Chapter 23

 

The container of drones was, surprise, on the south end of the island.

 

Both caches were located on the outside edges of Manhattan, right up close to the docks. Each was also fairly close to a major entrance to the Zone. Shorter retrieval distance, potential use of a boat, some protection by wall defenses.

 

I chose the southern one for obvious reasons… I wanted to be near as possible to Hudson Street. Once I had access to the Zone, I needed to use it for all it was worth.

 

“Wait. I thought we were going to pick you up on the way out, like Dad and JJ used to with your father?” Astrid asked during the planning.

 

“That might have worked back then, but nowadays, you all have got to go pedal to the metal and haul out of there. I’ll exfiltrate on foot, like I always do. Believe me, it’s safer,” I said, giving her a meaningful glance. I saw the exact moment she realized what I was really saying.

 

“Oh, so you’ve got that whole exfil technique you were telling me about?”

 

“Yup. Ajaya’s secret sneaking techniques,” I said with a nod.

 

The others were looking at us funny. Well, Brad and Trinity were. JJ was studying the map and Martin was cleaning his Sig Sauer 10mm Caseless like a broody psycho.

 

“The cache is booby trapped, but easy for a human to disarm. I’ll go over that with all of you next. Astrid, you’ll be able to drive all the way around the container and park facing back toward the egress. It’s located on the Lower East Side, between the Battery Park entrance and the Brooklyn Bridge, which gives you two possible exits almost equal distance apart.”

 

“That’s pretty near the ship that originally brought the drones in,” Martin said, lifting his head from his disassembled gun.

 

“Real close. I was originally gonna use the ship itself, but it got a lot of flooding from when the military bombed it.”

 

“You’ve been in it?” JJ asked, fascinated.

 

“Yeah, all through it. Mostly a wreck. Some interesting stuff though.”

 

“Like what?” Trinity asked. Everyone in the room was staring at me now, hanging on my words.

 

“A couple of bodies, some booklets of programming notes, some spare parts, a few drones that never made it off the ship.”

“Bodies?” one of production staff asked.

 

“Yeah, three. I think it was two sailors and one of the drone techs.”

“How’d they die?” Trinity asked. Everyone was still listening.

 

“Spider sting,” I said.

 

“Sting?” Trinity asked.

 

“Spider CThree units use their seventh limb as a weapon. It can extend out further than their regular legs, and the end is a sharp claw. Leaves a distinctive hole in the victim,” Brad Johnson said.

 

“Distinctive?” another staffer asked hesitantly.

 

“Big round hole like the diameter of a baseball,” Martin answered, smiling a little.

 

“It killed the person who let it loose?” Trinity’s assistant asked.

 

“I think a lot of the shipboard personnel died that night. Whoever set the whole thing in motion had placed really deep, extremely dominant mission parameters. Basically: Kill All Humans,” I said. “Much of the ship sank and flooded when the Air Force bombed the hell out of it. These three were in the front drone hold, the only internal part of the ship still above water.”

 

“That would make amazing footage,” Trinity suggested, staring right at me.

 

“Amazing and really, really short. You’d get about five minutes of footage before the camera operator was swarmed by drones.”

 

“Programming notes?” JJ asked.

 

I smiled. “Yeah. Interesting stuff.”

 

“Those would be worth a small fortune,” he said, giving me a raised eyebrow.

 

“I’m sure they are,” was my only response.

 

“Just how much stuff do you have squirreled away?” Brad asked.

 

“We spent the better part of six years sorting through stuff, pulling some out, stocking hideouts, storing some things away.”

 

“Spent your whole life sneaking around, stealing other people’s stuff,” Martin said.

 

“As opposed to driving around and stealing their stuff?” I asked.

 

“We killed drones by the dozens,” he said.

 

I waved a hand at the photo. “As I said, that’s one of two—and I shot all of the drones in those storage sites in the last two years. Between us, Dad and I have filed more drone kill tags than all five of the current Zone War teams combined. You can check that factoid with Zone Defense.”

 

Martin opened his mouth to reply but his father held up a hand. “The proof, Martin, will be in the storage container Ajaya’s taking us to. All the rest of this is just dick measuring,” Brad said. “Sorry honey,” he said to Astrid.

 

She waved a hand, brushing the comment away. “None of this matters. How do we avoid being trapped and killed again?” she asked, looking at all of us but ending with her eyes on me.

 

“First of all, nothing said in this room gets written on any electronic instrument, email, AI, or spoken about on a phone call. That’s why I asked for an electronics-free meeting,” I said.

 

“You think the drones can somehow monitor what happens out here?” Martin asked, incredulous, turning to his brother and father like I was crazy.

 

“Yup. Op Sec is paramount. I’ve found indications that the Spiders have access to the Internet via fiber cables that pass through the Zone. Hence why you all changed your mission and still got hosed. Also why the Destroyer boys got whacked so easily.”

 

“You have evidence of internet access?” Brad asked. “And you didn’t share it?”

 

“Not what I said. I have indications, not evidence. Nothing I can bring to General Davis and prove. Just some intel I’ve been putting together, but it’s borne out by what happened to you and the Destroyers. I’m hoping to get some concrete stuff soon.”

 

“So every time we file a mission, the drones know about it?” Brad asked.

 

“I think that’s a recent development, which might mean they’ve only just hacked some server or processor somewhere in the information chain. Or else they’d have killed all the teams by now. The amount of prior preparation used in the attack on Destin and Troyer would indicate a long lead time,” I said.

 

Martin looked back and forth between his father and brother, but their troubled expressions showed that they likely believed my story.

 

“I’ve read everything written,” JJ said, then glanced at me, “at least publicly available, about the prior programming of the drones. Nothing like this was a part of it.”

 

“The upper-level drones, particularly the Spiders, all had advanced AI-specific computing chips installed. The Chinese were actually a bit ahead of everyone else at the time of the Attack. The Spiders were their very best design, with maybe the most adaptable machine learning systems of their day. They’ve spent the last ten years learning under combat conditions. I don’t think anyone on Earth knows what they’re capable of.”

 

“But preparing ambush and trap sites that elaborately?” JJ asked. “Where did they learn that?”

 

I kept my mouth shut. No real reason to point out that I’d been trapping and ambushing drones successfully at a really high level for the last two years.

 

“So operational security is paramount. Trinity, you have to ensure this information is locked down,” Brad said, looking at all the staffers.

 

They in turn looked to their boss, each giving her a nod. “You have my word,” Trinity said.

 

Brad frowned. “No offense, but this is our lives here. I think this mission has to go first thing in the morning and we file a broad plan with Zone Defense five minutes before we kick it off,” he said, looking at JJ, Astrid, Martin, and finally, reluctantly, me.

 

“Let’s do it,” JJ said.