Twenty's Mission Log
Chapter 9

“Good morning Twenty” said Jericho amiably on the phone. “Are you calling to apologise for disturbing the peace of my realm once more?”

“The Golem and the explosions were not our fault” I responded. “We were just trying to replace Jacob Tan. I think another AI is trying to cause trouble here in the Zone”

“I am aware of that” answered Jericho. “It is unfortunate but Archimedes and the Zone are highly sought after prizes. These attempts happen on a regular basis”

“This time I think you and your operations are being targeted” I said. “Is it possible that assassin has been sent here by an AI to remove you? You are responsible for the entire Zone outside of Pan City aren’t you?”

“You are correct. Jericho-One is responsible for all international actions, Jericho-Two handles Pan City and its research divisions, and I manage the rest of the Zone and Guard activities. There is some overlap of course, and we are all responsible to Archimedes.”

“But you have your own research centres don’t you Jericho? Ones that you keep hidden from the other Jericho’s and Archimedes” I stated. “If one of those were attacked and revealed for what they were, that would threaten your position wouldn’t it? Archimedes may be forced to directly intervene in your affairs, especially with the chaos here in the Spit right now”

Jericho seemed to be considering what I had speculated.

“If it was true, why is that an issue for you?” he asked.

“I think Daniel-san and his crew have been recruited for a run against one of your secret labs. He probably thinks they are helping expose some illegal cyberware operation or something. But he is in danger. Once they complete the mission, I think they will be killed by agents of the AI. It will make it look like just a raid by local freelancers”

“You are extrapolating a lot from the data you have” said Jericho thoughtfully.

“It’s a gut feeling” I said simply.

“You have changed so much in such a short time, Twenty” he said to me. “It almost makes me feel proud”

“Just help us replace Daniel-san before it is too late” I demanded.

“I will run a systems check on my facilities” he said and he paused for only a few seconds. “You may be right, one of the bases is not answering. The limited AI that oversees operations is not responding to my query. The communications link has been compromised. Only a full AI could do that”

“Where is this place?” I urged him. In response he sent a location file to my phone. I opened the data and checked it against my maps. It was a good 20 kilometers away, in the open country south of the Spit.

“How long has the communications been down?” I asked Jericho.

“Less than five minutes according to the automated logs. Not enough to trigger an alert. If they are attempting a run now you must have forced them to act sooner than planned” he replied.

We would never get there in time with our scooter. Any road vehicle would take too long. There just wasn’t time.

“Can you help us get there?” I begged Jericho. We had to try and save our friends.

“I can’t deploy Guards” he said. “Archimedes is overseeing their operations closely. But I can send you transport. It will be there in two minutes. I got it moving as soon as you called me”

So he had been expecting our call I realised. He had probably expected everything. Smart little shit that he was. I relayed much of the conversation to Millie, who was looking on anxiously.

“What about gear?” asked Millie. “If Daniel-san is in combat with other freelancers, won’t we need some firepower too?”

“How about it Jericho? Any black market goodies you can help us out with” I asked him.

“Just ask the pilot” he replied. “I have to go now. Good luck”. He ended the call abruptly. Places to go I guess.

As promised, transport arrived in two minutes. A powerful roar of engines came from overhead, followed by a massive downwash of ducted thrust into the street. The few pedestrians scattered as a VTOL combat carrier eased its way to touchdown, the four tilted fan housings barely fitting between the buildings. It deployed landing wheels at the last instant and settled to the tarmac like an oversized wasp. Dust and trash swirled around us as the fans stayed in standby mode, still spinning.

The carrier was an older model of the ones currently used by the Guard. It had been painted in a civilian white colour scheme but there was no mistaking the military origins of the craft. I wondered how Jericho had managed to steal this away from the Guard inventory without being caught.

In the front cockpit I saw the pilot’s helmeted head look to us and he beckoned us forwards. The side hatch split open and we left the shelter of the pavement and climbed aboard. As soon as we had entered, the hatch halves settled back into place and the engines roared back to full power.

I grabbed a handhold as we were launched into the air, Millie grabbing on to me and swearing in a very unladylike manner. The carrier levelled off at barely 100 meters and surged forwards, racing low across the rooftops of the city.

We managed to get ourselves into seats behind the central pilot position. I looked forward at the pilot and he glanced back at me. I felt a jolt of recognition that startled me.

“B-One, is that you?” I shouted over noise of the ducted fans propelling us through the sky. The pilot was a Jack, but he I could see he had a short trimmed dark beard visible below his flight helmet. This was not right!

“Just call me Boner” he shouted back and indicated Millie and I should put on the headsets resting to the sides of our seats. I quickly put mine on, ignoring Millie’s questions about how to get it working properly.

“How are you still alive!” I demanded through the mike. He had been the One Unit of my old B Squad, optimised for Pilot functions. It may be hard for outsiders to understand, but the clones in a squad of twenty all knew each other by sight. Despite the common features and training we all shared, we spent all of our Deployment together. This meant we could spot the minute physical and behavioural differences each member developed over time. We were only identical to outsiders.

Yet B-One had been officially ‘retired’ a whole month before I left the Guard and joined Millie. His replacement had not even finished training, so our squad had been one Unit short at the time.

“It’s a story for another time” he called back. “But I am really glad to see you again”

“Why are you called Boner?” shouted Millie into her mike, nearly deafening us.

He smiled. “Well, I decided I should be called Bone, you know, because I had been B-One, but when the suppressants wore off I started to experience some physical side effects.”

“Like what?” Millie wondered not as loudly into her mike this time.

“Well...” he hesitated, “Certain parts of me started doing things they had not done before.”

“That will do” I inserted primly and glared at Millie. She gave me a sly grin in response. Millie can be a wicked person at times.

“How long until we are at the drop point?” I asked Boner, wanting to focus on the immediate mission.

“Three minutes” he responded, glad to get back to our current mission as well. “Look in the rear section. There is equipment there you can use.”

Millie and I got out of the seats and moved to the rear troop section. Clamped in the centre was an electric assault motorcycle used by mobile Guard units. It had a high speed engine, armoured cowling at the front and enhanced handling characteristics. I had not ridden one of these since my Guard days. It was a matte black instead of Guard Blue of course. It was beautiful!

On racks to the side were standard Guard 5mm Caseless Assault Rifles, Machine Pistols and regular Pistols. I selected an Assault Rifle for me and a spare Pistol. In an adjacent rack were sets of Jack and Jill full tactical armour. None of it would fit Millie so she would have to rely on her current vest.

I quickly stripped off my vest and belt and stepped into the female tactical armour. It responded to the Guard implants in my palms and auto-adjusted itself to my size. I grabbed a fully enclosed helmet as well and strapped that on, my long hair hanging down at the back.

The helmet synched itself with my suit and tried to link with me via the quantum network. I thought this would be a problem, but the onboard system just re-set itself to external operation. Displays came alive on the head-up display of my front visor. I could not help myself and grinned hugely inside the helmet.

“How come only you get the cool stuff?” whined Millie. She was looking with envious eyes at the black armour now hugging me closely.

“I am sorry Millie, but most of this equipment won’t respond to you without Guard implants” I explained. She looked downcast. I stepped closer and gave her a hug in my armour. She mumbled something about not squishing her but hugged me back.

I lifted the front visor of my helmet and looked down at her. She seemed so vulnerable and I worried for all our safety. But I knew I could not make her stay out of this. Her friends were in danger and she had talents that could save us.

“This is going to be dangerous” I said to her. “I need you to stay behind me and use your Gunsinger to protect us both. Let me take the lead and do the fighting. It is was what I was made for”

“You were not just made to fight, Twenty” she said angrily. “You are not a machine. You are the person I love more than anything else. Don’t forget that”

“We’re here” called out Boner and he piloted the carrier towards a road surface.

I got into the front position on the bike and Millie climbed up behind me. It was not intended for riding tandem, but Millie was small and she had a fierce grip on my waist. I knew she would not fall off. I hit the ignition button and the bike engine cycled up to full power. With a last check on Millie, I slapped my visor down.

As the ground came up to meet us, Boner lowered the rear loading hatch. The air roared in, buffeting us. At about one meter off the roadway, I triggered the clamp release and twisted the throttle on the handlebars. Like a rocket we shot out of the back of the carrier and landed heavily on the tarmac before racing off.

I felt more than saw the carrier lift away behind us. He would stand off out of sight, hopefully coming back to recover us when needed. I called out thanks to him over the secure channel on my helmet mike.

“We’ll catch up soon” he affirmed. “There are some friends of mine who can’t wait to meet you both.”

We rode at high speed along the road. It was well maintained and I pushed the bike up to 100 Kilometers an hour. It had plenty of power in reserve but that was fast enough for now. I heard Millie scream happily behind me. We were about to face unknown danger and possible death and she was excited.

I realised I was too. I was not a machine, but this is was what I was trained for. All the things the Guard had given me, my body, my skills, were so that I could be here now to help our friends. I wondered if this was what Venerae had meant about my love and my strength.

Everything I had, I would give for Millie. She would never hold anything back for me, I knew that now. Perhaps we could win this fight after all.

=====

The road dipped and we rounded a bend, the bike humming easily on the tarmac. My internal maps had the lab tagged as just ahead so I dropped the speed down to 80 as we came in sight of the front entrance.

“Anyone that is not Daniel, Chang or Thorsfeldt is an enemy” I shouted to Millie. “We have to take them down.”

“What about the security team and the workers?” she yelled back at me.

“They will all shoot at us. We don’t have time to explain who we are!” I responded. It was hard luck for Jericho’s people, but I doubted many of them would live through this anyway. We could feel bad about it afterwards, if we got an afterwards.

My helmet display tagged the two gunmen beside the shattered gates as we flew towards them. They were in camouflaged armour and helmets, so they were not part of the security detail.

They opened fire with assault rifles as we closed in. The armoured cowling took the brunt of their fire and the front wheel jerked wildly as the outer rubber layer shredded. It was built for this however and the ballistic layer below stopped the tyre from coming apart. I wrestled it back under control and headed the bike directly at them.

A second volley burst from both of them and I felt Millie’s high pitched notes lunging forward, her Gunsinger deflecting the bullets to one side. She maintained the notes until we were right on top of them, pushing the air ahead of us in a curved wall.

Her Gunsinger slammed one sideways as I rammed the bike into the other. The impact was jarring and Millie “oofed” heavily into my back. The bike lifted onto its front wheel but I managed to hold us upright as we came to an abrupt stop. The gunman I hit with the bike had been thrown back about ten meters and landed awkwardly.

“Let’s go Millie!” I shouted and stepped clear of the bike. She was a moment behind me and a little groggy so I made sure I was covering her with my armoured body. The bike fell slowly to one side.

I swung the assault rifle up on its sling into a firing position and put three rounds of Armour Piercing into the heads of each man. They were not getting back up.

In front of us was the main compound. To the left a low garage building, open doors showing some electric cars and a couple of trucks. There were bodies there, cut down as they came out of the building. Some of Jericho’s people I assumed.

Past that on the left was a low building with lots of windows, some now shattered. The file from Jericho tagged that as an admin building. Smoke was billowing out of the open front doors and broken windows. No immediate threat there.

On our right was the main laboratory building, a windowless bunker over 50 meters long and a single level high. It was built from substantial concrete and looked capable of withstanding an orbital strike. Beyond that was a smaller structure, tagged as Stores. Our people would be inside the laboratory bunker, likely on the floor below ground level.

I moved at a slow jog towards the armoured doors that led into the lab, sweeping my rifle from side to side, checking for any threats. Millie jogged along behind me, her own pistol out and held in a two handed grip.

Beside the lab doors were two vans, both labelled as Pan City Electronics Supplies. I guess they were how the assault teams had bluffed their way in, coupled with subversion from an AI. The limited AI that ran this facility would have been quickly overwhelmed by a full AI. It would have been like a fight between a mouse and a cat. Over in the blink of an eye, unless the cat wanted to torment the mouse a little and drag it out.

There were more bodies here, two men and a woman wearing private security rigs. Cut down without getting shots off as their weapons were holstered. One had sword wounds, which made me think Thorsfeldt had been involved. I hoped she had thought these were criminal goons as I had trouble thinking of her as a cold blooded killer.

The armoured doors stood open and Millie followed me inside. The interior lights were off and it was lit by the emergency lights only. Smoke and a smell of gunfire hung in the air. There were signs of a gun battle in the long corridor the lead to our left and right. Blood spatters, holes in the walls, and down one end crumpled forms in white coats. Dropped weapons lay on the ground near them.

This level was implant labs, medical bays and recovery rooms. The serious research and the base AI lay below us. I guided Millie to the internal stair well (there was no way we were taking the elevator).

“Try not to stomp down the steps too loudly” I whispered to her. She gave me an affronted look but was remarkably quiet in her boots as she descended along with me.

We got to the first landing and I had a moment of warning from my helmet display before a figure clad in black erupted up from the corner. A long blade slashed down, amped by combat enhancements, cutting deep into the upper sights of my rifle as I hastily blocked.

I reversed swept the butt of the rifle to knock the weapon away and jumped forwards, my larger mass crashing into the attacker and sending us both tumbling down the stairs. We hit the lower landing with a jarring impact.

My rifle was useless in close quarters so I released my grip and grabbed the right hand of the sword wielder to control their blade. They had ended up on top of me as we fell, so I used my free hand to draw my pistol and try to bring the barrel in line.

A sharp open handed blow with incredible strength from their left jarred my head sideways. Even with the helmet it still slowed me for a few crucial seconds. My grip on the sword hand was wrenched free and I saw the blade rise for a stab to the weak neck joints of my armour.

“Goody, stop!” screamed a voice from the stairs “It’s Twenty!”

I realised the figure on top of me was a woman, sheathed in form fitting black armour weave. Her face, like mine, hidden behind a combat helmet. She paused and glanced up in confusion at the stairs.

“Millie?” said Thorsfeldt and then looked down at me, the blade of her Ninjato centimetres from piercing my jugular. “Is that you Twenty?”

“Hi, Ms Goody” I said and activated my visor release so she could see my face. “We are here to rescue you.”