Cyber Dreams 1.37 - Execution (Patreon)

This is the last normal chapter for book 1. I'll post an epilogue chapter on Wednesday - it might be a little shorter than normal (not sure!)

Happy to hear your thoughts!

-Plum

Juliet watched on her AUI as her team moved into position. A lot was riding on this stage of the operation—Hot Mustard needed to land a few perfect shots, and Honey, Pit, and Mags needed to get close enough to wrap up what he started. Hot Mustard had his rifle suppressed and dialed in, using live triangulation from the drones to target the four people Reynold had patrolling the exterior of his compound.

They couldn’t have asked for a better night; warm gusts of wind blew from the southwest, stirring up dust and making enough noise to cover the near-silent movement of the team as they carefully inched into position. The patrolling members of Reynold’s crew were distracted, tired, and not all that interested in keeping watch. One of them was even on a call with a friend, murmuring as he walked along the northern edge of the cleared property.

Juliet had wondered about using tranquilizer rounds but had been met with two problems: Hot Mustard didn’t have any, and both he and Mags assured her that they weren’t as fast-acting or foolproof as the vids made them seem. More than that, Hot Mustard said he’d need to be a lot closer to utilize them. On the other hand, his shock rounds were accurate up to half a click, and he was sure he could incapacitate anyone for half a minute—plenty of time for the others to close in with the real tranqs Mags had provided.

“Four people on patrol, two in the garage, two in the house. That’s one more than we wanted, but that ain’t bad,” Pit said in the group comms; Juliet was sharing the drone view with everyone.

“Yeah, it’s the big guy, the one with the mini-gun. He came back an hour ago and has been hanging in the garage with the drone chick,” Honey said, then followed up with, “I’ll put him down.”

“One thing at a time,” Juliet said, “Focus on job one: the guys outside. Fast and quiet.”

“Right,” Hot Mustard said in his southern twang, “fast is smooth, smooth is fast. Nearly ready; give me ninety seconds.”

“Ninety seconds,” Juliet echoed, crouching low, fifty yards from the exposed sliding door on the backside of the ranch house. “Sound off with your status, please.”

“In position. Ready,” Honey said. She had the job of tranqing the first patroller, and then it would be Mags’s turn, then Pit’s, then back to Honey for the fourth guard. Hot Mustard was supposed to drop each one within fifteen seconds of the first. Juliet hoped he was as good as he claimed and as Ghoul had thought.

“Need thirty seconds,” Mags said.

“Ready,” Pit said.

Juliet’s palms began to sweat as she watched the drone display, nervous that something would go wrong at the last minute. Nothing seemed amiss, though; the four patrollers were still moving lackadaisically from point to point, pausing to mess around with their AUIs or to lean against a vehicle, none seeming very vigilant, but why would they? As far as they knew, three drones were doing their job for them, and, thanks to Angel, the drones were showing footage with Juliet’s team scrubbed out.

“Juliet, the signatures from the basement have changed,” Angel said, startling her and making her wonder if she’d manifested some sort of problem by believing there would be one.

“What is it?”

“The signature we’ve assumed is Ghoul has cooled significantly—nearly two degrees. The other individual with her is moving about agitatedly.”

“That sounds bad; what could cause it?”

“Acute blood loss, pharmaceuticals, application of ice or other cooling agents . . .”

“Okay, okay,” Juliet hissed through her teeth, ready to call another ready check, but Mags beat her to it.

“Ready!” her voice came through the comms.

“One more time, everyone, sound off.”

“Ready,” Honey said immediately.

“Ready,” Pit said again.

“Ready,” Mags repeated.

Ten seconds slipped by, and then Hot Mustard twanged, “Ready. Going on your call, Juliet.”

Juliet looked at her display one more time, watched the patrollers to ensure they were all distant from each other, and then nervously looked at the stationary figure in the basement and the other one pacing back and forth in front of it. “Go,” she said.

A click sounded to her right, distantly, and she knew she wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been listening for it. “One,” Hot Mustard said. Two seconds later, she heard the click again, and his target must have been much closer to her because she heard the crackle of the round as it connected. “Two,” he announced.

“One tranqed,” Honey said.

*click* “Three.”

“Two tranqed,” Mags announced.

*click “Four.”

“Three tranqed.” Pit sounded breathless, like he’d had to sprint or struggle. Three seconds later, Honey announced that number four was tranqed.

“Like clockwork, people,” Hot Mustard said. “Holding this position for overwatch.”

“No heroics,” Juliet said. “Honey and Pit, do your thing in the garage. Mag’s, we’re a go for the house; get your nite-nite ready.” Juliet checked her rebreather and the nite-nite grenade hanging from a loop on her vest and hurried toward the house's back door.

She was supposed to save her grenade for the basement, but she held her hand to it, just in case, while she peered through the sliding door, listening for the tell-tale hiss when Mags deployed her grenade in the kitchen. Pit and Mags had worked with similar grenades, and they said they’d be quiet but that she’d be able to pick up the sound, especially with her sensitive auditory implants.

From the sliding door, she could see a couch, a junk-covered dining table, and the yellow-lit rectangle of the doorway leading to the kitchen. They weren’t lying about the sound—she watched Mag’s highlighted figure on her drone display trundle up to the kitchen door, open it, and toss her payload inside. Almost immediately, Juliet heard the hiss in her auditory implants, and she pulled on the door, trying to open it. It wouldn’t budge.

“Door’s locked, Mags.”

“Coming; kitchen target is down. Pretty thing, too; you serious she’s married to that old asshole?” Mags was referring to Reynold and the photo Juliet had shared with them all.

“Cut that chatter,” Hot Mustard said in quick, clipped words. Mags didn’t reply, but a few heartbeats later, she came tiptoeing through the living room, a haze of white smoke wafting along the ground in her wake. She was wearing the rebreather Juliet had purchased for Honey—they’d determined the garage was too large a space for the nite-nites to be effective. Honey and Pit were going to have to drop their targets with stun batons and tranqs.

As Mags pulled open the slider, Juliet slipped inside, and they made their way to the back hallway, where they knew a trapdoor in the closet would open into the “secret” basement. They moved very slowly and stepped as lightly as possible; Mags impressed Juliet with her quiet movements, careful not to make the floor creak.

They were probably being overcautious; from the drone’s tracking of heat signatures, they’d mapped out the hidden basement to some degree, and it looked like a single room that extended under the master suite. The floor under the hallway was probably solid concrete. When they reached the end of the hall and had the option to go straight into the master or left into a linen closet, Juliet carefully turned the knob on the closet door.

They’d watched and listened with the drones more than a dozen times as a person opened this door and were nearly certain there wasn’t any trick to it—no alarms, no hidden catches, just a door that would open onto a carpeted closet. Beneath the carpet was a trap door and a short ladder. And Ghoul, Juliet reminded herself, waiting for someone to help her. Just as she’d hoped, nothing was waiting to surprise her in the closet. The carpet was already pulled back and the stainless handle affixed to the plywood trapdoor beckoned her.

“Garage status?” Juliet subvocalized, carefully removing her nite-nite from her vest.

“Almost in position,” Honey replied. Juliet knew their plan; Honey would try to jump the big guy with the gun, stunning him. Meanwhile, Pit was supposed to deal with the—likely-sleeping—drone operator and open the big garage door. Hot Mustard was in a position to shoot into the bay if the big guy put up too much of a struggle.

Juliet handed her grenade to Mags, stepped over the trapdoor, and reached down to grasp the handle. She looked at Mags, held up her other thumb, raising her eyebrows in a question, and Mag’s visor displayed, “Ready!” Juliet nodded and pulled on the trapdoor. The hinges were on her side of the door; she couldn’t see through the opening, but Mags didn’t hesitate. She tapped the arming button three times, setting the grenade for instant disbursement, and dropped the already smoking canister through the hole.

Juliet heard a cough and shuffling, then a thud, and she hoped it was the sound of Reynold dropping. Before she could say anything, Mags dropped down through the hatch in a surprising show of agility. The large woman held a long, metallic black baton in one hand as she fell out of sight, and Juliet was surprised that the only sound of her landing was the thud of her boots on concrete. Juliet let the trapdoor drop the rest of the way open and stepped over it to climb down the ladder after her.

She was halfway down when Mags said, in their team comms, “Basement clear. Number one is down.”

“Garage is clear,” Hot Mustard said, and Juliet felt a wave of relief wash over her; she’d been sure something would go wrong with that part of the plan. The big guy with the gun had just seemed like such a hard case; she’d figured he’d be hopped up on stimulants or something and put up a fight despite Honey and Pit surprising him. She stepped off the ladder peering through the haze of the nite-nite smoke, thankful for Angel’s intuitive adjustment to her vision when Honey’s voice came through the comms.

“Pit’s going to get the rental. I’m securing everyone with shrink bands.”

“She’s not breathing,” Mags said from Juliet’s right.

“What?” Juliet hissed, stepping toward Mag’s highlighted silhouette in her AUI, nearly smashing into and tripping over a small card table and chair. She saw Reynold’s boots and legs extending through the haze on her left but hurried forward to Mags and Ghoul. Mags was busy removing the bindings that held Ghoul to her chair—shrink bands brought too tight and kept in place too long. Ghoul’s pale skin was bruised and bleeding around them, and her face was wan where it wasn’t black and blue.

“Ghoul,” Juliet said, reaching for her friend’s face and cupping it between her hands. “Ghoul, c’mon, snap out of it.”

“Hitting her with a stim,” Mags said, pulling an autoinjector from her belt.

“You sure we should . . .” Juliet started, but it was too late; Mags pressed the nozzle to Ghoul’s neck, and it hissed. Juliet held her breath while she waited for a reaction. She counted to three, then five, then Ghoul’s swollen eyes fluttered, and she inhaled weakly.

“She’s alive. Drugged to hell, it looks like. Better get her to a clinic, get her flushed. Hope they didn’t do any permanent damage,” Mags said—the whole reason she was on basement duty with Juliet was that she used to work as a paramedic.

“I’ll help you lift her up the ladder, but you’ll have to get her out,” Juliet said, voice tremulous with stress and worry, “It’s going to take me a little while to deal with Reynold.”

“Yep, I’ll make the run to a clinic; make sure Pit isn’t lazy about looting this place,” Mags replied, hoisting Ghoul up by the armpits and crab-walking with her to the ladder. Juliet held Ghoul in a sort of reverse hug, her chin tucked over the other woman’s shoulder, listening to her weak, shallow breaths as Mags climbed up the ladder.

“You better be okay, Ghoul,” she whispered, and then Mags was leaning down through the opening, arms outstretched.

“Hold her arms up.”

“Right,” Juliet said, lifting Ghoul’s bruised, bloody arms, and that’s when she noted the deep cut on her cybernetic arm and the large void where its bio-battery should’ve been. “Assholes,” she hissed, squatting down and hoisting Ghoul up as Mags pulled her through the opening. When she stepped back, she saw that her arms were covered with blood, and she knew Ghoul must have had multiple lacerations on her back and legs. Juliet turned to the slumbering Reynold, and a low snarl came out of her throat as she moved over to him.

“Okay, Angel. Time for phase two,” she said, pulling out a cheap data deck she’d picked up earlier in the afternoon at the swap meet. It was a basic model but had enough memory to hold the dreamer program and databases. More importantly, there was nothing to tie it to Juliet; she’d paid for it with bullets, fifty shredder rounds for an old, slow deck.

She unwrapped the data cable she’d brought with it and kneeled over Reynold’s unconscious body. Roughly, she jammed her thumbnail into his data port and peeled back his synth flesh, then she jammed the data cable into it, hooking him to the deck.

They’d done as much research as they could about Reynold and his augments; the only records they came away with referenced a recent visit to a cosmetic surgery clinic in New Vegas. Still, everyone had agreed that he must have a data port, and it looked like they’d been right. It was a nice-looking port with an Aurora Systems logo on it, and Juliet hoped Angel wouldn’t struggle too much getting through it; she doubted he had a PAI that could put up too much of a fight with Angel's daemons, though.

Juliet tucked the deck into Reynold’s belt, holding it in place, then she pulled her own data cable out of her arm and hooked herself to it, using it as a bridge for Angel to do her thing. “Go for it,” she subvocalized.

“I’m assaulting his PAI’s ICE. Progress is good.” Angel continued to give her updates over the next minute, or so and then she said, “I’m in. I’ve suppressed his PAI and have full access.”

“Okay, search his contacts and history. Find the person watching Ghoul’s sister.”

“I have it. Reynold has been sending regular updates to a man named Samuel Chance. His last message was, ‘Just keep tabs on her. We have the sister, and she’s gonna break soon. Send me a pic of the girl tomorrow morning, something fresh to spur things along.’”

“Okay, send the following message along with one of the databases from Vykertech: Sam, we broke her. You can leave off on the girl. I’m swamped here and have a hundred things going on. Can you help me lighten the load? I have a little analysis job for you, and I’ll send you a bonus if you can help. I’m attaching a database; break it down for me and write up your best guess about its source or purpose. I’d tell you more, but it’s need-to-know.”

“Done,” Angel said.

“Okay, now . . .” Juliet started, but suddenly Reynold’s body convulsed, and he rolled to his side. Juliet was kneeling to his right, and when he pivoted his back to her and continued around, his right arm came up like he was going to punch her. Juliet reflexively held up her wrist to block, but suddenly his arm split, revealing a very high-end cosmetic wirejob. A foot-long, razor-sharp blade snapped out of the cybernetic limb, piercing Juliet’s forearm and continuing into her chest.

The blade sank through the top of her right breast, through her ribs, and into her lung. She grunted out a half-formed expletive, surprise and pain overwhelming her ability to speak for the moment.

Juliet tracked the blade’s progress in a detached, slow-motion realization, suddenly feeling like she’d stepped out of herself and into a horror movie, watching as Reynold’s snarling face loomed before hers as he stood, lifting her off the ground, further ripping her flesh, and driving her back against the cement wall of the gloomy basement. “Think you can rape my mind, you fucking little bitch?”

Juliet opened her mouth, but only a ragged cough emerged, spraying red flecks onto Reynold’s too-smooth, pale face. She kicked her boot against his shin, trying to knock him back, trying to get that horrible blade out of her. Reynold didn’t seem to notice, and a corner of her mind wondered what else about the man was cybernetic. “Angel,” she subvocalized or tried to, but blood was thick in her throat.

“Juliet,” Angel said, “Juliet, I’ve alerted your team. Hold on!”

“You silly bitch,” Reynold said, twisting his arm slightly, sending sharp, horrible needles of pain through Juliet’s arm and chest. “You think a ghost like me hasn’t had some military-grade enhancements? My nanites ate that tranquilizer like a snack. So you fucked my PAI, huh? Kinda weird with no voice in my head after all these years.

“Can’t chat more, love,” Reynold said, lifting his other arm. Juliet watched as this forearm, too, split and another wicked blade shot forth. “I suppose you’ve alerted your friends, which means I need to do some killing.”

Reynold’s raised his other blade high like he was going to stab it into Juliet’s eye, but then he convulsed. His body became rigid, and he hopped; no, he vibrated backward, his blade slipping free from Juliet’s chest with a wet sucking sound. His face twisted in a paroxysm of agony and dismay, and then he fell backward, still vibrating like he was having a seizure. Was he having a seizure?

“I’m sorry, Juliet,” Angel said.

“What?” Juliet sobbed, falling to her knees and trying to press her uninjured arm to the horrible wound in her chest.

“I couldn’t wait any longer; I activated the dreamer program in the deck, connecting it to his PAI. He’s no longer lucid, and the PAI is rapidly expanding its synth-nerve nanofibers through his nervous system.”

Juliet breathed shallowly, trying not to cough, pressing her hand to the hole in her chest, and watching as Reynold continued to spasm. His blades retracted, and his eyes began to glow, and then they closed. He’d only been down a minute when Honey was suddenly looming in front of Juliet, whispering, “Oh God, hold on, Juliet.” Her voice buzzed funnily in Juliet’s ears, and a weird chuckle erupted from her throat.

Everything was strange, her limbs felt numb and heavy, and the pain from her wounds was distant, dulled. She’d heard of people getting tunnel vision as they lost blood or slipped from consciousness, but that didn’t happen. Her view remained bright and clear, even as her eyelids grew too heavy to hold open. She heard Honey’s voice buzzing in her ears again, tickling through her skull, “We need a trauma kit! There’s gotta be something in the garage; Mags is gone with ours.”

“I can come back!” Mags said, her voice peculiar and slow to Juliet.

“I got it,” Hot Mustard said. “Coming now.”

“Juliet? Juliet! Stay with me, okay?” Honey said, gripping the sides of her face and giving her a jostle.

“I’m here. Plug me back into that deck. My cord came loose when that jerk fell down.”

“Forget it! We need to get you to a trauma center.”

“No. Doc Sack. Sack . . . Tsakanikas!” she chuckled at how funny his name was, her head lolling forward. She didn’t realize she’d started to slip under until Honey jostled her again.

“Stay awake, Juliet! Hot Mustard’s almost here.”

“Plug me in! Hurry!” Juliet breathed through clenched teeth, a sudden spike of pain running through her chest.

“Dammit,” Honey groused, turning to find Juliet’s data cable and then dragging on Reynold’s boot until he was close enough that she could plug the cable into the deck. “Is he going to wake up?”

“Dreaming,” Juliet said with an entirely inappropriate, bubbling, red-foamed giggle. “Angel, finish the job,” she hissed, another knife of pain shooting through her as she began to cough, and though it hurt, and she tried desperately, she couldn’t stop. She gave in to it, allowing her body to try to get the blood out of her lung, trusting Angel to finish sending the personal messages with the Vykertech data to a bunch of Reynold’s contacts.

She coughed for an eternity, or so it seemed, and then Hot Mustard was there, sprinkling burning powder into her stab wounds and whistling softly, “Too bad he missed the plate in your vest by a centimeter.” Juliet thrashed and screamed as the powder cauterized her vessels, and then she felt the sting and heard the hiss, and Honey shot her up with not one or two but three different pharmaceuticals. After that, everything was a blur.

She had vague, dream-like memories of Honey telling the others she’d take her to the doc—it was up to Pit and Hot Mustard to strip Vikker’s place of valuables. They all had the keycodes to the drone terminal, so Juliet had a fuzzy, comforting thought that her friends would be able to use them to keep watch until they were ready to move out in their rented truck. Meanwhile, she reclined in Honey’s passenger seat and let the drugs do their thing; she was pain-free and floating, hazily hoping she’d see Ghoul again soon and that she’d be all right.

She felt Honey reach over and take her hand at one point and heard her say, as if from a distance, “That was a smooth execution of a plan, right up until you got stabbed.” Then Juliet, smiling in narco-bliss, closed her eyes and let her mind drift away.