System Seven (57 page)

“That’s progress.
Maybe you did make an impact. Tell me, did you dream?”

Had he? He couldn’t
remember falling asleep, only waking from it.

“You should try to
reach them again.”

Johan looked past
Cathbad to the top of the nearest dune. A single figure stood looking down. Tan
like the desert, the sandman was soon joined by four others.

“No need. Looks like
they’re reaching out to us.”

At the prompting of the
sandmen, Johan and Cathbad climbed the dune and were rewarded with a view of a
stone oasis floating over the valley between dunes. A path made of stepping
stones led out to two monolith slabs that created the platform. The top slab
hovered above the lower one to create shade. Raised stone benches surrounded a
shallow pool set into the center. The tan figures sat and waited for the pair
to join them.

“What’s your reading?”
Johan asked Cathbad as they took the path towards shade.

“None. You?”

“Not a ripple. This is
all very primitive.”

Under the stone roof,
the temperature plummeted to a tropical feel. The druids pulled back their
hoods and knelt at the pool without hesitation. They cupped cool water and
drank until their biting thirst eased. Close up, the sandmen’s features were
plain and the result of indentations, not actual eyes or noses. One spoke, the
mouth feature’s movement merely symbolic, the voice paradoxically mellifluous.

“The Council are again
jeopardizing balance with their imperfect approach to oversight. We recognize
their approach as flawed and incongruous to the needs of our species. It is our
task to act on behalf of the world’s best interests. To that end, we have
agreed to support Maria’s plans with your group.”

Cathbad sat back on
his haunches and wiped his beard dry. “Who are you? How many?” he asked.

“You need only know we
share the goal of removing the council and restoring Maria to power.”

“She’s still alive?”
Johan asked.

“Yes.”

Johan shared a glance
with Cathbad before turning back. “If you want our trust, we need to know who
we’re dealing with and why.”

“You want ideology and
purpose. You want assurances. You will not receive that. Either join in
achieving the agreed goal or forfeit your chances at resuming your lives. We
have already made contact with your peers. The opportunity to act is now.”

“Who have you
contacted?” Cathbad asked.

“The one you trust
most, of course. Edward.”

Cathbad’s eyes showed
his concern.

Johan said, “The plan
was to remove Bastion. You want the whole council gone? And Maria saved, I
presume?”

“All the council
except three gone, yes. We will save Maria.”

“Uh huh. Okay.” Johan
said to Cathbad, “At this point do you see a choice? Because I don’t.”

“How do we proceed?”
Cathbad asked the sand men.

“You will be
facilitated. Let us discuss the details.”

The two men shared an
uncertain glance.

• • •

Mr. Lathrop walked
into the lab where Soldado had set up shop and home. Styrofoam cups and food
containers littered the surrounding tables.

“And?” he asked the hacker.

Soldado stared at the
flickering stats of Booty as it massaged the algorithms driving Overseer’s
encryption sequences. So far five different encryption models had been found on
the Comannda’s global networks, suggesting a ‘protection by segmentation’
technique. Each model had been broken using the second version of Booty. By
combining analysis data on all five models, they had located several network
routes to the base. A sixth encryption model presented itself that looked
nothing like the others. Booty2 was at the entrance to the Core, probing it for
a way in.

“Still spaghetti, but
at least the combiners on the distribution equations are latching on to some
matches. The deterministic generator is adapting and making progress.”

“Time?”

He threw up his hands.
“Could be any second, could be hours.” He didn’t say days but it stood as being
possible. “If I can think of anything to change I will, but based on what I
see, this is the best approach there is.”

Mr. Lathrop cleared a
spot on the edge of a table and sat.

Soldado noticed his
expression. “What is it?”

“They’re in-country.
Heading for Qatar.”

“Why the fuck? They
found the building? What happened to waiting for the network?”

“The family is
scattering. Cathbad and Johan are captured.”

“Oh Padre Pio... madre
mia. Fuck a
duck
. What does that even
mean?” He sat up in his chair. “And sending Austin in alone? Now who’s gone
crazy?”

“Not alone. With a
team. Bràthair found the depot and a tunnel leading into the desert. It dead
ends, though. They’re jamming remote viewing past a certain point. The team is
going to see what they can find out there first. If nothing, they’ll have to
make entry at the depot and see where it leads. So you have time still.”

“They’d better not do
anything without more intel. We need to monitor the networks, see what they’re
planning–”

“Exactly.” Lathrop
removed his glasses. “We need to get into the base’s control network.”

He expelled a breath.
“Then we wait for Booty2. No one’s gettin’ into
that
castle without some keys.”

“We’ll wait as long as
it takes them to find the best way in.”

“I don’t like it.
Might as well walk them into a bear trap.”

“The luxury of time
just isn’t ours.”

• • •

The road lay flat and
straight alongside power lines feeding Pearl City. Wires between the massive
skeletal towers hung like the clotheslines of giants. A tired Cessna Skymaster
sat on the road surrounded by the gray-white Kuwaiti desert. A blindfolded
pilot waited at the controls while a man sat watch in the co-pilot’s seat.

Outside, a third man
paced under the wing. Occasionally he stepped out and looked skyward, his white
robe flowing in the morning wind.

He glanced at his
watch and shook his head.

“Salam.”

The man jumped at the
voice and spun. “Jesus Christ! Give me a fucking heart attack.”

“You knew I was coming,
Javier. What the hell?”

“Whatever.”

Austin stood at the
open wedge of the cloaked ship’s hatch. He’d never seen his former trainer
caught so off guard.

The druid went to the
side door of the Cessna and knocked twice. The man in the co-pilot’s seat
emerged with a duffle bag. Like Austin, the pair wore Kevlar armor and
holstered weapons under their robes.

Austin shook his head.
“Meng, are you sure you shifted? ‘Cuz I still don’t sense a trace of
personality.”

The Asian-turned-Arabian
flipped him the bird.

“Let’s go,” Javier
said and climbed in. “I’m sick of this robe.”

They hung low over the
desert a mile from the runways of Al Uleid airbase outside downtown Doha. Rows
of aircraft lined the tarmac with the most prominent being five B2 bombers at
one end. Ground crews worked around three of them.

Austin zoomed the
camera to one of the black craft. “Arming teams?”

“Yeah,” Javier said.
“Sixteen units each.”

“Nukes?”

Javier nodded.

“You’re sure the beam
won’t accidentally set off the bombs?”

“That’s what I’m told.
Hopefully we won’t have to intervene.”

Austin zoomed out and
rubbed his face. Just another of a number of scenarios requiring monitoring.
The effort was taxing the fragmented Runa Korda. Preventing attacks on cities
remained the highest priority, followed closely by taking out Bastion and
protecting the Confrere.

“So Edward is in
charge?”

Javier nodded. “He’s
regathering the Family.”

“So soon?”

“It’s the only way
now. Too much on the line. Especially with this rig.”

While at Corfu, Korda
engineers had scoured the ship with better tools. They found and disabled a
localized signal being broadcast. With a transmission radius of a mile, it was
likely an anti-collision signal for other antigravity craft.

“There’s the Orion,”
Javier said, pointing at a screen. An orange blip entering the map from the
east was an electronic surveillance aircraft. “He’ll scrub the skies for other
AG craft using that signal. His orbit will keep us covered all the way to the
gray zone.” He checked the time. “4pm local. Be ready, I expect a go message
any time now.”

Austin breathed
deeper. Time. He thought of Puerto Vallarta and his half hour with Kaiya.
Thoughts of her mom followed. Guilt burned like the ring of fire at Montevideo.
Anger rose.

Meng felt it. “Easy.
Stay in your lane or you’ll crash.”

His early advice
formed from the darkness...
or you will
drown in the pain of loss and of memory.
He hadn’t warned about rage.

“Sure.”

“And there it is,”
Javier said, responding to an inner message. “Soldado’s crack hasn’t worked
yet. Without network access we don’t know what to expect. We’ll get inside the
gray zone and see what we can see. If we don’t find access, we’ll be looking at
an operation at the depot.”

Doha’s skyline
appeared as capacitors on a motherboard, rising tall in contrast to the barren
land around them. Patches of dead grass along the roadways spoke of the failed
attempt to transform the desert into something of an oasis. The only lasting
change was the concrete and steel and that had little to do with the oasis
theme. The theme of old, anyway.

He slowed at the
strange-shaped building at the center of a large coastal compound. Meng stood
behind them, watching the screens.

“Funky building
alright. Looks like a shuriken. Easy access from the bay. High walls though,” Austin
said. “Not much around it except those fancy mansions to the south. How much
you wanna bet Commanda owns them?”

“The driveway descends
under the building. How wide is that?”

“At least seven
meters,” Meng answered.

“And the tunnel?”
Javier asked.

“Bràthair estimate
about the same.”

“So worst case we fly
straight in?” Austin said.

Javier laughed. “And I
thought I was the crazy one. Bring up the tunnel.”

“I don’t give a shit
how we go in. Just let me at ‘em.”

The tunnel’s route set
by bràthair showed as an overlay on screen.

“Go ahead and follow
this.”

Austin took them two
hundred miles south over desert before making a turn southwest.

“There’s a junction building at the bend. Another
tunnel connects to it from Jeddah on the west coast. They run bullet trains.
Maglevs most likely although there are embedded rails, too.”

Austin shook his head.
“No wonder you never found it. This is bum fuck Egypt.”

“You mean bum fuck
Saudi Arabia. And yeah, the tunnels are a kilometer underground.”

They bursted another
thirty miles south and stopped at what the Bràthair called the gray zone. They
simply couldn’t sense anything beyond it. Exploring the perimeter found it to
be almost three miles in diameter.

“Go ahead and run your
junk.” Javier told Austin.

“Alright. Like I said,
this ultra-wideband radar is our best bet, but it’s high powered shit. If they
are scanning, we’ll be advertising our location.”

“Just scan and jam,”
Javier said. “We’ll study the results later.”

“So you wanna play
whack a mole with them? I really wanna go in, too, but are you sure about
this?”

“Got a better plan?”

“Well... there’s other
tunnels, right? If we press this now they could get stupid pissed. If we wait
for Soldado, we may be able to just board a train and go straight in. You know,
under cover.”

Javier considered the
input. “Problem is time–” He fell distant, listening. A light grew in his eyes.
“Okay, kids. New data, new plan, and time is short. Punch these coordinates
into your map.” He rattled off the longitude and latitude, a position almost
two hundred miles southeast of the gray zone.

“Empty desert,” Austin
said. “Nearest anything is a border crossing village and that’s twelve miles
away. No, wait. There’s a military airstrip just three miles off. Thabhloten.”

“Get us there. High
altitude approach, over fifty K, then descend to ten on coordinates.”

“Ten K?”

“Ten feet.”

“Okay...” A minute
later they arrived high over the desert. “What are we looking for?”

“Nothing. Just go in.
Ten feet off the deck.”

The ground rushed up
to meet them. He spun the craft to get a visual. At the foot of a large dune,
they were surrounded by a flat expanse of sand and other dunes.