“The aluminum-foil-hat crowd,” suggested Doc, but Junie shook her head.
“You’ll be on safer ground,” she said, “if you don’t leap to dismissive judgments. Some of them may be right. We don’t know for sure that they’re wrong. After all, some of them were right about aliens when the scientific world tended to dismiss it out of hand. I am proof that some of those people were right, can we agree on that?”
“Very reluctantly,” sighed Doc.
“Okay, but here’s the thing — I have proof. My DNA has been sequenced, as has that of Prospero Bell and Erasmus Tull, the only two people we have definitively established to have come from the same breeding program as me. Tull worked as a Closer for M3 and Prospero built God Machines.”
Doc sipped the hot tea and winced, but it was likely not because of any burn.
“So, given that I am actually part alien, and was raised by people who were building craft based on recovered alien technology, yet none of them — not one — knew who actually built the machines, where they came from, or why they came at all. We are completely in the dark. In fact, I’ve never seen a photograph of any of the original crew of the crashed vehicles. If Howard Shelton or the other governors of M3 ever did, it was not recorded in the Majestic Black Book.”
“So… they could have been reptiles?”
“Yes,” said Junie. “And the Closers who Joe and his guys dealt with on the road in Maryland bled green.”
Doc drank her tea and stared at Junie for a long, long time.
“Okay,” she said weakly, “what else can you tell me?”
Junie thought about it. “Well… I read the field report Top filed. He said there was a distinct green color in the explosion on the road. And we know from Washington that the God Machines exploded with a green fireball.”
“Yes. So?”
Junie blew across her cup and peered at Doc. “What do you know about Lemurian crystal?”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
Bug shifted to the mission at hand.
“Well,” he said, “it looks pretty ordinary from the outside, but it’s not. First off, they have too large a facility for the amount of product they sell, at least according to their balance sheets. Maybe forty percent of the factory and staff would be needed for what they pay taxes on. I can back that up with utility usage, too. They’re using way too much electricity and water, so figure they have at least double the staff running twice as many machines, and they have too many trucks going in and out. And there is a big shipping bay on one side, but in back there’s a garage for buses. Why have buses unless they’re bringing in more staff than they have on the books?”
“Understood. So, what else are they making?”
“We still don’t know that,” admitted Bug. “Companies in the competitive electronics market are usually filing patents every five minutes. Pushkin was, too, but there’s been a slowdown on that recently, which is weird, because everyone else in their field is speeding up that process. Tech changes so fast that you have to innovate and rush new models or products into production in order to survive. Pushkin is doing well financially, but I don’t like the fact that they’re not filing enough patents. And they’re sure as heck being cagey with internal discussions on new R and D. They’re being really, really careful, Cowboy, because there’s nothing about what they are really doing stored on their company hard drives. Probably using intranet computers with no exterior hardlines. So, what we need are samples, photos, scans, and anything on their computers.”
“Hooah,” I said, and everyone nodded.
“Oh, and since we don’t know what’s in there, Doc wants you to use rad scan and BAMS.”
“Copy that,” I said. “Do we have an eye in the sky yet?”
“We haven’t had enough time to retask a satellite,” said Bug, “so you have to use your drones. I arranged for a couple of the big eagle drones to do a flyover, and they picked up ten thermals. Pushkin’s pay records account for that many nighttime security guards, so that’s kosher at least.”
“Ten guards are a lot for overnight security,” said Tate. “Place this size would only need two, maybe three.”
“Right,” agreed Bug, “so why they need ten guys is one more oddball thing. The total effect is giving me the wiggins. Anyway, I sent a basic floor plan of the building and security data to your team. I suggest you put some pigeons on the roof to watch the parking lot. I hacked local law enforcement and sent you patrol patterns. They never seem to enter the parking lot of the place, though, so they must have been told not to. That says something.”
“Okay, Bug. Thanks. Keep digging.”
The news about Rolgavitch twisted inside my head, and I could feel the depression gnawing at the edges of my mind. Maybe it was Auntie and D.J. and Sam. Maybe it was all the dead Americans in D.C. Maybe it was the fact that the DMS and I had been outed on the news. I don’t know, but I felt like I needed a week of extra-long sessions on Rudy’s couch. Or maybe to go skydiving without a chute.
I stopped when that thought flitted past. Ghost growled very softly, but no one else except me heard it.
“It’s okay, boy,” I said to him, and offered my hand for him to sniff. He did, but that still didn’t change the way he looked at me. Top gave me a curious look, too, as if he read my mood. Wouldn’t surprise me if he could. He was that sharp.
“Huddle up,” I said, and as they gathered around I opened my laptop and called up a schematic of the building. “Two-story building with basement. No windows, no skylight. What we know about the insides are only what was on the original construction blueprints and reports from city inspectors.”
“Can we count on any of that being accurate?” asked Cole.
“Doubtful. We’ll bring a bunch of houseflies and let them map the place once we’re inside.”
Houseflies were small sensor drones closer in size to bumblebees. They could travel solo or in swarms, transmitting telemetry to the computers we all wore on our wrists. Those, in turn, fed the data to the TOC.
“Bottom line is that we’re not sure of anything,” I said. “We’re here to gather intel, get all possible information, and get out without making a fuss. Top, you and Cole go in through the loading bay. Tate and Bunny, go in through the east-side door, which looks like offices. Ghost and I will take the front and see if we can find the computer room. Smith, you walk the perimeter. Stay out of sight and be ready to come in if any team needs extra muscle. Duffy, find an elevated shooting position that covers the parking lot and front door. Combat call signs from here out. This is a soft infil, so we go in quiet as church mice. Don’t break anything unless you have to.”
“Rules of engagement if things go south?” asked Top; mostly asking because he wanted the team to hear it and have those rules reinforced. He never stopped teaching.
“Weapons slung except for dart guns. Even so, we don’t fire first,” I said. “Those guards may be innocent working stiffs and, if so, they don’t need to get hurt. But if you are fired upon and cannot retreat without engaging, then do what you need to do in order to save your lives and the lives of the rest of the team. We all go in and we all come out.”