Chapter 17

We spent Valentine’s Day on the road.

The RV that Al’awwal and Tia managed to secure was an older, used model that had seen a lot of road. But it had the benefits of being big enough to hold us—complete with a makeshift isolation chamber for Silas—and being within the price range that we could pull together on short notice. I still had no idea how Silas funded things, but even his resources weren’t without their limits. And you couldn’t exactly walk into an RV lot and hand over a briefcase full of cash without raising an eyebrow or two.

It did have all the required autonomous driving and navigation features. Which was a damn good thing, since without them, we wouldn’t have been able to get on the interstates. As it was, we were staring down about sixteen hours of driving to get from New Lyons to the Potato Farm, which was located somewhere within a hundred miles of Boise. That same drive would have taken twice as long back before autonomous driving, when speed limits were set statically at levels thought to be best for the mechanical limitations of the vehicles and the physical limitations of the humans behind the wheels.

Now, speed limits simply didn’t exist, not on the interstates. The whole thing was computer controlled, relying on a network of global positioning satellites, a bank of super computers, and the continuous data feed from every car on the road. The system adjusted speed based not only on the flow of traffic, but on the system monitoring of the vehicles themselves. Even our clunky, outdated RV averaged a solid one-hundred-forty to one-hundred-fifty miles per hour, while more modern vehicles sped along the interstates at something closer to two hundred. Not even law enforcement could engage manual drive on the interstates…but then again, there was no need. All they had to do was identify the vehicle they wanted stopped, and if it was on the interstate, the system would take care of it. Slow it down, move it to the side of the road, and then lock the vehicle in place.

It made our journey all the more dangerous, and, to be honest, it made my palms itch. Hernandez looked a little twitchy, too, staring out a window, but with one hand near the sidearm she still wore. Our egress from New Lyons had been easier than anticipated. Silas was still tied in to the NLPD’s computers, and we had Fortier and Thompson with all the latest intel that hadn’t made it into those systems. We’d slipped past roadblocks and monitors like they didn’t exist, using surface roads until we were well out of New Lyons, and then accessing the highway. Hell, with Fortier on board, we probably could have driven directly through any one of the checkpoints, so long as I stayed out of sight. But we hadn’t gotten as far as we had by taking risks.

The others had taken the two cops in stride, since none of them had the history with Fortier than I did. Silas had even gone so far as to reach out to his network and ensure that Fortier’s former Toys would be either brought into the fold or, at the very least, taken to a place of relative safety. I couldn’t tell if the relief of Fortier’s face was from thinking that they’d be taken care of, or that he wouldn’t have to deal with them himself when all this was over.

We had gathered in what passed for the living area of the RV, with the door to the vehicle’s single “bedroom” open but sealed off with plastic drop cloths and duct tape. I knew that the plastic also wrapped around the walls, floor, and ceiling, in an effort to isolate Silas, the room’s sole occupant, as much as possible. One of the small windows in the back of the RV had been left unwrapped, and had even been cracked open, the proverbial airhole. I’d questioned that at first, but Tia had explained that the point was to protect those of us trapped in the small metal box from whatever plague Walton Biogenics had released, and not to stop any airborne particles from being sucked out the window and sprinkled over the highway. Her words, not mine. The risk, as she’d pointed out, of the virus actually finding a host that way was pretty slim.

The table, such as it was, was only big enough for four people. LaSorte claimed one of the seats of honor, as he had a half-dozen screens spread out before him. Al’awwal had the other, rounding out one side. Fortier and Thompson had squeezed into the other side, their respective—and very different—bulk making for a tight fit. Some bench seating ran along the wall on the opposite side of the table, and Hernandez, Tia, and I shoehorned onto it. I was, maybe, pressed up closer against Tia than was strictly speaking necessary, but I told myself that it was to give Hernandez a little more room. Besides, Tia didn’t seem to mind. Silas had pulled a metal folding chair right up to the edge of the plastic. If it wasn’t for the barrier, he could have reached out and touched the people at the table.

Fortier and Thompson were taking turns staring back and forth between Al’awwal and Silas. Al, in typical fashion, wasn’t fucking about on the preparedness front. While most of us chose to leave the heavy gear in the bags, he’d strapped his Israeli bullpup to a tac-strap and had it close at hand. Fortier was looking at him with an expression that was half-incredulity and half-fear. “You sure he’s a synthetic?” Fortier asked, directing the question my way.

“I can speak for myself,” Al said. “And yeah, you’re damn right I am.” He patted the bullpup affectionately. “And yes, I can use this.”

“Pretty effectively,” I agreed. “And he kicked my ass when we were sparring.”

Thompson stopped staring at Silas and his quarantine room, “And worked his way through a squad of the Special Response Team.”

“Jesus,” Fortier muttered. “And a fucking plague to boot. You didn’t mention that, Hernandez.”

Silas cleared his throat. Or tried to. It turned into more of a half-cough, half-strangle. No one spoke until the fit had passed. Silas twisted the cap off a bottle of water with one hand and took a long sip. “While I am sure,” he said at last, “that we all have many things of which to speak, perhaps we should concentrate our efforts on the matter at hand. We will need some kind of plan when we approach the…” He paused, grimaced. “Potato Farm.” A wan smile twisted his lips. “And I fear time is something of the essence.”

That was an understatement, but it reminded everyone around the table of just how dire our circumstances were. “What have you been able to find?” I asked.

LaSorte took the cue, and started working his magic. “We’re too cramped in here. Take a look at your screens.”

I pulled out my personal screen, and, sure enough, found information already blossoming onto it. Most of it was basic—images from corporate marketing materials embedded within what looked like county-filed blueprints, satellite shots used for traffic apps, some heat mapping showing the highest periods of activity. I wasn’t sure how LaSorte got that, but it conformed with a fairly standard workday, so maybe it was conjecture. Names and addresses of employees. And, the piece de resistance, the basic layout of the physical and electronic surveillance.

“Damn,” Thompson said with a low whistle. “You guys are better than Cyber. You pulled this together in…what? Two days?”

LaSorte flashed his charming grin at the big rookie. “Something like that. But this,”—he waved one hand that encompassed all our screens,—“is the easy stuff. Some of it was behind pretty impressive firewalls, but, really, nothing to the degree that one might expect at a super-secret facility.”

“Are we sure we have the right spot?” Tia asked. Her presence had earned surprised exclamations from both Thompson and Fortier, but she’d just grinned and shrugged and somehow had the pair laughing along with her in under a minute. I had no idea how she did it, and I could admit the tiniest itch of jealousy to see her laughing with Fortier, though I think I’d managed to keep it off my face. “We’re kind of going on pure conjecture, here. And I’m not sure we should trust that Larkin woman.”

“We did find one thing, Ms. Morita,” Silas said from behind his plastic wall. “There are unusual power levels at that facility. With Ms. Larkin’s help, we identified several ‘standard’ Farms and ran some cross analytics. We have a good estimation of how much energy a Walton synthetic facility would use, based on size. The Potato Farm…” He couldn’t finish the sentence as another bout of coughing racked his body. He waved one hand toward LaSorte, who jumped into the gap.

“The Potato Farm is drawing about half again as much power as it should be,” the former Toy said. “Something is going on there. Something way outside the specs of the other facilities we hacked. But that’s all we could find.”

I sighed. I’d been around Silas and LaSorte long enough to know that if they couldn’t find something on the ’net it meant one of two things: the thing didn’t exist, or it wasn’t connected to any part of any network. “It’s a black box,” I said.

Silas and LaSorte nodded while Al’awwal, Tia, and the cops looked at me with confusion. “It’s not connected to the ’net,” I clarified.

“No way they can do… Well, any fucking thing without computers,” Fortier snorted.

“They have computers, asshole,” I said. “And networks and servers and the whole shebang. They’re just not connected to any outside network. And if they need to use the ’net for something, I’m sure they can take a stroll upstairs, do what they have to do, save it to physical media, and then return to their work.”

Thompson actually shuddered, and everyone else looked more than a little uncomfortable. The thought of being disconnected from the omnipresent ’net, even for the course of a workday, was…daunting. It was like a power outage or stepping back in time. And while some might romanticize the notion, or even practice a level of ’net-free living, most people loved the connectivity of modern life.

Silas broke the silence. “They are certain to have electronic and physical security in whatever this lab is. But we cannot access it from offsite. LaSorte and I will have to go with you when you go inside.”

“Do we even know where inside is?” Hernandez asked. “I get that it’s logical for this place to be here, but we can’t logic it into existence. And what are we going to do? Wander around the secure Walton Biogenics facility while we try to find a secret door down into a top-secret and, if they are making killer synthetics down there, highly illegal lab?” She snorted. “I knew this might be a one-way trip, but I need to know we’ve got at least some chance of getting home again. I’ve got a daughter to think of.”

Hernandez was right. I wanted this to work—needed it to. Millions would die if we were wrong. But if there was zero chance, if we were throwing our lives away in a futile gesture that no one would ever know about… Even if I might have been willing, I couldn’t throw Hernandez into that grinder. Or Tia. I glanced over at her. She was frowning. Contemplating the problem, or having second thoughts?

“We still have work to do,” Silas admitted. “Walton Biogenics may have set up a black box, but I do not think for a moment that they did the construction themselves. Somewhere, someone was hired. Records were kept. Plans filed. We have hours yet before we near our destination. LaSorte and I will find how to access the Potato Farm. And once we’re inside, we can deal with any electronic security.” He said it with confidence, and I had to believe him. He’d taken over the network at Larkin’s workplace with such ease, and that had been without LaSorte riding shotgun. Silas gave us a smile that had nothing to do with happiness. “The rest will be up to the trigger pullers, as Mr. Campbell calls you.”

“So, I guess we better figure out how we’re going to get in, take down an army of synthetic soldiers, and get back out again,” I agreed.

* * * *

We’d been turning the problem over for hours, with not a lot to show for it but short tempers and long odds. “We don’t know enough,” Thompson said, slapping his massive palm down onto the table to emphasize the point. The table rattled like a mouthful of loose teeth under the weight of the blow. “Sorry,” he muttered, a blush blossoming on his cheeks. It made him seem even younger. “But I don’t know how we make a plan when we don’t even know how to get in the front door. Or if there is one.”

“There is!”

It was LaSorte, his voice equal parts triumph and tiredness. All eyes went to the synthetic, who had pulled a folding chair up close to the plastic wall separating the rest of us from Silas so the two could converse. “There fucking is!” he reiterated. That widened more than one eye, since the amicable synthetic rarely swore. “We found it.”

I looked over at Silas. “Want to explain? LaSorte seems a little excited.”

Silas offered up a rare smile of his own. “With due cause, Detective,” he said, slipping back into old habits. “With due cause.” He flicked his screen and my own—and those of everyone else in the RV excepting LaSorte—chimed.

Like Pavlovian dogs, we all checked the message. It was a series of blueprints. No, not blueprints, or at least not the computer-designed building layouts that I thought of when I thought of blueprints. These appeared to have been hand drawn, with cursive notations written in. I had to squint and really concentrate—cursive hadn’t been taught for a long time and might as well have been kanji for all the sense it made to most people. Growing up with academic parents had all sorts of unexpected benefits.

“What are we looking at?” Tia asked. “And what’s the funny writing? Is that Cyrillic?”

Hernandez and Al chuckled, but the others looked equally confused. “No, Ms. Morita,” Silas supplied. “The writing is in cursive, a popular technique used before the omnipresence of keypads. Think of it as the precursor to swipe-typing and you will not be far off. As for the documents themselves, they are an architect’s plans for a large lab and synthetic growth facility, complete, you will notice, with several biohazard labs.” Areas on the map began to receive color-coded overlays.

“Nice,” Thompson said.

“How the hell, and where the hell, did you find this?” was Fortier’s contribution.

“In the archived documents of an old estate sale, Detective Fortier,” Silas said.

I shook my head. “Estate sale?”

“The path was convoluted,” Silas admitted. “But we tracked down the architecture firm that Walton Biogenics had used to design several of their farms.” His mouth twisted with distaste as he said the word.

“There was nothing on their servers,” LaSorte interjected. Then he paused. “Well, okay. There was lots of stuff on their servers, but no plans for any secret bases.”

“There were not,” Silas agreed, throwing LaSorte an exasperated look. “So, we started hunting down the architects themselves.”

Hernandez snorted. “And let me guess. You found that several of them had died under mysterious circumstances. Sounds just like our friends at Walton.”

“Correct, Detective. Well, except for the ‘mysterious’ part. They all died of perfectly explainable, natural causes. Like heart attacks. Including the twenty-six-year-old marathoner.” He gave another slim smile. “Which is where we eventually found the plans.”

“Huh?” Fortier asked, not following. Not that I could blame him. I was only sort of with them.

“The marathoner was one of the architects for the Potato Farm,” LaSorte chortled. “He must’ve kept plans. Was probably proud of the work or whatever. But when Walton offed him, those plans must have been part of his effects.”

“Oh-kay,” Fortier said, drawing out the word.

Tia let out a tiny laugh, almost a giggle, of her own. “And documents that don’t contain any protected personal information get digitized and monetized when people die. It’s part of the estate. Which means that Walton just shot themselves in the foot.”

Fortier was still looking lost, and Thompson’s face was screwed up into a mask of confusion. Well, they were new to the revolution, and until recently hadn’t been thinking of Walton as the bad guys. “If Walton hadn’t had the architects killed, odds are the plans would have never found their way into a computer,” I said. “Meaning that in trying to cover up their little science experiment by killing off the people who designed it, they actually opened the door to us.” I shrugged. “Well, metaphorically speaking. We’re still going to have to kick down some doors.”

“But now we know exactly where those doors are, Detective,” Silas said. He did something on his screen, and the view on mine, and presumably the others’, shifted and zoomed. “There are three entry points within the confines of the main building.”

“No doubt heavily guarded,” Thompson said.

The screen moved again. “And one that is significantly outside the main building.”

The screen showed a spot in the middle, I shit you not, of a literal potato field. Okay, not in the middle of it. It appeared to be at the back entrance to a farmhouse. Silas tapped a few more buttons, and the image wireframed out and several overlays appeared. It was hard to make out, but it looked like there was what one would assume to be an old-style set of external cellar or storm shelter doors that instead led to a long tunnel. The tunnel traveled for almost two miles, before merging with the diagram of the Potato Farm.

“It’s a bolt hole,” I said.

“Correct, Jason,” Silas agreed. “Or so we believe.”

“What’s a bolt hole?” Tia asked.

“Escape route,” Hernandez said. “Probably for the corporate bigwigs to vamos if the police came knocking on their door.”

“A back door out,” I agreed. “Which means it’s also a way in.”

“It’ll still be guarded,” Fortier noted. “They’re not gonna be dumb enough to leave the back door unlocked.”

I nodded while Al said, “I bet the actual farm is a front. Probably a guard house of some sort.” He thought about it for a moment. “Probably also means that the Potato Farm moniker started from someone in the know.”

“Which means we’re almost certainly at the right place,” Thompson said.

“Which means we have a chance,” Hernandez agreed.

“Yes,” Silas said. He started to say something else, but another round of coughing took him. Once again, we were all quiet, with little we could do but watch the pale-skinned man suffer. Finally, he just waved a hand at us as he retreated, still choking and gasping, deeper into the chamber. Tia was on her feet in an instant, moving to the plastic, damn near pressing her face into it as she peered through, making sure that Silas hadn’t collapsed. There hadn’t been a way to make an airlock or the equivalent, so if she had to go in, it meant that Al and LaSorte were going to have to put on gas masks, and keep them on for the rest of the journey.

We all stared at each other helplessly for a long moment, and I saw Al twitching in the direction of the bag that held the gas masks. But then Tia turned back. “You guys keep talking. It looks like he’s recovering. I don’t see any sign of blood. It should be okay.”

“Relatively speaking,” Al’awwal muttered, and the rest of us could only nod.

“So,” I said, trying to get things back on track, “we’ve got a target. We’ve got a way in. There’s going to be physical security.” I looked at Fortier and Thompson. Thought about it. Included Hernandez in my gaze. “We’re not going to be able to dick around with whoever is there. Up until this point, we’ve tried to keep things as bloodless as possible, but that’s about to change. There’s no chances to surrender, no arrests. No warnings. You’re not cops anymore. You’re soldiers. Soldiers shoot to kill. Got it?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Fortier said with a mocking, half-assed salute.

“I’m fucking serious, Fortier,” I growled. “I can’t have this going to shit because someone hesitates.”

“We’re good,” Thompson said softly. “Hernandez explained the situation. We knew what we were in for from the start.” He offered a boyish grin. “Okay, the synthetic soldiers were a new twist, but still.”

“Me, too,” Hernandez said. “Not how I want to do it,” she admitted. “But I understand the need.” She looked uncomfortable. “I’ll be okay with security, hermano,” she said. “Just like the bully boys in the sewers. But if we run into unarmed civilians…” She trailed off and I nodded my understanding.

“Understood,” I agreed. “If it comes to that, I’ll do the dirty work. God willing, it won’t come to that.” She nodded.

Silas had returned to the plastic wall, looking wan and shaky. I noticed a few flecks of either spittle or vomit at the corners of his lips and looked closer while trying to hide what I was doing. Definitely not red. Not blood, then. I wasn’t sure how far along in the sickness Silas really was, but until he started coughing blood, we at least had a chance.

“Okay,” I continued. “Tia, we’ll need you for this, too. Have a seat.” She complied without comment, her mind clearly still working the problem of the illness. “We’re going to have to break up into multiple teams,” I began. It was going to be a long planning session, and time was slipping through our fingers. We’d only get one shot, and I was determined we’d make it count.