The Unseen
Authors: Jake Lingwall
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Espionage, #Technothrillers, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Cyberpunk, #Dystopian, #Teen & Young Adult, #Thrillers
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2015
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For Ellen.
Chapter One
Two armed guards marched down the long, colorless hall with a purpose that suggested official business. Kari spun through the camera feeds in the area to make sure nothing unexpected was happening. Nothing had gone wrong yet, and that made Kari feel anxious.
Something always goes wrong, especially when I’m dealing with Henderson.
The pair of guards stopped outside of Room E810 in the high-security detention center that was currently serving as the juvenile prison for Kari’s best friend, Aubrey. With a mental twitch, Kari sent the two guards their next set of orders, commanding them to escort the prisoner to the rear of the prison. They looked at each other and hesitated. Kari felt a drip of sweat roll down her cheek, which she wiped away as fast as she could.
“Confirm?”
Kari intercepted the message the guards had sent to Marshal Henderson for confirmation, obviously hesitant to do something so out of character.
She tried to think of how Marshal Henderson would respond to his subordinates questioning his orders.
Nothing came to mind, so Kari simply responded with
“Confirmed.”
The spoofed message would appear as though it had come directly from Henderson, the man in charge of high-priority prisoners, as well as the man who had torn her family apart a little over six months ago.
One of the guards shrugged and pulled the door open while the other stepped into the room. Kari switched her perspective to the camera inside of Aubrey’s cell. Aubrey rolled off her bed and onto her feet; she looked distressed, and it broke Kari’s heart.
Don’t worry, Aubrey, you’ll be out of there soon
.
The guards beckoned her forward, but Aubrey hesitated. Kari didn’t blame her for that; she was all too familiar with what it was like to be in her position. One of the guards moved forward and grabbed Aubrey’s arm, pulling her out of the room. Luckily, she didn’t struggle too much as the guards led her down the hall, because Henderson’s goons had a habit of using head trauma to enforce their orders.
“Proceed to Room E810 ASAP. Retain prisoner at all costs.”
Kari intercepted the message from Henderson, which was sent to all of the guards in the prison, preventing it from reaching any of them.
Something tipped him off!
Kari checked the camera feed and found the room where Henderson was located. It was bursting with activity. Guards and assistants were running about frantically, while Henderson just looked to the nearest camera and stared at it. It was as if he knew Kari was watching him at that very moment
. Good to see you again, old friend.
Kari had overridden all of the cameras that were close to Aubrey’s cell so that they would replay empty hall footage from earlier, but apparently Henderson had figured out a way around that trick. Another drop of sweat rolled down Kari’s forehead, but this time she was too busy to wipe it away.
Something always goes wrong when dealing with Henderson . . .
Red lights flashed throughout the facility; someone had activated the emergency warning system. Kari cursed to herself as she shut the system down as fast as she could. It was an older system that had a number of manual triggers, which meant the best she could do to contain it was to shut it down after it had already been activated. The guards paused, and Aubrey looked around in horror.
“We’ve been compromised. Move target to extraction point.”
Kari sent the message to the guards escorting Aubrey, once again making it appear as though it had come from Henderson. The guards read the message and began to lead Aubrey toward the back exit at a run. Aubrey resisted and pulled against them, struggling to stay in the hallway. The larger of the two guards grabbed Aubrey by her long, curly brown hair and yanked her off her feet. Kari winced as she watched her friend scream in pain. The other guard picked up Aubrey’s feet, and together they carried her down the hall awkwardly as she squirmed to free herself.
Someone again activated the emergency system, causing a series of flashing lights and sirens before Kari could shut it down. The prison that had been dormant a few minutes ago was now more like an anthill that had just been kicked.
Guards and staff ran in all directions, desperate to secure the prison and find out what was happening. A group of Henderson’s enforcement officers raced down a side hall, headed directly for the same back exit that Aubrey and her handlers were closing in on.
Maybe I should have done this the old-fashioned way after all.
Someone activated the emergency system once again, and this time Kari let it run.
“The facility is compromised. Targets escaping through west exit. Heavily armed. All hands proceed to location with caution.”
Kari sent the message to everyone in the facility, except for the two guards who were struggling to pull Aubrey out of the back of the building. Kari held her breath as the squad of enforcement officers neared the corner, where they would be able to see Aubrey being dragged from the prison.
At the last second the leader of the guards held up his fist, bringing his team to a halt. With a wave of his hand, he motioned them all in the opposite direction, and they went sprinting toward the west exit.
Kari breathed in deeply with a reserved amount of relief and brushed some sweat from her forehead.
“Guard asset until pickup.”
Kari sent her final orders to Aubrey’s guards as they finally made it outside of the building.
Kari checked the feed from her delivery drones and their small escort of hand-size stinger drones and found that they were only a few seconds away.
Kari spun through the camera feeds again, looking for any potential problems, but didn’t find any. Most of the security forces were just arriving at the west exit of the building and were searching for the perpetrators of the breach. Kari checked the command room one last time and found Henderson furiously scribbling on a large tablet. He looked just as Kari remembered him, except now he had a nice scar on the corner of his head, which Kari was confident she had been responsible for on the night of her escape.
“All gates secure. No escape this time, Miss Tahe.”
Henderson held up his message to the camera so Kari could read it.
She smiled as she switched her view back to her small convoy of drones that had arrived at Aubrey’s location. The flock of small stinger drones buzzed around the guards, checking for any security problems, while the two much larger drones latched on to Aubrey and pulled her from the ground.
The delivery drones were some of her newest inventions; they were large drones capable of carrying a heavy payload if several of them worked together. Kari wasn’t the first person to think of the idea, but she had put her own spin on it. The long mechanical arms wrapped Aubrey up and began to slowly fly her away from the guards and the prison.
Aubrey strained against the delivery drones, which caused them to falter a few times in the air as they tried to pick up elevation. One of the unique spins Kari had put on the drones was to add some speakers to their bodies, so she could talk to the person they were carrying.
“Aubrey, don’t fight the drones. They’re taking you to safety,” Kari said out loud, allowing her voice to be transmitted through the delivery drones’ speakers. Aubrey paused and tried her hardest to look around for where the voice was coming from. She made the mistake of looking down in her attempt to find out who was talking to her, which caused her to freeze in place and let out a high-pitched scream.
“It’s OK, Aubrey! It’s me, Kari!” Kari said with a laugh, watching her friend’s reaction to flying.
I’d do the same thing; I hate heights.
Someone knocked on the door to Kari’s hotel room.
“Kari?” Aubrey said, forcing herself to look away from the ground below. “How?”
“I’ll tell you more when you arrive,” Kari said. “But right now I have to go. Sorry. Relax and try to stay warm; it’s going to be a long flight.”
“Don’t leave me, Kari!” Aubrey said, before following her plea with a question. “Where are you going?”
Kari stood and straightened her hair and tried to calm her breathing. The person at the door knocked again. Kari took a hasty step toward the door and felt her ankle twist, causing her to fall to the floor with thud.
“Kari where are you going?” Aubrey asked again.
“Senior Ball,” Kari regretfully replied as she pulled herself up from the floor, making sure she was stable before walking to the door.
Whoever invented high heels should be shot. Or at least be forced to spend some quality time with Henderson.
The squeal of excitement coming from Aubrey made Kari flinch
.
“Really? Kari! Wow! This is great!” Aubrey gushed, apparently now unconcerned about or unaware of the fact that she had just been extracted from a high-security prison and was now flying at low speeds, several hundred feet in the air.
“Bye!” Kari said. She closed her feed from the delivery drones. She’d check up on Aubrey throughout the night, especially as she crossed the border, but she didn’t need any distractions now.
Kari peered through the eyepiece on her hotel room door and saw David standing nervously on the other side, dressed in a tuxedo and holding an elaborate bouquet of flowers. His hair was longer than the last time she had seen him, but beside that he looked the same. Except better.
“Kari, you in there?” David said, loud enough for Kari to hear through the door.
“Yeah, uh, one second,” Kari said back. She ordered the small camera that was connected to her mind chip behind her ear to fly out in front of her. It blinked to life and presented Kari with a camera feed of her own face. She grimaced, her hair looked like she had just run a marathon. She wasn’t great at putting makeup on as it was, but now it was smeared and distorted from her sweat.
“Make that a few minutes,” Kari shouted as she headed carefully for the bathroom.
David protested from the hallway but eventually relented as he gave in to the fact that it was a battle that he couldn’t win. Kari fixed her makeup and cleaned herself up quickly. It felt unnatural to her to put on so much makeup and to try to make herself look pretty, but she had accepted that certain occasions called for it.
After a couple of minutes, she gave up on trying to make herself look better and stared into the mirror. She looked good, or at least OK, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t ready, like she had forgotten something important. Nothing came to mind, so she walked to the door and paused just as she was about to open it.
