CH8 - Sunk Cost
— — —
"Have you ever sailed across an ocean, Donald? On a sailboat, surrounded by sea with no land in sight, without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come? To stand at the helm of your destiny. I want that, one more time. I want to be in the Piazza del Campo in Siena. To feel the surge… as ten racehorses go thundering by. I want another meal in Paris, at L'Ambroisie, at the Place des Vosges. I want another bottle of wine. And then another. I want the warmth of a woman on a cool set of sheets. One more night of jazz at the Vanguard. I want to stand on the summits and smoke Cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can. Walk on the wall again. Climb the tower. Ride the river. Stare at the frescos. I want to sit in the garden and read one more good book. Most of all I want to sleep. I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy. Give me that. Just one time. That's why I won't allow that punk out there to get the best of me. Let alone the last of me." - Raymond 'Red' Reddington, The Blacklist
— — —
Going after Bakuda was a bad idea.
I knew that.
But...
In that moment, as my brain struggled under the weight of hypothermia, I felt it so very clearly. The whispers extending forth, lending an answer when I could barely think at all. Fire the vortex gun.
Ever since her bomb bypassed my armor, I had the usual impulse to study a mystery, to dissect, to understand. A constant reminder. But her location was unknown. There was time. I managed to push it aside.
That logic couldn't hold anymore.
She was on her way to an impenetrable prison. If I didn't act, she would be gone. It was now or never. Other tinkers or their work were just… abstract possibility. The only certain answer to what Bakuda had done was Bakuda herself. I needed to know.
I wanted to know.
Even if I could put it in words for her, I knew Lisa would not understand. She wouldn't help, not until I promised not to put myself at risk.
A difficult problem… but as always, I found a solution.
— — —
[Stukholz-Gemeinschaft industrial fabricator initializing... fabricator online. Peripherals ready. Welcome, user!]
[Blueprint loaded. Loading sub-blueprints… loaded. JIT-compiling high-count identical components to HFMC format macroscale molds. Assembling molds and transient material formatting structures. Template: cast_steel_i76.]
[Molecular printing done. Casting T_wheel_base x 6, T_chain_base x 1152, T_armor_panel x 26… continued in logfile print_ ]
[Macrocasting complete. JIT-compiling high-count identical smartmatter objects to parallelized nanoassembler chambers to fit main fabricator work-volume.]
[Panels complete. Running stutter algorithm. Adding imperfections.]
[Constructing 22,539 miscellaneous small components: see log or expand blueprint in StukholzCAD for full list.]
[Miscellaneous small components complete. Pushing blueprint to available automechs... loaded. Pre-assembly to specified transport volume limits in progress.]
[Assembly completed to limit of transport volume. Rapid-release storage containers configured. Automechs backloaded for finalization. Loading additional cargo from manifest: paneling x 226, ]
In the dead of night, an eighteen wheeler, engine rumbling noisily, rolled up to an abandoned meat packing plant in a dilapidated city. "Walmart, Inc." was painted proudly on the side. It reversed smoothly, down into one of the rusted, filth-ridden truck docks, the trailer aligning precisely with the closed bay door.
Five minutes later, the semi-trailer truck drove away. Silent.
— — —
Lisa could not do it. Not in the time remaining. Not as she was.
I had a fix for that.
A mind-numbing cocktail of transhuman nootropic drugs, dispensed through supercharged nanobandages. A constant stream of medichines to mitigate the side effects. To actively, physically counter and repair brain inflammation. Especially in the corona pollentia, the strange brain lobe that interfaced with her power.
I told her it would help with her migraines, and she agreed. The result was everything I hoped for. For this brief window in time, Lisa used her power without limit. Where before she had to work with only a score of inferences, she could use hundreds in minutes, thousands by the hour. Divining passwords as needed from scraps, without so much as a single dangling hook of an email. Ripping symmetric cipher keys from the ether. Even accounting for the mood-altering effects of the cocktail, she was high on power alone.
It was unfortunate that the diagnostic stream showed the effective limit imposed by the migraines was adapting. Within a matter of hours, Lisa would be just as limited under this mix as she had been without. I almost felt guilty for not telling Lisa that drug-free, she would likely suffer hair-trigger migraines using her power for the next week.
I'd just have to make it up to her.
There was, however, a complication. Lisa identified the route, and it changed. She inferred the new one, and it changed again. Somehow, they knew.
So be it. If I could not know the route, I would simply await their arrival. Unlike the transports, they couldn't switch around the Birdcage.
Mount Assiniboine. One of the highest peaks in the Canadian Rockies. No roads led to this mountain. It was only reachable by six hour hike… or so the public was told. A tunnel entrance opened on the outskirts of Calgary and then traveled over a hundred kilometers sloping down, to somewhere far, far beneath the more than three kilometer tall mountain.
What laid beyond that point was known only by Dragon.
[Vehicles flagged by recursive potential transport flagging heuristics moving toward Calgary entrypoint: Six... Three…. Four... Three. Distance to Calgary entrypoint from staging point: 12 kilometers. Time for flagged vehicles to potentially reach entrypoint: estimated 30 minutes. Intercept window closing.]
— — —
30 minutes to identify the right vehicle, approach, and extract.
The truck started, the high-torque electric motor I had installed beneath the cabin whirring to life in tandem with the original diesel engine. The jury-rigged electromechanical system surged, and the squeal of rubber announced as I began to move.
[Power levels are at 98%.]
I swerved up the highway ramp at 34MPH, the trailer leaning dangerously. The moment I straightened, I dropped any restraint. 45. 55. 65. 75. 85…
At this point the PRT vans further ahead were already reacting, shifting their formation to completely block access to the van in the center. At this distance, the eighteen wheeler blasting radiation like a star, I could clearly detect the human figures restrained within it.
Their efforts were fruitless. The semi carrying 40 tons of dead weight in the back shoved through the PRT vans like bowling pins, slamming them aside into each other and into the guardrails. Four of the vans lost all semblance of control, flipping and coming to a screeching halt on the road.
Engine revving, the truck shot toward the prisoner transport. Side doors slid open on the PRT vans to each side of it, and the masked soldiers in black hung out, held by straps.
Grenade launchers.
They fired. A continuous bombardment, slamming into the semi, quickly reducing the cabin to a flaming ruin.
The burning truck pushed on valiantly, but they continued to fire, and eventually compromised the wheels. The burning hulk slid, tearing a gash into the road, and the distance rapidly grew as the broken vehicle quickly ground to a halt.
That was when the eighteen wheeler detonated. The PRT vans bounced and staggered as the highway heaved. One of the troopers somehow slipped, falling out the door and rolling to a stop on the road. I could imagine the thoughts going through the minds of the other troopers as the blinding light faded to reveal that section of the highway utterly severed, a miniature mushroom cloud forming above the dust clouding the roadway…
And I barreled around and up the last exit ramp at 70MPH, the six tangled-nanotube gecko-grip tires barely holding the carbon-black APC down as I leveled on, driving right at the convoy. The distance less than 200 meters. The long, menacing turret on top lit up, arcs of lightning traveling down the spaced out tines of the barrel. There was a brief, bone-deep vibration.
The superheavy railgun fired.
All the wheels on the right side of the prisoner transport simply vanished, along with a vast strip of the highway. If the damage made any noise, it was lost in the thunderous boom of the weapon itself. The targeted van spun madly even before the glowing-white edge struck the asphalt, bouncing and rolling to a halt. The PRT vans swerved as though to block my way. Erasing one of them from existence in another eruption of light and sound caused the last van to abort, retreating back down the road.
[Power levels at 36%. Warning: PSU No.1 heat levels borderline.]
The carbon-black APC accelerated, swerving around and braking behind the van. The hatch opened and I climbed out, moving immediately to cut through the van door with a plasma cutter.
When the door finally fell away, I saw the three prisoners. Lung, Bakuda, and one more.
[Paige Mcabee, alias: Bad Canary. Master 8. Her power requires her to sing. Low threat.]
Bakuda's mouth was bloody, and in the corner of the van I could see the broken, partially modified remains of a mask. Presumably Canary's, as her mouth was currently free.
Lung was staring at me silently, eyes slit. Bakuda's head hung bonelessly. Canary shifted, letting out a faint moan.
I climbed inside, dragging a thin hose.
"Who do you serve?"
Ignoring Lung, I pointed it at Bakuda. A stream of chemicals burst out, rapidly destroying the containment foam. She finally twitched, sputtering. "Ughh… the fuck?"
After a moment's thought, I did the same to Canary. She pulled her up, blinking slowly.
"Nice job, guy, but we had this under control," Bakuda said suddenly.
I turned to her.
"We are less than twenty minutes away from the Birdcage tunnel. You did not."
With that, I pulled a thick device off my back and shoved it over her head. Her muffled sounds of outrage went silent in seconds.
"Who do you serve?" Lung said again, his tone darker.
I gave him an indifferent glance. He glared suspiciously. I turned back to him, slowly, and gave him the answer that Lisa had given to me.
"Will you join us?" I said in Chinese. He recoiled, his body growing and steaming even as the wrecked sprinkler system sputtered water fitfully. The containment foam began to distort.
I frowned. "So be it. Suffer your last defeat in this American hell." Turning to Canary, I quickly sliced away her remaining restraints. It wasn't part of the plan, but… PRT response was slower than I expected. It might be possible, and if it wasn't… well, I'd already succeeded.
I offered a hand, and after a pause, she took it.
I yanked her forward, and she yelped as I threw her over my shoulder, leaping out of the van as the glowing steel around Lung began to bend to his frenzied movements. I jumped into the APC, and the hatch slammed shut. The countless temperature controlled wafers on the surface of the APC activated, modulating the infrared signature of the vehicle as it soundlessly burst into motion. The grip surface on the tires was nearly shot, but it had served its purpose.
The vehicle flew down the highway. A chemical rocket briefly activated as it reached the smoking crater, and it lurched upwards, shooting across and just making the other side. It swerved around still obstacles and moving cars alike at over 110MPH. Then, reaching a calculated point, it swerved once more, rocket activating, scraping just over the guardrail and disappearing into the trees.
[Modified neuralization device has finished. DNA recorded. Ego (neurodivergent) uploaded successfully. All nanites retracted. Medical warning: Subject has third-degree burns. Run post-script?]
With a thought, the device on Bakuda's head disassembled and then burst into flames, turning into a mass of slag indistinguishable from the rest of the blazing truck. With a roar, Lung finally tore free, bursting out of the burning wreckage, just in time for the approaching flyers— both the Guild and the Protectorate NW— to engage.
— — —
Deep within the wilderness, the APC trundled along its carefully plotted route, as expensive components were removed from the railgun by small automechs. Finally, they retreated into the hull, and the remainder of the gun popped loose, sliding off the APC as it went over the next hill. The APC rode a thin line through tree-choked woods, bounced up onto a dirt road, and briefly stopped, as a shell was slotted into place around the body, and a tarp was fixed into place.
A rusty pickup truck of unclear make continued on down the road.
— — —
/AN: I could have added an obligatory engagement with heroes, but it didn't work out. Mainly because EP tech is unlikely to be able to fight the branch that covers the Birdcage with the limited supply of nonlethal options, so either decimation of Protectorate NW or mission failure. While slaughtering NW was an option, sure, I didn't like it. OTOH I know many if not all the hits Madcap did had no capes, the PRT is dumb about separation of powers, and somebody tampered with Bakuda's arrangements and/or the transport in canon… Another player? Systematic sabotage? BUT WHO IS PHONE