Cyborg Strike (11 page)

The Russians had been kind.

He laughed. “Kind” was a euphemism; they
wanted what he had. He and the Russians needed each other, for the
moment. Wouldn’t they be surprised when they found out what kind of
scorpion they held to their collective breast.

They undoubtedly had a plan for seizing all
of his work once it was far enough along, once their scientists had
absorbed enough advanced research. Of course, he had a plan of his
own to counter this, but he was playing a dangerous game.

A knock at his door brought his chief of
research, Sharion Prandra, into his office. She shut it carefully
behind her while at the same time Jenkins pressed a button on his
console that should ensure privacy by scrambling any bugs or
sensors.

“You asked for a meeting?” Jenkins waved her
to a seat in front of the ancient wooden desk that had probably
been there since Peter the Great was Tsar. “The usual time was not
sufficient?”

Prandra set a small silver tray down. On it
rested a polished pot, two glass teacups and a jar of raspberry
jam.

“A social call?”

“It’s business, but not lab business per se.”
She poured the strong hot brew into the two receptacles, then
spooned a glob of thick jam into her cup.

“You’ve gone native, I see,” Jenkins said,
ignoring the sweetener and bringing the strong steaming liquid to
his florid lips. He sipped carefully, then set the cup down on the
edge of his desk by his right hand.

“Not all Russian customs are beastly. I find
I like the taste, and the sugar helps me think.”

“So what are you thinking about today?”

“The future.” She sipped again.
“Specifically, to what use my research is to be put.”

“Our research,” Jenkins said warningly.

“I do not see you in the lab with your eyes
on an electron microscope screen, or running nano-assemblers. If I
accept you as part of my team, you must accept me as part of
yours.”

“Meaning?” He eyed her narrowly over his
again-lifted cup. This kind of rhetoric was unusual for the
normally cooperative woman.

“Meaning that as you have a say in the
science, I want some input – or at least some knowledge – of the
operational side of things.”

Jenkins closed his eyes, admitting to himself
that this was not completely unexpected or unreasonable. Prandra
was not only a brilliant scientist but was also a shrewd person in
general – not like most of the head-in-the-sand researchers. She
had been willing to put herself under the knife early on, to try
out Septagon Shadow’s less unpredictable human augmentations – such
as her cybernetic eye. And she loved the power and control she had
over her subjects. No, her interest had never been
merely
scientific.

So the question he had to ask himself was
this: freeze her out and risk a problem, or accept her bid to get
more involved?

Because she was the head of the project –
hell, she
was
the project - he chose the latter. “All right.
But only you. Operational security is imperative, even from –
especially from – our local benefactors.”

“I understand,” Prandra said. “But I can read
the cards quite clearly. We have ten S-3 Shadows now, the latest
and best we’ve ever produced. No more glitches, no more mental
instabilities. They’re reliable, completely under our control. Soon
enough we’ll have a hundred, then a thousand. But what will we do
with them? Even a thousand are not enough to retake North America
for ourselves.”

“Who said anything about North America? Why
bother, when we can carve out our own empire somewhere
less…resistant. Somewhere with a tradition of autocracy, whose
people are used to submitting to the iron hand. Rule by fear is
much more effective than rule by brute force.”

“Carve out an empire? The world is rapidly
turning into a science-fiction Disneyland. Every nation that joins
the Free Communities is quickly brought under the Council’s wing
and large-scale corruption is stamped out. The ones who don’t want
that join the Neutral States to get some political cover and retain
what independence they can. but the NS won’t tolerate gross
misconduct either. Where else is there?”

“China and Russia are still their own
masters. North Korea is as closed and surreal as ever, since the
Chinese still find them useful. And a few islands – Madagascar, Sri
Lanka, some of the smaller ones.”

“That’s just my point,” Prandra said with
exasperation. “What’s left? Where’s our place? I want to continue
my research unfettered, and I don’t want to be hunted down and put
on trial for war crimes.”

“Exactly. So where can we retain some
independence and, at the same time, be safe from the
do-gooders?”

“Do get to the point, Winthrop. Play your
guessing games with someone else. Where will we go?” She covered
her anger by finishing her tea and pouring more.

“Right here.” He spread his hands, taking in
their surroundings.

“What?”

“We stay here…and take over Russia.” Jenkins
smiled, sitting back with his tea in his hand.

“You’re mad.” Prandra stood up to look out
the window, not wanting to show her dismay.

“Not at all. I have a plan, and now that you
wanted in on it, I’ll explain how you’re going to help me.” He
reached into his pocket and took out a metal vial, setting it on
the table.

The sound of its hard contact caused her to
turn and look. “And that is?”

Winthrop smiled. “They call it
‘nanocrack’.”

“Ready?” Ken Jackson, the cybernetics
technician, asked from behind the thick armored glass
partition.

“Ready,” Jill Repeth replied.

“Any time, then.”

Jill stared at her left palm, and the two
naked electrical contacts implanted there. Then she placed it
against the grip held in a vise attached to the electrical
workbench, and without further hesitation, triggered the
discharge.

Her whole body jolted as electricity bled
through her hand and out her body, but most of it went where it was
supposed to: into the device, whose current function was to measure
its efficacy.

“Excellent! Over ninety-nine percent delivery
to target. How do you feel?”

“A bit tingly, but nothing I can’t handle.
Healing already.” More importantly, it appeared her new, heavily
insulated cybernetics had come through without difficulty.
Hopefully the cyborg Shadow Men she might target with the blast
would not be so immune.

“That’s just a raw discharge,” Jackson said
as he stepped into the room with her. He detached the test cables
from the device in the vise, then opened its grip and removed it
from its hold. “Try this. Safety, trigger.” He handed it to her
sideways, rather than butt-first.

Jill turned the bulky pistol-thing over in
her hands. “Palm contacts meet up with the grip studs.”

“Right. You fire the discharge, which dumps
the power into the weapon’s capacitors. Pulling the trigger fires
an electromagnetic pulse tuned to what we believe are the Shadow
Men systems.”

“Why so complicated? Why not just put
batteries in the thing?”

The tech looked at her askance. “I’ll show
you. Give it to me. Remember, it’s unpowered now, so don’t freak
out.” He took it from her, then suddenly turned it on her and
pulled the trigger. “Pow,” he said. “Oh, look, I can’t use it. Only
you can. In fact, that gun only knows you. Not even another
friendly can use it.”

“Amusing. So EMP will screw me up too?”

“Assuredly.” Jackson handed the gun back to
her. “You wouldn’t be incapacitated but you will lose all your
cybernetics for at least a minute. Back to Eden Plague and nano,
and an extra ten kilos of useless crap to carry around. It should
reset after that, but…”

“Got it. How often can I use it?”

“Your bio-generator should recharge within
fifteen seconds or so. I know, that’s a long time, so we have some
other anti-Shadow goodies.” The tech opened a padded case and took
out a baseball-sized object. “This is just a mockup, but it’s fully
modeled, so you can practice. EMP grenade. Roll one into a room and
pow
, it will shut down everything with a computer or
unshielded electronics. Best you not be there with it, of
course.”

Jill nodded. “Okay. Anything else?”

“New Personal Weapon Twenties with the new
heavy Needleshock ammo. Fifty caliber. Five times the kinetic
energy, ten times the electrical discharge.”

“Sounds lethal. That could be a problem, with
the normals.”

Jackson pursed his lips and looked away.
“There’s a risk. Eighty percent of normals should survive one hit.
Ninety-five percent of Edens.”

“Hmm. I can live with that if I have to. I
can always carry a PW5 for the easy shots. Anything else?”

Jackson perked up again, a kid showing off
his toys. “Yeah, we have a whole bunch of stuff, more than you can
really carry.” He looked through the armored glass and remarked, “I
see your partner is here.”

“Partner?” Jill turned around to see a
familiar pretty face. “Rock!”

Roger “Rock” Muzik stepped through the door,
an Adonis with weary eyes. “Good to see you see you, Reap. I guess
we’re doing this thing together.”

“Great to see you too, sir.” She grabbed his
right hand and shook it warmly, but with a slight hesitation,
looking at his left. “Your arm…”

“Yeah, it’s regrown. Good as new. Took me a
few months…like your legs, I imagine.”

“Don’t remind me. So, other than new limbs,
how are you, Colonel?”

“Not Colonel, right now. My commission’s been
inactivated. We’ve both been handed over to the minions of Hell,”
he said drily.

“What?”

Muzik shooed the technician out of the
chamber, closed the door and lowered his voice. “By Presidential
order, we’re now part of the Agency.”

“Agency. CIA?” Repeth rubbed her arms, as if
a chill had come into the room. She didn’t like the feeling of
being detached from the military, as if suddenly unbalanced, with a
piece missing.

“Yes. And that also means I’m working for you
this time.”

A slow smile crept across her face.

“I see that suits you,” Muzik said.

“Well, McKenna had said I was going to be in
charge. Then when you showed up…”

Muzik waved his hands. “Don’t worry. I’m fine
with it. Besides, you have a lot more experience with all this
cyberware inside us.”

“Us? They augmented you?”

“Yep.” He held up a hand, showing the palm
contacts. “Amazing stuff. My cyberware is only set to ten percent
right now, to keep me from jumping off the ground and banging my
head on the ceiling by mistake. They’ll ramp it up over time as I
get trained. Takes some getting used to.”

Repeth laughed. “Welcome to another
transformation.” She looked over and waved at Jackson through the
window. “Might as well continue with the presentation.”

The tech nodded and came back in. “Of course.
Through here.” He let the way to the next room, a big place with
more bustling techs and many workbenches.

“Here’s your armor. With your increased
strength, it should be no problem to carry. It’s based on the Space
Marine design, but with no need to be airtight, we were able to add
a few things…”

The residence of the Prime Minister of Russia
was a relatively modest affair by international standards, but
then, that’s all it was – a residence, in a Moscow suburb
convenient to the Kremlin. Unlike the US White House – and more
like Britain’s 10 Downing Street – its basic purpose was simply to
provide living quarters for the country’s leader, rather than as a
seat of government.

Even so it was well protected. Its walls were
thick, its fences high and spiked. Sensors and cameras and guards
inside and out strengthened its defenses, and in a pinch, there was
a panic room and a separate tunnel system beneath, to reinforce or
escape. Special police parked on every corner of the neighborhood
and patrolled every street.

Its defenses seemed impenetrable.

At around midnight, a very large, hunchbacked
man in a high-collared trench coat walked down the sidewalk in
front of a stately mansion two blocks over, heading toward the
first checkpoint.

Idly the policeman on duty there watched as
he approached, then sighed with relief when the figure turned and
entered the large house’s grounds. He went back to watching the
football game carried live from South America, happy not to miss
one moment. After all, he had a hundred rubles riding on it.

Inside the mansion’s fence, the man in the
trench coat carefully pushed the iron gate back against its stop,
leaving it in a semblance of normalcy. The bit of squealing and
grinding as he had ripped its locking plate apart had gone
unnoticed beneath the rumble and whistle of a train passing half a
kilometer away.

Instead of walking up to the house’s well-lit
front door, he slipped around the side, shielded from the next
residence by high walls and abundant plants. The wealthy and
connected of Moscow liked their privacy and security, as evidenced
by the bars on the windows above his head.

A growling preceded scrabbling paws rounding
the house’s back corner, and two heavy dogs of uncertain breed
rushed at the intruder with coughing growls. Training them to
attack instead of alarm turned out to be a mistake on their owners’
part.

The man seized each dog by the throat and,
one-handed, lifted them up to half-dangle from his hands, their
hind paws touching the ground. Growling turned to pitiful whining
before both were rendered unconscious by the powerful grips cutting
off the blood supply to their brains.

It wasn’t mercy that saved the dogs’ lives;
rather, it was a desire for stealth. Dead animals might be
discovered later, and he only needed a moment to move through the
area.