Kaleidocide (6 page)

“Hope they survive and escape the area in their helos?”

I nodded, but also raised my eyebrows when it sank in that they had helicopters, and therefore how serious this threat really was.

“Wait a minute,” Lynn said, still interested, as I was glad to note. “Why would these people risk their lives or freedom like this? Sounds like they have a good chance of ending up dead or in jail.”

“Desperate times,” Terrey said. “There are a lot of criminals, and even battlers, who are willing to take the chance at the big bikkies they're being offered, not to mention getting to play with some nice hardware.”

Lynn looked at me, puzzled.

“Battlers are people who are working hard but barely making a living,” I explained. “And big bikkies is Australian for a lot of money.”

She said “Ohhhh,” a bit playfully.

“Also, Oakland is a hotbed of resentment toward BASS,” I added. “Don't ever take a stroll through there alone, okay?” I turned back to Terrey.

“What're you planning to do with them?” I asked, which for Lynn's sake was a softer way of saying
Will you kill them?.

“If we capture some,” Terrey said, subtly tipping me that at least some killing was inevitable. “It's my pretty educated guess that we'll get nothing from interrogating them or hacking any implants they have. Sun's people are too good for that—they'll have too many layers between them and anything worth tracing.” He looked at me. “But it's your call.”

“It's worth a try,” I said, “in case we can head off some of the other assassins. Let's not have any unnecessary loss of life.” I worded it that way for Lynn. I was always trying to keep her from thinking of me as a monster, especially after what we'd been through a year before in what we called the “silhouette” incident. But I was also telling Terrey to not worry about shedding some blood.

“Almost there,” Terrey said, and we all watched the displays as the copters approached the ruins of Oakland, which were an astonishing sight at any time, but especially bathed in the dying light from the sunset. The mostly crooked buildings that still stood reflected it and cast long shadows across the gnarled remains of the ones that did not. I knew that some adventurous tourists braved the city just to see the kind of postapocalyptic landscape that only existed before in video games and movies, and I also knew that some companies provided flyovers so that the less adventurous ones could get a bird's-eye view of sights like Lake Merritt, the large tidal lagoon that had once been a downtown landmark but was now just a scarred ditch because all the water had dissipated through the cracks in the earth. At least it wasn't overrun by a plague of birds anymore.

“Will they see us coming?” Lynn asked, her use of first person hinting at how effectively the displays put us in the action.

“No chance, with the jamming capabilities of my girls,” Terrey said. “In fact, considering that and how quietly the Firehawks run, you may see
them
before we even open fire.” With that reference to a preemptive strike, any illusion of no casualties was gone, but Lynn didn't react to it at all. “Depending on how well-hidden they are. Look for teal vehicles and body armor—they'll all be painted that color.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“We saw it on some of our surveillance shots,” Terrey answered. “Blue-green is one of the elemental colors, significant in ancient China, and they make it darker by adding in black because that's the color of death, or maybe the ‘king of colors.' Whatever. But knowing this might help us to figure out what other colors to look for.”

As if on cue, one of the triplets used her augmented eyes to telescope to one section of the distant ruins; as a result our view in that display zoomed in as well. It moved rapidly across the nooks and crannies in the debris, following the red indicators of a targeting system until they locked together and lit up brighter in the middle of the display.

“There you go,” Terrey said. “See that? San is saying it's one of their armored SUVs, only partially covered with the camo. They have to use their best big hiding places for the helicopters, because they're harder to explain away if seen.”

We all strained our eyes looking for something teal, but in the fading light all we could see was blacks and grays.

“Bottom right corner,” Min said, and I realized that he was probably plugged directly into the triplets' eyes. When he said it, I concentrated on that part of the slightly wavering display and thought maybe I did see something, but wasn't sure.

“I don't see a thing,” Lynn announced. But then the two triplets on the outside swung their Hawks away from the middle one, all the while keeping their gaze locked on the neighborhood where the assault team had been sighted, which looked to be somewhere between the downtown ruins to the left and the crater that had been Lake Merritt to the right. And for the next thirty minutes, dark blue-green was about all we would see.

 

6

IMPRESSED

Obviously the mercs had seen or heard the approaching Hawks, because a camo canopy was thrown off the SUV we were trying to see, and it shot out of its hiding place onto one of the few drivable paths in that part of the dead city. Two more identical vehicles were soon visible on other roads, each of the three rushing in totally different directions. But they all had appeared on the perimeter of a center point, which they were heading
away
from—a fact not lost on a military mind like Terrey's.

“Those are the observation sentries,” he said, “trying to lead us away from the bulk of the force.” This fact was also not lost on the triplets, apparently, because each one maneuvered her craft closer to one of the streaking SUVs, released two guided rockets in its direction, and immediately turned back toward the center of the perimeter outlined by the decoys. Terrey switched our displays to the rear cameras of the Hawks for a few moments, so we could see the rocket tandems weave their way around all obstacles and explode each of the SUVs in a fiery cascade of teal metal and red body parts. So much for no casualties.

Then our three views returned to the triplets' perspective, looking toward the section of ruins they were all approaching from different directions. In two of the displays we could now see helicopters, painted the same color, that had been uncovered or moved out of a building, their rotors unfolding for imminent flight. One of them burst into flames before it could lift off, targeted and destroyed by one of the triplets. But the other managed to get off the ground and release some flak at the same time (a nice move), causing the projectiles coming its way to create some more debris where it had been parked. Soon it became apparent that at least three other enemy craft were in the air as well, and Lynn gasped beside me.

“Can they come and get us?” she asked.

“No,” I said, putting my arm around her. “They're clear on the other side of the city. And at this point, they just want to escape.”

“They were holed up there waiting for a strategic moment to attack Michael,” Terrey added. “With the element of surprise, hopefully. But now the jig is up, and like he said, they just want to get away. Which is Buckley's.” He saw Lynn's brow knit at the Aussie slang and added, “No chance.” He had to raise his voice considerably now, because the seven helicopters had begun to exchange fire. “If any of their birds come this direction, the rest of your Firehawk fleet would take them out.”

“But they can hurt your helpers,” Lynn shouted above the din, and then Terrey turned down the audio with his finger mouse. So she finished at a normal volume: “They have more than you, and they look pretty fancy.”

“Yes, those are a more advanced model—Sikorsky Primes,” Terrey conceded. “Though more lightly armed, for stealth purposes. And they have even more of an advantage in numbers … look at that.” He pointed to the right-hand screen, where one triplet was looking at a telescoped shot of a group of four more teal SUVs emerging from another hiding place. They fanned out and as they did, panels on their roofs slid open and armored soldiers holding RPGs extended themselves and prepared to fire. Judging by the quality of the other warware I had seen so far, I knew that these would be the kind that could fire repeatedly without reloading, and their projectiles would also be guided, to some degree at least. I was beginning to wonder myself if the triplets were in over their heads, when one of them announced that there were also RPG gunners on foot now in various parts of the rubble. She said this calmly, however, not seeming worried in the least, and even added the superfluous detail that the foot soldiers were “also attired in teal body armor.”

The three views became harder to watch as the triplets pushed their Hawks into the spaces between the higher buildings that were still standing. But though it was difficult to follow, it was absolutely fascinating watching these “super-Sheilas” work. From their relative concealment, they took out one of the enemies' choppers before it realized it was a sitting duck in the open air. So now the three remaining Sikorskys entered the labyrinth of the higher ruins to play a cat-and-mouse game with the Hawks, and their ground forces were drawn into those areas as well, trying to get a clear shot at our three black birds. But when the teal forces fired, their shots always seemed to miss the Hawks, sometimes by inches, and explode harmlessly against the walls of the buildings, or the roofs if the triplets flew upward and circled back down toward their targets. On the other hand, the machine guns and rockets of the Hawks rarely missed, turning the ground vehicles into more sprays of metal and blood, and the mercs on foot into blotches of red on the concrete where they were standing or running. In a matter of minutes, another of the Sikorskys was down, too, having rounded a corner into the sites of a waiting Hawk.

“My
Trois
see everything through one another's eyes,” Terrey explained with pride. “And they communicate everything simultaneously with no noise or jamming limitations. So it's like one pilot in three different locations. Like the perfect team, their movements perfectly synchronized. And they can see through the Eye as well.” He modified one of the displays to show us a view of the entire battlefield from above, with several inset screens showing up-close details of the location and movements of particular enemy units.

“Your satellite system is also providing them warnings when entities and projectiles enter their proximity,” he continued. “Which they programmed it to do in about three minutes on the ride in.” He smiled like a father whose son has been drafted into professional sports, and as if on cue, two brightly colored indicators lit up on the Eye view to show that an enemy chopper and SUV had entered each end of a corridor between buildings, where one of the Hawks hovered in the middle. As soon as they saw our helicopter, the teal chopper fired from the air and the teal SUV from the ground. But Ni (I could see her name on the display) surged forward to a spot above the ground vehicle just in time, and the enemy rockets crossed paths and streaked into their counterparts, turning the blue-green into red flames.

We were duly impressed, but Terrey wasn't done.

“And guess what else they can see,” he said, and changed the Eye display to another channel, which took me a few moments to identify. I soon realized it was a view from one of the two remaining enemy choppers, which I first thought was lifted from the HUD display or a forward camera. But then I realized the perspective was shifting, and it was coming from
inside
the cockpit.

“The girls can hack basic cyberware,” Terrey explained. “Like this guy, who probably has an entertainment implant, for music, movies, porn. Some have comm imps for their InPhones … in those cases we can also access what they're saying or hearing.”

“Wow,” said Lynn, and like an exclamation point we watched from the Sikorsky pilot's view as he flew right into a trap and was shredded by Go's cannon fire. His head must have lolled to the side, because the perspective of the front of the cockpit was slightly askew as it dipped toward the ground and crashed into the debris.

“Way to go, Go,” Lynn said with a nervous laugh.

I rolled my eyes and Terrey said with a grin, “She's never heard that one before.”

Then we all stopped smiling, because of the display from the optic cyberware of the enemy pilot. His helicopter had not exploded in the crash, so his cocked view showed the wrecked front of the cockpit, lit by some outside light and some flames burning inside. The display was utterly still, so that meant that the man was dead, probably from Go's bullets while still in the air. But though the man was dead his implant was functioning, so we could still see through his eyes.

After an eerie moment of relative quiet, Terrey changed that display back to the Eye view, and we could tell that the one remaining Sikorsky had turned tail and was flying away from the battleground. All three Firehawks gave chase, bearing down from behind on the fleeing chopper like black wolves stalking some wounded prey. When in range, they opened fire with their cannons, and the beaten enemy met its end.

“No way to take them prisoner,” I said half-heartedly to Lynn.

“But we can capture the rest if you want,” Terrey said.

“The rest?”

“Yeah, according to some more 'ware that the Shimmies are scanning, some of them stayed in their base, which is in the bottom of that building.” He pointed to the structure that was on all three screens now, because the triplets were approaching it. It was about five stories tall, but much wider, and leaning less than the others around it.

“That is the YWCA building,” Min spoke for the first time in a while. “Designed by Julia Morgan, who did Hearst Castle and other famous projects. She lived through the 1906 earthquake here, so she must have designed it to endure the next one.”