Chapter Twenty-Eight: Coercion

            Jungle heat was something that the Breaker was used to but hated nonetheless. He was grateful once again that he could not sweat. Not only would it be uncomfortable, but also it always seemed to attract the little bugs like mosquitoes. Mosquitoes didn't mean much to the Breaker, but they did itch when they landed on what of his skin was exposed.

            Whoever constructed his new friend, however, had been one of those "build the robot as similar to a human as possible" people, and the poor bastard was constantly wiping his face to clear away the moisture triggered by internal heat sensors. A stupid function to put on a Reploid, really, as it didn't serve to cool them, but with humans, appearance was everything, wasn't it?

            And besides, the Breaker thought, his "friend's" distraction merely made him more uncomfortable than he already was. The Breaker found that most of the time, truly uncomfortable people would not just get up and walk away, but would instead first try to concede to someone else's point of view and then get up and walk away. Perhaps it was the fear of having to come back and do it again? The Breaker didn't know. Like most things, he thought it was stupid. He was a cynic to the core.

            They were sitting in a booth at an outdoor café, located too far from Commander Yammark's camp to worry the Breaker and too close to other people to worry the scientist Reploid that was keeping the Breaker company. As the security officer had expected, the scientist's chief fear had been going off someplace alone with someone who was clearly dangerous. He was more comfortable in this setting, but only slightly, the Breaker noticed with a grin: the mosquitoes were bothering him.

            "I still don't quite follow you," the scientist said after wiping his brow for perhaps the fiftieth time. "Commander Yammark is in charge of field operations. My people man the research station that Yammark's people live near. Occasionally Yammark and his people bring us some data to study, but aside from that, we have little to no communication with his unit, and even less with Gate. We occasionally send him some bits of our research to pay him back for Yammark's help, but nothing major."

            "And why is that?" the Breaker asked coolly. It wasn't an interrogation, both men knew. The Breaker was leading into something, but the scientist didn't know what. The questions were intended to prod him in the right direction, but as of yet the scientist couldn't quite figure out what the Breaker was getting at.

            "Information is valuable," the scientist answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "This land is constantly changing. The Amazon was about to die before we initiated the Fauna program." The Fauna program was merely the local version of the commonly used method of adding cybernetic implants to trees and plants, keeping them alive and functioning despite a rapidly changing ecology. "However, we still don't know what the results of the Fauna program will be. No one does, anywhere! The cybernetic implants have not been in action long enough for us to know what the real effect will be on the environment." He was in his element, and he was explaining it to this foolish brute Reploid who probably knew nothing about ecology period. "We need to study this forest for several more years before we can be sure of Fauna's outcome. Our findings may be crucial to other ecosystems on the planet. After all, the Amazon is one of the largest remaining single concentrations of wildlife left in the world. However, we need funds." He snorted. "The damned government, of course, places more emphasis on military functions and urban development than it does on wildlife preservation, or scientific research in general. Excuse me," he snorted again, "scientific research that doesn't involve making better condoms or devising new ways to make wrinkles and fine lines disappear. Trees will vanish and oxygen with them, but hey, people will die without fine lines and wrinkles!"

            "And without AIDS," the Breaker agreed, really agreeing this time. Here was another stupid thing about society. Appearance really was everything, he thought with his own snort.

            "Anyway," the scientist went on, "we get meager funding, and the threat to cut us off completely is always there. We fund-raise, sure, but that never works out in the end. We need government loans, and to get them we have to prove that we're really doing something down here. That means we have to come up with at least one or two Major Scientific Breakthroughs a year that nobody else figured out, and that, my friend, can be very difficult. We need to guard our information carefully, so that we're the only ones who can benefit from it. That's why Gate doesn't get anything major."

            The Breaker smiled thinly. It had finally happened—the scientist had opened the door for him. It was so easy, he thought. He hadn't exactly expected it to be hard, but certainly this kind of ease had been unexpected.

            After the incident at Split Mushroom's base, the Breaker had been charged with identifying the perpetrators and finding a way to stop them. He'd seriously doubted his chances at first, but the more he'd thought about it the easier it seemed. Identifying the perpetrators would be easy. Stopping them would be harder, but one thing at a time.

            The Breaker had collected the pieces of the dragonfly drone that he'd squashed, examining the parts in his private weapons lab. The pieces were very minute and sensitive, which meant that they were probably rare. The Breaker had identified as many bits and pieces as he could, and then he'd used the powers of the Internet to track down the manufacturers of the said parts. That had been about one night's work, from the time he'd collected the pieces to the time he signed off the account in the morning. The account belonged to some of Mushroom's northern comrades, and was managed by a guy calling himself "Kujacker". It sounded familiar, but the Breaker hadn't cared enough to run a check on the name.

            From here it was a matter of finding out which company shipped what to whom, which could complicate things because there was no telling where the perpetrators had bought their equipment. As it turned out, the parts were indeed rare and only a few companies made them, but the companies shipped the parts out to plenty of upper-echelon corporations and manufacturers. To aid in this part of the search, the Breaker had played his second major card and gotten in contact with his man inside the Hunter HQ in Rio.

            Unlike the Hunters up north, the Brazilian force had never really encountered much in the way of heavy Maverick attacks. They were a small, loosely organized group of policemen who took out Reploid criminals who might prove to be too deadly for the human force to take down. Sure, they were loyal to their parent organization, but they were more loyal to themselves, and money, the Breaker knew, was the most beautiful thing in the world for any man, woman, or child. He'd found a high-level Hunter, bribed him regularly, and now the Breaker could learn what the local Hunters were up to via a simple phone call.

            The Breaker figured that, since Split Mushroom was building a camp for Mavericks, the Hunters would be the first to learn what the perpetrators had seen. Indeed, the Breaker had learned, there was something big happening in Brazil. The Hunters were getting ready to attack some jungle base, but amazingly enough the Hunters themselves would not be coordinating the attack. That would be the job of "some guy from up north".

            This had been the only real hard part. The Breaker had identified the threat, but he hadn't really identified the perpetrators themselves, nor had he figured out how to stop them. He easily got a list of all major units operating in Brazil by hacking into a government network—actually, he had someone else within the government do the hacking…money is beautiful, after all—but even this didn't help him much, because he had no leads that would point to any one group in particular. The only leads he had were a crushed dragonfly drone and a report from Tekki and his fellow scouts that black hovercraft had been seen leaving the site. Lots of armies had black hovercrafts nowadays, so that wasn't much to go by.

            The Breaker had then turned to the only lead that thus far had done him any good: the dragonfly. He ran checks on every single part in the drone, even the ones he couldn't identify, and checked with business network after business network, trying to get a match. In the end, he'd let one of Mushroom's technicians install a computer program to do the job for him, running checks on every piece in hundreds of company databases at once.

            The following day, the program paid off. The Breaker received a message that identified "C128", a chip found in the drone's head. Apparently, C128 was a chip that allowed a photography unit to function properly inside the tiny drone head. More interestingly, there was only one company that produced the C128 model, a computer firm called Haim, a subsidiary of the popular Reploid parts manufacturer, Hayatom. The Breaker had immediately tapped into Haim's databases, again with the help of Mushroom's technician and that Kujacker fellow, and he'd come across a delivery ledger that indicated C128's major purchaser—Zarves Electronics, a company in Megacity 5. Investigations into Zarves had presented the Breaker with several new leads. Zarves served the entire Megacity, but a few groups bought heavily into its products. One was the Megacity Army, which simply did not exist down here. That left associates of a scientist named Gate, who the Breaker knew to be an internationally respected scientist with ties to the Hunters and who, coincidentally, managed a squad here in Brazil. A simple crosscheck of the list of organizations operating in Brazil confirmed this theory. The Breaker had found the "guy from up north".

            Gate's man in Brazil was a Reploid called Yammark, who kept a low profile and did field research for a team of scientists seeking to preserve the Amazon. Getting a picture of Yammark had been nearly impossible, but the Breaker had been reassured when he'd finally bribed the right person and got the image—Commander Yammark was a dragonfly. There was no question about it: he'd identified the perpetrators.

            Next, he had to figure out how to stop them. Gate was up north, so there was little that could be done to him. Yammark, on the other hand, was a different story. He would most likely be coordinating things on the ground for his boss, and if he suddenly were not able to do that…well, things would be looking better for the Mavericks.

            Scientists were a predictable people, even the Reploid ones. They viewed their individual research as the most important thing in the world, and were pissed off whenever someone else didn't agree. They were defensive, idealistic, and therefore easily manipulated. The Breaker had devised a simple yet elegant plan and made the necessary preparations. Then, he'd arranged through more bribed comrades a meeting with a Reploid scientist named Manolin. This scientist now sat before him, in this populated café outside the Amazon, and had just paved the way for the Breaker's assault. It was time to put the plan into action.

            "Indeed," the Breaker said gingerly, "it is necessary to maintain credit for the work you do. Money, I know, is very precious in your community." And in mine, he couldn't say. "Now, I know I do not look it, but I do know about your Fauna project, and I have studied the cybernetic implant programs around the world. In Panama, where I was activated, I worked near a forest cluster that received the implants without much thought being put into the matter. It was beautiful. I should have brought a picture, I have a few." His voice dropped to something less than friendly. "Years later the program failed. The implants couldn't keep the trees alive. In fact, they killed them. Of course, the implants prevented the trees from falling down, so they stood there and rotted for a few more years. Well, of course, a storm came along a few more years down the line and the winds were too much for these frail tree shrouds. Down they fell…"

            "Onto a children's picnic ground," Manolin finished in a serious air. "You speak of the April 9th tragedy. The trees stood even after the storm ended and visitors returned to the park, but…"

            "They'd finally been weakened," the Breaker went on, showing his interest in the matter, "and many fell at once, at the worst time." He stopped and shook his head, sighing. "Twelve dead children…so high a number because one tree fell near the makeshift nursery. Infants cannot run away." He looked up and blinked. "I did not know that the incident was so famous."

            "Indeed!" Manolin said loudly. "Everyone in the ecological community knows of that disaster! It is a tragedy we cannot stand to see happen again. That, my friend, is why we are so anxious to make sure that Fauna works out. My word, can you imagine the entire Amazon falling down around us? Not only would the ecological aspects be irreparable, but the climate, the economy, the…the everything!" He pounded his fist on the table. "But the damned fools in charge don't see it! They only see their condoms and their anti-wrinkle creams! They deny us the aid we need and then scold us when we fail to prevent the inevitable situation that they created…it always happens that way!"

            His acting had been flawless. The Breaker allowed himself an inner smile: things were going very, very well. "Yes…I understand, I understand it all. That is why I wanted to meet with you. There are things, my friend, that you need to know, things that those fools do not want you to know, or perhaps do not know themselves." Manolin looked at him with interest. He had the scientist hooked, the security officer knew. He hoped he didn't blow it now. "I recall a grant that was supposed to go to the scientific community two years ago…your scientific community."

            "The Valdez Grant," Manolin nodded comprehension. "Hugo Valdez, a local businessman, wanted to show how generous he was, so he gave the government a hundred thou to loan to the scientific community of their choice." He growled. "We were at war, if you will, with the pharmacists led by Ricardo Avila. Avila had been investigating the Amazon for herbs that could be used in new medicines, a noble cause, but he already had grants to back him up. We, on the other hand, were struggling, and we were in the middle of Fauna's most crucial studies." A sigh. "As bad fortune would have it, we were both working on the same piece of information. We thought we had the answer, but Avila's people were more confident. They came out with the information first, and it was enough for them to win the Valdez Grant. We survived, but only by the skin of our teeth. Commander Yammark was with us during this time, but didn't make much use of himself. He doesn't really tie into this in any way, though."

            Time to spring the trap. "My friend…that is not true."

            Manolin blinked. "Excuse me?"

            The Breaker smiled in a way that conveyed that he was about to say something painful but really had no choice. "Did you never once find it interesting that just when you thought you had the right idea on your project that Avila's people came out with it almost immediately?"

            "Well…" Something in the back of the scientist's mind understood, but for the most part he was still skeptical. "We were neck-and-neck the whole time. It was really only the matter of a few days time."

            "What did Yammark specifically have to do with that project?"

            "He…" Manolin thought. "Well, nothing, if I remember correctly. He carried information from us to Gate, nothing about the project, of course, just what we gave him to keep him around. He never saw anything important."

            The Breaker smiled in the same way as before. "I very much regret to tell you that you are mistaken."

            The idea in the back of Manolin's brain grew larger, but he was able to subdue it, filing through his common sense to find another suitable explanation. "How could he? We have security like you wouldn't believe on those files."

            "Friend, do you know what Commander Yammark did before he came to Brazil?"

            Manolin did not, and the suspicion grew. "What did he do?"

            The Breaker produced a file folder and removed two sheets of paper. One showed an image of Yammark and several other teammates and the other was a fact sheet. The way things were going, he thought that maybe his words would be enough, but it didn't help to have evidence…fabricated or not. "Commander Yammark was a freelance reconnaissance scout who worked with pretty much anyone who could hire them. Yammark was and is a master at spying, information gathering, and yes, security breaching. You no doubt have seen the dragonfly drones that constantly buzz around him?" It was a trick question. If he had, then he would understand where the Breaker was coming from. If he had not, suspicion would grow, and he would still understand where the Breaker was coming from. "They are equipped with cameras that relay images directly to Yammark's CPU. They can fit into tight places and get to areas where any other spy would be hard pressed to enter.

            "Yammark's ideologies toward science prompted his enlistment with Gate and his crew," the Breaker went on. "This is his second assignment with Gate, and while he does do field research for you, he is above all loyal to his boss up north…the man who formed his ideologies and also the man who pays his bills."

            "Wait…" Manolin tried to catch up. "You're saying that Yammark somehow got a hold of our information? That he is a spy, working against us?"

            "He doesn't work for or against anyone," the Breaker clarified. "He represents Gate, who despite his claims to the contrary is just another politician. Gate is recognized throughout the world as a genius, and now he has started to gather a following. Of course, only the richest of people are invited to Presidential Balls, and to fly with Gate you have to be rich enough to afford that first class ticket. He needs support to solidify himself as a political presence, and that means he needs more big name people under him." Every word out of his mouth, as far as he knew, was a lie. He was very good at lying.

            "What are you getting at?" Manolin asked, though deep down he already knew.

            "When you are like Gate, and you are in a position like that, well…if you need a power base, why wait for one to come to you when you can build one from the ground up?" While Manolin absorbed that, the Breaker produced another piece of paper. It was an account transfer report that had been printed a day before at Mushroom's base, totally fabricated by the Breaker himself. Manolin didn't know that, though, nor did he need to.

            "What is this?" the scientist asked.

            "Proof," the Breaker said gently. "What you see is the record of financial aid being shared between agents working directly for Gate…and members of Ricardo Avila's group of scientists."

            At this Manolin's eyes went wide. His head snapped up from the paper and he looked at the Breaker with a gaping mouth. He looked back down, and then back up, processing the information and not doubting the Breaker's words at all. He should have, but there was no reason to in his frantic mind…the Breaker was a comrade, a man who'd been just as moved by the April 9th tragedy as the rest of them. "Why…?" he finally asked. "It doesn't make sense…"

            "It does. Commander Yammark waits for the right moment. Then, when he hears that you have completed your research, and you think that you have found the solution to your project, he steals or copies your information and returns it to Gate with the garbage you give him regularly. Gate then gives the information to Avila, who fills in the holes with what his group has figured out. Then he releases the results and receives the grant, establishing him as a prominent world scientist…loyal to Gate. Just like that, Gate has another ally on his road to power."

            "But why?" Manolin asked again. "Why not us? Yammark was already working for us! Wouldn't it have been easier to just support us?"

            The Breaker put on that pained smile again. "I am sorry…but think about it. You are a loose collection of scientists with no real leader, and no real support despite your important mission. Avila, on the other hand, was already a prominent figure in the scientific and pharmaceutical community. It would be easy for Gate to mold him into the person he needed to be, and that is precisely what he did."

            "That grant…"

            "It should have been yours," the Breaker nodded gravely. "But because of Commander Yammark, you were set back two years, and you barely survived financially with a less than satisfactory program."

            Manolin examined the "evidence" once more, but he was already sold. In his mind he'd asked the obvious questions, and had decided too quickly that the Breaker was telling the truth. His eyes flared with fury at the hopeless unfairness of the situation. Alarms that should have gone off didn't; he was an idealistic scientist who was being presented with evidence against a person he hated because of differences in ideology…he had been doomed before the conversation had even started. Still, through the fog of fury and shock, a final logical question came out of his mouth: "How do you know all of this…? And why would you tell us?"

            The Breaker smiled in a friendlier manner. "I represent another group that Gate has betrayed. I represent the children who died April 9th, all those years ago." He motioned to the nearby rainforest tree line. "And I myself am a man who wants to see those trees standing decades from now." It was true—trees provided good cover when on the run. "Medicines, condoms, and wrinkle creams…all of those can wait. Right now there is only one project that needs to succeed in this forest, and that's you guys, and you are being bled dry by an inside man." He looked the scientist in the eye and spoke with a calm, powerful honesty. "I don't want to see the last groups of good guys fall into the background. And that will happen, if someone does not act soon."

            The Breaker shoved the file folder and its remaining contents over to Manolin, who looked through them half-heartedly. His mind was gone, in another place, and it wasn't coming back for a few seconds. When it did, the fury had fled his eyes to be replaced by…nothing. His face showed nothing at all. The scientist looked up and met the Breaker's gaze, holding it for a few seconds. The security officer kept his face sympathetic, knowing that he'd won, but knowing also that he could undo everything by saying or doing the wrong thing right now.

            "What must I do?" the scientist asked. No, the Breaker knew, he'd won, and now there was nothing that could stop him. He had a devoted scientist at his disposal…and scientists never betrayed their ideals.

            The Breaker reached into a compartment in his armor and produced a box. He carefully opened it and showed Manolin what was inside—a simple floppy disc. The scientist looked up in confusion. The security officer smiled easily and acted as though he'd erred in delivering his message.

            "Forgive me, I must explain. You surely must know of all the buzz among Yammark's people lately?"

            Manolin nodded somewhat distantly. "They found some camp or something in the jungle. They got Hunter and government support to go take it out. We assumed it was Mavericks."

            This was news. So, the government was in on this, too? That could complicate things. The Brazilian army was scarier than the Brazilian Hunter corps. "It is an easy thing to suspect, isn't it? And that is what they're telling the Hunters."

            "Then what is it?" Manolin asked, no longer doubting anything the Breaker told him.

            "How do you think Yammark has been able to accomplish everything he has with only his simple base networks?"

            "You're saying that's Gate's base out there…?"

            Another inner smile; this was too easy. "It's an old army storehouse that Gate's people use to send and receive message, and coordinate their more covert actions, of which I assure you Yammark was a part. It was discovered by army personnel, however, and now it's location has been compromised. Gate has no further use for it. To cover his tracks, he's told Yammark to find a way to dispose of it. A few fabricated images…a few words spoken to army officers…well, here you have it. An attack is underway to bury evidence of Gate's treachery."

            "Bastards," Manolin breathed. "Then Yammark is going to lead the attack?"

            "Unless Gate comes here himself, yes, that is what I suspect." He didn't lean forward, or change his voice to anything remotely conspiratorial. Instead he spoke casually, in the same pitch, keeping his guest at ease and making the whole thing seem like a normal walk through the park. "Listen. No one needs to die here. You may want to kill him, I don't know. But all that really has to happen is for something to cripple him and keep him out of that battle. Now, I don't know if you have any better ideas, but this thing here…" He tapped the floppy disc. "This thing contains a program that will stop Yammark's flight program." It had taken forever to identify what flight program Yammark used, much less a way to destroy it, but the Breaker had gotten the job done, as usual. "You probably have easier access to Yammark than others. Get someone into his camp and upload this program while he's in a recharging bay. When he tries to fly, the program will kick in and he'll be grounded, and a grounded dragonfly can't do much harm."

            "They have hovercraft," Manolin pointed out. "He can just hop into one of those."

            The Breaker waved it off. "Don't try to handle those. It's too easy to be spotted. You might set a bomb on one, sure, but there's no guarantee that Yammark will pick that one. It's not worth the trouble, or the risk to your own security." But in fact it was exactly what the Breaker wanted, and for the moment Manolin's ideals were more important than his personal safety. Predictable little fool…

            Manolin stared at the floppy disc in the small box. Gate had played them for fools all this time, using them and their noble purpose to advance his business associate, and therefore advance his own political standings. It wasn't supposed to be like this, he thought. He'd thought Gate was different. He'd thought Gate was a believer in the scientific field, not in power, not in that corrupt concept that led so many good men down the path of treachery and corruption. But, he had been betrayed. It had happened before and it would happen again, he knew. Scientists were there to be stepped on. Their products benefited all peoples, but no one gave them due credit or any patience whatsoever. They existed as servants, serving a disinterested society that took their ideas, patented them, packaged them, and spat them out into the world without thinking twice about other potential uses other than making money. Money, money, money! It was all money. And he was just a puppet, Manolin knew, a puppet controlled by liars like Gate and the fools in power who cared only about the comforts of the present, and turned a blind eye to the coming havoc of the future.

            No more, he decided. No more.

            Manolin looked back up and nodded at the Breaker, making a silent pact with the big Reploid. The Breaker smiled in overt relief. "I'm glad you understand." They stood and shook hands. "I am sorry, my friend."

            "Don't apologize for them," Manolin said with conviction. "You brought this to our attention. For that I thank you. They…no apology can save them. The rest of this…I will take care of the rest."

            He left the Breaker at their table and walked back to the jeep he used to get around. Minutes later the engine was on and the vehicle started down the dirt road. He did not look back.

            The Breaker leaned back and allowed himself a smug victory grin. It was all a lie, of course. To his knowledge, Gate had nothing to do with Ricardo Avila, and was perfectly loyal to his friends in Brazil. Too bad, the Breaker thought emotionlessly. It would be a shock to Manolin when he found out…but he wouldn't find out, would he? Not unless he learned that there really was a Maverick base out there. Otherwise he'd discount anything that Gate, the Hunters, or the government told him. That was the beauty of intellectuals, the Breaker knew. They spent their lives in books or in labs, and when it was time to go outside they were lost and needed guides. Some found them. Others, like Manolin, found the Breaker or people like him. It was a harsh world, but business was business, and the Breaker was not involved in a profession that allowed for regret.

            The security officer spent another ten minutes reading a paperback before getting to his feet. He tipped the server and headed to his own vehicle, a large hovercycle upgraded to suit a Reploid of his bulk. He sped down the road in the opposite direction of Manolin. He had a few stops to make. The fact that the army was getting involved made for a new situation. The Breaker knew he couldn't have much time left. The attack would be coming very shortly, and they had to be ready. Split Mushroom had called in a team of real security guards to set up a proper perimeter at the Breaker's urging. This had been done a few days ago. The Breaker sorely hoped that they showed up in time.

            And if they didn't, well, it wasn't his problem. He'd hop on his bike, leave, and let the camp burn behind him. Business was business. His profession was one that definitely, above all things, did not allow for attachment.

            With this thought in mind, the Breaker headed to a contact's place of employment. He had a few calls to make.