REHO: A Science Fiction Thriller (The Hegemon Wars) (17 page)

“Take me in,” Reho said as he knelt beside the car.

The driver unclipped a set of restraints from its belt. Standing near him, Reho grasped the Vectors arm and kicked one of its lower legs, sending it to the ground. He had expected to hear a snap or something; instead, he heard only the thud of the impact. Reho relieved the metal restraints from its grip. Its leg straightened with a low whine and jerk.

Tires squealed as the other android dodged the oncoming car. Ends slammed the brakes and was now backing up to them. Reho swung, striking the android across the face with the metal cuffs. Its blue rubber face ripped, revealing the reflective metal beneath. It struck back.

Metal battered against Reho’s face as the Vector slammed its artificial fist into him. Reho hit the ground as Ends drove into the android, sending it crashing through a repair shop’s window. The metal-on-metal crunch had crushed the taxi’s rear. Reho braced himself for a moment as he surveyed the damage. Some of the equipment in the trunk would be in pieces.

The other android struck Reho, sending him flying over the car and through the windshield of the black and grey cruiser. Blue and green lights lit the area as the android ripped the passenger door off the taxi. The car launched forward, leaving the android with the detached door in its hands. Ends would go to the overpass; he wouldn’t risk everyone’s safety.

Inside the patrol car, Reho noticed a hefty shaft between the two seats.
It has to be a weapon!
Reho detached the shaft and found a sliding lever. It hummed but didn’t do anything else. It was blunt and approximately a yard in length.

Reho exited through the driver’s door in time to avoid being dragged out. The android kicked, holding the detached taxi door as a shield, but Reho dodged the assault and struck the android twice with the shaft. Both hits sparked against the door-shield. The shaft was electrified! Reho hadn’t touched the weapon anywhere except its handle. He tapped the ground in front of him, and sparks explode onto the road’s surface. It was some sort of high-voltage taser. The passenger android returned. One of its legs was twisted, exposing several wires and a leaking tube that was draining white fluid with each step.

The android struck with the detached door. Reho evaded and hammered the shaft against the android’s hand. The electric shock caused its digits to flex, releasing the door it carried. Reho raised the weapon twice across its face. The blue covering tore, revealing more of its mirrored face. The other android attacked from behind. Reho ducked and sent it flying into the car with his foot. He struck it three times in the chest, causing its limbs to fling wildly from the electric blasts. The other android grabbed him from the back, clenching its hands around his neck. Reho spun, then pushed the android into its partner, freeing its grip from around his neck. The electric current flowed from one to the other, causing both to jerk.

He heard the motor before he saw the lights, still alternating between blue and green.

As Reho threw his body out of the way, another patrol car crashed into both androids. A noise filled the streets, as though a train had derailed and was crashing through the buildings around him.

As Reho neared the wreckage, he kicked a torn blue head to the side. Wires sparked from its neck as white fluid poured from where one of its red eyes had been. The other android was intact but pinned between the two patrol cars.

“Damn droids!”

Thursday kicked the door out as Reho approached. Blood poured from the top of his head.

“Out of five stars,” Thursday said. “I give the taxis in this city a safety rating of none.” He laughed as he stumbled onto the street.

Reho caught him before his body hit the ground.

“Where are the others?” Thursday asked.

“They went ahead as planned,” R
eho said and nodded back toward the taxi. “And you crashed our ride.”

A wave of hysterical laughter erupted from Thursday. “I guess I did. Perhaps I should have parked and just walked over.”

Reho smiled. “You took out two androids?” He looked back in the direction from which Thursday had come.

“Yep. Ask me how later. Right now I just want to get off the street. How do you suggest we get to the overpass before sunup?” He straightened and stepped away from Reho. He walked over to one of the disabled androids. “I’ll borrow this.” He undid the tie from around the android’s neck and looped it across his forehead as a bandage.

The sun rose
behind them as they approached the Yaman Overpass. Railroad tracks ran beneath it, through Shibuya and away from the city into what remained of former Japan. Most of the tracks had been demolished long before Neopan had ever been built.

“I see them,” Reho said.

Thursday stood propped against him. They’d run most of the way until the pain became too great for Thursday.

The stolen taxi was nowhere in sight. A homemade cycle left the bridge and headed toward them, its gasoline engine rumbling as it descended along the broken pathway from the overpass. Driving it was a boy who looked no older than fifteen, his cheeks smeared with motor oil and his oversized goggles reminding Reho of Darksteam. He pulled up close before cutting his speed, and the cycle skidded to a stop before them.

“Get on guys!” He seemed excited to see them.

Thursday’s eyes shot to Reho. Reho shrugged and shifted Thursday’s weight toward the boy’s cycle.

“Dip stick,” Thursday mumbled, letting out a powerful moan as he slumped against the cycle.

The cycle jerked to a start before Reho could sit down. The boy swerved around debris, never letting up on the speed. Reho could hear Thursday mumbling as each sharp movement sent a new wave of pain through his leg.

The cycle raced back to the bridge. Reho could hear its engine whine, the youth never let up on the throttle until they reached the top of the bridge where the crew waited.

“I told you we should’ve gone back,” Sola said as Thursday stumbled off the bike.

Rainne wrapped her arms around Reho and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. They hadn’t been affectionate in front of the crew before. Reho lifted her up and returned the kiss.

“If you two are done repopulating the planet, I’d like to go,” Thursday said, annoyed as much by their affectionate display as by Sola pressing and poking on his leg.

“I think you might have fractured it,” she said.

“We’ve got to move now,” Ends said, noticing Thursday and Reho eyeing the young grease-covered boy. “Let’s save the small talk for when we’re safely underground. The boy is Trax
, and he’s the escort sent from the Black Hats.”

“You got it,” their escort said. “Follow me. It’s not far.” The cycle’s engine whined as he thrust its throttle.

Reho recounted as much of the night as he could, filling Gibson in on what he could remember about Kawasaki just a few short hours ago in Arcade. Ends was most concerned about the tracking Kawasaki had referenced. Whatever the Phoenix was being used for, it wasn’t going to make what they were about to do any easier.

After leaving the overpass, they traveled half a mile along a concrete path that ran beside the train tracks. They stopped at an OldWorld warehouse, its rusted exterior reminiscent of structures in the Blastlands.

The warehouse was a cover for one of the entrances into Shibuya, a city below ground. Reho had expected it to be like Neopan but built out of OldWorld buildings and rubble. This was the home to what Ends had called the Black Hats, but there were more groups here than just hackers. The boy on the bike was no hacker.

The tunnels ran the length of Shibuya. They were part of its old subway system. Every few minutes, Reho spotted groups of people near doorways that led off to other areas in the subcity. It was dark below. Lights ran along the ceiling every hundred yards or so, illuminating the grey pathways. Reho hadn’t noticed until now, but the crew only carried three bags. There had been six in the trunk of the city taxi.

They climbed off the tracks and onto a platform. There were three doors, each boarded up and abandoned. Their young escort stopped at one labeled Management S2, pried back a board, and shoved a nail into the handle’s key slot. The door popped open, and he disappeared inside. A few moments later, a rugged man appeared in the doorway. He lifted his hand and waved to someone behind him. He opened his mouth to speak and what Reho heard did not match the lusty man’s appearance.

“Come this way.” He spoke in a wheezy monotone, then sneezed into the crook of his arm. “Excuse me. This blasted cold has had me on door duty for four days now.”

On the other side, an office opened up to an entire complex. Reho could see where the walls of the office had long ago been demolished, connecting it with dozens of other rooms. Now, one capacious area housed stations that resembled the navigation room on the yacht. Reho could see the reverse side of glass panels, some displaying maps and others filled with lines of computer code.

“Everyone around here calls me Blaster.”

No one looked away from their tasks as the crew trailed through what Reho thought to be a command center. The screens that lined the walls showed coordinates and what appeared to be live footage from cameras throughout Neopan.

“What do you make of this?” Thursday asked Gibson.

“It’s their headquarters. I never imagined they had this kind of equipment, though.”

Blaster led them into an office in the back. A short wall divided a desk and a few chairs from the rest of the room.

“Wait here,” Blaster said. “Slater won’t be long.”

The desk was empty except for a single monitor and keyboard.

“I am so tired,” Rainne said, dropping into one of the chairs. Thursday took the other.

Ends pointed to Reho’s AIM. Reho tapped its scrambled screen and then held down several buttons in a sequence that would reset it. Once it came back online, the screen scrambled again.

“High security here,” Gibson whispered.

Part of the wall popped out and slid open, revealing a startling presence. His skin was black, every visible inch of it inked with sequences of blue zeroes and ones
.
The numbers wrapped around his arms, snaked about his neck, and crisscrossed his face. He wore a spotless, black hat similar to the ones Reho had seen in Darksteam, the brim round and short. The blue numbers glowed on his skin, like neon or the glow sticks that Ends had used on the tracks in the jungle. No one said anything and none would confess to staring. The man broke his own awkward silence.

“I usually give whoever I meet time to adjust before I speak,” he said.

Ends moved in front of the others, asserting himself as the group’s leader. Sola’s hands trembled and danced behind her back.

Was it her nerves or was
it withdrawal?

“Our employer sent us to see you,” Ends said. Slater didn’t respond. Instead, he leaned back in the chair, placed his hands behind his head, and stared.

“And this supposed employer of yours says that I am to show you how to use these access codes to connect to Phoenix and the Mainframe?” Slater asked. “Perhaps your employer is confusing me with a white hat or even a grey.” He popped out of his chair, sending it slapping back against the wall. “But if you look on my damn head you’ll see that I’m not wearing a white or a grey hat.” He straightened his suit and removed his hat, gently setting it on the desk.

Gibson jumped to his feet and Thursday followed, his hands clenched.

“More magic,” Gibson said.

“Gibson sit down,” Thursday said.

“No. No, I want to hear what he has to say,” Slater said, returning to his seat.

“You have codes to access Omega and can help us get the codes to access the Phoenix but Kawasaki has those codes. And I know you can’t enter Omega without us. You need a crew. And you need someone to who can write a code to block access to the satellite long enough for us to send our immersant in. And you know the story about the last crew member who tried to immerse into the Mainframe,” Gibson said, pointing at Slater’s arms. “I can see the scars under the binary ink.”

Ends leaned closer to the desk and peered at his scars.

“That was years ago. Most who know of it are already dead. How do you know of it?” Slater asked.

“Because our employer was there,” Ends replied. He removed his coat and pressed his fists against the desk, exposing his hands and arms. Reho had noticed the scars before but hadn’t thought much of it.

Slater leaned across the table and studied Ends’ arms and then Ends’ face.

Reho looked at Rainne, but she wouldn’t make eye contact with him. Why would Ends and the others keep something so important from him? It made no sense for all of them to agree to the lie just to keep him in the dark. Reho searched Sola’s face for any sign of shock or surprise. Nothing. Everyone was playing along, playing their part except for him and Rainne. And she was too tired to piece it together.
There was no employer. Only Ends.

“I knew every man on the crew that infiltrated. We lost everyone except for three of us and four women we found locked up and experimented on like animals!” Slater slammed his fist next to Ends’ and met him eye-to-eye and smiled. “You haven’t aged gracefully, old buddy.”

“Like yours, my arms remind me every day!” Ends said. “We risked the entire mission to save more than just those women. We lost Blade and Dallas to gain access to those codes that you have hung onto all these years.”

Slater’s hysterical laughter spilled over the half-wall and attracted workers away from their monitors. A handful got up and made their way toward the office. Slater waved them off and returned to his chair.

“Ends?” Slater asked, switching the subject. “Why the name change?”

“When you make enough enemies, sometimes it’s best to lose a name,” Ends replied. “Graven.”

Slater let out another frenzied laugh. “I see what you mean. I was never too fond of Graven anyway. Not sure what my mother was thinking.” He cleared his throat and placed the hat back on his head. “The codes won’t help. Without an immersant who can actually live long enough to make it to the reactor room inside the Mainframe . . . It. Means. Nothing.”

“I know. That’s why we’re here,” Ends said.

“More magic,” Slater said, laughing as he took them past the pop-out door through a private hallway only accessible to the Black Hats.

***

As they walked, Gibson explained the phrase
more magic
to the crew. There was a story about a hacker who had found a switch labeled
Magic
and
More Magic
. At the time, the switch was in the
More Magic
position and had only a single wire connected to it; any workable switch requires two wires. He flipped the switch from
More Magic
to
Magic,
and it shut down the entire workstation where the guy had been writing code. He flipped the switch back into its original position and everything powered back up. According to the story, his employer came in later that day, examined the switch, and said it had nothing to do with the power outage. So he flips the switch and the power goes out. He flips it back to the
More Magic
position and the power comes back on.

“This is your confession to believing in wizards and elves?” Thursday asked.

Before Gibson could reply and explain the point to the story, a door opened.

Slater turned around. “Welcome to The Black Hats.”

The room resembled Kawasaki’s workshop. Tables were stacked with hardware, and monitors filled every other available surface. Six door-sized towers that resembled OldWorld CPUs lined the back of the room. In the middle, three chairs were suspended from cables with dozens of wires dangling from them. Monitors were docked near them, their black screens filled with horizontal blue lines of binary code.

Two men and a woman sat at their desks. The woman was the first to get up. She glared at Slater as she walked up to Gibson.

Gibson stepped back from her. She stood a foot shorter than he and wore her hair in a ponytail that rested across her shoulder and down her chest. Her arms were thin, and the more Reho examined her face the more gaunt she appeared. She and Gibson stared until Slater interrupted.

“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost,” Slater said.

Coder.
It was Reho who spoke first.

“How did you survive? What happened to Kawasaki?” Reho asked. The shock of seeing her caused him to reconsider just how real Arcade was.

“I’m used to people trying to kill me. Just not used to them killing my family. Plus, I told you some of those inked codes were lucky.” She lifted her shirt, revealing burns along her stomach near her hips. The black ink was mostly indecipherable beneath three circular chars.

“What happened with Kawasaki?” Sola asked.

“I don’t know. He just started . . . He mumbled about tracking your crew since Darksteam and that he was going to stop whatever you and the Black Hats were planning. Then he fired at Reho and me.” She looked at Reho. “You tried to stop him from shooting me. You faded between me and the blasts.” She fought back tears. “I couldn’t even think. He fired and then was gone. I stayed there for several minutes until Finch was able to bring me out.” She nodded to the black-skinned, robust man with crew-cut hair.

“Her vitals had dropped low,” Finch said, concern filled his words. “We can’t monitor location anymore when we immerse into Arcade. Since Log’s latest updates, we—”

“We’ll bypass that update in another day or two,” the other man said, popping up from his chair. His skin was pale, and his dreadlocks were as long as Coder’s hair. A patch covered one eye; the other was red. He looked at the newcomers, waiting for someone to respond.