Crayon Eater
A week went by in nonstop activity that somehow didn’t seem to go anywhere. Jake and Safan pored over street maps and structural diagrams—blueprints, Nadine gathered, of the lab or facility or data center or whatever it was where the key to her redemption could, they said, be found. Liz usually made herself scarce, off exploring Terracone’s network like an archeologist mapping out some lost city.
No, not like an archeologist, Nadine thought. More like a looter. She and Safan spoke every evening about what she’d found, sometimes with Jake, sometimes without.
On one of the days Jake made himself absent from the conversation, she found him stripping his handgun on a makeshift table made of a blue plastic shipping tray across two derelict server racks in what had once been an office, tucked away in the small building south of Houston. Nadine hadn’t set foot outside in days. She’d watched him re-assemble the gun, every move rehearsed as a ballet dancer’s routine, not hampered in the slightest by his mechanical claw. “Thumb safety,” he said, showing her a lever. “Only reason you didn’t kill Safan’s goon.” She shivered, remembering the nameless man stripping his gun outside Mayor Tony’s office, what had happened after…
“Nervous?” Liz said the next day.
“What would you say if I told you no?” Nadine said.
“I’d say you were a liar, or a crazy woman.” The chair whirred, wheels coming together as the old woman rose to Nadine’s eye level. “Shit gets real pretty soon.”
Nadine probed her feelings and found a generalized sort of tension, but a curious lack of fear. “One foot in front of the other,” she said. “I want this to be over.”
“The boys are polishing up the last details now. I’m so far inside Terracone they couldn’t get me out with a crowbar even if they found me, which they haven’t yet, but I don’t have access to the network at Data Storage Systems and Services. Different system. Doubt there’s more than a dozen people at Terracone who even know DS3 exists. Highly secret, need to know, very little communication in or out. Skunkworks.”
“Skunkworks? What’s that mean?”
“Means we have to get a lot of information indirectly.” Her chair whirred as it resumed its normal height. “We’re gonna have to go in dark, of course. No implants. Jake’s none too happy about it. The gunsight on that artillery piece of his is paired to his implant. Not that that’s any use if someone can make him see things that aren’t there.” Liz’s eyes, wired and alert in her weathered face, studied Nadine. “But that’s not what I came here to talk about.”
“What, then?”
“I came here to see how you’re doing.”
“How I’m doing.” Nadine turned the words over in her head, like some ancient mantra whose purpose she did not understand. “How I’m doing. I’m not sure there’s any ‘I’ to be doing, any more. You know, I always thought I’d be special, that I’d be a movie star. Even as a kid.” She laughed bitterly. “Though I suppose to you, I’m still a kid, aren’t I?” She sat on an empty crate that looked like it had once held something heavy and pulled her knees to her chest. Half the building housed racks of servers, their blue and green lights winking like fireflies. The rest was mostly empty, littered with trash. Jake and Nadine slept in sleeping bags on slabs of memory foam on the floor in another old office, and showered in an abandoned executive washroom. She still hadn’t bought any new clothes, and the clothes she wore were starting to chafe.
Liz looked at her with a thoughtful expression until Nadine dropped her eyes. “So now here I am,” she went on, “at the unfriendly end of a vast and dangerous machine trying its damndest to crush me, because I fell in love with a woman at a dance party. Wrong place, wrong time. How am I doing? I don’t know how to answer that.”
“I imagine you already have,” Liz said. “Anyway, it’ll have to do. Need you to be part of the meetings now. Like I said, shit’s about to get real.”
Nadine spent the rest of the day in a claustrophobic room outfitted with a shiny new holographic projector, listening to Liz, Jake, and Safan. Safan did most of the talking. “Thing about Data Storage Systems and Services,” Safan said, “is it kinda feels like someone’s private fiefdom.”
“Martin Taylor?” Nadine said.
“Probably. Lotta money going in, and I mean a lot, routed through this whole network of subsidiaries and shell companies from here to California, but not a lot of revenue on the books.” Dust danced in the air above the projector. A three-dimensional blueprint hung in space in front of them, a representation of a building, color-coded to show power lines, data conduits, water, sewer, alarms. “Place has been a money pit for years. From the internal memos Elizabeth found, board’s been getting restless for a while, and I don’t blame ’em. Financials are rather alarming. They always seem to be on the verge of something big, something that’ll make Terracone enough money to justify their existence, but so far they’ve never quite delivered. And that gives us an advantage.”
“How so?” Nadine said.
“Terracone’s keen to reduce the burn rate. First thing any corp does to reduce burn is get rid of warm bodies, and the first warm bodies to go are usually security. They’ve been consolidating. Relying more and more on automated perimeter security, drones, that sort of thing, less and less on people with guns. Nobody even knows the place exists, it’s out in the middle of nowhere, you can’t get close without being spotted from miles off, right on the edge of a phantom city so it’s not like you got people knockin’ on the door. Now, getting inside without being pegged thirty miles before you ever get there, that’s a problem. And since nobody to speak of lives in Amos City ’cept Terracone’s own, strangers stand out.”
“So how do we get in?”
“Easy.” Safan folded his arms. “They invite us in.”
Nadine blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Kinda the same as the penthouse, only in reverse. Elizabeth cozies up to their systems, sets off an alarm. Chemical disaster, hazmat situation, whatever. For a data processing outfit, they work with some weird shit. They call the mothership, ask for help, we intercept that call, send in a hazmat team. Building should empty itself out for us. Jake goes in, grabs the storage drives, bing bang done.”
“I thought Liz didn’t have access to their network,” Nadine said.
A muscle worked in Jake’s jaw. Safan’s hands closed around the armrest of the cheap office chair he sat in. “Aye,” he said. “That’s where you come in.”
“Me? How?”
“How tall are you?”
“What?”
“Your height. How tall are you?”
“About a hundred and fifty-seven centimeters. Five foot two,” she added for Liz’s sake. “Give or take.”
“You see?” Safan said. Jake grunted.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Nadine said.
“Amos City,” Liz said, “is a very modern city. That means modern infrastructure. The roads aren’t graded and poured. They’re hauled in in prefab sections, roadway on top, service corridors underneath. Water, data, power, all in pre-formed channels in the sections. Each section is assembled, shipped out, and buried.” The projection changed, became a section of road about as long as a bus, with a rectangular concrete tunnel beneath. “Whole town’s built that way. Designed to let people pull cable or fix water pipes without tearing up the road. Well, I say people. Utility robots do most of it. It’s a tight fit for a person, but should be easy for you.”
“No.” Nadine shook her head. “No, no, no, no. You can’t be serious. No way. Last time I went down in a tunnel—”
“How you sleeping?” Safan said.
“What?”
“Nightmares? Sweats? Panic attacks? Flashbacks?”
Nadine hugged herself tightly. “No.”
“See? No PTSD. Jake’s magic pills did the trick, right? You’ll have no problems. Besides, you’ll have backup.”
“Jake’s going with me?”
“No. We need him to go in the front door. You’re going under, planting a data tap that lets Elizabeth into the alarm systems. Not the whole network, that’s too heavily protected, but the alarms are their own thing. Here’s your backup.”
Safan slid a small black case across the table to her. It reminded Nadine a bit of something an engagement ring might come in, about the same width but three times longer. She snapped it open. Inside lay a thing like a mechanical wasp, smooth glossy black, with thin wings of some clear plastic. The front was pointed, with two lenses that suggested eyes. Overall, it had a sleek, menacing look that made Nadine’s skin crawl. “What is it?”
“Swarm drone. A bunch of these will follow you in, all controlled remotely. Anyone turns up to give you grief, well…” A nasty grin crossed his face. “You designate a threat. The swarm picks the closest drone, it locks on, fires a propulsive charge, tears into the target and then explodes. Core is a foot of grooved tungsten wire dipped in wax impregnated with quick-acting nerve agent, wrapped around half a gram of crystallized high explosive.”
“Jesus.” Nadine dropped the case on the table. “Who comes up with shit like this?”
“Subsidiary of Terracone’s biggest competitor.” Safan laughed as if at a private joke. “Expensive as fuck. Been spending that advance you gave me. We’ll have an operator outside, piloting the swarm to give you backup. Everything goes well, you splice into the alarm controls, Elizabeth does that thing she does, they call the cavalry, we ride up, you meet Jake inside, grab the drive, get your life back.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
Jake clenched his jaw. “I’d still feel better if you gave her a gun.”
Safan shook his head. “She’s not qualified.”
“Bet she’s shot more people in the last month than you have in the last five years.”
“She’ll have the swarm—”
“She gets a gun.”
Safan spread his hands. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Who’s the operator?” Jake said.
“Guy I know,” Safan said. “Merc. Experienced.”
“You trust him?”
“More than I trust you.”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“You got a better idea?” When Jake said nothing, Safan nodded. “That’s what I thought. Get some sleep. Both of you. I’ll introduce you tomorrow, we’ll run through it all, make sure we’re on the same page.”
That night, as Jake and Nadine laid out their sleeping bags, Jake shook his head. “I don’t trust them,” he said, voice low.
“What? Why?” Nadine peeled herself out of her bra without removing her shirt and pulled off her pants. A month ago, she might have felt uncomfortable half-dressed in front of him, but a month ago, she had been a different person in a different life. Now it barely even registered.
“I don’t know. Something’s wrong. There’s something…” He frowned. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something doesn’t add up.”
“What?”
“I told you, I don’t know!” Jake snapped.
Nadine sighed. “Liz and Safan have been there for us. They’ve helped us—”
“They’ve been paid to.”
“Whatever. They’re coming through for us. Way more than we have any right to expect. They could’ve cut us loose after the thing in the penthouse, but they didn’t.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“I like Liz.”
“You like her because she reminds you of your girlfriend.”
“I like her,” and now Nadine’s voice carried a sharp edge of frost, “because she’s been there hauling our asses out of the fire and she’s done everything she said she would do.”
“Maybe.” Jake scratched his chin with his claw. “But there’s something—”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I don’t like bringing in someone new.”
“We can use all the help we can get.”
“Just watch your ass, is all.”
Jake switched off the light. Nadine stared up into the darkness for a long time, until his breathing became snores. She pulled the sleeping bag over her head, faint musty smell permeating the fabric. Sleep eventually found her.
She woke to strident voices in the room outside. The light in the windowless room, probably once a meeting room, was still off. She fished around in the dark for her clothes, dressed, and rose barefoot.
She found Liz, Jake, and Safan in the conference room with a person she didn’t recognize, a tall, lanky Hispanic man with dark hair and a beard that jutted out like a promontory from some craggy headland. He wore loose-fitting jeans with large pockets on the knee and a sweat-stained T-shirt. A black leather shoulder holster held a small black handgun.
Nadine blinked sleep from her eyes. “Who’s he?”
“Crayon-eater,” Jake said. “One of Uncle Sam’s misguided children.”
“What?”
“Pay the muddie no nevermind,” the stranger said. “Name’s Carlos, ma’am. Former United States Marine Corps, Second Battalion, First Marines, drone swarm operator. I’ll be your backup, ma’am.” He flashed her a high-wattage smile that failed to reach his eyes, where something cold and appraising and somehow insectile lurked. Nadine shivered.
“Carlos will be going in with you to Amos City,” Safan said. “You’ll be staying on the outskirts of town, a few kilometers from Terracone’s facility. Two of you will be in a trailer, looks to all appearances like an ordinary couple of campers. You go down into the tunnels, Carlos stays behind to remote-pilot the swarm.”
“Will they work underground, with all the concrete and stuff?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Carlos took a small plastic from his pocket, tossed it to her. Inside, Nadine found a roll of blister wrap, each little plastic bubble holding a device about the size of her thumbnail. “Mesh transceiver,” Carlos explained. “You’ll stick them on the wall every few hundred meters. They’ll relay comms and drone C&C back to me.”
“You won’t be in the tunnels with me?” Odd relief at the thought.
“No, ma’am. Not a lot of room down there. Plus it’ll be dark. There’s IR security but no lights, from what I’m told. We have ways to hide your body heat, but me crawling through the tunnel and operating the swarm’s out of the question. You’ll be in touch with me the whole time.”
“I don’t like it,” Jake said. His claw snapped open and shut, over and over. “I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. I should be the one backing her up.”
“You qualified on remote-piloted, semi-autonomous microdrone swarms, Army?” Carlos said. The muscle in Jake’s jaw bulged.
“There you go,” Safan said. “Jake, we need you in the building. You grab the data. Melody gets us access to the alarm comms, out of the line of fire. Everything goes to plan, we set off the alarm, you go in, grab the storage units, out before anyone knows any better.”
“Then why do we need Carlos and his toys?” Jake said.
“In case everything doesn’t go to plan.”
Carlos grinned again, something predatory this time. His cold eyes didn’t waver.
Nadine spent the rest of the day with Safan and Carlos, going over the diagrams of the cramped utility tunnels under the street. “State representative who sponsored the bill that requires new new roads to have these tunnels happens to own a contracting firm that makes them,” Safan explained. “Each segment is shipped in on a flatbed truck, dropped in place with a crane. Parts all lock together, street beneath the street. Not enough room to stand up in, but you’ll be fine. No lights down there, but there are cameras, passive infrared, twig onto the body heat of anything bigger’n a rat. You’ll be blind, but not to worry, we’ll guide you through.”
“Won’t the cameras see me?” Nadine said.
“Nope,” Carlos said. “Got that covered. Disposable infrared countermeasure. Used ’em in Eastern Europe. Just the thing for sneaking past IR cameras.”
“How does it work?”
“You’ll see.”
Safan touched the projector. As the cross-section of road zoomed out, Carlos put his feet up on the desk, pulled a knife from a sheath at his side, and started whittling a bit of wood that looked like the end of a broomstick. Yellow triangles flared to life in Nadine’s vision.
The projector view soared until Nadine found herself looking at a top-down engineer’s-eye view of Amos City. “You’ll go in here. The prefab segments have ladders and access hatches every hundred meters or so, but we want to keep you well away from Data Storage Systems and Services before you go in. We don’t know how far out their drone coverage or sensor net extends, but I’m betting it’s pretty far. Probably take you about an hour, hour and a half in the tunnels to get there. That work for you?”
Nadine nodded curtly.
Carlos looked at her, eyes intent. “Heard what happened to you in LA. You good with this?”
“Yes,” Nadine said. “I’m good with this.”
He held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “Good. Lot riding on you here.”
“Then why aren’t you going down in the tunnels instead of me?”
“You be able to back me up if I did?” The smile flickered across his face. “Besides, I ain’t gettin’ paid enough for that. That’s a whole different payscale than manning the drones.”
“You said you were military?” Nadine said.
“Former. USMC.”
“What are you now?”
Another quick flash of a smile. “Freelance.”
“Let’s go over it again,” Safan said. “You go in here. Ladders every hundred meters, you can feel them, use them to orient yourself. Count off three, turn right. Six more, turn left. Fifty meters down, turn right, if you reach the ladder you’ve gone too far. You remember this?”
“I think so.”
“I can help with that,” Carlos said. He showed her the bit of broomstick he’d been carving. “Keep this in your side pocket. Put your thumb on the rounded bit on top. Count the notches, see? Three, then this hole here, that means go right. Six notches, then this hole on the other side, go left. Helps you remember when you can’t rely on your implant.”
“Thanks,” Nadine said.
Carlos did something, some subtle motion with his fingers. The big knife spun once, bright flash of metal beneath blueish LED lights, and was back in its sheath. “Don’t mention it.”
Nadine dreamed that night of small dark places, outlined in glowing blue light, space beyond space, extending forever around her in darkness and silence. She woke restless and uncomfortable. The room was still dark, Jake’s breathing slow and regular.
She slipped quietly out the door and made her way to the bathroom, where she showered, then washed her last remaining clothes under the stream of hot water. She toweled off, draped her clothes over the rod to dry, and, wrapped in the towel, went in search of breakfast.
Out in the hall, she heard talking, low and indistinct. She followed the voices to the office with its holographic projector. The door was closed, the voices still indistinct. She reached for the knob. It swung open before she could touch it. Carlos came through, knife spinning in his hand, face unreadable. Over his shoulder, she caught a glimpse of Safan and Liz before the door closed again.
Yellow triangles.
His eyes flickered over her, head to foot. His expression didn’t change. “Get dressed. We get to work in an hour.”
“I’m a bit lacking in the wardrobe department at the moment, on account of leaving my entire life behind in a hurry.”
He grunted. “I know the feeling.” The knife spun and disappeared smoothly into its sheath, without Nadine being quite sure how it got there. “Gettin’ close. We move out soon. Eight hours to Amos City. You want some coffee?”
Nadine had dressed and was on her second self-heating coffee substitute when Jake found her in the old office, running through a projection of the utility tunnels over and over again while she ran her finger down the notches in the worn bit of broomstick. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“Listen, I—”
Nadine flicked off the projector. “Yeah?”
“We need to talk.”
“Is this the bit where you apologize for storming out?”
“What?” Jake frowned. “No, I—no!” His tube of coffee substitute fizzed when he pulled the tab.
“What, then?”
“Look, something feels off. I’m getting a weird vibe from this. Something’s been off since the penthouse.”
Nadine pulled at her own coffee substitute. “You mean since I saved your life?”
“Yeah. Since you saved my life.”
“Apology accepted.”
“You’re not listening. This is important. I—”
Carlos stuck his head in the office. “Truck’s out front. You know how to drive a gas burner with an Allison automatic, Army?”
“Gas on the right, brake on the left. How hard can it be?”
Nadine trailed after them, out into the shimmering Houston heat. An enormous yellow fire truck sat idling in the parking lot in a cloud of hydrocarbon fumes, hazmat special response unit in black block letters down its flank. As she walked out into the muggy air, the doors opened. Three people hopped out, all wearing long, bright yellow jackets with reflective tape. “Ah! Welcome, welcome,” Safan said. He stood at the edge of the sidewalk, arms spread wide. “Jake, meet your team.”
“Excuse me?” Jake’s voice went cold.
“The big guy in front is Andy. The—”
Jake whirled, pulled the handgun tucked in his waistband at the small of his back in one acrobatic motion, and leveled it at Safan’s head. “You ever see what happens when you shoot someone right between the eyes?” he said. “They just stop.” He clicked the claw shut. “Just like that. Like turning off a light.”
“Whoa, hey, Army,” Carlos said, hands apart. “No need to do anything rash.” The three men from the truck, Andy and the other two, spread out in a loose triangle around Jake and Safan.
“You may have noticed I don’t like when things don’t go to plan,” Jake said. “When things don’t go to plan, people get hurt. A team wasn’t part of the plan. You tryin’ to get people hurt, Safan? That your goal here?”
Carlos edged closer. “Listen, Army, just be cool—”
“Shut. The fuck. Up,” Jake said. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Jake!” Nadine said. “Jake, stop it!”
“Yeah, be cool, Jake,” Andy said. “We’re all friends here.”
“Was I talking to you?” Jake said. “This is just me and Safan, having a conversation about the plan, and why he’s changing it without my express fucking consent. So how about it, huh? Answer the fucking question. You tryin’ to get people hurt?”
“No,” Safan said, as easily and casually as if he were talking about the weather. “Think about this. The alarm goes off, you roll up in an emergency response vehicle, you’re the only one there, what kind of sense does that make? Your team is part of your cover. And your backup.”
“He’s right, Army,” Carlos said. “You roll up there all by your lonesome, responding to a hazardous situation, whole thing’s blown and you can kiss the mission objective goodbye.”
“Jake!” Nadine said. “Put the goddamn gun down. Jesus.”
“Fine.” Jake raised the barrel and thumbed the safety on. “But only because she says. You and me, all this is over, we’re going to have a conversation.”
“That’s the second time since you arrived in Houston you’ve put a gun in my face,” Safan said mildly. “Do it again and you’d better shoot me. Jake, meet Andy, Benjamin,” with a nod toward a squat, broadly-built man who gave an impression of muscular solidity even through the firefighter’s suit, “and Parker. They’re going in with you. We’ve made some modifications to your gear—”
“What kind of modifications?”
“Put some loops inside your jacket so you can carry that artillery piece you favor. You know, in case things don’t go to plan.” He beckoned to Nadine. “Melody. Come here. Got something for you. Might help put your friend’s mind at ease.”
“Yeah?” Nadine said. “What’s that?”
“Here.” He handed her a small, silver pistol, heavy despite its compactness. “Magazine,” he said, passing her a long rectangle filled with squat cartridges, ugly things designed with ugly purpose. “Magazine goes in the end of the grip, there, like that. Slap it hard, you won’t break it. Good. Pull back the slide, there. Don’t point it at anything you don’t want dead. Safety’s here, red means ready to rock and roll. Magazine release here. Pull the magazine out, right. Remember there’s still a round in the chamber. Clear it by pulling here. Good. Okay, got it?”
“Got it.” Nadine pressed the ejected round back in the magazine with her thumb.
“Good. Do me a favor, don’t load it until showtime.”
“Right.” Nadine turned back to the door. “It’s fucking hot. You guys must be dying in those jackets.”
Parker shrugged, awkward in the heavy jacket. “Been through worse.”