Animus Complete Series Omnibus, page 158
He and his three guards made their way to the center of the platform. One of his colleagues, Jensen Pope, walked to the same destination from the opposite platform wearing a crisp dark-blue dress shirt with grey slacks. He broke into an affable smile when he noticed Sasaki.
“Good to see you stop by, Juro.” He punctuated the greeting with a swift nod. “I missed you at the last meeting.”
Sasaki closed his eyes briefly. There wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with the councilman’s attitude, but the laid-back demeanor Jensen displayed always unsettled him. This was important work—work that needed to remain a secret. Having such a potentially loose-lipped person on the organization’s council was a problem in his eyes.
Then again, he had been selected over Zubanz, and he at least was alive. In that respect, he showed he was worth their leader’s commendation.
“Hello, Jensen,” he responded after only the barest hesitation. He, his guards, and Jensen stood in the center of the platform. “I see you have no retainers.”
“Unlike most of you, I don’t really have much of a profile. I’m not important or powerful enough to have people after my head quite yet,” he replied and slid his hands into his pockets as he took a step closer into the circle. “I’ll have to get a recommendation from you when the time comes.”
The scanner wasn’t visible, at least to the naked eye, but Juro could almost swear he could feel it float over him whenever he was this close to the other man. “Considering the recent developments, I would suggest you hire some protection as soon as you are able to. We are not as deep in the shadows as we once were.”
“Are you talking about that Gin thing?” Jensen asked. He drew one hand out of his pocket and clicked an emblem on his lapel. “He might have babbled somewhat, but really, who will believe a crazy?”
Juro followed his companion’s movements as the man pinched a pin on the neck of his suit. A light buzz was instantly silenced. “There are already people who suspect there is something amiss.”
“Aren’t conspiracies like that always?”
He scoffed. “We operate under the guise of a conspiracy that has been known about for years and uphold their values as well as their name. Not all conspiracies might be true, but they start from somewhere.” The platform they were on began to shift and they adjusted to accommodate the motion. “And if Gin did talk, he potentially told someone who was already looking into us.”
“If everyone is so paranoid about that, shouldn’t we simply kill them? It’s not like Dario isn’t always looking for an excuse,” Jensen pointed out as the hiss of locks opening sounded around them and the platform slowly descended into the tower below.
“That might be a possibility, but for now, we can continue to move unobstructed as we currently do,” he stated as the platform lowered and the panel above them closed. “It is easier to move as a ghost.”
“You can’t touch anything, though,” his colleague countered with a shrug. “Unless you’re talking about a different kind of ghost.”
He gave him a sideways glance. “I believe you are taking the metaphor too literally.”
“I might be. It would help if you didn’t always speak that way, you know,” he retorted. His smartass backtalk was another reason Juro didn’t care for him.
The platform reached its destination and the doors opened into an opulent room with several sculptures bathed in artificial light. Various terminals surrounded an enormous screen and a large table stood in the middle of the room. Jensen stepped in quickly but Juro raised a hand and pointed silently to direct his guards to take their positions. They nodded and obeyed, and he walked toward the table while he made a quick scrutiny to determine who was already present.
Damyen Orlov, the headmaster of the Russian Ark academy, waited quietly near one of the sculptures. Yadira Lobo, one of Mexico’s delegates to the World Council was currently in discussion with Xiulan Lin, the CEO of a Chinese medicinal company. Jensen walked over to greet Nolan Pocock, one of the generals in the UEA. Six of them had already arrived, which meant that four were either on their way or would participate remotely.
Over and above those four was the leader of the Arbiter Organization. Juro hadn’t seen him in person in months and he had hoped he would deign to appear today. It seemed a valid expectation considering this meeting heralded the start of their upcoming plans. Unfortunately, it appeared to not be enough to entice him, so he would be the one to chair the meeting.
He placed his case on the table and took his seat. “I shall begin this meeting shortly,” he announced crisply.
“Even without the others?” Jensen broke away from his conversation with Nolan to look at the chairman. “If you’ll simply send them a message with the details of our discussion, can I sign myself up for the list?”
“They will attend the meeting through hologram and have been warned,” Juro stated coldly and looked around the room. “Our leader is not fond of those who do not take their place here seriously. I’m sure you have all heard what happened to Ms. Sharrow?”
Jensen grimaced. “Yeah, Adela…”
“She shouldn’t have spent all that time primping and used it to advance the mission instead,” Yadira said dismissively. “I can understand why she’s gone.”
“We lost a lot of funding, though,” Damyen said as he took his seat. “Her trust still helps with funding the academy, however.”
“Her finances still further our goals,” Xiulan stated. “The leader made sure of that before he sent Dario to terminate her.” She looked at Nolan. “Speaking of finances, I would like to know how mine was spent. Have you secured the party?”
Before the general could speak, Juro held a hand up. “That is one of the matters we are here to discuss. Now, if you would all take your seats, please, we can proceed.”
The group gathered at the table and he glanced up when three holograms appeared. Chana Rosenfeld, Oliver Solos, and Qiana Karimi materialized in their seats.
“Good of you to join us,” he greeted with the smallest trace of disapproval at their tardiness. “That only leaves—”
The door to the room opened once again and Thomas Thorne entered hurriedly. He adjusted his oculars and bowed. “My apologies for being late.”
“You are right on time, Professor Thorne. We are about to begin.”
Thomas nodded and moved quickly to his chair. “I have exciting news on my project. We have made a great breakthrough—”
“We will hear it soon enough.” Juro interrupted the flustered professor before he could launch into his explanation. “For now, I wish to begin by speaking about recent events.”
“A pointless exercise,” Qiana huffed. “We are all well aware of the current issues.”
“It’s standard, Mrs. Karimi,” Oliver countered. “It’s merely so we are all aware of what the leader is looking into.”
“Where is he, then?” she asked. “My time is precious—all of ours is. I’m sure I could get more done working on my end than attending these pointless meetings. Not to mention the day to day affairs in my company.”
“How has the buyout progressed?” Juro asked, leading her off her possible protest and into a more meaningful focus.
“The sale completed last night, but I still have many legal issues to—”
“And you know the sale wouldn’t have been as smooth without his help,” he said and effectively cut her off.
She fell silent and looked at the chairman after a moment of thought. “I am aware of this, yes.”
“That wasn’t meant as an insult, but I wanted to point out that we all benefit from his help. The least we can do in appreciation is to acquiesce to his wishes and act professionally.”
“The end goal is more important than all our individual problems anyway,” Damyen added.
“Do you have the Animus system updated at your academy?” Nolan asked.
The headmaster nodded and smiled widely. “We will be on an equal footing with the Nexus academy before too long. Once we have the updates and the incentives in place, I’m sure we will be the premiere Ark academy in only a few years.”
“So the fallback plan is proceeding as planned. Very good.” Juro nodded.
“Fallback plan?” Karimi asked. “I was led to believe this was instrumental to the mission.”
“It is important, yes, but the plans have shifted. Which is the point of this meeting.”
“Not so trivial, eh, Karimi?” Jensen teased and received a glare in response.
“No need for pettiness, Jensen,” Chana scolded.
Juro focused on Nolan. “I want to begin by asking about the progress of your assignment, General.”
“It is well underway,” he stated and glanced at the screen. “Activate…open project Y2K.”
“Named after the fear of system failure from the late nineteen-hundreds,” Xiulan mused thoughtfully. “Cute.”
“I’m glad you approve,” he said with a nod as details of the mission appeared on the screen. “To answer your question from before, Ms. Liu, I have indeed procured the party. In fact, they are already on their way to the target.”
“I still think we could have gone with someone else,” Oliver related. “With as much money as we side-lined for this mission, we could have simply bought a mercenary company.”
“Yes, very stealthy,” Jensen said and rolled his eyes dramatically.
“Stealth isn’t much of an option here,” Nolan reasoned and changed the screen to an outline of a building. “Ramses Corporation’s building has top-notch internal security systems. In addition, the device is secured within its own protected room and container. In the time allotted, there is no conceivable way we would be able to find the correct team to circumvent the security and still be able to access the room to steal the device unseen.”
“Which is why we went with the EX-10,” Chana continued. “They have proven themselves effective at wet work and infiltration. Also, they have a reputation for stealing new tech around the system and on Earth and selling it on the black and underground markets.”
“Because the last time we had hired help, it went so well,” Damyen muttered and glared at his colleagues.
“Don’t look at me,” Oliver snapped. “I didn’t vote to go with Zubanz’s scheme.”
“Admittedly, I gave the okay because I knew he felt bad about being passed over,” Jensen confessed.
“You were the one who took his potential position,” Yadira noted, “and he merely schemed to look good so he could usurp it.”
“And look how that turned out.” Jensen chuckled.
“You expected him to die?” Damyen asked.
“What makes you think that?” he responded. “I honestly thought it had a chance, but I’ll admit that I also expected Gin would simply take the money and run.”
“A failure for one of us, even a lower ranking member, is a failure for the organization,” Karimi stated.
“I’ll make a note of it, but don’t act like I was the one who sabotaged it,” Jensen muttered.
“Moving past this prattle, when can we expect them to begin, Nolan?” Juro asked.
The general changed the screen to show the interior of a ship with ten people in dark armor aboard. “I’ve kept a watch on our contractors. They will arrive on Earth in a day, after which they will prepare and initiate the mission on Friday evening.”
“Very good, we shall reconvene then to watch it play out,” the chairman said with a decisive nod. “Once they have the device, we shall be one step closer—even if it is a small one—to preparing for the invasion.”
Chapter Two
Laurie moved from the mainframe terminal to one of the servers where he opened a holoscreen to look within and scan the code. His gaze darted around the screen and glanced repeatedly at the mainframe terminal. His purpose was to triple-check the integration process of the Animus pods and smooth it with the necessary adjustments. Unfortunately, he had to go through this entire bay of servers and check on the BREW OS. Granted, it wasn’t so much its own OS at the moment as it was the Frankenstein-like replacement it had been for the last few months.
Cyra and the others had all concurred that it was fixed and his plan had worked. It hadn’t honestly been his plan—it was the last ditch effort of a desperate man—but it happened to work. Still, despite its apparent success, he had always known there would be more to do once the BREW had combined with the Animus.
The problem was that he hadn’t yet worked out what it actually all meant. The Animus now functioned faster than ever before. Those who had gone into the system in trials over the last few weeks reported quicker syncing and more realistic sensations—even if their descriptions were as inane as “the smell of the dust is heavier.” If anything, given the magnitude of the original problem, they were lucky it worked at all. The so-called upgrades were merely a bonus. But were they? Had he not paid enough attention to the deeper parts of the Animus? Was there another virus lurking there, waiting for the opportune moment? Had he allowed the creation of a back door into their mainframe?
When he’d first begun his investigation, he had expected to complete it in a couple of weeks at the most. He was confident in both his abilities and his system, but as he worked methodically through the various components, what should have been pride in the remarkable capability of his creation became paranoia. Perversely, it was initiated and fueled by the simple truth that he found nothing out of place— in fact, it was vastly improved. There should have at least been traces of junk code or peculiar commands, nothing serious but enough to dust away and clean up. An entire system didn’t simply get infested and actually work better than ever after desperate technical triage.
The doors to the mainframe room opened but Laurie didn’t look up. He had a good idea who it was. Either Cyra coming to check up on him or—
“Laurie, it’s past midnight,” Sasha pointed out and his shoes tapped on the floor as he approached. Another set of taps confirmed his fears—Sasha and Cyra. Oh, joy.
“You know I am accustomed to working long hours, Sasha,” he replied as he closed the holoscreen and walked to another server.
“Yes, but not for this long,” his visitor stated.
“You’ve worked nonstop for weeks, Professor,” Cyra said, her concern evident in her voice. “We can see it in your face—you’re gaunt and there are bags under your eyes.”
“A quick trip to a purifier center will fix the latter problem,” Laurie muttered. “As for the weight I’ve lost, I plan to enjoy a great selection of cheeses, meats, and fish along with a generous serving of wine to celebrate having everything back in order.”
“And when will this celebration take place?” the commander asked.
“Are you hoping for an invite, Sasha?” he asked. The tone made a vague attempt to be humorous but it was negated by the ragged edge to his voice. “I’ll be sure to let you know. For now, I have one more thing to do before I turn in.”
“That’s something you’ve said the last few times I’ve checked in on you,” the other man retorted. “And from what Cyra has told me, you’ve given her the same excuse. Either you plan to do more than one thing, or your one thing takes hours.”
“How is that an issue?” Laurie demanded, his tone edging toward irate. “My main function here is to overlook the Animus. I’m merely doing my job.”
“Sir, we’ve updated the system at least five times in the last three months. That’s more than double what we’ve done in a year for over a decade,” Cyra protested. She reached hesitantly to place a hand on her boss’ shoulder. “Everything is in order, Professor. You’ve examined it extensively and I’ve done the same. Not only that, the techs at this academy have combed through the entire system. Everything is in place.”
“That’s what concerns me,” he replied and moved briskly to another system. Cyra stared at him in confusion and Sasha approached with a small frown.
“Do you think this is too good to be true, then?” he asked.
“Be hopeful but cautious,” Laurie said and opened another holoscreen. “That is a simple piece of wisdom from my father. In science—and specifically, technology—you can plan and execute as flawlessly as you are able, but we are naturally flawed beings trying to design perfect creations. It’s not a realistic goal but we strive for it anyway.”
Sasha and Cyra exchanged a hasty glance and the commander nodded in an effort to reassure her while the other man rambled.
“My point is that there is a time when your hope should be overridden by your caution. This was done too well. The BREW device integrated within the Animus too perfectly.”
“You do know that the BREW device was created by the Tessa company? One of our contacts and a valued partner,” Sasha reminded him.
“True, but Gin had it for at least two months from the day of his infiltration and massacre to his speculated intrusion into our school.”
“You believe he could have done something to it? He had above par hacking abilities but nothing that could have—”
“Did you have a look at the cracked EI he used? The one that could shut down any device or power line simply by looking at it?” Laurie questioned sharply. “He might have built it, but I know of several underground hackers who could fashion such a thing. Imagine what he could accomplish if he allowed one of them to tinker with the BREW. Hell, maybe he had a sub-routine developed within the BREW itself. It’s certainly possible.”
“He was obsessed with his objective, Laurie. He might have wanted Nexus to suffer in some form or fashion, but Kaiden was his primary target. Otherwise, there were better ways to use the device—Laurie?” Sasha reached out when the professor began to stagger. Cyra ran forward quickly as he fell and the commander caught him, “Are you all right?”
