A/N: Many thanks to cultnirvana and Hang Tuah for leaving reviews; I'm happy to have reached anyone with this, but I'm glad that people are enjoying it so far. I hope to keep it enjoyable.
Due to the highly favorable and rapid response, I pulled my ideas up and out and got chapter 1 up and running. This may detract from my Comic Party fanfic (Which, by the way, I urge you all to check out!) but I think it's worth it.
A bit of the language, but this story is PG-13 for a reason. Nothing worse than what's found on cable.
As before, all locations and organizations (Except for MITHRIL) are real, all science is real, and the technology... I'll leave to the reader what technology is real and what is in the realm of fiction.
On with the show!
1: Rats' Feet over Broken Glass
August 15th, 1981
Woomera Prohibited Area
800km northeast of Adelaide, South Australia
12:22 PM local time
It seemed like the most isolated place on earth to the people who lived, worked, and shuttled in and out of the deserted outpost. The mix of American, Canadian, British, and Australian technicians, analysts, and military officers would gather for what they jokingly referred to as "footie on Mars," kicking a soccer ball around the red oxidized desert sands of the base.
Major Aaron Klein, US Air Force, a stereotypical Iowa farmboy by birth and upbringing, had quickly taken to the laid-back companionship around Woomera shortly after his short-haul transport flight from Alice Springs had opened its cargo door. In with a fresh staff rotation, he made up the "new blood" of signals and telemetry intelligence that was firming up a fresh facility. Of course, his Aussie and Brit friends had quickly schooled him in more "proper" sports.
"'ere's yours, mate!" a tall blond Australian Secret Intelligence Service analyst reared back and delivered a vicious kick at close range after eluding a defenseman.
"No chance!" Klein dove to intercept the ball, barely grabbing it by his fingertips; he succeeded in keeping it out of the hastily-erected net, consisting of broomsticks and a crude set of twine knots.
"C'mon, mate, yer bein' brutal to us heah!" the Aussie joked. "Gonna get too big for yah britches an' yer welcome, eh?"
Klein dusted the red dust off his side as the rest of the soccer players seemed to stop running around, instead stretching and engaging in the standard post-game banter. "I couldn't do any less," the tall, lean officer tossed his sandy, military-parted hair back. It was stringed with sweat—nothing less could be expected from the south-central Australian desert—but it still had the recruiting-poster chic that had so many hearts yearning during his tenure at the Academy. "Besides, we've got an audience today."
Klein pointed over his shoulder with a thumb; not too far beyond his goal was a small red kangaroo, one of a small mob that made their way around the base perimeter. There was no need for a security fence; the arid desert would quickly take care of any intruder on the surface. The local wildlife was sparse, but they interacted well enough with the Woomera staff.
"That's yer Lana, right?" the Aussie joked.
"Hah. Sweet lil' redheaded Lana from back home," Klein chuckled, letting his Midwestern drawl creep a little into his voice.
"Back on shift soon, mate?"
"Yeah, RAF pulled down some telemetry from the latest missile test out of Cheltenham, of all places. The goddamn Reds decided to fire a test shot out over the North Sea this time."
"Bugger! That far west?"
"Better believe it. You won't believe the numbers we got..."
The red kangaroo shuffled a little bit around the goal, foraging for Nullarbor grass. It found a little bit in the shade of a wrinkled, dying desert shrub; as it bent down to chew on the grass, a joey kangaroo peeped its way out of the pouch of the bigger 'roo. It peered at the Australian and the Air Force major, apparently very interested in their interaction.
The mama kangaroo finished noshing and shuffled off a ways before rapidly hopping away in the patent style of kangaroos. She hopped continuously northeast, clearing kilometer after kilometer with a precision and endurance uncommon to the common red kangaroo. Eventually, as the sun drew higher in the desert sky, she made her way to another lone, dying bush, far away from the Woomera base complex.
The kangaroo bent down again, as if to seek more Nullarbor, but this time, the joey hopped out of the mother's pouch and touched its nose to the mother's.
As the joey's tail pounded out a rhythmic, undulating, almost random wagging beat, one of the main earth-station satellite dishes that shadowed the kangaroos Woomera changed its skyward direction. The low hum of the motors echoed over the two kangaroos as it moved into a new position.
None of the seismic sensors, geared to listen for intruders in heavy vehicles, could pick up the Morse code letters that the joey kangaroo was methodically beating into the shadow of the bush. The Hollywood studio staff who had built the mechanical kangaroo team hadn't understood the need for such precision, but the data recording systems in the mama 'roo had already compressed and encoded the conversations of the technicians into a series of three-letter Morse code groups.
The bush dutifully recorded the Morse groups as the Joey thumped them out, stored them in its ten-kilobyte memory banks, and waited for the upcoming satellite downlink on the same frequency that Woomera technicians had just programmed in to the earth-station dish. One of its twigs had already turned imperceptibly into the branch, creating a very crude single sideband directional satellite transciever.
Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia6:30 PM
Why are there never pigeons here?
He drifted from one graceful tai chi position to the next, alone in a shady corner of the park. Despite the sounds of traffic, despite the chirp of birds, he found that the large coolibah tree gave off a spiritual enough feel to cancel out the sound.
I see pigeons in every park, yet there are never any here. It's almost as if they sense the solemnity.
Baihei liangchi becomes loxi aobu. Shouhui pipa into daojuan qung. No pigeons. I miss them.
One position flowed into another as he went through his routine. Only a few tourists leaving the nearby war memorial disturbed him with their footsteps. Though his eyes were closed, he could feel their curiosity. He was used to it.
Danbian. Yunshou. Danbian. "Let silent contemplation be your offering." The inscription on the pedastal of the statue of Sacrifice inside the memorial. No noise even from the pigeons. I can tell. It's the spirit of this place that keeps them away.
Beyond the coolibah, the cold concrete edifice of the Anzac War Memorial paid homage to the countless Australians and New Zealanders who had died in World War I. A sacrifice of more than 1/12th the population of the two nations was memorialized not far from the stocky, muscular Asian man practicing tai chi.
Haidizhen. Shan tong bei. Almost done.
Another set of footsteps didn't continue past him as the others did; this set rustling in the ground.
Shuzishou. Shoushi. Finished.
"Fi-nally!"
The high-pitched voice didn't stir Kenji Moriyama one bit as he went through some cool-down stretches.
"Yo, man, you listenin' to me?" The tall black man got up from the bench where he was sitting, adjusting his wide-lapelled denim jacket with a flourish. "We got the goods, bro, and you owe me on our bet!"
"I'm listening," Kenji replied, lowering himself into a hurdler's stretch. The black man averted his gaze; it looked outright painful to sink so low to the ground. Kenji could really stretch.
"Just came down from HQ. I told you, man, I told you! Did I not tell you we'd be facin' this down?"
"Mark, tell me what's going on." Kenji stood up, drawing himself to his full five-foot-six height. Barely impressive compared to his six-foot-four companion, Kenji's fireplug build stood out nonetheless. He looked like he was more prone to bench-press several hundred pounds than to run a marathon.
"No finesse, my man, absolutely no finesse!" Curtis "Mark" Marqata replied. He reached into his jacket, pulling out a plan manila folder and pretending to use it to comb his bushy afro haircut.
"Will you stop doing that in public?" Kenji sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Yo, man, nothin' to worry about. No tough stuff this time." Mark opened the folder, grinning like a maniac, pretending to hold it out like a restaurant menu. Kenji took it.
"Test launch data, telemetry recordings, a phone call from the commander of the Moscow Military District to his mistress... and his mistress' daughter..." Kenji raised an eyebrow. "Nothing other than the old standards. Tell me why I owe you a beer over info like this, Mark."
"Oh, I'll tell you why," Mark flipped the photos to another shot. "Take a look at this one, my brotha."
August 27th, 1981
United States Army National Training Center
Fort Irwin, California
7:45 AM local time
"Target tank, one o'clock!"
"Nine hundred!"
"SAY-bo! Shoot!"
"Sabot UP!"
The tank crew had the metal-backed target identified, targeted, and under fire in less than five seconds. It was the training and skill of a professional tank crew, yet Kenji and Mark—disguised as colonels—still flinched from the sound of the Rheinmetall cannon. It took a full two seconds to reach them at the distance of the observation post of the range.
"Advance to phase line bravo!" the command went out over the radio. Mark pretended to take notes over the crackle of the radio mounted on the observers' deck.
"Summarize the scenario for us, lieutenant," Kenji commanded the fresh-faced officer behind him.
"Sir!" the lieutenant shouted. "This scenario is classified top secret, no foreign nationals disclosable. I am required to inform you of the ramifications of the Espionage Laws governing the—"
"The colonel asked you for a summary, lieutenant, not an essay!" Mark snapped like an ex-drill sergeant.
"Sir! Yes, sir! This scenario is code-named LEAPING LIZARD, simulating tactical data of a human-shaped target of an approximate height of twenty-seven point two four feet, comprising a mass of no less than eighty tons. All mobility guidelines have been provided by colonel Leiber of Fifteenth Corps command! Sir!" The lieutenant couldn't have been a year out of ROTC with a response like that.
Kenji nodded. "Proceed with the exercise."
The lieutenant saluted, which the two men smartly returned. "Activate anomalous target," he spoke into a separate radio transmitter, keyed into the exercise command office.
"Roger. Tickling the lizard."
With that, the radio patched in to the tank crackled again. All three men raised individual pairs of binoculars to their eyes as another crude silhouette target snapped up. It had a squat, rounded appearance to it, like a bottle of pills on stout, linear legs.
"Target... target unknown, four o'clock!" the tank commander called out, a question mark on his voice.
"Eight... no, four—seven hundred!" the gunner had called out the estimated range, a quick application of trigonometry. He had been fooled initially by the silhouette; it looked far too human to calculate accurately. He knew he would take a good berating for having to rely on the laser-assisted aiming computer.
"SAYbo!"
"Sabot UP!"
The tank cannon fired again, but the silhouette had already flipped downwards. The bright tracer on the 120mm round flew harmlessly into the distance, eventually arcing back down into the sand of the firing range.
"Miss!" the gunner called out.
"Re-target! SAYbo!" the commander replied.
"Target at... target at 12 o'clock, six hundred!" The gunner hadn't even bothered to take a manual aim this time.
"Sabot UP!" the loader called out.
Again the tank fired, its speed up to an even forty miles per hour, fairly dashing across the desert. Again the silhouette dropped down, unhit.
"Target at nine o'clock, four hundred!"
"Sabot UP!"
"SHOOT! Kill that damn thing already!"
Just as the tank fired, a stream of paint bullets flooded the tank, fairly turning its left side blood-red.
"Exercise concluded," the radio circuits crackled. "Buffalo Six, RTB, acknowledge."
"Buffalo, this is Six. Permission to ask what the fuck that was!" the tank commander radioed back.
"Six, this is Buffalo," a gruff commander's voice got on the line. "Permission is denied. Return to base immediately. Acknowledge."
"Six is RTB!" the commander shouted back. "Six out!"
The lieutenant turned to the faux colonels. "That's all we've got to work with, sir. Is there anything else I can show you?"
"That's fine. Thank you, lieutenant," Kenji nodded. He turned to Mark, who was still scribbling notes. "Do you need any more information, Bill?"
"Not a thing, Sammy," Mark flipped his pad closed. "We'll see ourselves out, lieutenant. I expect all records of this exercise destroyed."
"Yes, sir!" the lieutenant saluted. It was again returned as the two men made their way down the stairs of the observation tower.
"What did I tell you?" Mark said as they climbed into their borrowed jeep. "We've been chasin' the mofo down for ages, and they've gotta have had at least one at some point."
Kenji nodded. "I remember seeing the old photos that REFUSENIK sent. I wish I knew what the hell they were working on, but it's bad enough with those capabilities that we've heard rumors about."
Mark handed over his small notepad as he started the jeep and shifted it into gear. "Judge for yourself," he said over the din of the engine, "but if my math ain't faded since that masters' I got sayin' I do math pretty damn well, those movements put it at about at least four times faster than a tank in any direction."
Kenji flipped through Mark's notes, scrutinizing the rough angular drawings. "Hmm. Seven hundred meters at 120 degrees to six hundred at zero degrees... then four hundred meters at 270 degrees. All in less than ninety seconds. Must be hell on the pilot."
"Yeah. Hell indeed. The g-forces alone oughta kill the poor fool."
"Gotta love the Russians and their views on human rights."
"Dosvidanya, rodina!" Mark joked.
"So what now?"
"We check in."
"Yeah, let's do just that. But where?"
"Think they'll mind if we take this into town?" Mark patted the steering wheel of the jeep.
"It's better than that rental we got. Jacobs'll be pissed."
The two men looked at each other for a moment.
"Let's take the jeep," they both responded simultaneously.
Sydney, AustraliaEighteen hours later
"Why does this come to me first..." the photo analyst moaned to his department head.
The department head patted the analyst on the shoulder. "I know. We all have to deal with Mark's handwriting at some point."
"But this!" The analyst gestured to the blown-up photo of Mark's notes. The scrawl was infamous around MITHRIL's Pacific headquarters for its illegibility. "You want me to decode the 216-letter True Name of God next?"
"Some of us had the good fortune to be stuck on the late shift when this came in," the manager laughed. "Besides, it's got a Gamma flag on it. That means it's hot."
"I'll get on it..." Give me a shadow and I can tell you how tall a missile gantry is on a cloudy day. Give me a blur and I'll sharpen it. I'll beat the damn Cray supercomputers at image-enhancement even when I haven't had my coffee. But nobody can read Marqata's writing.
"Intrusion access to DOD systems successfully penetrated on 8/26," the analyst read off as he peered through a microscope at a copy of the photo, moving it with his left hand. His right hand transcribed notes from Mark's scanned pictures. "Created surprise test orders under new personnel entry: Colonel Robison Leiber, XV Corps Training Command, transmitted through Pentagon Communications Room 4-B at 2330 hours. Arrived onsite at commencement of exercise. All resources had been constructed. All records were destroyed. Simulation of tactical capabilities of Leapfrog Project confirmed. Forward to Sachar. End message."
"Okay, you heard what he said," the department head shrugged. "I wonder why it came through us and not Communications."
"They sent this over the Redwood System," the analyst sighed. "Here, look at the original data." He held up what looked like a ream of dot-matrix printouts, littered with zeroes and ones. "Marqata wanted to show off their spiffy new computer thing, so he took a picture of his notes and sent it right to us."
The manager whistled a low, impressed whistle. "You mean this wasn't developed?"
"Chief, they're working on ways to send images without using film. This time, they took that backpack-size image scanner and converted it into a file. If they sent it to us over a floppy disk, I'd be able to do this a lot quicker, but they sent it over a damn phone line!" The photo analyst was visibly perturbed. "Do you know how huge of a security hole that is!"
"Yeah, that's pretty big." The department head was well aware of the fact that there was more than one Redwood System link operating elsewhere. He didn't have the heart—or the shared security clearance—to tell the analyst that a lot more images like Mark's would be coming in over the heavily-secured network of computer bulletin board systems that could be found by anyone with a few thousand dollars' worth of computer gear and enough time on their hands. "Good work tonight. You want some coffee?"
"No, thanks, I'm too stressed and I have to work on the latest round of Russian test launches."
"Anything fun?"
"The SS-18 is already rolling out and into the field. We can't do anything about that one now. Another weapons program out in the world."
"Yeah, a party all around." The department head picked up the notes that the analyst had transcribed. "Mind if I make a copy of these?"
"Sure, go ahead."
The department manager carried the notes into his office, matching the Gamma prefix against the list of existing contact projects. Only a handful of high-level raw data would ever go straight to General Sachar, head of the Intelligence Branch of MITHRIL's Pacific Headquarters. He raised his eyebrows when he uncovered the thin file marked with 'LEAPFROG PROJECT' in typewritten letters.
"General? This is Bryce down in the lab. We have you as primary contact for the Leapfrog Project?"
Bryce listened for a moment. "They created a fake entry in the Pentagon computers and dispatched it that way... yes, sir, we just got the info. Yes, sir, right away."
A few floors up, General Andrew Sachar set down the black telephone on his desk and rubbed his thin, stretched face. Dulled from too much time spent behind a desk and away from his old Australian Special Air Service squad, he could almost feel the beginning of jowls forming on his cheeks. MITHRIL was a particularly unique challenge to handle; his budget was quite high and his reach equally broad, but the extended intelligence net he cast usually gave an extended catch of intelligence information.
"It's really out there..." he said, his pronounced Aussie accent highly moderated by the disciplined voice of a special forces commander. "After REFUSENIK went off on a limb like he did, setting the entire thing back... they managed to bring in another one to work on the project."
General Sachar pressed an intercom button on his desk. "Global," a gruff voice on the other end of the line immediately responded.
"This is Sachar at Pac. Relay a message to the Commander for me: 'the tadpole is growing legs.' Message ends."
"Will do, general," the line clicked with a disconnection.
A whole new revolution in military affairs will spring up if this makes the field, Sachar prefaced a quick report off to MITHRIL Global Command Headquarters. It detailed the contact report from the photo analysis labs, and he accepted the notes that his secretary handed him. He made some fast highlights, including approximations on the unit's capabilities, and attached them to his report. One last thing remained.
I cannot help but urge action on this project, he wrote, removing the detached air that an intelligence update would normally carry. A valuable operative asked, and received, a suicide mission to prevent what we now face from ever coming into fruition. One Whispered was already lost to the Soviets, and to deny them her abilities, that operative—among our most well-placed—lost his own life as well. We still suffer from the fact that he managed to kill that girl in Arzamas and die in his escape attempt, more so from the fact that NAPA VALLEY is still at large. Again, the Leapfrog Project has emerged and appears to have been feasible enough to risk a direct intrusion and force simulation into America's military structure. The data I am sending proves that we are dealing with a threat more unbalancing than our failure to prevent the Shagohod from leaking out, or indeed the first nuclear arms race itself. If MITHRIL does not balance or eliminate the Leapfrog Project, the world stands to become a far more dangerous place within the superpower context alone.
Sachar, West Pac Intel
"Jennie?" he called out, stepping outside of his office. "Can you put this through on the wire for me?"
"Sure thing, general," his half-Irish night secretary responded with her trademark charming lilt.
"I still don't trust that bloody thing," the general grunted as his secretary stepped up to the still-new-smelling fax machine. "It looks like it'll shred the papers."
"We do that anyway, though, sir," Jennie replied quizzically.
Sachar grinned. "Don't let it do that first, love."
"Of course not," she laughed softly.
University of California Los AngelesComputer Network Facility
11:32 PM local time
"They should have gotten it by now," Mark shut down the remote terminal, its green monochrome screen slowly fading out.
"I hate going in forcibly like this," Kenji tossed his head in the direction of the two bound, gagged, and blindfolded students in the corner. "It's too damn late; they should have been asleep in their rooms, not programming at this hour."
Mark shrugged. "That Redwood we brought ain't anywhere near what the public is ready for yet. You wanna just jump into a computer science facility and say 'hey, guys, we hate to bother you, but we need to use your computers to connect to a BBS that's actually a front for a secret organization in order to send them intelligence information. Any problems with that?'"
"Still think it's all too easy," Kenji sat down next to Mark, spinning the office chair around to face his partner. "I can't believe the Army still hasn't found out that there's no such thing as a Colonel Robeson Leiber."
"Don't matter. Nobody gonna track down the Reptile." Mark pulled a battered photograph out of his pocket. "We just confirmed that whatever this thing was, it can dance around the latest and greatest armored vehicles out there."
"I still owe you a beer for that photo," Kenji joked.
"I know, I know."
Kenji stared deeply at the photo for a moment, scowling as if to accuse it of something. All that it was to the untrained eye was a crater amongst other craters, the shelled-out corpses of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and crashed helicopters. Still, the crater had an unfamiliarity to it that always caused the MITHRIL agent to scratch his head in confusion.
It was what appeared to be a leg.
"'Unidentified metal or alloy scrap, length at least five yards, width at least two, Negev Desert, August 15th, 1981, KH-11 intercept on treaty violation investigation,'" Kenji read off the caption on the back of the photo. "Why were we pulling info from the Negev?"
There was a low groan as one of the students started to regain consciousness.
"Come on, we gotta get outta here." Kenji stood up, his office chair's wheels squeaking strangely. "Think they gotta oil those wheels a little better?"
The chair made a light clank noise as it slowly impacted another chair. The squeaking sound, however, persisted, turning into a screech, then a warble, then silence.
"That's no office chair..." Mark's sharp ears listened for the sound. "That's a... that's a carrier tone?"
The two operatives turned back to the computer terminal that they had just shut off. The red plastic power switch was firmly in the OFF position, yet the green screen had come back to life.
CARRIER 2400
> AT&FN0M
> 62C5C64BEFF2C6673EB2F3ED3608CA6C071F60215AB267A70ECA0BEE3F92B9
> AT&FN0M
The monitor continued to spit out random hexadecimal numbers and digits, every time reverting to the AT&F string.
"What the hell is this!" Mark hissed, keeping his voice low.
"It looks like it's taking a call..." Kenji kept his eyes locked on the screen, reaching around the workstation table. "Pen, paper, anything!" He snapped his fingers urgently.
> AT&FN0M
> 8C114DBA6A6ECD0790B1ED48F4E43C9532EED2EE2006C7F115FC800341
> AT&FN0M
> F86EB98C7DEC4A1B9F9E537D87A25D4C
> AT&FN0M
> 219EFF3A1B98AC12
"Is it just me, or is it getting smaller?" Kenji mumbled, furiously copying the numbers down.
"Hex codes? Wonder why it's talkin' at us like that?"
"What in the seven hells are hex codes? You mean like a curse?"
"Naw, man, hexadecimal. Ranges from A to F and 0 to 9. It's machine code, like a programming language... looks like it's tryin' to assemble something on us."
"Assemble something?"
> ATF0
> XMIT OK
> READY
The codes had stopped coming across. Halving every line, it had dropped from sixteen to eight to four to two to plain English.
> THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THEM IS TO DESTROY THE WHISPERED BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE
> THERE SHOULD BE NO OTHER OPTION THAN PREVENTING THE RISE OF THE 'ARM SLAVES'
> -NAPA VALLEY
"NAPA VALLEY?" Mark drew in a breath. "Oh my God..."
Kenji was furiously watching the text scroll as he copied. "I know. I don't believe it either."
The cursor blinked slower than normal, the quickened pace having slackened down to what felt like the tolling of cathedral bells.
> ATH0
> CONNECTION HANGUP
"We have to get out of here, right now," Mark's voice lost all Bronx ghetto feel as he fell back on his training. "And we have to destroy this terminal, too."
Kenji shook his head. "We may have to take the entire facility down. Just the fact that NAPA VALLEY's name is being used means there's going to be some serious problems if this gets out."
"You fuckin' crazy?" Mark exclaimed. "We can't blow up a computer lab! Let's just pry the memory off the motherboard of the terminal and upload a worm to the server! It's messy, but we can always pin it on these guys!" Mark tossed his head in the bound students' direction.
"And risk an investigation?"
"Wait a minute, look!"
Kenji followed Mark's outstretched finger to the computer screen.
> UCLA TERMINAL SERVER 1.4.2
> PASSWORD ACCESS ONLY
> LOGON: ADMIN01
> PASSWORD: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
> LOGON OK
> HELLO, STEVEN W. FALKEN
> TODAY IS 27 AUGUST 1981
> THE CURRENT TIME IS 11:32 PM
> COMMAND: RDISK
> WARNING! RDISK WILL REMOVE DISK-BASED OPERATING SYSTEM
> 512 KB OUT OF 512 KB WILL BE ERASED FROM SERVER OPERATING SYSTEM
> ARE YOU SURE? Y/N
> Y
> INPUT RDISK ADMIN COMMAND: RDISK IMM
> YOU HAVE SELECTED IMMEDIATE DISK-BASED OPERATING SYSTEM REMOVAL
> INPUT RDISK ADMIN COMMAND-LEVEL PASSWORD: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
"This thing is... this thing is cracking its own passwords!" Mark marveled, scrambling down to eye level with the computer, shoving Kenji out of the way. The students started to muffle distressed sounds through their gags. "That was two thirteen-character passwords it just pulled out of thin air!"
"You're the computer specialist. What does that mean!"
"It means that this terminal, which was just powered off, somehow turned itself back on and loaded a program that someone managed to feed us remotely, then talk to us and access data that normally doesn't make it into the system memory..." Mark bit his lower lip. "This is a hacker beyond hacking that I've ever seen or done..."
> RDISK COMPLETE
> BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
> BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
> BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
> BAD COMMAND OR FILE NAME
The text fed down onto the screen, letting out a continuous beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeep monotone.
"Looks like we don't need to blow anything up..." Mark hefted Kenji to his feet, not an easy task considering his bemuscled partner. "They just erased the entire server. It's junk until they wipe and reprogram the damn fool thing. Let's go."
"Are you sure?"
"Bro, we don't want to be near this place in about ten minutes. Our friends're just about to start wriggling their way out, or campus security'll find them. I don't wanna look like you're out of a Bruce Lee film and I'm outta Superfly, so can we make our muthafuckin' exit already?"
"Okay, okay, we're going," Kenji calmly replied, holding up his hands.
September 1st, 1964
Arzamas-16 laboratory, R.S.F.S.R.
8:00 PM
"Connect main power cables to operational facility!"
The KGB guard stretched his arms out, grasping his standard-issue AK-47 rifle by its pistol grip, stamping his feet against the cold Indian summer night. Nizhny Novgorod was not known for its warmth at any time of the year, and the loudspeaker announcements never really interested him much.
"Main power cables connected. Power feeds from Pripyat, Leningrad, Irkutsk, and Moscow up and running at 110 percentof rated power."
That caught his attention. Four major cities? Are those code names? Or the actual cities themselves?
"Feed redirection complete. Attention all personnel, level-2 security procedures are now in effect for the test hangar. I repeat, commence level-2 procedures. All area security, deploy immediately to within test hangar."
"Yevgeniy! You hear that?" the guard called to the roving guardsman over the radio.
"Da, comrade, I copied it. I am moving."
"Roger. See you inside, where it's warm, yeah?"
"Da. Yevgeniy out."
His physical condition miraculously retained itself in the cold, thanks to all the running he did, and he was inside the massive test hangar in a few minutes' time.
"Good evening, Pavel!" the guard heard a call from the security check window outside the access door of the hangar. "Pass, please?"
"Here you are, Boris," the guard—Pavel—slid his laminated KGB security ID through the slot in the glass. Boris performed the perfunctory check and buzzed the door open. "Any idea what's on tonight?"
"Comrade, you'd count yourself lucky to be on the level-2 squad tonight!" Boris' eyes sparkled. "It's like a circus of white coats in there!"
"Is that so?"
"Attention all personnel, commencing gyro spin-up and check. Engage protective gear. VUR maintenance team, load Alpha software into memory."
"Alpha software loading commencing. Complete in forty seconds."
Pavel slung the strap of his AK over his shoulder, accepting a proffered helmet and protective magnetized goggles from a low-level technician. He made his way up a catwalk to get a better view, as well as to take his security position. The metal apparatus he looked down upon had him double-taking looks on the way up, trying to see what exactly he was looking down on.
"Alpha software has been loaded. System response is nominal. Ready for command input."
"Prepare to input test commands. All personnel, stand behind the red line."
"Pavel, are you seeing this!"
"Da, Yevgeniy, but what is it?"
"It looks like gigantic metal pants!" the other guard joked.
"Clear this channel!" a harsh third voice interjected.
"Da, colonel!"
"Right away, sir!"
Pavel peered over the catwalk guard at the huge, wiry mass in the middle of the testing hangar. As the scientists and technicians cleared a ten-meter radius, he got a clear full-on front view of the apparatus. Indeed, it looked like a pair of pants, but where the waist should have been, a massive, clunky device with whirling, orbiting arms sat atop a haphazard pile of wires, circuitry, and mechanical devices.
"Ring-laser gyro spinup complete! Hydraulic systems green! Mechanics, ready to commence testing procedure!"
"Command sequence input and acknowledged! Ready on execution order! Software, ready to commence testing procedure!"
"Perimeter secure! All access secure! Final radar sweep completed! Security, ready to commence testing procedure!"
"Attention all sections, this is Rachenkov," a gritty, gravelly voice echoed over the loudspeaker system. "Commence the test of the 'Vooruzhennoye Ustrojstvo Raba.'"
Over the ponderous shweeeeee of active hydraulics, the legs without a body let out a low hiss. The whining drone of the spinning gyroscope was loud enough to drown out most noise, but the extended, undulating whine of pneumatic pump extenders permeated the test hangar. Slowly, as drawn-out as slow motion could get, over thirty seconds, the left leg took a step forward.
"VUR stage one test complete. Begin stage two test," Rachenkov's voice echoed again. After another thirty seconds, the right leg had stepped totally parallel to the left leg. It had taken a baby step forward.
"Stage two test complete. Begin stage three test."
The whiiiiiiiine-THUNK whiiiiiiiine-THUNK of the legs' motion and footfall shook the hangar as its pace quickened, turning directly around in the space of forty-five seconds. Pavel had forgotten all about his rifle at this point; he had descended the catwalk stairs to get a closer look.
"Stage three test complete. Begin final stage."
The whine increased in pitch to a near shriek, but the legs began to move a little quicker. Tentatively, then with the finality of a chunk breaking off of an iceberg, the legs walked all of four steps, two on each foot, in quick succession.
"Test complete. Power down all systems and secure the VUR."
The lights in the test hangar flickered a moment, then went back to their normal intensity, as the power feeds were cut off and restored; a great cheer rang up from the people assembled in the hangar.
"Comrades! Congratulations!" Solov, the lab administrator, was pounding everyone on the bag, bear-hugging, shaking hands, grinning broadly. "The rodina is proud of you all! Congratulations!" He pressed his way through the crowd, dashing past Pavel on the catwalk towards the control room.
"Comrade Rachenkov! Congratulations, my friend! You have done it!" Solov exclaimed, bursting through the door, resplendent in his green serge KGB dress uniform.
Rachenkov was coughing harshly, doubled over. Solov rushed over to help him up, but felt a sudden whiff of air off to his left.
"Oh? You brought Natalya with you?"
The Asian girl, hooked up to a portable IV tree, stood an easy head-and-a-half shorter than Solov, but she bore her eyes up at him in a mix of anger and curiosity.
"Yes," Rachenkov sheepishly smiled between coughs. "She is the motivation and center of the project. I felt it best to bring her with us."
"This is strange..." Solov tilted his head. "I do not remember this as approved attire."
"I had a babushka from the village sew it together," Rachenkov explained the simple patchwork cotton dress on the Asian girl. "It is a festive occasion, and a young lady should look her best at such times."
"How very true. But enough isolation and throwing switches, comrade! Come, join us! We'll uncork every last bottle of vodka that we can find in this entire complex!" Solov thrust his fists into the air, grinning once again.
"Yes. Let me finish up here and I will be right down, comrade." Rachenkov again cleared his gravelly throat.
That was enough for Solov, who ran out onto the catwalk, shoving his way past Pavel, hollering propaganda slogans all along.
"So you see?" he asked Natalya, who looked at him silently by means of answer. "Now you see what it all is?"
The Shepatavshiy was silent.
"There is never an escape for any of the truly innocent in this world, Natalya. I wish to God that I could make it otherwise for you, my dear."
Rachenkov slouched forward, propping his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
"I would weep for you, and for everyone down there, but all that will bring is nothing. I will free us from here and end this. It seems nobody else here has the sanity or presence of mind to do otherwise."
To be continued...
A/N and cultural notes:
"Da" is "Yes" in Russian.
"Dosvidanya" is "farewell." Mark's joke is a bit of black humor, referring to the tendency of Soviet test pilots to crash frequently. It was passed around the test corps from the late 60s to the early 80s.