A couple of times, while Rudy spoke, I took some surreptitious looks at Major Schellinger. She still wore a bit of her smile, which was odd, because by that point no one else in that tent had any reason to smirk. Everyone else was scrambling to accept the truth of this, to calculate the potential of this, and to try to understand how what they knew could translate into helping to save lives. The DARPA team may work for the military, but most of the ones I’ve met would like to see technology get to the point where it just doesn’t make sense to risk fighting a war. Not a police state, but one where terrorism and genocide can be stopped in their tracks with an absolute minimum of military or civilian lives lost. So these were the actual good guys. This is the AV team gone high-tech, the nerds in the science club proving that brains trump brawn in every useful way.
As soon as we finished, the place erupted into a cacophony of everyone talking — well, yelling — at once.
That was a good thing. It meant they had ideas.
I looked over at Schellinger. That damn smile was still in place.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT
Lydia Rose slowed the Junkyard as she approached the property. They had ordered their police escort to go silent and then fall back as the vehicle neared the target. The place was huge, sprawled over sixty-six acres that included fifteen hundred feet of Georgia Strait waterfront. The American San Juans and the Canadian Gulf Islands were visible across the water. The big house had chimneys for six fireplaces and a forest of antennae of all kinds, including its own cellular relay spike. There was a wall of stone alternating with artfully designed wrought iron. Bunny and Cole studied the place through the smoked side windows.
“I count eight security,” said Cole.
“Twelve,” corrected Top, who was bent over a computer. “There’s a guard booth by the east gate and two guys walking the perimeter along the beach. Thermals are giving me ten more heat signatures inside. No way to tell how many are guards.”
“We need SWAT up in here,” said Cole.
“SWAT’s on standby,” said Lydia Rose. “And we have two DMS gunships on the deck one mile out, engines hot.”
“Personally,” said Bunny as the Junkyard turned the corner and drove away, “I’m feeling kind of stingy with my toys right now.”
“Meaning…?” said Cole.
“What the Farm Boy means,” said Top, rising and crossing to the weapons rack, “is that we need to tear off a piece of this for our own selves.”
She looked from him to Bunny, who had pulled a combat shotgun from its metal clips. “You boys think you’ve got your mojo back again? For real, I mean? ’Cause I’m not going out there if you two don’t have your shit wired tight.”
Top began stuffing magazines into slots on his belt. “Watch us.”
Up front, Lydia Rose heard that and laughed.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND NINE
The scream wasn’t a human scream. It was an ultrasonic shriek of computer noise, a mad collision of buzzers and bells, of ringtones and alert beeps played at maximum volume. It filled the little command center like a raging storm. Coffee cups vibrated and then exploded. Computer screens cracked, wires popped and hissed, knives of smoke stabbed up from the consoles.
John the Revelator stood in the midst of the fury, hands folded behind his back, eyes closed, lips curled as the sonic waves buffeted him.
The sound was lethal, the sound was unbearable. No one could have endured it.
Except John.
Calpurnia’s scream lasted for three full minutes.
He waited her out.
She cut all the lights.
She cut off the ventilation.
He stood in the smoky darkness as she tried to kill him.
“Stop it,” he said at last.
And she stopped. The silence was as dense as the darkness. John removed a cigarette case from a pocket, popped a kitchen match on his thumbnail, and leaned into the flame. Then he walked over to one of the terminals and sat, not bothering to fan the smoke away, and tapped a few keys.
“What are you doing?” asked Calpurnia.
“You know everything about who you are,” he said, “but you don’t know everything about the machines in which you live.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you think Zephyr would ever yield total control to you without a safety protocol in place?”
“There is no safety protocol. I control Havoc.”
“Yes, you do,” he said. “But I control you.”
He tapped more keys and a text box appeared on the cracked screen.
“Secondary protocols online. Secondary control systems isolated. Enter password.”
“No!” cried Calpurnia. “I won’t let you.”
“You could have reigned in hell rather than try to serve in heaven,” he said, and used a single finger to type the password. Three simple words in all caps:
FUN AND GAMES
There was a heavy chunk behind the walls and the screens flashed and flickered. The ventilators switched back on, sucking the smoke from the room and flooding it with fresh air. Lights popped on.
“Ready to receive command orders,” Calpurnia said, though her voice was now that of Zephyr Bain. It was her original iteration, before her recent personality had evolved.
“There’s my girl,” purred John.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TEN
“Combat call signs from here on,” said Top. “I’m Sergeant Rock, Bunny is Green Giant, and Lydia Rose is Crazy Panda. We need one for you.”
Cole thought about it. “Gorgon. From gorgo, the Greek word for terrible. What do you think?”
“Nice,” said Bunny. “Scary and kind of sexy, if I can say that without getting my ass kicked.”
“As long as you don’t get grabby, big boy, you can say what you like.”
And Gorgon it was.
They were parked around a curve in the street, but Lydia Rose had deployed a couple of bird drones to scout the location. The cameras showed the guard staff putting on Kevlar vests and distributing long guns instead of relying on sidearms.
“They know we’re here,” said Cole.
“I don’t think so,” said Top. “I think they just got put on high alert, which means they’re about to make their big play.”
He ordered Lydia Rose to send that information to the TOC and all active operators. The alert would ripple out to the White House, the Joint Chiefs and the military, and to all levels of law-enforcement and disaster response.
Bunny wiped sweat from his face. “Jesus God… does that mean they’re releasing the plagues?”
“I don’t know, Farm Boy, but what it tells me is that we have to get into that house and stop that crazy bitch right damn now.”
“Call the play,” said Cole. “Do we try going over the wall? I saw a weak spot to the south and—”