The Daemon was now a tiny shadow of its former self. It never stood a chance.
“Launch the data center strike teams.”
“Strike teams are go! Repeat: strike teams are go!”
The board operators chattered into their headsets, spreading Connelly’s command around the globe in seconds via private satellite networks.
Sebeck and Price had found clothes, body armor, and weapons quickly among the darknet factions moving in from the east. There was a wide diversity of equipment and armaments among the groups. They looked more like a high-tech militia than a true military force, but then they were following in the wake of Loki’s automated army.
Some operatives wore composite armor with full helmets, personalized with band stickers and ironic buttons, others just had hunting rifles.
The crowd drove a random assortment of civilian SUVs and Jeeps. However, they were a sizable force, spreading out toward the horizon in both directions and moving fast across the prairie. Someone had raided dealerships or something because most of these vehicles looked new. With gasoline going for eighteen bucks a gallon, Sebeck guessed there wasn’t much market for them anymore. Examining the call-outs extending over the horizon, Sebeck estimated this group to number in the thousands. The operatives varied in level from the numerous first-level Newbs, such as himself, all the way up to fifteenth- and twentieth-level Operators. There were tech factions, micro-manufacturing factions, logistics factions, and the most formidable groups of all—the infrastructure defense factions. They were the folks in full body armor with darknet electronic weaponry, packs of razorbacks, and flocks of microjets.
Wherever Sebeck went, operatives came up to him and shook his hand—asking to take pictures and pose with him. It was like some sort of macabre convention. Have your picture taken with the Unnamed One. . . .
Immediately after obtaining a loaner pair of HUD glasses and a computer belt, Sebeck opened a link to Jon Ross, finding Rakh’s call-out ten miles west of him—right in the center of Sky Ranch. He was glad to hear his voice over the comm line.
“Jon, thanks for saving our asses. How did you locate us?”
“Loki has eyes everywhere. And other people were looking for you, as well. It’s that quest you’re on.”
“You found Dr. Philips?”
“Yes, and she’s here with me. We’re safe for now. Is Price okay?”
“He’s fine. What’s the latest news?”
“Loki’s smashing through the ranch defenses. He’s got an army of . . . god, thousands of AutoM8s. Four or five hundred razorbacks. He must be spending every power point he has for this.”
Sebeck nodded. “If you saw him, you’d understand why. He looks only half-human. I wouldn’t want to be The Major when Loki catches up with him.”
“Pete, you were right about Weyburn Labs. Smart mobs scanning the surveillance system have discovered their facilities. I won’t show you the worst of it, but here . . .”
Sebeck saw an object zip toward him through D-Space and land in his HUD list. He opened it and sucked in a breath.
“There are dozens of young women still in cells there. It looks like The Major’s people were perfecting darknet identity theft.”
“Jon, we need to send forces to those labs first—before the researchers can destroy the evidence. Those girls are in serious danger.”
“I’ll put the word out.”
“Look, we’re closing in on the inner perimeter. I’m told that we’ll face resistance, if Loki hasn’t wiped them out, so I’m going to get off the line. I’ll need to be heads-up as we go in.”
“Give my best to Laney, and be careful, Pete.”
“You too, Jon. I’ll see you on the other side.”
Sebeck could already see explosions ahead. It looked like artillery airbursts. The thunder of detonations followed a second later. The vehicles were routed around the barrage and moving fast now, bumping across the prairie at fifty or sixty miles an hour. They passed distant burning wreckage riddled with shrapnel holes, broken bodies nearby, but the overwhelming majority of the force moved on—too spread out and moving too fast to be easily targeted by artillery.
The driver of their Jeep pointed ahead and shouted to Sebeck and Price. “We’re going in a mile or so to the south of the ranch roads. There are ambush points with missiles and armored vehicles there. Loki’s forces are taking them out.”
Sebeck nodded. He looked back at Price.
Price stared back. “What?”
“I’m glad you’re okay. I thought we were done for back there.”
“Yeah, well, the day’s not over, man.”
And then it hit.
Out of nowhere the darknet disappeared as Sebeck’s HUD glasses went dead. All of the call-outs around him disappeared as well. “Aw, shit!” He removed his glasses. “No wonder someone was willing to loan these to me. They’re broken.”
He turned back to face Price but was met with a confused stare. Price also removed his HUD glasses. “Oh shit . . .” He tapped the driver, who was frowning himself. “Dude, can you see D-Space?”
The driver looked worried. “No.” He pointed at the nearby vehicles. “Look!”
Sebeck and Price followed the driver’s gaze, and they could see hundreds of darknet operatives removing their HUD glasses and calling out to one another. The column of vehicles wasn’t slowing down yet, but now they were suddenly without a unifying system of control or direction.
They were blind.
Sebeck turned back to Price. “What the hell just happened?”
Price looked lost—as though he’d just lost an old friend. “They’ve somehow knocked out the darknet, Sergeant.”
General Connelly stood next to Aldous Johnston at the central console of the command center. Half the television monitors on the big board were filled with electronic snow. The Great Blackout had begun. The modern world was undergoing a cold reboot.
Johnston pointed at the screen. “So the data centers all still have power?”
Connelly nodded. “Of course. It’s standard for data centers to have battery and backup generators. They can run for as long as they have diesel fuel. Some even have local power generation facilities.”
“Then why the blackout if it doesn’t bring the servers off-line?”
“The blackout isn’t meant to cripple the Daemon, General. We already eliminated it as a threat with the Destroy function calls. No, the blackout is a psyops action. It’s a demarcation between the old order and the new one for the general public. People need to be shocked into accepting their new situation. Revealing just how vulnerable they all are accomplishes that. They will seek protection.”
“But three days without power?”
“Our social psychologists told us the panic should make people eager for strong leadership.”
A nearby board operator looked up. “I’ve got Colonel Richter with a status report on the darknet militias, General.”
“Put him on.”
“Go ahead, Colonel. You’re on speaker.”
A slightly distorted voice came through the speakers. “General, this is Richter. Darknet militias are stopping their advance on a broad front. They appear to have degraded command and control.”
Control room crew chuckled among themselves and clapped. Connelly and Johnston exchanged looks.