modified. I suspect our good doctor was more unstable from that than his bosses knew.” She shook her head. “But you’re right. It does seem like they’re being flashier, but also making more mistakes.”

“What about those

yaoguai

? More alien hybrids?”

“I’ll spare you the technobabble, but from what we can tell, they were all derived from terrestrial species and DNA. No weird Leem DNA or other alien garbage. Pure Earth monsters.”

Jia scoffed, irritation wrinkling her forehead. “I don’t feel better about monsters because they’re a hundred percent Earth DNA.”

Alina locked eyes with Jia, her expression serious. “I feel better knowing they weren’t breeding Hunter-or Navigator-derived monsters there. We both know you could have fought things a lot more dangerous than what was there.”

“Who cares?” Erik interrupted. “They had monsters. We killed monsters. Now they don’t have a monster factory, end of story. It’s only important if it leads to more targets. Beating the conspiracy is easy. Find them, kill them, repeat.”

“True enough,” Alina replied softly. “And being able to confirm Vincke’s identity has already paid dividends. Combined with what we learned from that facility and an unrelated raid that netted us a lower-level operator we can indirectly link to the conspiracy, we’ve established some important facts beyond a shadow of a doubt.” She raised a single finger. “Fact one, Ceres Galactic is thoroughly infested at the highest levels by the conspiracy.”

Jia sighed in disappointment. “We already knew that.”

Alina raised a second finger. “Fact two, Hermes is also thoroughly infested by the conspiracy, as is Stella Infinitas.”

“In other words, we should probably assume they effectively control every Hexagon corporation.” Jia rubbed her temples. “And the economy of the UTC.”

“Or at least they have a major influence. That explains how they’re able to get the kind of resources they need to perform the experiments and build the cyborgs they’ve been using. Among other things, that suggests a war of attrition might take a lot longer than we would like. We’ll have to target their leadership to be more effective.”

Erik frowned. “Do you know who is working for them at those companies? We can work our way up.”

“Not specifically,” Alina replied. “We’re working on some leads, but we’re going to have to proceed carefully. Although there’s no way this goes down without at least partial disruption to the UTC, our long-term plan is to collect the evidence and work closely with trusted allies in the CID for massive, simultaneous raids when the time comes. We will destroy their power base and take out the leadership, and then it’ll just be a matter of mopping up what’s left.”

“Great. When are the raids?” Erik asked.

Alina’s pitying look angered him. Erik knew what she was going to say next. Success bred impatience.

“We’re nowhere near that ready,” Alina explained. “If everything goes well, maybe we can pull this off in the next year or two, but we can’t screw it up by running off half-cocked. The important thing is we need to keep working on bleeding them. It won’t finish them off, but it’ll at least keep them on defense.”

Jia folded her arms. “It’ll be difficult to do much while the ID has a leak. It’s bad enough that you’re saying the conspiracy effectively controls the pillars of our economy. If the government can’t do anything without them hearing about it, there’s only so much we can do, even with a jump drive.”

“Ah. Yes.” Alina’s smile took on a hint of condescension. “We caught the leak, an analyst. Smart guy, but he had a hidden gambling problem. They took advantage of the problem.”

Erik didn’t know if that meant they’d killed him. He also wasn’t sure he cared. Selling information to the conspiracy was aiding treason and mass terrorism.

“There’s not much follow-up possible because they were careful with him,” Alina continued, “but at least we don’t have to constrain our ops now. That was why we performed the other raid I mentioned.”

“Okay.” Erik took a deep breath and slowly let it out, trying to rid his body of the nervous energy that demanded they fly around Neo SoCal looking for anyone working for the conspiracy. “Where does this leave us?”

“On standby.” Alina pointed to the ceiling. “We’re still looking into things, but the preliminary info we’re getting suggests we might need someone who can move freely and quickly in space.”

“No deployable missile launcher add-ons anytime soon.”

“Exactly. I’m glad you understand.” Alina stood and tugged her dress down. “I hate to make you two wait, but at the same time, combined with Emma, you’re the best weapon we have.”

Erik nodded. “Then keep firing us until the target is dead.”

“I will as soon as we have a target.”