System Seven (47 page)

The druids’ uprising
would be quelled with Ichigaya’s detonation. Certainly no more than two strikes
would be needed as long as Cathbad still had to answer to all the families.

Eleven heads swiveled
towards the sliding doors.

A severe Bastion
strode in wearing a traditional Saudi robe, brown and flowing. He briefly
surveyed the seated group before stopping at the curved window wall that
overlooked the control rooms. Screens below showed imagery of the various
targets being sought.

“Is it possible that
someone is helping the Korda?” he asked.

The question landed in
the room like a bomb, its implications like shrapnel. No one wanted to field an
answer for fear of receiving attention or suspicion.

“Come now, really.
It’s a fair question, isn’t it?” He turned to face the Executives. “How else
would Austin have gained entry to the ship? Or bypassed biometrics to activate
flight mode? How else would he have known how to fly our ship? Or to disable
flight telemetry?”

He scanned them all, a
rough and disturbing rifling meant to uncover any treasonous elements. The
group endured it without comment. Such scans had become more common.

Maria spoke after he
had finished, in a voice that conveyed reason. “Our pilots and engineers are
well kept, Bastion, but that is not to say they are impervious to shadowing.
They are allowed leave topside.”

He sighed. “Shadowing?
Then perhaps our rangers aren’t doing their job.”

Maria turned to Nora.
The Eastern Executive reported all flight operations teams had been subjected
to a level one scan.

“The results are in.
They are all clear.”

“Trainees? Retirees?”

“Also scanned and
cleared.”

“Conduct an audit
then. Cormac, see to it.”

“Of course.”

Full audits disrupted
downtime, rattled nerves, and usually uncovered unpleasantries, but it was the
only way to touch everyone.

“Now Tokyo. Ichigaya
is close to exposure. What happened and what are we doing about it?”

“The sortie was authorized
by a captain new to the unit,” Ganzai said. “PostOps determined he’d been
managed by the Korda and knew nothing of the plan. The beam operators conspired
with two of the helicopter pilots. All four are dead and gone. We’re working to
insure ministry officials prevent investigation of the tower.”

“Conspirators are dead
and gone, eh?” Bastion turned to Maria. “It appears the Runa Korda are
experiencing many convenient leverages during the start of their Conflict.”

She gave no sign of
entertaining his jab.

“The question now
becomes, what to do?” He began to pace. “They know of the nuclear threat.
Prolonged effort at keeping it hidden is ridiculous and risky at this point.
Either we topple the tower and retrieve the device or we use it to shut down the
Korda. It seems to me that now is the perfect time for the latter. Does anyone
disagree?”

An awkward silence
followed. Unspoken was the disregard some had for the elimination of so many
people using J86. Others approved but remained passive, knowing the minority
would need to be dealt with. Behind the silence, the expectation that Maria
would speak grew.

And so she did.

“An extraordinarily
wasteful choice. Arrange for the tower to fall and recover the device. An
errant aircraft crashing into it would suffice to–”

“It is
past time
to shut them down, Maria.” His
tone carried finality. He addressed the others. “You recall the simulations.
J86 was designed for this. Yes, we opted for less destructive methods, but the
situation warrants it. The plans are valid. We can make them return the ship.
System Seven can be advanced.”

In the silence that
followed, Maria gathered herself.

“Bastion,” she
started, trying a reconciliatory tone. “Executing J86 in Tokyo exceeds the
parameters for System Seven and complicates everything tremendously. The vision
is not post-apocalyptic, or wasn’t supposed to be.” She turned to the group.
“Do not forget that citizens are well-trained. They are as docile as they are
going to be given the environment. Controls are in place. Any attempt at
information breakout will be dealt with by Overseer and G3. The AGT will be
dealt with. We’ll turn our technology to the task and it will be located. This
bender and Gerrit are the biggest concerns, but we have recourse there, still.
The Volgograd teams are close to combining. They will insure capture. Think of
what we could learn.” She looked to Bastion. “You always say, ‘know your
enemy’. Losing Tokyo will only make them more desperate. Let the threat to
Tokyo and other cities stand. Activate the first elements of System Seven. Move
up the schedule. Give the priests something real to think about. Let us use the
control we’ve worked so hard to achieve.”

Bastion appeared to
digest Maria’s logic. He turned to the screens. “Oscar, show us the J86 map.”

A spread of the earth
appeared on a screen, spotted with red indicators. Maria sighed.

“I propose a test.
Cathbad and the families are too invested in what they have built to allow it
destroyed. The bulk of the families will not allow for nuclear holocaust in a
city,” he gestured to the map, “much less all of these. I propose we utilize
J86 incrementally. Destroy one city and then issue an ultimatum. The families
will be required to turn over their bender and the ship and abandon their
prophecy.”

Ganzai agreed. “The
Korda need to be checked hard.”

It appeared the only
compromise Bastion would likely make. In a silent vote, most of the group
agreed to the test.

“Oscar, issue
activation of all sites to the ready state.”

“Bastion–!”

“Maria?” His glance
froze her mid-sentence. “We
will
be
prepared. Once we confirm the existence of the nuclear grid, they will go
looking. If found, we lose those options and gain irreparable visibility. We
must be ready to exercise J86 to its full capacity or our position weakens
irrecoverably.”

Overseer responded. “
Authorization for
global activation of J86 sites requires eight executives in concordance. Eleven
are present. Vocalize approval now
.”

“I approve.” Bastion
said immediately, as did Ganzai and Cormac. He eyed the others. “Well?”

The leap from one site
to the activation of all sites unsettled some in the group. Still, one by one
Executives offered verbal approval.

Moments later,
Overseer confirmed activation of all twenty-three sites to a ready state.

• • •

The smoke from
Soldado’s cigarette filled the darkened sixth-floor room of the Luxze Hitotsuba
Hotel. The glass balcony door, cracked open for Noriko’s benefit, let in the
evening breeze from the coast. A game show played on the TV. High energy host,
attractive players, lively audience, lame contest, low budget. The show was a
hit. To her credit, Noriko didn’t appear interested in it.

The hacker ashed in
the styrofoam cup and tried not to look too engrossed in what was on his laptop
screen. The teams had located another access juncture based on his recommended
analysis of dark-fiber ownership and subleases in the metropolitan area. They
had just installed a remote proxy in the offices of a major video production
firm. From the coast of Kyushu, five hundred miles from Tokyo, he ran a hack
deep into enemy territory looking for information on the nukes. What was
turning up had his heart skipping beats.

“You aren’t going
anywhere you shouldn’t, right?” she asked from her chair. The prostitute façade
annoyed him with its cheapening effect though it served well for cover. His
bodyguard was exceedingly attractive and intelligent otherwise. Intuitive as
hell, too, though supposedly not gifted in the meta arts.

“Right.”

She crossed the room
and took up position next to him on the edge of the bed. Musky perfume,
pheromone enhanced. He felt it coming, tried not to tense...

“That’s Booty!” She
back-slapped his shoulder. “Damn Sam, why lie to me like that? You’re supposed
to be hiding, not dangling your dick in the wind.”

“Easy now, missy. I’m
not anywhere I shouldn’t be.”

“Bullshit! “ She
kicked off her heels. “Shut it off.”

Fuck
. The idea of getting his ass kicked by a chick for doing the most
important work on the planet was so ludicrous it blew his mind. “Look Noriko,
I’m only skimming, not touching.
Read-only
shit, okay? And I’m five-deep remote, get it? Five fucking hops, safeguarded,
crisscrossing three continents. Plenty of protection.” She looked ready to
stuff the laptop up his ass. “
Noriko
.
Someone’s got to do this.”

“Not you. Turn it
off.” She balled both fists and shifted to a Kenpo stance.

“Christ, girl, see
here?” he turned the laptop. “These are conversations between a central core
and systems across the planet. See this purple set of rectangles? Those are
copies of command sets that just went out. I’m about to find out what they
mean. I’m finally in where I need to be!”

“Not my job, Sam.
You’re on the net playing hero. Constance gave me orders. Kill it or I will.
Now!
” She was fit to kick his ass.

“Okay, okay, Christ.
Fucking relax, I’ll back out,” he said, daring to stall, “but I have to do it
carefully, get it?” He turned the screen back. “The worst fucking thing I could
do right now is cut this off wide open like it is. There, I’m closing up the
far end synch pattern. Another second... okay, good, it’s closed.”

Lying, biding for
time, he saw the first command sequence come up as translated. “Okay, closing
the farthest corridor. Good.” He clicked for the results.

Ready-state
activation.

“Shit...”

“What? Turn it off!”

“No, no.” He held up
his hands. “It’s fine now, it almost didn’t close, that’s all. Fourth
corridor’s synch pattern is ending now. Relax, relax, it’s closing out safely.”
He pulled up another sequence, hoping she wouldn’t try to study the screen. “Uh
huh, okay. Clear of the fourth. Starting on the third... give it a damn
second.”

The next sequence
matched the first, another activation, though neither contained anything
resembling coordinate information. His gut said things were about to go to shit
–
completely
to shit – all around the
world.

He looked up at
Noriko. “Get Constance on the phone, quickly. I need to talk to her right
away.”

“What, Sam? You fucked
up, didn’t you?”

He stood and dropped
the laptop on the bed, advancing on her. “Dozens of nuclear bombs are being
armed around the world
right this second
,”
he hissed through clenched teeth. “Get Constance on the phone now right fucking
now
.”

She paled but went for
her purse, intuition winning over orders.

• • •

For the second time in
three hours, Austin watched the sun dip towards the western edge of the world.
Hovering off the coast of Somalia, he’d just finished a brief but intense
resonance session with the entity he’d named Geo. If his new friend was to be
trusted, the Mu weren’t the benign, hands-off semi-benefactors Cathbad thought
they were. Though he wasn’t given
specifics, the impression was unmistakable: mankind was an easy target,
universally speaking.

Johan hovered just out
of sense, waiting for the okay to commune. Surprisingly, he seemed to have
honored the request to stay clear and let Austin make his own discoveries with
whatever he was connecting with.

A twist of the dial
brought the lights of Somalia’s coastline into view, shimmering in the distance.
He stared at the monitors in between bites of a protein bar from the pilot’s
bag. So much had happened in the last four hours. So much to think about. Tired
didn’t describe the feeling.

Johan nudged.

“Yeah, alright.”

He was instantly
present.
So let’s have it.

“Did you really not
eavesdrop?”

A hesitation,
then,
I can’t sense it directly.

“You what? What do you
mean you can’t sense it?”

When you are connected to it, you go gray. It
takes you away.

It was clear he didn’t
like it.

“That’s pretty weird,
isn’t it? What does it mean?”

Johan didn’t respond.
A moment later, Austin realized it was because he’d left and come back, this
time with a harsh vibe.

Very big problem to deal with.

“What?”

Johan shared news of
the bomb in the defense ministry communications tower at Ichigaya, as well as
the knowledge that other cities were similarly laden and now activated.
Twenty-three, if Soldado’s intercept was correct.

“Twenty-three? Ah fuck
no. Where? How many in the U.S.?”

Not sure. They’re working on finding them. By
the way, they want a look at this ship. Real bad.