Code Breakers: Beta (6 page)

Chapter 7

W
hat she could give for a shot of NanoStem right then. She sat there for hours, watching the sun arc across the sky to the west into the evening, willing the pain to die. When it was clear it wasn’t going to shift, she gritted her teeth, pulled herself to her feet, and approached the craft.

It was similar to Enna’s Jaguar, so much so, Petal wondered whether Enna had developed hers from their designs or vice-versa. This one however appeared to be armed far more heavily with particle cannons on each snub-wing, and twin machine guns.

She neared the cabin door, noticed her smashed slate amongst the protruding rocks. The screen had broken into a multitude of fragments of glass held together by the nano-threaded circuits. The rear case was dented, scratched but still in one piece. She thought she might be able to recover the data. At least she remembered the coordinates of Criborg’s location, and now she had proper transport. Not such a bad compromise. And her weapons cache had swelled. Soon she’d have enough to arm a small militia.

Once inside the cockpit of the craft, she found a tube of NanoStem in a medical supplies box under the pilot seat. The syringe slipped through her skin easily, and before she pushed the plunger, her body reacted to the thought of receiving that wonderful drug. At first her skin became clammy and a sheen of perspiration covered her face, then that blissful feeling of the ‘Stem sliding into her blood.

Millions of nano-machines swarmed through her blood system until they found the source of pain: her broken ribs. It’s a curious and unusual experience feeling one’s bones knit back together. It was like a deep tissue massage on the skeleton.

She closed her eyes, let the ‘Stems do their work. It’d be an hour or so before the pain was subdued enough to move, but right there and then she didn’t want to go anywhere. She just wanted to revel in the blissfulness. The pilot seat was as comfortable as anything she had sat on in weeks. Her head tipped sideways onto her shoulder. A slick of drool slipped down her chin. She didn’t bother to wipe it away. The darkness that cradled her told her everything would be okay. All she had to do was rest.

An hour passed, the sun glinted off the screen of the Jaguar, waking Petal from her drug-induced coma. Her dreams were wild and bizarre. They receded away from her with every waking second, blurring her memories. She shuddered and winced in anticipation of the pain from her ribs. But the ‘Stems had done their task. All she felt was a dull ache and stiffness from her awkward sleeping position.

Her mouth was dry. She coughed. A spatter of blood came out—the results of ‘Stem use. She looked to the back of the craft, towards the main passenger area. It was large enough to carry at least six people, and behind the bulkhead she found a storage locker. It opened easily enough. She found water and rations to last a good few weeks.

Petal removed a metal box of ration packs, noticed something strapped to the webbing at the bottom of the storage unit: A conical shaped tube with a dark green and grey camo design. Scorch marks covered the opened end. It looked like a recovered front-half of a UAV drone.

Inside the tip of the drone, she found the usual suite of scanners, GPS aerials, and computer control systems bundled into a neat package. With a toolkit from the cockpit she quickly removed the package, held it in her hand as if it she could somehow divine its contents. Naturally, she thought of connecting to its wireless system with her inbuilt radios, but realised she had no means of connection anymore. Her wrist itched where the implant had crudely been removed.

She cursed the Widows for neutering her in such a way. Being disconnected made her feel like someone had hacked off a limb.
This must be what normal people feel like,
she thought.

She placed the drone control package on the dashboard. The controls of the craft were in that stupid damn language again, but at least she recognised some of the symbols from the last one she was in. She managed to fire the engines without careening into a pile of rocks or the ground and found the main computer control system.

A holoscreen projected up in front of her. The controls were iconic rather than language based. She hacked into the setup files. Deep into the system, the folders were labelled in English. Luckily, it seemed the programmers were Westerners. It made her wonder if this Jaguar wasn’t Russian-built after all. Within the English files she found a configuration script.

“About damned time,” she said to herself.

The system had a number of language packages installed. She simply had to select a new operating system preference. Within a split second the entire dashboard controls were now perfectly understandable. “That makes more sense.”

While she had access to the Jaguar’s system, she checked the log files and found a recently updated entry within a secure area. At first it wouldn’t give her access, so she brought up a terminal and with a technique learned from Gabe, managed to code an exploit that gave her super-user access, meaning she could now view the previously encrypted files at her leisure.

First she managed to create a memory overflow within the system allowing her to inject her own code. Using a series of assembly commands within the higher areas of the system’s memory, she gained access as if she were the legitimate administrator. The operating system that the Jaguar used was quite common, being a leftover from the war, so its weaknesses were well known, especially to Gabe who spent years reverse-engineering the various leading military systems.

Once in, she navigated to the logs.

“Ooh, this is interesting.”

The encrypted log file was in fact instructions from what appeared to be the Red Widow base. It was unreadable, naturally. Taking the file of information, she programmed a translation process using the various language packs as the dataset. It wasn’t entirely accurate but it was close enough. The interesting thing was the number of times the word Criborg appeared.

The file mentioned the operators in that very Jaguar had downed the Criborg UAV while on patrol on the border territories beyond the Khentii Mountains.

She checked the location stamp and realised it wasn’t very far from her location, which meant she would likely be found soon if she didn’t move. They’d be expecting a report from their patrol.

The UAV, it said, was of Criborg design. The third one taken down in the last week. Criborg had stepped up its drone attacks on the Red Widow’s territory by a factor of 5 in the previous month. They had also sunk a Red Widow vessel off the coast of Northern Japan.

Damn
. A secret war had broken out underneath The Family’s nose. But then, she supposed, what with The Family taking down or at least temporarily cutting access to the Meshwork, it made it harder for news like this to spread.

That gave her an idea: she used the Jaguar’s computer to scan for nodes, which it found none, but it did find a complete absence. Even City Earth’s network hadn’t showed up. They had somehow suppressed all of the networks, and cloaked their own.

“‘Bout time they realised they weren’t invulnerable,” she said.

The scanner completed its sweep. She had another thought: the UAV used radio systems to navigate and send/receive messages. With the last few remaining computer nodes and network points down or cloaked, Criborg had to communicate with their device. Which means she could too. And she could recover the data.

It took her at least twenty minutes to crack the encoded signal.
Would have been faster with Gerry
, she thought. She had the Jaguar’s computer and radio system array send a signal to the UAV’s control device and it returned a confirmation. She was in.

It was then she realised: it’d been transmitting all that time.

Streams of data flowed from the unit, updating the recipient with coordinates, locations, video, and audio.

She quickly placed the unit inside a metal ration’s box. A hundred questions blossomed in her mind: how much had it recorded, had the people on the other end heard and seen her, were they coming to recover their tech, were they coming to attack Red Widow? And damn! Here she sat, dressed in their robes, in their vehicle. What if they thought she was one of them? And given that it was her only vehicle she couldn’t just abandon it and walk on foot.

Only one thing for it: send them a message via the signal. Tell them who she was, that she had had their chip inside her. Her hand trembled over the controls as she typed out her message, telling them she was coming to their location.

She hoped they would let her get that far, but then she had little choice. She couldn’t go to City Earth or Darkhan. She didn’t know the extent of GeoCity-1’s safety, and with the Red Widows crawling all over the land and air, options were running thin.

Her hand hesitated over the send control.
Damn it, girl. Just do it.

She sent the message, entered the coordinates into the navigation computer, and plotted a course to Criborg’s island. The navigation system flagged up a warning: she’d only make it three quarters of the way of the two hours journey on the current fuel load.

“Let’s hope you guys read my message.”

With that, Petal fired up the engines, took off, and headed east.

Chapter 8

A
hour after sending the message, Gerry received a reply from Enna: “Gerry, is that you?” Enna’s voice was right in his head: the AIA patching the signals into his auditory system.

“Yes, Enna. Or should I say Aunty?”

“Oh, they told you then. Well, I can explain, I—”

“No need, just tell me, where’s Petal? I noticed the wreckage of your Jaguar is still out there sending signals.”

“Oh, Gerry. I’m afraid it’s bad news. I’m sorry to have to tell you this. She, she died. There was an accident with the Jaguar. Jasper’s men crashed it under fire, killing all the crew and their passengers. I’m so sorry.”

His AIA added a textual layer coming from a different source to the voice and from within a cloaked, encrypted stream hidden with the voice data of the communications tunnel.

— Gerry, it’s Enna. Look, Petal’s not dead, that was for The Family’s benefit. There’s no time to waste, you have to come to GeoCity-1.

“No! That’s awful. Are you sure? I mean, the wreckage is still there, what if she got away?”

— She’s alive? Really? What’s going on? Where is she?

“She didn’t, I’m afraid,” Enna said. “The bodies were terribly burnt, but I identified her personally. I’m so sorry, Gerry, I know how much she meant to you, and to all of us.”

— Gerry, she’s with Gabe. Hold on! I know what happened at Seca’s place. It’s not what you think. He didn’t double cross you. I’ll explain all that later. There’s no time now, you have to come here. I promise you that Petal is currently safe. A lot has happened since you were away. Get here as soon as you can. Oh crap, it’s already too late. They’re here. Please hurry. We need your help, Gerry.

— Connection lost,
Mags said.

Silence.

His head rang like a bell. A single thought dominated everything. Petal was alive! After the shock, the other details percolated through. What was going on? She was with Gabe, after what he did? And Enna sounded so panicked. Who were ‘they’?

“Goddamnit!” He couldn’t ignore her. He needed to get to her, find out more, and find out whom she was so scared of. Gerry initiated his new athletic protocol. He sprinted from his old house to the shuttle landing zone. He had to get out there and find out what was happening. His muscles and heart, modified by smart nano-machines, burned through energy, and had him racing through the streets. Despite the roar of his heartbeat, the thought of Petal grew strong in his mind. Now he had hope, real hope, and no one was going to stop him. Not even The Family.

He raced across the park and past the tower where Kaden was pretending to be him, rounded the corner, and faced the aviation quarter.

The evening sun dipped low on the western edge of the dome, casting the huge mushroom control tower into a long shadow. Five individual shuttles sat on the Polymar™ surface. While he approached, he accessed the main aviation computer system. Using his currently borrowed ID credentials, he identified the shuttle’s nodes and sent a stream of instructions.

The middle shuttle responded first. Its door opened, and its hydrogen VTOL engines whined up to speed. This was it. Time to get to work. As he approached, the security patrol made their way out of the tower and continued on their rounds between the landing pads and a path that circumnavigated the quarter. Gerry immediately recognised Bran and Malik.

Gerry ran past the twin brothers and continued until he reached a shuttle. He activated the door and jumped in. It was already closing when Bran rushed over. He opened his mouth to say something, his eyes wide. Clearly he’d thought Gerry was in his apartment. Gerry flipped him the bird and engaged the shuttle’s engines. The noise and downdraught of the VTOL props sent Bran flying back on the deck, his legs and arms thrashing about him like a bug.

Gerry spoke over the PA, “You guys need to be a bit quicker, or perhaps this job is a bit much for you, huh?” Gerry smiled and headed up and away from the landing pads. But in his haste he hadn’t requested from Control the opening of the Dome. The access panel remained closed.

“Control, this is Gerry Cardle. Open the exit. I’m on urgent Family business. Over.”

“Hold your position, Mr Cardle, seeking authorisation.”

“I don’t have time. I’m going out one way or another.” He gunned the engines, circled round to gain some room, and buzzed the control tower. “Now. I’m not waiting.”

He aimed the shuttle at the access panel. Even if they refused to open it, he calculated that it was one of the weakest parts of the Dome’s superstructure. The size and velocity of his craft should smash through it. He hoped. He approached the panel with increasing speed when Control replied.

“I’m patching you through to the station. Please hold, Mr Cardle.”

“Told you already, I’m not holding.”

A second later, and as Gerry swung the shuttle round to approach the access panel from an oblique angle, a voice came over his communicator. It was Jachz. Gerry would recognise that programmed voice anywhere. Its cool tones hummed as if nothing in the world was wrong.

“Mr Cardle, please report in. The Family need an update of your status.”

“Can’t do that, Jachz. You’ve got about ten seconds before I smash a big hole in the Dome.”

“Please, Mr Cardle, this isn’t the right approach. I’m sure—”

“Five seconds.” He braced himself tightly into the seat of the shuttle, tensing his legs against the footrest, wedging himself in tight.

“Ger—”

“Bye, Jachz.”

Travelling at over 600 kph at the point of impact, the shuttle smashed the Plexiglas panel right out of its fitments, making the Dome reverberate with the noise. The shuttle blasted through the debris into the open air.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Gerry said, knowing that Jachz was still on the line and not caring one little bit. If the damned Family were going to spy on him they would learn exactly what he was capable of, and he would be damned to hell if he were going to let a bunch of cowards on a space station, hiding from the realities of the world, dictate to him what the hell he was going to do.

“You getting all this, huh, Jachz? What’s that? No, you can’t see the video feed anymore? And yeah, that audio is all messed up with static. I don’t appreciate being spied upon. I’ve got a job to do, I suggest you tell ‘my’ family up there to leave me the hell alone.”

“I’ll pass on the message, Mr Cardle. But, please, indulge me. What are you hoping to achieve with this behaviour? We can help if you cooperate.”

“Jachz, tell me something. Are you capable of free thought, or have The Family made you a limited and neutered robot in a fleshy body?”

“Indeed, Mr Cardle, The Family have created a vast array of free-form protocols and I—”

Gerry laughed, steered the Shuttle up and over the Dome, and headed west to GeoCity-1. While he talked with Jachz, he focused his mind on the shuttle’s various computer systems, disabling the GPS link and adjusting the various transmitters to send back junk data. He didn’t want them to track his movements.

“That’s it though, Jachz. You can only think within tightly controlled parameters, just like the citizens in the Dome. They’re given the impression of freedom and free-thought, but with those AIAs in their heads controlled by the Family, well nothing is really free, is it?”

“I see.”

“You don’t see anything up there in your lofty position. I bet you haven’t even left the lab in which you were created. I bet you’re sitting there right now in a cubicle, much like your clones next to you, doing everything The Family tell you, never questioning, never thinking. You’re trapped, Jachz, doomed to live a life of slavery. You know what that is, right?”

“I have access to vast quantities of data, Mr Cardle. I’m familiar with the concept.”

The shuttle had cleared the Dome. The vast dusty abandoned lands ahead stretched out to the horizon. The low sun caused long shadows to stretch across the ground where a number of rocky formations jutted from the dust. Gerry noticed the tall towers and the fence that secured the Dome from the outside, and he remembered back to his first kill. The NearlyMan: the low-level cyborg that secured the perimeter and at the time was hell-bent on destroying Petal.

He shook his head. In such a short amount of time, he’d had so many memorable events with her, and Gabe.

“I’ll leave you with those thoughts, Jachz. I’ve got a job to do. Tell the Family to get off my back and then maybe they’ll see more cooperation from me. If they don’t, well, they don’t want to make an enemy of me.”

“I will pass on your message, Mr Cardle. Good luck in your mission, whatever it might be.”

Gerry shut down the communication channel and, like the shuttle, altered the code within his internal system to only transmit junk data.

GeoCity-1 was a few minutes away, but on the shuttle’s radar Gerry noticed he had company. He scanned with the shuttle’s near-field radio: another craft had followed him. It must have been one of the security members coming after him.
Damned fool.

Gerry opened a communication link between the two.

“Who’s that following me? Bran, Elaine, Malik?”

“Malik, sir. The Family said I should chaperone, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“Stupidity like that will get you killed. You’ve never been outside the Dome, have you?”

“No, sir, but I’m sure I’ll handle myself.”

“Turn back now, Malik, don’t be so stupid.”

Malik closed the communications channel and followed Gerry’s trajectory.

Gerry thought about hacking the shuttle’s systems and sending him back home, but changed his mind. If he wanted to see what was in the abandoned lands, he might start to question The Family, and the more freethinkers about the better.

Gerry reopened the link. “Malik, if you’re going to follow me, don’t do anything stupid. I’m setting up a secure VPN between us, and disabling your transmitting ability so you can’t send anything back to either the Dome or the Station. If you don’t like that, you better turn back.”

“No problem with that, sir. I’ll still carry out my duties.”

“That unquestioning loyalty will get you killed one day.”

“If it’s in the line of duty, so be it.”

“Yeah, we’ll see if you stick to that.”

Gerry spun a security wrapper in his mind and sent it across to Malik’s AIA creating a secure channel between them. Without the Meshwork to piggyback, it’d only work within a few hundred metres of the shuttles. They each had a router and access point creating a kind of mobile Internet. Beyond that, radio was the only other option, and within the Helix wrapper, Gerry had created a virus to glom onto Malik’s radio systems, rendering them useless on certain frequencies. They’d be able to communicate with each other, and in Gerry’s case via his internal radio transceiver, but not beyond.

If Malik wanted to follow him around like a lamb, then at least he wouldn’t give their position away to The Family. Gerry slowed his shuttle, allowing Malik to catch up so they could fly in formation. At least then he could keep an eye on the rash fool.

As they approached GeoCity-1, Gerry started to understand what had freaked out Enna so much.

The mounted machine guns on the various building roofs were rat-tatting down into the middle of the collection of buildings. Surrounding it on three sides were a number of Jaguar craft, and what looked like hover cars. Gerry hadn’t seen anything like those before, but given the way they moved and handled the rough terrain, he assumed they were of a similar design to the Jaguar’s technology.

The cars were all heavily armed with laser and large-calibre canons attached to their hoods. A dust cloud plumed up into the middle of the melee of the settlement. The Bachians in their buggies and trikes were attacking the armed cars on mass, and taking heavy losses.

“You chose the wrong day to be on duty, Malik. You should leave.”

“Not likely, sir.”

“Don’t be so goddamned stubborn. Look at it down there. That is a real war zone!”

Before he could remonstrate again, one of the Jaguars hovering above the Spider’s Byte—the dive bar of the town—turned on its axis and fired its machine guns. Gerry tried to manoeuvre out of the way, but the shuttle wasn’t built for dog fighting, and didn’t have the agility to avoid the raking arc of heavy calibre shells. The craft shuddered violently, knocking Gerry around in the cockpit. Malik’s shuttle took most of the shells as he was too slow to react and headed for the ground, flames and black smoke belched from its engines.

“Brace yourself, Malik!”

There was no reply as Malik crashed into the ground. They were no more than twenty metres up and the shallow angle of the descent meant that it didn’t break up on impact, but slid across the ground before flipping over and crashing into the iron gates at the front of the compound surrounding the city.

Two further blasts struck Gerry’s shuttle, and he put it into a barrel roll, or as close to one as he could, and avoided the rest of the stream of shells from the Jaguar, which had now ascended and gone over the top of his position. It would soon have his rear, making him a sitting duck.

Gerry didn’t have time to try and hack into the Jaguar. His initial probes found a fierce firewall and heavy levels of encryption. He’d get through it eventually, but not while trying to dogfight in a glorified tub.

He passed over the top of the gate, hoping to use the machine gun turrets as cover, but was soon dodging away from them too. The Bachians and GeoCity-1 citizens should’ve realised Gerry wasn’t posing a threat, but then he was in a City Earth shuttle and at this stage, it wasn’t clear whose side he was on to the outsiders.

Critical failure, hull breach, fuel lines cut.
Every error code imaginable flashed across the holoscreen. The engines cut, sending him belly-down onto the ground of the compound. He cracked his head against the roof during the collision. A white-hot piercing pain spread from the crown of his skull to the back of his neck.

The speed of descent skidded him across the rough, boulder-strewn ground, bumping over bodies, and finally coming to rest outside of Enna’s industrial unit at the far rear western edge of the settlement.