An Armageddon Duology (30 page)

T
he bright light
of the sunrise was smothered by thick shutters that plunged the room into complete darkness. In the center of the space was a lone figure in dark robes, a shining Guy Fawkes mask reflecting the artificial light in front of him. The wall-panel of flat-screen monitors displayed multiple locations, scenes dim and sequestered. Figures stared back through the screens, their eyes wary and unsure, weapons and military-issue equipment surrounding them.

“What good is all your money if there ain’t nowhere left to spend it?” came one voice.

The mask spoke. “Have you forgotten the plan? When power is taken from the forces controlling our world, my software will orchestrate a new order. An order where each of you will preside like kings over lands and treasure and people. Kingdoms for kings, if you want. Or whatever you want. There will be no interference. I hold the keys to this new order. Have you become such terrified children at the destruction we have spread that you long for the safe chains of your former lives?”

The groups could be heard talking in a cacophony amongst themselves. The mask waited patiently. Several screens clicked off, the images gone, the fearful opting out of this terrible and all too real multiplayer game. The mask keyed in codes. A few remaining solo drones switched on in their hidden hangars. They were preserved for just this contingency, this betrayal and danger to his efforts. Along with a sortie to finish the game, they were all that was left of a once impressive fleet. Images flashed on the darkened screens, a God’s eye view of a takeoff and flight. The man behind the mask smiled.
Once in, never out
. They would be dead within minutes.

One by one, the remaining groups committed to the final missions or were similarly dispatched. The final plans were rehashed. Ports and landing strips. More nuclear power plants. Dams and oil rigs. And finally, a team recommissioned to the US electric grid. The mask closed all the connections save this last one.

“You have your new target?” it said.

A bearded man with a green army cap nodded. “I thought your damn worm was going to shut the grid down.”

“It was, but the anti-worm code has substantially weakened our capabilities. I can’t risk failure. The grid must fall and never rise again. America must be plunged into a final night.”

“Some speech you gave,” said the man, an automatic weapon in his hands.

“You are my most trusted allies. We have shared goals from the beginning. We do not hope to live as kings or queens. We know how vile and rotten the system is, how deeply the roots of the octopus dig. There is only one way to burn it out—wither the thing to the core.”

“You like to talk,” laughed the man. “We don’t give a fuck about your politics. For us, it’s just the high! Mutilation. Dissection. Destruction!” There was a loud cry in unison from the group. “You are the Dark Angel, masked man. You’re the power to bring Hell to earth! See you in the flames!”

The figure pressed a button and a screeching recording of death metal thundered in the room. The masked man switched it off and sat silently in the darkness.

The gore-grinders weren’t wrong. If all went according to plan, the nations would eat themselves. The violence would consume all power structures. Modern civilization would be laid waste by the very wires it used to hoist itself.

But it was of course not enough. True anarchy could not be achieved until they had erased the heart of corruption. And only his worm could achieve that. Only by completely liquidating all the modern elements of control could there be true freedom.

It was this very goal that was now in doubt. The FBI woman was tweaked, that was for sure. Only a deeply twisted mind could conceive of such a violent cure for the dying human enterprise. It broke all their laws. It was off leash and could possible turn on healthy systems. It was reckless and wild.

And it was winning. He had not counted on anyone with the talent or audacity to unleash the monsters that she had. She had his respect. He would not turn from the truth of it. Truth was the only thing left.
The truth of human corruption.
The truth of what needed to be done.

A screen opened revealing a set of black-clad men.

“Are you prepared?”

A man with intense eyes nodded onscreen. “It’s a small unit. There isn’t much left now. But it should be enough. We’ve been watching the building for days via the surveillance drone you spared us. Some boots on the ground, too. We could walk into the place without a problem. They’re decimated.”

“It must be done right. They have proven far more resilient than we imagined.”

“We aren’t taking this lightly after what happened to Bravo team.”

“You’re sure that several members of Intel 1 left the building?”

“Yes. Immediately after our extraction team failed. They sent decoys and used multiple evasive strategies. We didn’t have the manpower to follow everything. We lost them.”

“And Poison?”

“Signal was lost. They could have discovered the device. Or maybe they’re underground too deep. There are mazes of old tunnels on this island. Rumor has it there’s some kind of Fed bunker, too.”

The mask nodded. “One they will need soon. I have other plans for dealing with Poison. Stay on mission. You have the blueprints.”

The man laid out a building plan on a table, pointing to the lower portion of the paper. “Lower basement. These three rooms.”

“Your priorities?” asked the mask.

“Seize the mainframes,” he said, holding up a UBS stick, “and inject this code.”

“And the personnel?”

“We’re to kill them all, especially the bald woman.”

“Then go. There isn’t much time.”

The screen went dark. Fawkes removed the mask and exhaled, his features hidden in the darkness. Everything was coming to its final iteration. His ammunition was nearly spent. Ten years of preparation, weeks of assault on the world, and now the final activation. A signal to be sent to every active computer on the planet, one that would induce a final and unstoppable chaos.

He smiled. He
did
respect the girl. That’s why when he silenced her, insured her talented hands would not continue to wreak havoc on his plans, he would broadcast the signal from her very machines, thwarting her counter-code and symbolically triumphing over her impressive resistance.

He twirled the mask in his hands.

He was, after all, quite taken with the dramatic.

“
A
ttacks on the power grid
?” Cohen shouted into the phone as the car sped along the Shore Parkway, the waters of the Lower Bay tinted orange by the rising sun. Savas had engaged the switch boxes, running quietly unless hitting traffic, the red and blue flashing lights beginning to give Cohen a headache. Poison sat in the back of the vehicle with Miller, in silence. Behind them a second Crown Vic with Lopez and Houston followed closely.

“What’s happening?” asked Savas.

“Okay, Angel, hold on. Let me tell John.” She turned toward him and sighed. “Looks like the November fifth theory is right. Angel says all hell is breaking loose and major manufacturing and resource systems are under attack by the worm. The scariest is the power grid. You remember the briefings after 9/11?”

He nodded. “Yeah, craziest situation. What, ten critical power stations stand between us and the Stone Age? Six month black out?”

“Pretty much,” said Cohen. “It was nine of them. Out of fifty thousand. Which ones were classified of course, so no terrorists could get them. Unless—”

“Unless you’ve hacked into every computer on the planet and gotten your paws on the files.”

“Right. It would likely be down by now just from software attacks, but her crazy code seems to be slowing it. Maybe even turning the tide, she says.”

“That’s good, right?” He wove in and out of traffic, switching on the sirens to prompt cars out of their path.

Muffled sounds from the phone mixed with the wailing pitches. “Hold on, Angel. Yes, John, that’s good. And a lot of good news on that front. Angel says she’s working on a new iteration of her immune code, one she thinks will erase the worm once and for all. It can spread anywhere the worm has gone, using the worm to do so, and sterilize any machine that’s infected.”

“In time?”

Cohen shrugged. “She not done with it and Fawkes is putting things in overdrive.” There was more screaming from the phone as Cohen held it away from her ear. “Right! So, the
bad
news is that she’s convinced there’ll be a physical attack on the power grid, at what she’s calling a weak node.”

“And she knows this how?”

“She’s intercepting more and more information from Fawkes’ data stream, hacking more worm strains. She found blueprints, schematics for an assault strike on the power plant. It’s in Jersey, routes huge amounts of power from the US and Canada.” Angel called out loudly over the phone again. “And like Angel says, it was one of the weak links in the 2003 Northeast blackout. Caused by a software bug at a power plant, she reminds my battered ears.”

“Great,” said Savas, accelerating unconsciously. “They could already be there.”

“And at who knows what other
weak nodes
across the country,” said Miller from the back.

Savas shook his head. “No. I don’t understand how he built up the resources to do as much as he did, but they’re finite. It’s clear his supply chain is gone. I don’t think he planned to strike every weak grid point with a commando team. He couldn’t. Angel’s code might have just saved the lights.”

The ex-marine shook his head. “Nothing is certain, John.”

“We’ll see. But I do think this is because of Angel. I think he meant for the worm to throw wrenches into all the electrical machinery like the industrial plants. Machinery tearing itself apart, transformers exploding. But now he’s not
sure
anymore. His code might not be there or at enough locations. So he has to make sure, and the East Coast is the seat of government, finance. He’s sending all his assets to make sure.”

Holding the phone away from her ear again, Cohen nodded. “Angel agrees. She says you need to get Bonnie and Clyde on it.”

“Bonnie and—right. Okay, tell Angel we’ll call her back after we’ve explained things.”

Cohen smiled, closing the phone. “No need. She called them first. They’ve agreed and were waiting for your instructions.” The headlights of the car behind them blinked repeatedly. “I think she just informed them of your consent.”

Savas shook his head. “She’ll be running the damn place soon.”

The car behind pulled right and exited at an approaching turn-off, the black vehicle disappearing behind an overpass. Lopez and Houston were gone.

Poison spoke from the back of the car. “So, wait. Now it’s just us? I’m the bait for your trap and you three are going to face down all his killers?”

Cohen looked back in the review mirror at the frightened woman. “That’s right.”

“Well, fuck! Can’t you call in some cops or army or something?”

Cohen turned around and placed her arm on the chair. “In case you haven’t been paying attention, we’re in a war zone. There
isn’t
anyone who’s going to hand over troops or police to some obscure FBI division because they have some unsubstantiated theory about a crazed madman and are unilaterally going to test it by playing a dangerous trap-the-terrorist game with his ex-girlfriend.”

Poison simply gawked at her.

Cohen sighed. “We’re betting that he’s about out of muscle, and that most of it is headed to a power plant in Jersey.”

“Betting with our
lives
,” stressed Poison.

“Well, probably not yours, dear. He’s trying to rescue you from the monsters at the FBI, remember? You’ll be fine as long as some stray bullets don’t find you.” Her tone was impatient. “We’ll be the ones filled with steel.”

“Not if I can help it,” said Savas. “We’re going to set up carefully before we let that beacon out of the box. We’ll make them come to us and take heavy damage. If he’s as weak as we’re hoping, that might be enough.”

“Fawkes might not even come,” said Poison. “Could all be for nothing.”

“He’ll come,” said Savas.

“Why? He didn’t last time. He sent people, but he didn’t come. Why now?”

“Because you’re off site. Because of the last failure he won’t want to repeat. Because it’s almost over: The fifth of November is tomorrow. I don’t think he had much of a plan after that. Besides watching the world burn.”

Savas hammered the accelerator, Coney Island and the New York Aquarium flying past them. The engine howled.

“He’ll come.”

T
he electrical substation
was located on the outskirts of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Houston had raced across Staten Island through a surreal apocalyptic landscape. Fires were raging around the ports, and Lopez thought he had seen Blackhawk helicopters launching missiles at boats and opening fire at the docks. Military vehicles from the National Guard were positioned at gateways—toll booths, tunnel and bridge entrances, certain exit ramps—but eerily, all were abandoned. News on their radio confirmed that rioting had spread through the tri-state area as essential functions continued to break down in the public and private sector. Law enforcement was completely overwhelmed.

They had crossed two bridges without incident and were now speeding past Elizabeth and into a decayed urban wasteland of rusted warehouses and closed factories. The power lines around them were beginning to converge. The substation was near.

Lightfoote’s voice came over the speaker. Houston had wedged her phone inside a cup holder, the conical shape funneling the sound upwards and acting as a small megaphone.

“Power’s still up, so they haven’t hit it yet. Latest military data indicates a contingent of Guardsman are assigned there, maybe ten. The site was on a list to lock down in a national emergency. I don’t know if they made it or are still there, but if so, you have to warn them, prepare them.”

“And how do we do that without getting arrested?” asked Lopez. “They won’t let us get near, and if anyone tries to get our story verified, too many questions will be raised. We’ll be in a cell before nightfall.”

“I don’t know how!” cried Angel, “But we need all the help we can get. We don’t know how large Fawkes’ strike team is.”

“Mother of God,” whispered Lopez. “How many enemies do we have to fight?”

“Look, we’ll improvise,” Houston said. “Meanwhile, you were saying they would hit the transformers?”

“I’ve given myself a crash course in this the last few hours,” said Lightfoote. “Power from several coal and gas plants, and the nuke plant south of you, are funneled through the substation. To handle it, they have these enormous transformers that link up the lines coming into the lines going out. Match up the power on them. For the size of the loads they’re dealing with here, these are giant things. We’re talking hundreds of tons, tens of thousands of gallons of fuel. This is one of the biggest in the country.”

“Fuel?” asked Lopez. “Why does it need fuel?”

“To run all the coolant systems,” said Lightfoote. “Ever had your outlet or computer heat up?”

“I think this phone is about to explode,” said Houston.

“Well, just imagine this transformer that’s bigger than a house and all the current running through it. Fawkes could take it out just by blowing the cooling units and waiting for the thing to burst into flames.”

“Jesus,” said Houston. “So, big as a house. Lots of big wires going in. We can’t miss it.”

“No, it will be obvious. And, from what I could find out, relatively unsecured. A chain link fence and some concrete barriers to stop suicide trucks.”

“Wait,” said Lopez, shaking his head. “Our electrical grid is dependent on a few of these behemoths and all we’ve done to keep modern civilization running is slap some cheap wire around it?”

“Pretty much, Holy Man,” said Lightfoote. “Lots of congressional hearings after 9/11. Not much done. It’s a sitting duck. If we lose it, it could be the entire Northeast and parts of Canada.”

“That’s unbelievable,” Lopez said.

“They
did
fortify the transformer in 2015. Says here it’s bullet resistant.”

“Bullet
resistant
? What, to protect from transformer snipers?”

“In part,” Angel continued. “There have been several incidents of lone wackos shooting at them. One guy caused an explosion that blacked out part of Texas for hours. Anyway, this one has reinforced concrete around it.”

Lopez pointed ahead of the car. “That’s it, Sara. Take that road.”

The substation opened up in front of them. Several football fields in surface area, it looked like something from a dystopian film. Wires sprouted from it like tentacles, only to be contrasted by the harsh steel and Frankenstein-esque electrical devices that neither of them had names for.

The transformer was obvious. Enormous. It dominated the other structures within the compound. Thick, metallic arms erupted above a sloppy concrete girdle around the thing, giving the object the appearance of a colossal robot design project gone terribly wrong. Thick wires connected to the transformer through the ends of the arms to the chaos of wiring overhead that linked the substation to the rest of the grid.

“You found it?” called out Lightfoote.

“Yes,” said Houston flatly.

“And the transformer? You see it?”

“Oh yes,” she said.

“Great!” Lightfoote’s relief was palpable.

“Not so great,” said Lopez as Houston slowed the car in front of the twisted and mangled remains of a chain length fence.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

Two National Guardsman lay by the wrecked gate, their bodies riddle with bullets. The gatehouse windows were shattered and the wood pocked with holes.

Lopez spoke in a rough baritone. “It’s on fire.”

Black smoke poured into the air in front them.