Technosis: The Kensington Virus (17 page)

CHAPTER 21

FRB SERVICE HUB

O
utside the stadium, all was quiet. Fenwick was running diagnostics on the transport systems, trying to track down the virus that had been loaded into it. Agents Ganos and Drake remained at their posts near the outside gate. The streets in this section of Detroit were empty and the surrounding buildings were unoccupied.

“What do you know about the FRB?” Drake asked Ganos.

“What?” Agent Ganos asked, looking up the street.

“The FRB, what do you know about them?” Drake asked.

“Is this relevant?” Ganos asked, looking through her sight to see further down the block.

“Humor me,” Drake said.

“I suppose I know what they taught me in middle school. After the collapse, Michigan was placed under federal reorganization. The FRB set up the aid camps and the health facilities and supervised the transition of state businesses into federal businesses,” Agent Ganos told him. “Why?”

“The culling.” Drake looked meaningfully at the stadium.

“Oh. That,” Ganos shrugged and turned her full attention to watching the streets.

“Oh, that? Over a hundred and fifty thousand people were killed.”

“Drake, what is wrong with you?”

Drake turned and looked down the street. “Places have history…memories.”

“Drake, I get it. It was terrible. But it wasn’t new and it will happen again, so stay focused,” Ganos said.

“It’s attitudes like that -” Drake growled.

“You’ve interrogated hundreds of domestic prisoners.”

“So? That means I can’t have a sense of history, of moral outrage?” Drake demanded.

“Drake, if we stopped every time our government killed a few hundred thousand innocent people to express our moral outrage we’d never get anything done,” Agent Ganos said.

“We’ve got activity,” Fenwick broke in, poking his head out of the transport.

“Where?” Drake asked.

“I show low, red heat signatures about two blocks out and closing,” Fenwick reported.

“How many?” Ganos asked.

“No idea.,” Fenwick replied. “There are too many and they are too close together to count. At least a few hundred.”

“What?” Drake asked.

“I’m going to try and bring the transport’s defense systems back online,” Fenwick said, and withdrew into the vehicle.

“Over there!” Ganos yelled as a crowd of several hundred people appeared at the far end of the street.

∞

“Baxter! Get out of there!” Captain Blaise yelled as he saw the KVBs close in on Jamie.

Jamie didn’t hesitate. He ran forward into the hub, letting the door close behind him. He fired a round into the skull of the first KVB and moved forward methodically, clearing them, one after another. He felt something pulling at his belt, and turned to see that a KVB had slipped in behind him and grabbed his knife. Jamie turned to shoot it, but not before it slashed open his left shoulder. Jamie’s first shot was slightly wide of the mark and shattered the KVB’s cheek. It slashed again with the knife and Jamie placed a round through its forehead. Dazed, slightly deafened by the sound of the gun discharging in a closed space and with blood pouring from his left shoulder, Jamie stumbled back into the wall and caught his breath. He holstered his gun and reached to his belt to retrieve a small case he had clipped to it. He pushed himself forward, over the bodies to the hub and set the array in place. It would take ten minutes for the hub to synch up and then Jamie could transmit the signal.

While he waited for the hub to synch up, Jamie went back among the bodies and retrieved his knife. He cut away the sleeve of his shirt and examined the wound. It was a wide gaping wound that had cut deeply into the muscle. He reached to his belt and retrieved the med kit he’d assembled at the HDMP substation. There was a tube of closing gel. He took it in his right hand and brought it down hard against a wall, and felt the center crack and the tube grow hotter. He shook it as hard as he could, taking short, fast breaths. He looked at the open wound, brought the edge of the tube forward, pressed the release and felt the hot fluid run across his shoulder. He drew it down slowly from top to bottom, covering the gap in his shoulder. As the heat increased, he closed the tube and let it drop to the floor. He pressed the edges of the wound closer together as the gel fused the tissue. Jamie didn’t swear or grunt, but his eyes watered as the acetone vapors of the surgical sealing gel set. He waited a full minute to open his eyes and inspect the wound. The blood flow had stopped, and where the blood had been flowing when he applied the gel there were now amber crystals beneath the clear seal of the surgical gel. He moved his left shoulder. The pain was lancing, but the seal held. Jamie went back to the array to wait for the synch up.

∞

“They’re scattering!” Agent Ganos yelled, as she fired on the KVBs that were closing in on the entrance of the ancient baseball stadium.

“It doesn’t look like it to me!” Agent Drake yelled back, as another group of KVBs closed in on them from the other side.

“She’s right!” Fenwick yelled.

“What was that?” Agent Ganos asked.

“I said you are right!” Fenwick bellowed. “There are a bunch of them going in other directions.”

“I love it when I’m right,” Ganos grinned, continuing to fire.

“We’ve got a serious problem here!” Fenwick announced.

“That isn’t news,” Drake said, reloading his gun.

“The way they’re moving…it’s the pattern they used to blow out the other hubs.”

∞

“You okay?” Blaise yelled to Rosen.

“Yeah, how about you?”

“I’m good,” Blaise said.

“So what do we do now?” Rosen asked, his gun trained on the wall of bodies that the KVBs had stacked up as they retreated back toward the hub.

“We wait and give Baxter time to transmit the signal.”

“If he’s alive, you mean,” Rosen pointed out.

“Baxter’s alive.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

∞

“What happens if they blow out the hub?” Ganos asked.

“The hub station will be destroyed. The force of the summation wave is enough to breach the safety doors and vaporize an area of about a thirty meter radius,” Fenwick said, pulling up images of the other hubs that had been destroyed by KVB attacks.

“Okay, Drake, you hold the gate. Fenwick, you be ready,” Agent Ganos ordered.

“What are you doing?” Drake asked.

“I’m going to pull our guys out of there,” Ganos replied.

“But Baxter has to transmit the signal.”

“She’s right. There’s no time,” Fenwick said.

“I love hearing that I’m right,” Agent Ganos grinned, and then ran from the transport into the abandoned ball park.

Drake swore to himself and ran back to the gates. Both groups of KVBs were closing fast. “A little help out here!” Drake shouted.

“Coming up,” Fenwick said bringing the HDMP transport’s defense settings back on line.

∞

In the darkness, Agent Ganos moved through the stadium and up to the second level arches. She leapt over bodies and saw bloody footprints leading out into the main hall area. She trotted along the hall, scanning through her sights for any heat signatures. What she found were more bodies, heads blown open, heat signatures fading, strewn along the second floor. She sped up her pace and saw a bright red signature. It turned on her and a gun was pointing back at her.

“Blaise?” she asked.

“Rosen,” the figure replied, and lowered his gun. “What are you doing here?”

“We’ve got to get Baxter out, now. We’ve got a KVB surge and the hub is going to blow.”

“Blaise, Agent Ganos says they’ve got a KVB surge and that the hub is going to blow.”

“Baxter!” Blaise yelled. “How is it going in there?”

∞

The air was close and Jamie’s head wobbled as he watched the display continue to tell him that he needed to wait. Outside he heard voices, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He closed his eyes and tried to stop the spinning.

∞

Agent Drake stood at the gate firing. His arm was starting to fatigue and his ammunition was running out. He was picking his shots carefully, taking the leaders out so he could maintain a safe distance between the KVB and the gate. “Getting a little tired out here!” he yelled to Fenwick as he loaded a fresh clip.

“I know,” Fenwick answered. “Give me two more seconds.”

“No rush,” Drake grumbled. “I’ll just stand here popping holes in these while you read an instruction file.”

“Not a productive comment,” Fenwick snapped.

“Not meant to be,” Drake said, shooting three KVBs and swinging his gun around to the other side of the gate.

“Ok! I’ve got it!” Fenwick announced. “Give them a fast volley, then get in here.”

“Thanks for the advice. I’ve been all leisurely out here,” Drake said, firing rapidly. “But now that you say I can pick up the pace, well heck, I’m all kinds of motivated now.”

“Drake, you can be inside or outside the transport when I set this off. Choice is yours.”

“Fine.” Drake emptied his clip and then ran into the transport, closing the door behind him.

Fenwick launched the defense program. The transport lit up, there was a high pitched whine and then…nothing.

“This is some sort of special defense mechanism where they stop out of confusion?” Drake asked, grabbing a rifle from the transport’s weapon cache.

“It should be working!” Fenwick groaned, searching through the transport’s operating directories.

“Should, would, could, don’t mean a damn thing right now. We’ve got ten KVBs past the gate and more following,” Drake said, and jumped out of the transport, shutting the door behind him.

“Wait!” Fenwick yelled, too late.

Drake hit the ground shooting and cleared his way to the gate. The ten KVBs that got past the gate were racing into the stadium. Drake fired nine rounds, getting a head shot in each of the KVBs he targeted. The tenth one disappeared into the darkness and beyond the range of his rifle.

Drake considered following after it but instead turned to assess the situation at the gate. The KVBs were surging forward as a mass. Drake fired into the leading edge of the KVBs that were pressing themselves together at the gate. It was then that the HDMP transport defense system came online in a blinding and deafening eruption.

∞

“What?” Jamie yelled from inside the hub chamber.

“Get out! Now!” Agent Ganos yelled.

Jamie could only hear the muffled sounds of voices, but he was certain someone was trying tell him something. He looked back at the hub panel. It was another minute before he could log in and upload the signal.

∞

The HDMP transport riot suppression system (RSS) was clearing a perimeter of over fifty meters around the vehicle. Fenwick was looking at the monitors and thought he saw Agent Drake dropping back into the abandoned park, just beyond the RSS, or at least that was what he hoped he was seeing. Most of what he could see was bodies being shredded by gun fire, and swaths of KVBs mowed down by the electrical arcs that radiated outward like a sweeping arm around the vehicle.

Fenwick looked at his ground level monitors and saw that the municipal junctions were being hit in a three block region around the Hub. It was only a matter of time before the summation wave was formed. Then he saw it. The red cluster. The summation wave was starting.

∞

“What are you saying?” Jamie yelled at the door.

There was a voice in the distance and then the hub chamber reverberated with the sound of gun fire. Someone was firing at the door.

“What are you doing?” Blaise asked.

“I’m going to get him out of there before he gets killed,” Agent Ganos said, shooting another round into the wall above the door to the hub.

“Fine. But why are you shooting above the hub?” Rosen asked.

“I want to make sure I have his attention before I run into that crowd of KVBs,” she said, then leapt forward, cleared the pile of bodies and started shooting a path through the mass of KVBs.

“What the hell does she think she’s doing?” Blaise asked, shooting ahead of her and to her left to clear the way.

“Saving Baxter,” Rosen answered. He was shooting to her right and ahead of her.

∞

Jamie went back to the access point and saw the hub pause in its link up notice. “What the -” he began.

There was a pounding at the door. “Open up!” he heard Agent Ganos yell.

“I’m getting ready to access the -”

“You are getting ready to die if you stay in there!” she snapped.

Jamie flashed the badge at the scanner on his side and the door opened. Agent Ganos grabbed him and tried to pull him bodily out of the room.

“I have to get the array!” he protested.

She released her hold on his collar. “Be quick about it,” she commanded, and shot at the KVBs who were now closing in on the entrance to the hub.

Jamie swept up the array and his materials and threw them in his pocket.

“Ten,” Agent Ganos announced loudly.

“What are you doing?” Jamie asked, running toward the door where agent Ganos stood.

“Nine. Counting how long before the hub blows,” she said, still shooting.

“Eight. We are coming out!” she yelled to Blaise and Rosen. “Follow me,” she instructed Jamie.

“Seven,” she muttered, and continued shooting. She reached for a clip and reloaded.

“Six,” she said, firing. She was getting ready to hurdle the mound of bodies when a KVB caught her in the temple with a fist.

Jamie stepped between her and the KVB that had struck her and shot it and several more. “Where are we at in the count?” he asked, as she got to her feet.

“Four,” she said, and jumped over the pile of bodies.

Jamie followed, clearing the pile, only to have one of the bodies reach out and catch hold of his leg.

“Three,” Agent Ganos said.

Jamie automatically drew his machete and hacked off the hand from the wrist of the body. The hand remained attached to his leg.

“Two,” Agent Ganos said, waving at Rosen and Blaise to let them know running would be an inspired choice at this moment.

∞

Fenwick saw the wave summation happen. Each of the terminals that were part of the red cluster fired simultaneously and the force went down the trunk to the hub. The time the wave took to cross the distance would be measured in 100ths of a second. Fenwick waited for the explosion.