Keyop tried to focus on the discussion at hand: what to do about the dozens of people in the ISO buildings, most of them in indefensible locations and many of them noncombatants.
Ignore them was his instinctive reaction. That was what G-Force always did. But this time they were their noncombatants, and it seemed unlikely that the Spectrans would consider anyone who worked in ISO USA to be an innocent bystander. Not killing them himself wouldn't be good enough. And they had no power and no comms. No way to even tell them to keep the hell out of the way. And barely any functional weapons.
And Mark hadn't given details, but from what he'd said, the Spectrans were going in shooting.
And he'd started to sweat again. He could feel droplets forming under his arms and down his spine.
And his legs ached like crazy. Sitting still wasn't any fun at the moment. Even if it was because he was, finally, growing. Two inches since he'd started on the drug-enhanced hormone treatment. It was probably just as well that transmutation wasn't an option right now - he had no idea what would happen if he tried when he'd changed shape and size this much.
Why hadn't he considered that puberty would suck this badly?
He really needed a new shirt. Better, he needed a cool shower, to drown his hyperactive sweatglands in antiperspirant yet again, and then a new shirt.
"Keyop?" said Mark. He suspected it wasn't the first time.
"Sorry, Commander. Not concentrating."
Grant was looking daggers at him. Anderson's jaw was set. Keyop dug frantically in his subconscious for what had been said last.
Information-gathering about the forcefield. His job. If he couldn't do it, he might as well resign here and now.
"Yes. I'll do that."
"We'll keep them occupied in here." Mark glanced at the clock. "We've got to get them on the back foot before dark. That gives us how long?"
"About two hours," said Grant.
"Are you sure about this?"
Keyop bit back the sarcastic comment about being far fitter than his commander was. "Yes," he lied.
"Be careful. You're not bullet-proof out of birdstyle. You're also not intimidating."
Like I've ever been intimidating. But birdstyle was, he supposed, even if it only went as far as when a Spectran saw him they'd assume the Condor wasn't far away.
"I'll be careful," he said.
"I still think I should go," Jason said.
"Look me in the eye and tell me you're not fighting a migraine right now, without your implant."
He is? Damn, I never noticed that. But Jason's gaze dropped.
"I need an engineer outside looking at that barrier. G-2, I want you to go take the drugs and then I need you with me. I left a working machinegun in a storeroom downstairs before I realised ours were useless, but we'll have to take more than that off Spectrans. We won't give them time to worry about Keyop."
Don't forget you're not in birdstyle. Mark had said it again, the last thing he'd said as Keyop climbed out of the second floor window.
Not likely. He felt naked in sweatpants and T shirt. Not as conspicuous as usual, though. Standard military drab green, as worn by the Academy cadets when training. Hopefully if he did get caught he could play the innocent kid.
He must not get caught. Or incapacitated. ISO was cut off from the rest of the universe, the equipment doing it must be out here somewhere, and it was up to him to get that forcefield down. Or, at the very least, to get back to black section with some information on how to do it.
He crouched at the base of the wall and considered his next move. From where he was, relatively hidden in an alcove, there was very little cover visible. The trees didn't start until almost at the forcefield, maybe two hundred yards away.
On the bright side, he couldn't see a single Spectran. Wade had said they were set up in the western parking lot. Keyop trusted the former Hawk about as far as he could throw him, but in this at least he might have been telling the truth.
If he could get out to the treeline, he could take a look at the forcefield close up. Keyop fingered his left wrist nervously. Wearing his bracelet was a risk, even with the borrowed wristwatch strapped over the top. And it was useless at the moment anyway. But if the Spectrans did have some location where electricity worked normally, or if he had a chance to disable the forcefield, he might need it in a hurry.
He considered his route again. The sun, visible only fuzzily through the forcefield, was getting lower. The ground wasn't as flat as it appeared from above. There were shadows out there on the grass. Hollows.
You've done this a hundred times dressed in red and yellow, he told himself. You don't keep your brains in your birdstyle. Nor your skills.
There was a route in those patches of shadow. Twenty yards out from the wall, then another ten slightly to the left, then fifteen doglegging back to the right. He made himself relax and absorb the line he'd need to take. Fourteen separate movements, and he'd be in the vegetation at the edge of the trees. Not so bad. He crept forward on all fours and peered round the corner.
Goons over to the west. A lot of them. Several dozen yards away, but there were enough of them that they'd never all be looking in the opposite direction.
You can do this. The sun was getting lower, and while that increased his cover, it also meant that darkness was getting closer. Pitch black, no night vision... if the Spectrans attacked then it would be carnage. On both sides, but he knew full well that Spectran high command wouldn't care about that if they could take out their target.
He told himself firmly that he was the Swallow, he needed to be over there, in the trees, and it was time to go to work. Three deep breaths and head for the first dip in the ground, in a fast leopard crawl. Pause for a moment, make sure he was oriented correctly, and go for the second. And the third, and on. His shirt was soaked through before he'd made it half way, but there was nothing do do but keep going.
Thirteen... fourteen, and finally there was longer vegetation, and real cover. He rolled to behind the tree and stood up slowly, leaning against the trunk, focusing on breathing. Slow, deliberate, get the heart rate down. Not something he normally had to worry about, when his implant was functioning and he could adjust the amount of adrenaline in his system almost without thinking about it.
It's not like you've never gone undercover before, he told himself. But he'd never done it without transmutation just a word away, and without his implant enhancements right there. He'd thought it would be easier once he started. It really wasn't.
Pull yourself together, kid. They're depending on you.
And you're in the trees, out of sight. You've done the difficult part.
And there's no way they're looking for you, or even in this direction. They'll be watching the building.
And you are the only person who can do this. Jason isn't an engineer. Mark isn't an engineer. Not to mention that neither of them is as good at the stealth skills as you are.
Go. Now.
He clamped down furiously on the instincts which were screaming at him to stay safe and hidden, and shifted slowly until he could see round the trunk. No bad guys within a hundred yards, and yes, those that he could see were watching the building and the open grassy area.
See, I was right.
He picked out his next tree, only three feet away, and slipped silently across to it.
To the next one, and the next one, and now a screen of undergrowth stood between him and the Spectran patrol. Much better.
Don't get complacent, he told himself, and headed directly for the forcefield, which contacted the ground maybe a dozen yards away and curved back over his head and up in a smooth arc.
The forcefield was a creamy-white smooth wall, to all appearances solid. It presumably hadn't severed anything it intersected, as he could see branches appearing through it. No signs of damage round the contact points, and twenty feet above his head a frantic thrush tried and failed repeatedly to beat her way through. Chicks on the other side, most likely. He hoped it wasn't chicks entombed in the barrier.
So, it isn't hot and it isn't charged. Normally his implant would warn him of any radioactivity. Not happening today. He had no idea what was going on with this electricity-doesn't-work deal. Obviously it did still work at some level or everything more advanced than a plant would be dead, but where the line was drawn...?
How it was being done didn't matter, not right now. Stopping it mattered.
The barrier was cool to the touch, rigid, as smooth as it looked. He'd have said it was moulded plastic except that it couldn't be. Scraping away the bark on a treetrunk showed the flawless white surface continuing inside it. He had no idea what could possibly do this.
But it must be powered from somewhere. They'd already determined that it couldn't be on the axis of the dome, which ran right through ISO's central courtyard and simply did not have a massive Spectran generator sitting on it. The only other logical place was somewhere on its surface.
Let's hope it's on the inside, not the outside. Keyop permitted himself one barely audible sigh and set off, working his way along close to the barrier. It must be a couple of miles round at least, and over on this side of the buildings, it was mostly in the trees. And it was early summer, with the vegetation tall, green and lush. He could flit from tree to tree with a only a minimum of crawling required.
Ten minutes of steady progress saw him past the west end of the main ISO buildings. Over here was where Wade said the Spectrans had set up their base. The greenery was especially thick here; ten feet of luxuriant shrubbery right up to the asphalt of the parking lots. Keyop noted a couple of unofficial paths and avoided them in favour of a flat wriggle route under more solid branches. The last thing he needed was to encounter a goon going for a pee.
He inched forward, wincing inwardly at every tiny rustle. There were animals here which could make at least that much noise, sure, but would a Spectran guard realise that? Spectra wasn't long on wildlife. And he could hear the guards, despite just how deaf he felt without implant help. Several were just a few feet ahead of him. Probably an officer too, given the lack of chat. He could hear footsteps and breathing, and at least one of them was sweating worse than he was.
He eased himself forward the last couple of inches to the edge of the drop onto the asphalt, parted the leaves a tiny fraction, and squinted out, letting his eyes adjust to the relative brightness. Several ISO officers were going to be extremely pissed. Neither of the Spectran transport craft had worried about finding a free parking space before setting down.
Two troop transports and at least ten alert guards; probably nearer twenty if their distribution was symmetric. But no sounds of generators at all. No cables. No transmitter dishes. He couldn't be sure, but... no, he was sure, as sure as made no difference. The shield wasn't being generated from here. Nor did the Spectrans have some way round its electricity-killing properties. Not a radio in sight, not a light on the control panel visible through the nearest transport's open side hatch - and as he watched, a goon panted round the nose of the transport, gasped out something inaudible to the blue-suited officer seated by the hatch, and then staggered towards the back of the transport and threw up.
You need to be fitter. Well, actually, he preferred it when goons were unfit and incompetent. But it was truly scary how much destruction they could cause as they were. What were they doing this time? Why were they here? Why hadn't they come in and shot the place up? The clues had to be here. They'd brought goons, not Blackbirds. They'd brought people, not assault weapons. It must be a grunt job, but something that lots of people did individually.
He strained his hearing, frustrated beyond belief. The officer was talking to a group of goons, right here, right now, he must be telling them what to do... and Keyop couldn't hear a word.
And then the officer reached inside the hatch and pulled something out to show them, and Keyop's heart stopped. It was a five inch diameter cylinder, four inches tall, black and white in alternate quadrants. Even without the obvious detonator on the top, he'd have recognised it as an explosive charge.
A frustratingly inaudible set of instructions, and he handed the charge to one of the goons, who unslung a long cylindrical tube from his back, inserted the charge, and swung it back over his shoulder. It didn't take much imagination to figure out what else was in the tube: another five, maybe six charges.
"Move out!" he shouted, and the squad jogged off in the direction of the ISO building's main doors. Every one had a similar tube slung across his back. Seventy charges, give or take.
And another squad came round the corner of the transport, carrying the same cylinders, and headed inside.
They're refilling. They've already deployed seventy charges, and they're back for more.
Black section needed to know about this, urgently. He wriggled back, slowly, carefully, silently, until he was out of sight of the transports, and then set off back round the inside of the dome as fast as he dared.