Assault or Attrition (23 page)

I now had a
bad-ass weapon, as well as access to communications. It was what
poker players refer to as a hot streak – though, in reality, it was
just a matter of statistical probability. It worked the same way
playing cards as it does in real life: when enough shitty things
happen, the odds dictate that sooner or later,
something
good will fall in your lap. And if you’re on a
real
hot
streak, two good things in a row.

“Can you access
my personal account?” I asked.

“
Indeed I
can!”
London exclaimed with an overabundance of enthusiasm.
“Would you like me to access it right now, Mister
Moxon?”

I nodded, and
within a moment I had full access to everything in the cloud: mail,
simulcasts, communications – everything that my wrist-com was
supposed to provide, but had failed to access since we descended
into the lower levels of The Spiral. I also had access to the
Fortress’ main database.

My first order
of business was to delete every map and schematic related to The
Spiral; which, hopefully, would destroy any evidence of the
construction tunnel that we were going to use as an escape. Even if
Valeriya was aware of its existence, there would be no way for her
to identify its proximity to the Fortress, and in which direction
it led.

I moved on to
my communications. As I scrolled through pages of unread messages,
London chirped:
“You have an incoming link request from...Jacob
Fitzsimmons. Would you like to accept the transmission?”

I nodded again,
and a holo-screen projected from London’s oculars, expanding into a
large flat display. My lawyer winked into view.

“Mister Moxon,”
Fitzsimmons said curtly, “I have some news.”

“I don’t know
if you’ve been watching the simulcasts, but I’m a little busy at
the moment.”

“That’s why I’m
calling you,” he continued. “It’s about your property.”

“My
property?”

“The piece of
land that you acquired from Cameron Frost. Fortress 23 and the
surrounding area. It’s yours.”

I arched an
eyebrow. Was my lawyer suffering from the same memory-related
affliction that I was? “I think we established that already,
Jacob.”

“The land,” he
persisted. “It no longer belongs to Canada. It’s
yours
.”

For a moment I
searched my memory. I tried to approximate the last time I’d taken
my medication, because nothing my lawyer was saying made any sense.
“I don’t—”

“This just
happened now,” he interrupted. “Frost petitioned to have the piece
of land he purchased in Northern Alberta declared its own sovereign
nation. It happened. And it’s yours.”

The magnitude
of what my lawyer was attempting to explain was taking a moment to
process. “Hold up – you’re telling me that I own a
country
?”

“More or less,”
my lawyer replied. “The paperwork is being finalized now.”

According to
his personal records, Frost had been petitioning for years in order
to make this happen; he’d spent billions of dollars, and had
lobbied every politician he had access to. Campaign contributions,
calling in personal favors – it got him nowhere. Up until today he
hadn’t had any success. “How did this happen? Did the UN suddenly
have a change of heart once Arena Mode 2 got started?”

My lawyer
seemed as confused as I was. “Some pretty big strings got pulled –
that’s all I know. I have no idea who did it, but they have some
serious clout with not only the Canadian government, but a lot of
international leaders. It would take nothing short of a miracle to
make this happen.”

That, or the
promise
of a miracle.

Jacob
Fitzsimmons was widely regarded as the best estate lawyer in the
country, and he rarely let a detail slip past him. Though in his
defense, he didn’t know Valeriya Taktarov. She had used her
rhetoric to activate a group of thousands to join her Red Army, and
had incited hundreds of thousands more to riot across North
America. It wasn’t inconceivable that her promise of Sergei
Taktarov’s rebirth – and the dawn of a new age – convinced at least
one credulous politician to finally put pen to paper.

Here in
Northern Alberta, I now was the president of my own nation. Thanks
to Valeriya, I was in a country with its own separate borders, laws
and legislation...meaning that neither Canada nor the United States
were responsible for anyone who lived here. I could be captured,
tried and publicly executed on a snow bank outside of my fortress,
and everyone from international politicians down to local law
enforcement could claim innocence. This was the ultimate ‘get out
of jail free card’ for Valeriya Taktarov, and she’d convinced world
leaders to simply hand it to her, no questions asked.

It was safe to
say that my momentary hot streak had screeched to a grinding
halt.

Transcript
from the Calgary Herald Simulcast
Macklin & Marsh’s ‘Eye in the Sky’ Report
Hosted by Herb Macklin and Dana Marsh, January, 2042

Dana Marsh:
The scene here is really quite
remarkable, Herb. Riots continue to cut a swath through cities
around the world, but all eyes are focused on Northern Alberta,
where thousands of protesters occupy the area surrounding this
remote outpost.

Herb
Macklin:
Dana, it seems like there’s a
lot
of snow up
there.

Marsh:
Indeed there is, Herb, but I’m not here to cover the weather this
morning. This is a special report, remember?

Macklin:
I know, I know, but I’m just saying – with that
kind of snowfall you could really ‘shred some powder’ on the
slopes. Is that a saying? Ski slang? I heard my grandson say that
at Thanksgiving dinner. He might have been referring to drugs,
though. I can never tell with these kids today.

Marsh:
I’m not sure, but if you wait a moment for us to swing around into
position we’ll get a better shot of the crowd that’s gathered at
the base of the structure.

There we
are...you can see – I know visibility is low because of the snow
squalls – there are literally thousands of people gathering. We’re
estimating twenty thousand at the moment, and more are arriving by
the minute. They’ve broken into the Fortress and as you can see,
they’ve opened up a number of the entrances on the main level,
including the hangar.

Macklin:
Why aren’t you down there on the ground with them,
Dana? Get some one-on-one interviews.

Marsh:
They’re heavily-armed dissidents, Herb. They’re here demanding the
public execution of Matthew Moxon for his role in Sergei Taktarov’s
death.

Macklin:
Right. Not the friendliest folks, then.

Marsh:
I’d assume not. With our traffic cam, we can see the mastermind of
this entire operation, Sergei’s younger sister Valeriya Taktarov.
Interesting fact that we just discovered: at just twelve years of
age, she has the second-highest IQ on record.

Macklin:
That’s astounding. My grandson is nineteen, and his
greatest accomplishment to date is sewing his own Zelda costume. I
think it was Zelda...is he that robot that changes into a tiger? Or
maybe it was a Pokemon.

Marsh:
Like I was saying, Valeriya Taktarov has not only assembled a group
that has been dubbed ‘The Red Army’, but she’s also privately
contracted a number of superhumans to pursue Moxon into The
Fortress.

Macklin:
Super assassins, huh? So what’s the going rate for
a hit man these days?

Marsh:
No financial details have been disclosed, although her Kashstarter
campaign continues to generate funds. As of seven o’clock this
morning, over a hundred and forty million American dollars has been
raised, including one donation in particular of thirty million from
an anonymous source.

Macklin:
Anonymous? Can’t these donations be traced?

Marsh:
I’m told that the majority of them were made with Bitgold, a
digital currency that is purchased and traded without any online
footprint.

What we
do
know is that as Valeriya’s war chest continues to swell,
so does her army. According to several sources, her paid recruits
include Mitsuhara Onita, a well-known superhuman from Tokyo who
possesses the ability to shape-shift, and the winner of last
month’s Abu Dhabi Superhuman Classic, Grace Weaving.

Macklin:
Is there a police presence, Dana? If they’re
threatening to execute Moxon shouldn’t the authorities be there to
break things up? Make arrests?

Marsh:
That’s what we’ve been trying to discern. It’s been several days,
and not a single public statement has been issued from either the
Canadian or American governments.

Macklin:
Why do you think that is?

Marsh:
I’m not going to speculate, Herb.

Macklin:
Come on, give our viewers an opinion.

Marsh:
I’m a news reporter. I report facts. If I just started throwing my
thoughts and opinions into every story, it would cease to be
‘news’.

Macklin:
All righty, if you’re not going to play along I’ll
throw in my two cents.

Marsh:
Somehow I knew you would.

Macklin:
If I had to guess, I’d say the governments are
hoping that this entire thing burns itself out. They’re going to
let this Red Army take care of business, get rid of Moxon, and wait
for the riots to die down after he’s gone.

Plus there’s
not much they could do, even if they wanted to. The American
government doesn’t want to step on Canada’s toes by coming over the
border, and Canada doesn’t have the manpower to deal with an armed
crowd of this size.

Marsh:
That’s certainly a possibility, but again, this is all purely
speculation. Let’s just stick to the facts, here.

Macklin:
Well, you
asked
for my opinion, and I gave
it to you.

Marsh:
I didn’t ask for your opinion.

After a
short hike to the peak of a rolling hill
I spotted a structure
in the distance. On an adjacent hill sat a castle. It towered high
above its surroundings; with an arching roof, dark wooden shingles
and stone base, it had a distinctly Japanese feel to it, like the
castles built during the country’s feudal Sengoku period in the
1400s. Not surprising, since this had been an obsession of Cameron
Frost’s.

As an admitted
Japanophile, Frost’s love for the culture had gone far beyond most
American’s fascination with Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon and take-out
sushi restaurants. He had participated in Full Contact
Swordfighting tournaments with the sole purpose of becoming known
as the greatest swordsman who’d ever lived, eclipsing Miyamoto
Musashi’s record of sixty victories with a katana. He had even
woven the odd Mushasi quote into his speeches, though upon
reflection I didn’t think he’d fully understood them.

From what I
could tell the structure was at the center of the level, and it was
where I expected the rest of the group would meet. I trekked across
the artificial turf as London followed closely behind, and as we
travelled I asked for a visual of the Fortress exterior. The
friendly orange spheres circled in front of me and displayed a
holo-screen, cycling through the various security cams. The
east-facing camera displayed at least ten thousand members of the
Red Army sprawled throughout the snowy forest clearing, as well as
a pair of tanks and several helicopters that circled the perimeter.
The group that’d once resembled a large protest now seemed like a
permanent occupation, with a reported population that topped twenty
thousand. If the Canadian or American governments were to deploy
any type of rescue team on our behalf – which at this point seemed
like a long shot – the clash that’d ensue would resemble a third
world war. I had no delusions at this point: we had exactly one
chance for escape, and that was the tunnel on the bottom level of
The Spiral.

I spotted a
figure approaching in the horizon – it was Brynja. Her black body
armor and flowing blue hair were like a beacon in the distance. We
met and agreed to try and access the castle at the level’s center.
As the sole visible structure, it was the most likely location for
the pods that led to the third level.

Brynja had
searched the immediate area where she was ejected from her pod,
although she hadn’t located a chest. She was disappointed that she
hadn’t been able to retrieve anything useful, but seemed uplifted
by my discoveries; having London back online and a rocket launcher
at our disposal were two small advantages that we desperately
required. If the Red Army caught up with us I wasn’t sure how many
of them we could take out with three explosive shells, but it was a
significant step up from our standard firearms. After emptying
virtually our entire arsenal into The Beast up on the first level,
we were in need of some serious firepower, and the handful of
bullets split between us wasn’t going to stop a charging mob.

We made the
long walk up the steep hillside, crossed a bridge that spanned a
moat (although the surrounding ditch was completely dry – just
another small detail of this level that had been neglected) and
stepped up to the entrance. A pair of enormous wooden doors
stretched fifteen feet high, blocking our entrance to the castle
courtyard. No keyhole, no doorknob. We inspected the frame,
discovering a pair of metal plates that flanked each side of the
doorway, each with a handprint etched into their surfaces – the
same as on the obelisk from the previous level.

Brynja and I
took turns pressing our hands into the plates. First her, then me.
Nothing.

“So what the
hell?” she said casually, shrugging her shoulders. “We wait for
Braveheart to show up so he can hack his way in with his light
saber?”