Cyborg Strike (7 page)

Not that he intended to violate either any
time soon, but no amount of conditioning could burn out a man’s
basic biological drives – survival, freedom, sex…revenge. That’s
why he had made sure it was he who had been given to the Australian
bitch, whose goals aligned so nicely with his own.

Markis was outside of his reach for now, and
Larry Nightingale. Skull was dead, more’s the pity, and so was Zeke
Johnstone. That left Spooky, who he’d come so close to today. Well,
he’d have another chance, he swore.

When the Land Rover pulled up to the Central
Authority compound’s gate, he pulled his metal face off, revealing
a bland visage of flesh very similar to the one he’d started life
with. The reconstructive efforts of Eden Plague and nano had
allowed for extensive surgeries and implantations, but they had a
certain memory that tried to rebuild what was there before. That
face used to belong to a man named Miguel Carrasco, former Texas
Ranger, former security contractor, former and current rapist.

He dreamed of showing his targets that face
before they died.

Without the metal mask that armored him, he
could pass for human. With it, he need fear little but a lucky shot
to an eye, and it also had its uses as a weapon of surprise and
terror.

Except Nguyen had not been terrified, and
hardly surprised. The Carrasco cyborg knew the man would be very
slippery, but he’d thought the plan foolproof. In fact, if the
damned idiot on the winch had not screwed up, it would have been as
simple as reaching up and pulling his target’s arms and legs off as
a cruel child dismembers an insect.

An insect…that’s what Nguyen was. A very
quick, very dangerous insect.

A pain began to grow between his ears and the
metal man looked up to find that the vehicle had already entered
the underground parking garage of the Central Authority complex and
parked. The two pickup men had left him sitting there, probably
eager to get as far from him as possible. He saw one of them
turning in the keys at the dispatch window.

Another insect.

He then promptly forgot about him.

The pain told him to report to his cell,
linked to a simple verbal command that had routed itself to him via
the wireless network. Because he had never been told not to, he had
built up quite a database of words in that specific voiceprint.
Perhaps, when the time was right, he might be able to use the
recordings to construct a method of countermanding the real orders,
by talking to the chips in his head with that voice.

Survival was a given. Freedom was his plan.
Revenge was a long-term goal. The last drive, sex, waited for him
back in his cell, he hoped. Unless the bitch denied him his reward
because of the screw-ups of others. Well, one day perhaps, she
would reward him with herself.

Against her will, of course. Nothing else was
as much fun.

Once the surgery to reattach Spooky’s arm
muscle ended, and he filled his veins with as much nutrient
solution as he could stand, he put on his uniform, and with it his
Major General Nguyen persona.
Never underestimate the power of
symbols
, he thought.

Then he went through Direct Action HQ like a
whirlwind. He did not bother to keep Brigadier Alkina at his side.
His decision to trust her must stand, absent evidence to the
contrary, but he could not assume she was as competent as she
appeared.

Perhaps I raised her up too quickly.

Instead, he sent her to check on a list of
specific items that he deemed the most likely weak points in the
organization: certain persons, especially, that might have been
turned, some physical portals, and virtual ones as well. That was
scut work, though, to free him to look at the things he wanted to,
and set them in order. Once he had done that, he began to implement
his coup.

“Open the door,” he ordered at the entrance
to his nanocommando containment facility. Within it resided the
five men he had captured after they kidnapped the South African
children and flew an airplane here, intending to defect. Living
repositories of combat-boosting nanites, they were also targets of
a measure of his sadistic proxy revenge, a pleasure carefully
metered out and never overdone.

Since his friends Daniel Markis and Larry
Nightingale would not avenge the crime…
Very satisfying. Revenge
really is a dish best served cold.

The time for all that had passed, though. He
realized that such indulgences must be put aside as distractions.
Now, everything must serve the objective of seizing and ruling
Australia, for the goal of saving Earth and the human race.

Once inside the huge armored laboratory
vault, he walked down the row of tanks that held them. A nameplate
identified each one.

Holden. Lumpkins. Bullion. Campbell.

Huff
. He ran his hand along this last,
tracing its inscribed letters.

A strategist would say now was not the time
for experiments, but Nguyen had always gotten a lot of mileage out
of doing the unexpected.

“Controller,” he addressed the watching
white-coated technician at the mental induction console, “load them
with package 9-1-0, authorization X7&54#N99.”

“That will require your thumbprint and
retinal scan, General,” the tech said apologetically.

“Very well.” He walked over to the control
board and made the necessary verifications, then watched as the man
keyed in the instructions. “You may go now,” Nguyen said.

With a nod that was almost a bow, the
controller slipped out of the room via its single entrance.

What most believe to be its single
entrance,
Nguyen thought.

The tanks hummed and indicator lights
blinked, small notice of the orders downloading into their
well-prepared, well-conditioned brains. Over the last months, part
of the work done here had been to put to use some of the Septagon
Shadow files that had come his way. Not the cyborg physical
enhancements – he didn’t have the resources for that kind of
engineering yet, and nanocommandos had been quite sufficient for
his purposes. Rather, the much easier installation of chips in
their brains, and the pain-pleasure conditioning that went with
them, gave him his final, ironic revenge.

They had already given him their
nanotechnology. Now these men were bullets in his gun, human guided
missiles in his launcher.

Sitting down at the console, he put in a
different set of instructions and then waited.

First, a panel in the brushed-nickel wall
swung back, a hidden door revealing a tunnel lit by glow strips on
the ceiling.

Next, all five containment machines opened
their clamshell tops to reveal naked men. Moments later they began
to wake up, sit up, and climb down.

Once they came to attention before their
respective nameplates, Major General Nguyen stood up to address
them. Their eyes tracked him like machines, or like dogs staring at
a beloved master.

“Gentlemen,” Nguyen said, “how do you
feel?”

“
One hundred percent, sir!”
they all
responded in unison.

“What is your prime imperative?”

“
To complete the mission, sir!”
Again,
as one.

“Why do the wild geese fly?”

“
To find the sunset, sir!”
This last
question was merely a test of their programming, something to
reveal any glitch.

“Proceed to the next phase, gentlemen.”

As one they turned to enter the dimly-lit
tunnel. Nguyen followed them, and watched as they proceeded to a
small chamber containing the skinsuits and commando armor they had
been captured in. They dressed, only leaving off their HUD helmets
for now.

“Wait here until the next phase, gentlemen.
There is food and water, and you may rest. It will not be
long.”

“
Yes sir!”

With that, Nguyen retraced his steps to the
containment tank chamber, closed the machines, entered one final
command in the console, and left the vault to prepare his people
for the long-awaited operation. He passed the word, and set the
kickoff time for six hours from now, confident that his previously
laid plans would come to fruition.

Through the complex, more than two hundred
non-Eden Direct Action operatives were injected with the most
potent version of commando nano available, something Nguyen had
reserved for himself alone – until now. They donned skinsuits and
armor, and HUD helmets based on the American design, modified and
improved in accordance with his own instructions. They drew lethal
weapons of myriad sorts, enough firepower to take over a small
country.

Or a large one, if properly targeted.

Soon they reported all ready: Nguyen’s own
private army, built for this day from a careful selection of human
material, chosen for their willingness to follow ruthless kill
orders. About half of them were Outliers – Psychos – mostly the
front line cannon fodder, with chips in their heads and deadman
charges next to their hearts. If he must lose storm troops, he
preferred to thin out his competition.

Bullets in his gun.

Nguyen then called Ann Alkina into the
control room, the only person he felt he could fully trust to watch
his back. This moment, when he was ready to let slip his dogs of
war, might also be his most vulnerable.

“Everything is ready, General,” his deputy
said as she entered. Her eyes swept across the various workstations
and the operations chiefs who sat at them, concentric semicircles
reminiscent of an old space launch mission center.

Nguyen nodded, and reached for a microphone
attached to his board. Choosing a communications path known only to
him, he spoke the code words, “Cry havoc.”

He knew that below him in the secret chamber
of the vault, another door had opened, and his five infiltrators
now raced down a tunnel to find a nondescript van that would convey
them to a point near their target: Central Authority, the hub of
the Committee of Nine, and its most politically powerful piece.

But as Mao said, all power comes from the
barrel of a gun. Sometimes Nguyen preferred a quote from
Dune
: “The power to destroy a thing is the power to control
it.” Either way, he was now employing power to seize more
power.

“Now, Brigadier Alkina, I wish you good
luck.” He stood, nodding to her, and turned to go.

“Wha –” Alkina clamped down on her objections
in the presence of subordinates, and then stood rooted as Nguyen
shot her a no-nonsense look, and then shut the door behind him.

A good test of her subordination and
submission
, he thought.
It’s hard to go back to being number
two when you have a taste of the top job. Her reactions will be
instructive.

Putting those worries behind him, he raced
down the corridor to the nanocommandos’ preparation hall. Two
hundred faces turned to look at him as he crossed to his own locker
and pulled out his skinsuit. Stripping down, he rapidly dressed in
the same dark mottled armor as the rest. Once he pulled on his HUD
helmet, he was indistinguishable from them on the outside.

Within the system, though, he took charge
with a little Shakespeare. “Ladies and gentlemen,
let this fair
action on foot be brought
.” He sent the go code to confirm his
verbal instruction, and followed the stream of camouflage out the
doors and into the underground hangar.

Within the enormous covered space rested ten
heavy VTOL aircraft, more advanced versions of the old US Osprey
tilt-rotors. In this case the blades spun enclosed within rings set
at each of the four corners, attached to wings that would allow for
fast cruising in airplane mode.

At twenty-five commandos per, the vehicles
quickly filled, even as the hangar’s ceiling split and rolled back,
opening the chamber to the cool night sky above. Pilots spoke
clipped phrases and soon the first VTOL lifted straight up,
followed one at a time by the others. Nguyen’s was last, and only
half full, providing more maneuverability and less exposure.

Once they cleared the roof line, the ten
birds shot forward in nap of the earth mode, skimming low over the
hills northwest of greater Sydney. Central Authority’s own complex
rested almost a hundred kilometers away, a bare fifteen-minute
flight.

As soon as he was able, Nguyen connected his
command HUD with a geostationary satellite hanging in orbit above
Australia. His codes overrode its functions, turning it into his
own personal eye in the sky and communications relay. Within
moments his HUD lit up with detailed information on air and ground
traffic, as well as the encrypted feeds from all of his commandos’
HUDs.

All
of his commandos. He focused its
display on his five dogs of war.

By ground vehicle it had taken those men
ninety minutes to get in position, perfectly coordinated with his
follow-up assault. Carefully calculating time and distance, he
waited until the correct moment and sent them in.

Watching as their tiny icons raced across the
hillside above Central Authority, he envisioned their true speed
across the ground, speed that would hopefully startle and
completely overmatch any attempt to thwart them from reaching their
initial goal.

He knew that they moved as a team toward one
of the emergency exits of the building that housed the vertical
access to the basements and vaults. They would even now be shooting
out lights and cameras, and with the strength of fifty men, would
tear into the building with minimal difficulty.

Of course, such an audacious attack would
draw immediate action from the security forces, which would
converge on the source of the incursion like antibodies on an
invading plague.

All according to plan.

“One minute!” Nguyen heard the call over the
aircraft’s PA, and got ready to disembark.
Perfect
timing.