Chapter 3 - Less Than Lethal
The garage door crawls from the ceiling and touches down on the ground, trapping Collins inside the abandoned warehouse. His mechanical legs strut down the concrete hallway. He nears the end of his short walk and enters a rundown room where most of its fluorescent lights are shot. To the left though, white light bleeds through the windows of what appears to be an observation room. Then the lights cut out into darkness as if some prankster threw the last serviceable breaker. Maybe a rat got carried away with its faulty wiring.
A screen of blue stretches across the windows and broadcasts Ramsay's blurry face. "Good. You made it inside. Don't mind the decor of this place. The CIA has yet to hire an interior designer to replace these outdated walls with chrome paneling. But enough of that. In Phase 2, it's all about stealth. Expect an increase in difficulty as you work in confined spaces, avoiding detection from security holograms and surveillance cameras."
"No live bodies, Ramsay?" says Ghost in disappointment.
"Nope. The brass banned intelligence guys from volunteering to be test dummies decades ago. They didn't want to risk having a freak accident during training."
"Hmm. I remember clubbing guys over the head and letting their bodies drop to the floor."
"And that's exactly why we don't use our own men as punching bags anymore!"
"Colonel," interrupts Drew in shock, "how are you talking to the ghost right now?"
"Oh, I completely forgot to tell you. That voice you're hearing? He's your AI mentor. We inserted his logic chip into your brain when you were in surgery. He'll be the second voice in your head from now on. When you need any helpful tips, information, or just conversation, S.F. will be there for you. He goes by Sly Fox."
"I'll keep that in mind." Seems like most of my colleagues are lifeless machines — me, on the other hand, well I can't tell what I am. A machine with a heart, I suppose.
Before Collins can conversate further with the Colonel, he vanishes from the windows and returns darkness back to the decrepit room. Drew roams around and nearly trips over a split cinder block. An oil slick on the floor causes him to lose his balance. Thankfully, those sturdy legs of his are there to keep him stabilized.
"Where do we go from here, Fox?" Collins inspects the stained ceiling above, wondering when this warehouse will bury him alive.
"There should be a door in that far corner. Let me mark it for you."
"What do you—" His visor comes down automatically to bask his eyes in the heads-up display. As promised, a spearhead marker hovers where the door is. Drew follows the triangle through his visor until the distance in meters reaches zero. His hand wraps around the brass knob to twist it until the voice stops him.
"Hold on. Try peeking through the door first. You never know who's going to be waiting for you on the other side. By opening doors slowly, you can avoid startling nearby guards. If you really want to assess a room before entering it, putting a snake camera through a door's crack will allow you to spy on what's inside."
"I wasn't expecting to get a lecture on my first door."
"My pleasure."
In his digital backpack is a fiber optic cable. He spools it out of his wrist and slips the device under the door as instructed by Fox.
"What do you see?" The camera turns left and right, delivering crisp feedback to Drew's wrist tablet.
"Umm, nothing much, really. The hallway is short, maybe for servicemen or janitors to access. I think there's a door at the end." Collins remembers to apply gentle force to the door when entering. Even though the coast may be clear, the same can't be said for all doors. Practicing precaution now will benefit him later on in the field. Taking a steady approach instead of a hasty one will become second nature to Drew. Fox will be sure to drill that in him.
Collins tries the second door. "It's locked."
"Check your digital backpack. The lockpick file should already be downloaded."
Shuffling through many of his gadgets, Drew comes across the crude lockpick and equips it. The tool may seem outdated compared to the rest of his equipment, but so are these locks. A disk ejects out of his wrist displaying the picks as they push up on the tumblers. Click. Click. One more. Click. With a flick, he turns the picks and unlocks the door in under a minute, but this could be done quicker with a disposable lockpick. The Colonel hasn't issued him one yet since they don't come by cheap these days.
Drew almost forgets, but he swaps over to his optic cable and snakes it under the door again. He raises the wrist tablet to his face, squinting his eyes. "Okay, half the room is dark, there's a tall crate in the middle, and a guard standing by a door in the far right corner."
"That next door is keypad locked. You'll need a code to get through it."
"How do I get the code?" Drew trails the snake camera back and stows it away in his digital backpack.
"From the guard. You'll have to sneak up on him, then put him in a chokehold. Convince him to cooperate so he can give you the door code."
"He's made of photons. How am I supposed to grab light?"
"Good question."
The voice shuts off for a second to dig through some data regarding this section of the training exercise. The holograms may represent human beings, but they are not actually projecting real people. These specific models were procedurally generated by a supercomputer in Langley. A hologram won't reveal classified information to just anybody, no matter how persuasive they are. However, what a hologram can do is run protocols, whether it be customer service or security. A terminal should manipulate a hologram to remind its owner what their password is.
"Drew, that crate in the middle might be a console that controls the hologram. Tap into it and see if you can reconfigure the IFF system."
"IFF?" asks Drew curiously.
"Identification, friend or foe. The hologram will think you're an intruder and sound the alarm. But, if you make it think you're friendly, the hologram should be more forthcoming with information."
"Understood."
Drew peeks out the door and enters the room quietly. He sticks to the shadows as told by Fox, keeping the console between him and the hologram. The terminal is too exposed for Drew's liking. It appears the hologram is in an endless loop of watching the door and terminal, turning its back every fifteen seconds. If Drew can time his movement right, he should be able to reach the terminal and configure his identity into the system, marking himself as friendly.
Once the hologram faces the door, Drew increases the speed in his crouch walk and interacts with the terminal. A mental timer ticks down in his head. Fifteen seconds. His mechanical fingers type away at the computer screen, jumping from one drop menu to the next.
Ten seconds remaining. He taps on the empty bar to input his serial code. 700912. Seven seconds left. The system orders Drew to put in the name of his commanding officer. Colonel Dax Ramsay. Two euphoric words flash back at him in green. Access granted. Four seconds. In a panic, Drew smashes his metallic fingertip hard on the screen, nearly cracking it and alerting the guard.
Three. Two. Drew's computational chip overclocks to spare him a few more seconds, slowing down time in thick molasses. After scrolling through dozens of options, he finds the IFF system and changes his status to friend.
The hologram glitches, and in an instant, faces the other direction. Drew freezes at the terminal.
"Greetings, Agent Collins." The guard awakens. "How may I assist you?"
Collins exhales relief. "What's the door code?"
"One moment." The hologram idles as it sifts through countless packets of data. "5-6-4-1."
"Thank you."
Drew approaches the keypad and punches the numbers in order. A successful chirp plays back at him, followed by the sound of the magnetic lock disengaging. The next room is almost identical in layout to the last one, except there is no holographic guard. Collins steps up to the metal door confidently, ready to disregard it as just some ordinary obstacle. Then all of a sudden, a forbidding buzz breaks his stride.
"What was that?" asks Drew in concern, jerking his head side to side. "Did I trip the alarm?"
"No," answers Fox. "The door is locked by a retinal scanner. You'll need a high-ranking officer to open the door for you, but since the Colonel isn't here right now, we have no choice but to hack it."
"I was never trained to hack!"
"Don't worry. Look in your backpack. The Colonel just issued you another gadget."
Drew scoffs in annoyance. How many times do I have to cybernetically unzip and zip up this glorified hobo sack! The cable to the hacking tool dangles from Drew's multi-billion credit tablet. Plug and play. He allows the sentient gadget to sniff out ports that are compatible. Once it locks on to the retinal scanner, it lashes out like a viper and sinks its fangs into the socket.
"We're connected," reports Collins with glee.
"All right. I'm gonna teach you how to hack. Look, don't sweat about it, if you cyborgs can do such a thing. It's not as complicated as you think. In fact, it's so elementary in design that the Agency has been using the exact same technique since 2005! Field agents can pick up on hacking so easily, it's like riding a bike. Those still exist, right?"
"Somewhat. There's hoverbikes for the Lower Gangs." Drew shakes his head. "Getting sidetracked here. Tell me how this, uh, hacking thing works."
"You should see a list of codes on your screen."
Collins tilts his head down and processes the numbers instantly in his 128 gigabyte RAM memory stick. "Yep." He notices a bar on the bottom of his screen decreasing in length. "Hey, how much time do we have?"
"Enough. On the right hand side, there are four numbers. The numbers will start to light up as time goes on. Those are matches. You might get lucky and have several of them light up at the same time. What you wanna do is lock on those numbers when they're lit up. Once you have all four numbers locked on, the system is breached. Be careful though. For each individual system, you'll only get seven tries to lock on, so time it right."
The first number out of the four lights up in lime green. Without hesitation, Drew presses the lock button, thinning his options out on the long list of codes. Another matching number comes through, though Drew is too busy looking at the list on the left hand side and misses it. Damnit. He primarily focuses on the numbers instead of the distracting list.
The bar is halfway depleted, and a match has yet to turn up.
"What's the difficulty of this system anyway?" asks Collins frantically.
Fox maneuvers out of his armchair and roams around the virtual data hub in search of his training manual. He puts on his reading glasses and flips through the yellow stained pages. "Uh, the difficulty should be normal, kid. Maybe it's bad luck, something the Agency can't train you for."
Come on. Drew pleads to the cyber gods that they show mercy upon him in the training room. They already seem to be having fun toying with him before he's even out in the field. His eyes strain at the screen, anticipating a miracle to come.
There's a sliver of bar left, and Collins barely has enough energy in him to overclock again. Pushing his boundaries can potentially fry his brain. All he can do is hopelessly watch the bar recede out of existence.
For a brief moment, he turns his head to the side and exhales defeat. It's just one pixel away from failing the hacking procedure. With his attention diverted elsewhere, the last three numbers flash all together on screen.
An internal voice screams from Drew's cochlear implant. "LOCK IT IN!" Those three words fire at him lightning fast. The high-pitch feedback snaps him back into the task at hand. He mashes on the lock button until all of the numbers turn woodland green. Collins dabs the beads of sweat off his forehead after that close call.
Access granted. The cable detaches from the retinal scanner and burrows back into its hole.
The metal door shuts behind him. "Thanks for the warning, Fox."
"You won't be so lucky next time, kid," says the AI in a strict tone.
"So what happens when I actually trip an alarm? Mission over?"
"No. It's not like those VR pods you civvies have become so fond of. Guards will react accordingly, yes, but that doesn't mean the plug will be pulled. As long as you don't kill anyone and avoid dying, you should be fine."
Drew gives a subtle nod and proceeds further on the linear path laid out for him. Alternatively, the CIA could kill two drones with one EMP blast by forcing Drew to navigate a maze of corridors, branching out his skill tree with orienteering.
This next section takes place in an L-shaped hallway illuminated by fluorescent lights. Fox mutes himself to test the initiate when he's left with his own conscience. Having a second head spoon-feed information is detrimental to Drew's capability of working alone, yet the Agency insisted on giving him a co-pilot. An ace, in fact.
As Collins nears the corner, he hears what sounds like a machine reeling something back and forth, then recalibrating. He peeks around the corner to find out what's making that dull noise. There you are. Utilizing the enhancement tool in his visor, he zooms in on a surveillance camera monitoring the hallway.
Its outer shell looks bulkier than the shoddy ones he's seen at the electronics store. That's one thick coat of armor you're wearing. A pistol caliber won't disable you. He shuffles through his deck of gadgets to look for some brand new cards to deal.
A silhouette of a handgun peaks his interest. He selects it. Pneumatic Incapacity Pistol. The PIP-82 for convenience sake.
He's never held a gun before, only in simulations, yet it feels so natural. The grip fits his hand perfectly. The weight of it is as light as a toy blaster, and it's compact enough to conceal carry. On the right hand side, the HUD on his visor tells him anything useful about his current weapon. Right now, it holds sixteen rubber bullets in the magazine and chamber.
These projectiles are useless against armored cameras. They'd just bounce right off!
Drew improvises for a way past this camera by examining his surroundings. He quickly waves his hand in the camera's line of sight to which it fixates on the moving object. Hmm. It'll only detect me when I am visible. Seems obvious. If there's a way to create darkness . . .
No switch around to turn off the lights. Drew stares up at the ceiling as he searches for ideas, and he's looking right at them. Once it clicks in his brain, he unholsters the PIP and aims it at the bright tubes. Thack. The first compressed shot breaks the glass casing, showering hundreds of tiny shards on top of his head. The visibility meter on his wrist tablet drops one tic.
Thack. Thack. The majority of the lights are destroyed, leaving enough darkness for Drew to move around in comfortably.
He turns the corner, but there is a problem. The two remaining lights closest to the camera have a protective pane of glass underneath them. Drew attempts to fire rubber bullets at them, hoping they will crack. Thunk. Thunk. The projectiles ricochet off the glass shield and almost smack him in the face.
Hmph. New approach.
His eyes lay upon the HUD again. He cycles through the different types of ammunition he can load into his PIP. Tranquilizer darts. Sticky cameras. Gas grenades. None of them seem to be of any use. Turning desperate, he toggles the mode on his weapon from FIRE to OCP, not understanding what it means. Optically Channeled Potentiator?
In a fit of experimentation, he points the gun at the wall in front of him and pulls the trigger. Nothing exciting happens, except for the red light displayed on the side of his PIP. He refers back to his HUD and notices a new detail, a battery meter. After fifteen seconds, the red light goes away. Fully charged.
The pistol aims at something worthy this time, the armored camera. Collins pulls the trigger again and watches the light on his gun turn green. The OCP device temporarily jams the camera until the battery is recharged. Fifteen second grace period. Should be plenty of time to clear this hallway and make for the door.
As a berry-blue flurry surrounds the camerain electromagnetic particles, Drew walks leisurely down the straight hallway and reaches the door with plenty of time to spare. As soon as he exits the section, the surveillance camera resumes its mundane routine.
The fan blades in the ventilation shaft cast shadows on the concrete floor, chopping away at Drew's dark figure. He moves away from the cool air and comes across yet another corner. So far, nothing seems to be provoking in this barren area, causing him to drop his guards.
He walks right down the middle, unaware that a spyful eye is scoping him out. He hears the distinct sound of a camera focusing onto his profile and gets to cover. Phew. It almost got me. Collins couldn't get a glimpse on the camera and identify its model.
With the help of his snapshot memory, he's able to travel back in time and analyze the frames of his past life. According to the visual data, the camera appears to be longer in length and slimmer in width than its blocky predecessor. Has to be closed-circuit television then. Fox, even though in sleep mode, picks up on that remark. This far into the future?
Which means, Drew continues, I can destroy it with one shot from my PIP. His visor lowers down. Eleven shots of rubber bullets left. He puts his back up against the wall and slides towards the edge of the corner. Much like the section before, the camera is attached to the farthest wall, giving it a wide cone to survey. Collins cannot shoot it out in the open unless he wants to be detected. He'll have to lean half his body around the corner and fire.
How can I be accurate while doing this one-handed?
Since Fox is already awake, he figures it's time to chime back in with the initiate. "You have an auto-aim feature," he says bluntly. "Basically, your suit uses up charge by linking your central nervous system with the automated targeting system. It can be activated at any time, but you'll have to wait for it to recharge, and that usually takes twenty minutes."
"How long does auto-aim last for?" Drew leans out from the corner, readying his PIP.
"Ten seconds. Try to use it as a last resort when you get caught. We're in training though, so you should be fine."
Collins extends his arm out and lets the string of code intermingle with his muscles. The surge of binary makes him grimace in pain as it physically contorts him. He has no control left in his right arm, for the targeting system has taken over the nerves in that limb.
His crosshairs aim true. Thack.
The rubber bullet blows a golf ball sized hole through the camera's lens. It shortly bows to the ground, crying sparks.
The targeting system relinquishes its control, returning it to Drew. He shakes away the pins and needles feeling from his static arm. "Well, that wasn't so bad," he bluffs. I can see why it takes so long for auto-aim to come back. Somebody would be damn paralyzed if they abused that kind of power.
"As you can see," lectures Fox, "taking out cameras isn't so complicated. It only gets tricky when micro cameras are involved. You cannot see them with your bare eyes. No, you'll need EMF vision for that."
"Are you just making up these acronyms as you go along?" Fox doesn't respond. "What's this EMF vision you mention? Another superpower for me to possess?"
"Don't get too overzealous. EMF stands for Electromagnetic Field, meaning you can seek out electronic signals hidden in plain sight, like micro cameras. Surveillance is a bitch to deal with nowadays; a lot more accessible than it was decades ago. Personal security is now top priority in this country. Anyone can afford installing micro cams in their households, even commoners. And the worst part? They can be easily hacked by entry level programmers. Terrorists, corporations, and governments, spying on innocent people—"
"Sorry to interrupt, Fox, but we have a phase to complete," reminds Drew.
"Oh. Right. I may be nothing more than ones and zeroes, kid, but the old man in me is still there. Get used to hearing me ramble like your grandpa."
"I'll try to keep an open mind. Now, where were we?"
Collins opens the door to a long, dark room with observation windows lining the left side and an armored camera guarding electrical boxes on the right. A tingly feeling hits Drew out of nowhere. He chalks it off as fatigue and moves on, pulling out his PIP once more to jam the fat camera. The trigger is pulled, but nothing happens. No red or green light. The camera remains operable.
"Hey, what happened to my OCP?" Collins shakes the gun around like a baby rattle, thinking physical treatment will fix this technical problem.
Fox attempts to reference Drew's mission notes in the data hub, but the files are corrupted. "There must be a jammer nearby," he assumes.
"Is there a way to turn it off?"
"They are nearly impossible to hack into, but you can disable them manually. The problem is, that jammer is tucked behind a chain link fence."
"I can cut it open." Drew tinkers with his multi-tool wrist. "Oh, nevermind. The jammer is interfering with my laser cutter. It won't activate."
"Yeah, you'll quickly learn to loathe jammers. They can render a cyborg useless."
"And after all these years, the government hasn't found a way to counter them?"
"Take it up with the Department of Defense."
Fox looks at the outside world through Drew's eyes, imagining they are port windows on a ship. He's had his fair share of cruises with the Navy, though they aren't his fondest memories. The smell of engine oil comes to mind. "You'll need to improvise like any good agent would."
Collins struggles in brainstorming now that his cognitive power is reduced to twenty percent. Not that it made much of a difference since he retains some of his past mortal flaws through the personality module. He hasn't completely lost his sense of being human. Yet.
Stick to the shadows. Those words resonate in Drew either because Fox is telepathically dropping him hints, or his memory is serving him well. There's enough blind spots in the way for him to dash from cover to cover until he reaches the end. He just has to time his movements perfectly.
He waits for the camera to face the opposite direction, where the exit lies. Despite his limitations, Drew's dash mechanic is still a viable option, for it mainly requires hydraulic fluid. Only five percent of power is needed for the rotary discs to spin in his hips.
Once the camera is at the far right position, Collins makes for the first blind spot, a tall crate. He plays the waiting game again as the camera sweeps back to the far left. His body rolls out from cover and into the light. The camera starts to turn right, chasing after him. He hears that spine-chilling sound of the camera focusing its lens on him. A few wooden planks lying up against the chain link fence provide a safe haven of darkness for Drew to hide in. He basks in the dark like a hot runner jumping into a pool of water.
The rest of the way is unlit, allowing him a safe passageway to the exit door. He catches his breath for a few seconds before running the snake cam under the door. It's another L-shaped hallway, however, two holographic guards patrol up and down each straight. Their walking patterns are coordinated in a way where either one has a visual on the door, making it a real challenge to sneak through this section.
They just want me to get caught at this point. "Well, any ideas, Fox?"
"Your PIP is full of them." Drew decides not to argue back at his AI mentor and just follows its suggestion. Artificial Intelligence knows best, right? What's the point in having a companion when they are as useful as a bystander?
He draws out his pneumatic pistol. Let's see . . . rubber bullets won't take you holo bastards out, and neither will gas. And last but not least, sticky cameras. The only thing they're good for is recon. His foot taps impatiently. What else can I use these for? Time for a test run, I suppose.
Once the guard in front is looking the other way, Collins peeks the door and fires a camera down range. It passes right through the hologram and sticks the landing on the far wall with its tripod legs. Just like the fiber optic cable, he can remotely watch the sticky camera from his wrist tablet. He messes around with the zoom function for a little bit. Two options are available on the bottom screen. The camera can make a noise as a diversion to guards, or it can deploy knockout gas at the expense of its own destruction.
Drew chooses to distract the holograms. Click. Click. Click. The guards immediately break from their patrols and investigate the strange noise. They share their programmed reactions to one another in the case their suspicion is aroused. Now their backs are facing Drew. He slips out into the hallway and dashes silently to the right where the exit is.
As he pivots his foot, the rubber treads on his boot squeak against the floor. The guards straighten their backs and prepare to turn around. On pure impulse, Drew depends upon his PIP to somehow aid in his escape. He has the sticky camera self-destruct, releasing a cloud of CS gas into the air. The holograms look around the blinding screens in confusion, trying to decipher what the chemical compounds are.
2-chlorobenzaldehyde and malononitrile. Appropriate response? Incapacitation. The holographic guards strobe rapidly, then completely disappear.
Collins closes the door behind him, resting his hands on his knees.
"That was some quick thinking back there, kid," says Fox like a proud father.
Drew doesn't know how to respond to that. "I did what I could."
"Now we're just one section away from completing Phase Two."
The latex heart in Drew flutters. "Does that mean – I get to become an official Stealth Cyborg? The very first one the NSA has ever seen?"
The AI holds back genuine laughter. "We'll hear what Ramsay has to say about our performance soon. We're not done yet."
"You're right. Getting ahead of myself."
In the next room, one can hear their own heart thump. That's because it's an anechoic chamber. The walls, even the floor, are made up of foam wedges where sound frequencies are supposed to get absorbed. Collins notices there are some microphones dangling from the ceiling.
"The ultimate stealth test." Fox lowers his volume in Drew's ear, for the microphones can potentially pick up on his echoing voice. "Don't say a word. The sound engineers can hear the tiniest things in this room. Even mosquitos."
Drew nods, then bends down into a crouching position. Heel to toe. He treads carefully on the platform and nears the edge where there is a slight drop off. The dampeners in his suit automatically engage to compensate for the impact of his fall. Fwoop. Collins lands as soft as a feather on both of his feet.
Vice versa. Now he must jump up onto the platform. His feet spring off the floor and meet the ledge, though they are halfway over. Drew fights for his balance as he wobbles back and forth with his heels hanging over the edge. They dip below for a second, sending a spike of adrenaline into his beating heart. He can hear it pumping so clearly. The core in his suit tightens to stabilize him.
Finally, he pulls himself forward before this dangerous game of teeter totter causes him to fail the last section of his training. He steadies his breath for one more ledge to climb up. It's shorter than the last, so he need not worry. Using one leg at a time, Drew vaults his way up to the top platform without breaking silence.
Walking the rest of the course is a matter of situational awareness. Heavy chains hang stationary from the ceiling, waiting for somebody careless to bump into them. The suit boosts his agility as he weaves in and out of the chain forest like a slithering snake.
So this is what sneaking through a slaughterhouse feels like. Cannot wait to infiltrate one.
The last strip of grating is sprinkled in shards of glass. For every dreadful step Collins takes, he cringes strongly from the crunching underneath his boots. He monitors his acoustic footprint by checking the sound meter on his heads-up display. The bar indicates he's generating about half a tic's worth of sound pollution.
Finishing it off with one final crunch, Drew clears the stretch of broken glass and finds himself at the footsteps to one of the last doors. He takes one good glance around the banana-yellow anechoic chamber, flashes a quick smirk, then leaves.
Stepping across the finish line of training, Collins encounters one last room. It's so pitch black in there, he can't even see his own nose. Somewhere in the abyss of darkness, he can make out a glowing green EXIT sign. He approaches the door and tries the handle, but it won't budge.
"Why is this locked?" wonders Drew. He shakes the handle up and down in quick succession. He equips the lockpick, but the door has a keypad. The system is far too sophisticated to be hacked locally. As a last resort, he uses brute force, bashing the side of his suit as hard as he can against the door. Clank. Clank. Not even a dent.
"The CIA won't be happy with you damaging their property," teases Fox.
"Funny." Collins pounds his fist on the glass pane. "How do we get out of here?!" He paces around the room anxiously, muttering a few choice words under his breath.
Fox pulls up the schematics on the Farm and figures out their exact location on the map. "So we're in Warehouse 2, waiting room. I'm not seeing any vents that lead out of here." The AI checks the surrounding area for any points of interest. "Hmm. There's a security booth right next to us. Switch to your night vision. It'll help you see better."
Drew's visor comes down and soaks his eyes in monochrome green. He finds four large bullet-proof windows belonging to the security booth which is oddly vacant. Otherwise, an officer would've buzzed them through.
"Remotely tap into one of those computers," orders Fox. "See if one of them has the door code."
"Okay." He scans through the double-paned window and gains access to a station guard's personal computer. After scrolling through irrelevant messages and notes, Collins grabs those four golden numbers off the machine and punches them into the keypad.
It's 2-0-0-2. "You don't think we're under attack, right?" asks Drew with unease. He hesitates pressing the last button that'll unlock the door.
The AI checks all of the CCTV cameras and satellites for any suspicious personnel without IFF transponders. "Radar and surveillance shows no hostiles . . ."
"Then where is everybody?"
Pshh. The magnetic lock on the door disengages. Drew steps back and gets into a defensive position. His best piece of concealment right now is a potted plant. Despite it being an L-T-L weapon, Collins readies his PIP anyway to incapacitate whatever threat comes through that door.
Huh. And here I am, the starry-eyed initiate who's about to take all of his training experience to single-handedly thwart a siege. Great.
As soon as the door handle goes down, Drew tightens his grip on the gun with white knuckles. Hopefully, staying in the dark while using night vision will give him some leverage in a gunfight, unless these armed assailants are one step ahead of him.
Then, the lights turn on, blinding him.
"Stand down, Agent," says a familiar voice.
"Colonel?" Collins rubs his eyes. "What were you thinking, sneaking up on me like that?! I could've killed you!"
"Pfft, with that peashooter?" He points at the PIP-82. "The most harm you can do is give me a splitting headache." Ramsay sits himself down on a nearby waiting chair. Drew follows suit.
"What have you been up to while I was in training?"
"Talking to the Joint Chiefs about Fifth Echelon. Right after you had finished Phase One, I decided to fly on over to the Farm. I — wanted to congratulate you. In person. If you'd failed, well, I would've washed you out then."
"Which means I'm a Stealth Cyborg?" Drew's face lights up in ecstasy.
"You were already one after you went through that surgery. I just wanted to show you the ropes before assigning you to your mission."
Drew's eyes fill with intrigue. "Tell me more about this mission, so to speak."
"I was discussing it earlier with the president. But first, I want you to rest for a few days before you attend briefing. Trust me, you're gonna wish you had more time off."
Who does he take me for? "Sounds good. So, where am I bunking in, Colonel?"
"You'll be staying at an Agency safehouse in Fairbanks, Alaska. A taxi drone will take you to Andrews Air Force Base which you will depart from in a Concorde II supersonic transport."
"That's a lot of hospitality, Colonel."
"It's the least the Agency can do." Ramsay goes for his e-cigar. "Any questions?"
"Why are the rules of engagement non-lethal only? Shouldn't Stealth Cyborgs have the choice to defend themselves with deadly force?"
"No," says Ramsay as a matter of fact. "Stealth Cyborgs aren't trained to be killers. As far as anyone outside of the NSA knows, they don't even exist. Your ancestors, the Splinter Cells, were very much like you. They were agents of the government tasked to carry out clandestine operations, but in the process, got their hands dirty. I'm talking assassinations on political opponents. Splinter Cells also left dead goons and shell casings behind."
The Colonel blows a cloud of smoke out of his mouth. "In this day and age, Washington doesn't tolerate violent acts and deaths anymore. What the politicians want more than anything in this world is saving face, and they can't do that when government agents are killing enemies of the State left and right. Do you understand the political climate we're in, Agent?"
"Yes, Colonel." Drew remembers when the social ladder system came down on America like an anvil in 2079.
"Good." He pats Collins on the back, then reaches into his pocket to give him something of value. "Take this. It's your Agency badge. That's how you'll get around, so don't lose it. The chopper is waiting for you by the hangar. All of your basic needs will be met at the safehouse. I doubt you have plenty of worthwhile belongings to pack back home."
Agent Drew Collins gives Colonel Dax Ramsay a sharp and snappy salute. The Colonel acknowledges by returning the favor.
"I'll see you in one week, Agent." Drew does an about face, and marches out the door, leaving the Colonel alone in the waiting room.
The commoner hasn't set one foot on a drill deck, yet he marches better than the average infantryman in this country. Bless that Doctor Henderson. He knows how to splice memories well.
Colonel Ramsay enjoys his last smoke out on the Farm's rooftop before the mango flavored tobacco juice in his e-cigar runs out. He admires the beauty of the sun setting in the west. All I'm missing is a lawn chair and a cold beer. His R&R fantasy is shattered once he hears the blades of a chopper approaching.
He boards the taxi drone and lays himself across the three passenger seats. His body aches all over, and his eyelid has a weight attached to it. The Colonel gives into his drowsiness for once and allows himself a nap. His closed eye bounces all around in his sleep like a pinball. Then, it freezes.
Sometimes, the nightmares come to haunt him, and every time, he can never escape them.
