RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (75 page)

He was of course a complete idiot and could never fill Cyrus’s shoes, not even close, but still he wanted to be the alpha dog.  The terrified woman was running right toward them all now and tried to pass by but Todd reached out and snatched her right into the oven.  Darius saw it and assumed he would be reported.  He pulled his gun and fired three shots while running toward them but they had already darted in behind the metal door for cover.  Before he could get to the oven a burst of laser shot out from the rafters piercing his skull dead square between the eyes. 

He stopped and stood up straight as if it hadn’t phased him, and while still aiming the gun in their general direction he looked around like he was thinking
“where did that come from”
then his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped dead by the oven door, smoke was coming out of both his ears and his feet were twitching like road kill that just wouldn’t give up.  The Seal up top had taken him out quickly and with great precision but it was too late, the shots had been fired.  The sound of the 357 magnum carried and echoed through the corridors of the compound like a civil war cannon. 

It was the unmistakable sound of large caliber gunshots that would not be ignored.  One of the Seals said . . .
         “Oh shit!” Over the com link.
         “Copy that Tranquil!” John replied. 

Four more armed guards ran into the area as a result of the shots.  Now all hell was about to break loose.  The stealth mode of Operation Black Ice was over.  Being quiet was no longer an option thanks to that clod Darius. 

“Command to all teams, Launch full scale Black Ice, I repeat FULL SCALE!”
         “Copy that command, Team Chaos moving in!” 

The other team leaders sounded off as well and the full scale attack was on.  Just outside the vehicle maintenance bay Team Chaos had been waiting in the back of the M-923 5 ton and now they were moving toward the entrance and gaining speed.   

John came over the com link.     

“Command to Chaos, what’s your ETA?”
         “Ten seconds or less, 35 mph, entering bay number two door.”
         “Copy that Chaos”

“Command to all teams, clear bay two area!
  Incoming!  I repeat, Incoming bay two!” 

Several team members crossing that area moving toward the ovens with captives were forced to run out of the area as fast as they could.

Seconds later the 5-ton truck came crashing through the door blasting it into a mess of twisted debris.
         “Chaos to command, we’re in.”
         “Copy that Chaos, we have eyes on you now, proceed with clean sweep.”

Two dozen guards were in a fire fight on the floor of the foundry with Team Chaos, but still, amidst the fight, one of them managed to call the security office on his com link.  He reported the security breach on the foundry floor.         “Negative 689, we have active surveillance on the foundry floor we see no hostile activity?” 

The security office thought it was a hoax because they were viewing old video feed recorded several weeks earlier, everything appeared to be in order in the compound.  There were just a few people were hanging out in and around the ovens talking.  The security Captain sent three guards down to check out the bogus report. 

John entered a launch code on his main
PC and hit the enter key.  Every PC and every cam feed in the compound suddenly went black, two seconds later they came back up with a message that surprised everyone including Glitch and Cyrus.  Cyrus was typing a term into a powerful search tool that Glitch designed.  He was looking for more information on Tim Stance when his screen suddenly went dark and came back only to greet him with a “happy birthday” jingle accompanied by a colorful banner and little cakes with legs that danced across the screen.  It was the very same one that John had created for Dodge to use at ESS on Patti’s birthday. 

Cyrus lifted both of his hands off the keyboard as
if  touching it would make it worse, he knew they were screwed.  He knew there had been a security breach of some kind but what was it?
        
“What kind of a freak uses a happy birthday message for a hack attack?”

He knew it couldn’t be the CIA or FBI or even the military for that matter, it must be a private joke of some kind, maybe Glitch was screwing with him.  He hit his intercom button to call Glitch but before he could speak into it Glitch burst into his office.     

“We’ve been hacked!” He said.
         “No shit Sherlock!” Cyrus screamed back at him. 

Cyrus jumped up and pointed his finger at Glitch.     

“Get back in your office and reverse this on whoever is doing it!  Find them, I want them stripped of everything! I want them crushed, you hear me Glitch!  Crush them!” 

Glitch had only been gone from Slade’s office for a few seconds when the intercom buzzed, it was the security office.
         “Mr. Slade Sir,” a nervous voice came through the intercom. Cyrus mashed it so violently that he nearly broke the old metal box.

“What!” He barked.
         “There’s a huge fire fight down on the foundry floor.  We believe it’s an internal skirmish between two groups of guards Sir.”
         “Well, go get it under control you worthless idiots, I have bigger problems to deal with right now!” 

As he turned away from the intercom, it dawned on him that this was almost certainly related to the computer hack.  He went to his security monitor and started flipping through the cam feeds, but everything appeared normal.  He raised Glitch on the intercom.

“Glitch what’s going on down on the foundry floor?”
         “Sir, I just received notice of a disturbance, but my monitors are’nt showing anything, I dispatched a team of ten heavily armed security officers from the office to go down and check it out, and the Captain sent three men about five minutes ago himself.  I’ll report shortly Sir.”
         “All right, give me an update the second you find out what’s going on.” 

Cyrus went to his bookcase and pulled out the fourth book from the right on the upper most
shelf about half way.  He stood back and the book case slid open.  He went behind the shelf and it closed behind him.  Cyrus had a lair within the lair.  It was a safe room.  Not even Glitch was privy to his hidden room behind the bookcase.  He went to the table in the center of the room and turned on a small console where he typed in a 14-digit code.  The monitor had four cam feeds, one of which was on the foundry floor. 

Cyrus had his own hidden wireless cams in the compound for backup, he only had four of them but they were placed very well, one of which was at the far end of the foundry floor.  There it was on the little screen in front of him, an all out fire fight.  Guards running around and taking cover from what appeared to be elite forces but who could it be? 

Then he saw something that really surprised him, a large military vehicle had crashed bay door number two of the maintenance area.     
“Okay maybe it’s some kind of militia group, maybe he pissed off the wrong rich guy.  Probably one of those fellows that he stripped of billions. They had assembled a small army and had come for him, and they were doing a damn good job of it too.” 

It wasn’t looking too good for his crew, he decided that it was time to release the SUPER A.I.R.S. Remote Defense Systems,
this would wreck havoc on the intruders for sure, no one could stand up against armored robot soldiers with laser cannons.  He would launch the destruct code soon to kill all of his own soldiers.  He had to keep them from being captured and interrogated, but not until they had fought on his behalf.  The A.I.R.S. would take care of the remaining intruders with ease.  He opened the destruct code window for the intra cranial charges and selected the “ALL” option.  He set the countdown for ten minutes.  This would give him just enough time to escape while his army fought on down below.  By the time they reached his office he would be long gone.  He entered the activation codes for the A.I.R.S and selected the “KILL ALL” level of operation and then added priority of “INTRUDERS.”  The A.I.R.S. could easily identify all noncombatants because Cyrus had linked the A.I.R.S. System to his numerical human I.D. system, the very one he used to kill individual soldiers by their number.  With these settings the A.I.R.S. robots would kill everyone eventually but it would target the intruders first.

He went to a wardrobe in the far corner of the room and flung the doors open.  Inside there was a complete arsenal of weapons both traditional and modern.  He removed his full length black leather jacket throwing it over a chair at the workbench behind him.  He strapped on two 45 autos with oversize clips across his chest and then put his coat back on. He selected a laser burst pistol and strapped it to his right thigh, covering it up with a flip of his coat.  He lifted his left pant leg and strapped an 8-inch knife to his calf slipping his pant leg down over it. 

The intercom on the table buzzed.     

“Sir,” Glitch’s voice came through, sounding very shaky. 

Cyrus pushed the little button on top the metal box.     

“Yes Glitch what is it now?”
         “Sir, I hate to tell you this but, well, I have not been able to stop the hack, our systems are locked, and I just got a notice on my skyphone that our account balances are all zero, you know anything about that?” 

Cyrus yanked his finger back from the button in shock. 
Who could have done this?
He understood a small private army getting to the compound.  Probably tailed one of his less skilled watchers, which was understandable, but his accounts? 
“Whoever was behind this was good, really good, and they were doing it all at once, unbelievable!”
Of course he had back up accounts that even Glitch didn’t know about, surely those were safe. 

He mashed the button in on the box so hard that he caved it in.
         “Glitch!”
         “Yes?” 
         “Go downstairs and help those guards out, they could use a man like you right now.  Go electrocute those bastards!” 

He let go of the button and leaned back letting out an evil laugh.  He had just sent the man responsible for this security breach on a suicide mission, and it struck him funny, very funny. 

“He hated to sacrifice such a great hacker but sometimes you just have to cut your losses.”

“But Sir that would be suicide?”
 

Cyrus quickly moved back to the intercom box again like a giddy school boy doing a crank call and mashed the button.      

“Yes Glitch, that’s right, but sometimes you just have to cut your losses!”

He let off the button and laughed.     

“Oh my god!” He said, “what an idiot!”

“Okay, enough toying with the idiot” time to get back to work.”

He went back to the wardrobe and retrieved a small case that contained a high capacity data drive.   He disconnected the fiber optic cable that linked it to the main frame one floor down.  It contained his entire life work and much of Glitch’s.  He would be losing Glitch today but not his work, he shackled it to his wrist with a digital titanium cuff set.  It could only be disconnected by him unless someone cut off his hand. 

He went to a narrow door at the back of the room but hesitated and looked back at the intercom box.  He was thinking that Glitch might have one more stupid comment.  He looked again. 
“Nope, guess not.”
He turned back to the door and punched in a code on the keypad to the right of it then placed his hand on the ID screen.  He had to get to the helicopter to make his escape. 

The door slid open rapidly followed by four bright flashes of light that were stunning.  He was stepping back now. 
“No, more like flying back.  What was happening?
He had crashed through the table in the middle of the room splintering it to pieces before slamming into the wall behind it where he slid down to the floor. 

He looked down at his chest, and it was smoldering and bleeding profusely.  He had been shot but how?  He looked up but couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  There in the light haze of the smoke stood a man that Cyrus Slade would have never guessed to be alive much less kicking his ass.  It was Dodge Kerrington, the man himself, standing there in his inner sanctum larger than life, he was wielding a large laser rifle that was still glowing orange on the tip from having just been fired.  He was solid muscle from head to toe and decked out in full black tactical gear donning several weapons strapped to various places on his body.
        
“How the hell did he get so big?”
  He figured it out almost immediately. 

“Well played Dodge Kerrington!”

Two more men had entered, it was JC, and Alan, the rest of team Talon.  Cyrus had been down now for about two seconds.  He reached for one of his pistols with his right hand, but Alan was faster and fired blowing off three of his fingers.  He reached for another weapon with his left hand and JC shot him in the wrist, blowing his left hand completely off.  The three of them stepped forward into the center of the room in front of Slade.

He leaned forward in a pathetic attempt to spit on them but DC kicked him right in the mouth knocking all of his front teeth out and smashing his head into the concrete wall.  He was down on the floor, and he fell over but still managed an angry growl.  The three men stood between him and his escape, they were heavily armed and he was out numbered, he had
nowhere to go and he knew it.