Vapor Trails, page 23
"Of course. But first, you need to see something."
Margaret tried to raise the gun to fire, but something seemed to shoot out of not-Hodges, and there was a searing pain in her right hand. She dropped the weapon and looked down, seeing her right hand was a raw mess of exposed muscle and bone, all but one finger missing.
When she looked up, not-Hodges was mere inches away. She'd not even heard him move. Up close, her panicked, hyperactive brain took in some subtle details. There were some missing scars, and the proportions were slightly off.
This Hodges was from some years ago. A new pain in her right arm snapped her back into the moment, and she looked down, seeing that not-Hodges had applied a makeshift tourniquet with what looked like electrical wiring.
"I can't have you bleeding out just yet, Margaret," not-Hodges said softly. "I have to show you something. Come along."
He led her back into the office area and sat her in a seat facing the large wall monitor she used for staff meetings. She didn’t resist. Whatever this thing was, she knew there was no way to escape. The part of her brain that refused to give up clung to the hope the crew of her personal ship would notice the drop in communications and send a rapid response team to investigate.
"That's good," not-Hodges said. "Just watch this, and then it will be over." A video began playing on the monitor, and a familiar face filled the screen. This time, there was no voice modulation, unlike when she'd spoken to the man not ten minutes ago.
"Hello, Margaret," he said sadly. "I'm sorry it's come to this, I really am. I just want you to know it's not personal. We had our differences in the beginning, but I came to respect your tenacity and grit.
"The problem is that, now, you're a liability to the group. One World has served its purpose, now it's time for it to move aside. We've had discussions, and we've agreed you won't see reason and take a lesser role in the organization, and there's too great a risk of you pulling a power play later on. Just realize even this is a compliment to your effectiveness."
The video winked out and, still, no cavalry had come charging to the rescue. A strange calm came over her as she realized what was coming was inevitable.
"The contract states I am to make it painless if you so desire," her captor said. "If you would feel better putting up a fight, you may, but it will only prolong your suffering."
"What are you? Show me that much before…it…happens," she said.
Not-Hodges shimmered and winked out of existence, replaced by a sleek, black…something underneath. It must have been some sort of kill-bot with holographic generators that let it mimic a person. The illusions weren't perfect, but they were enough to throw her off and let it get close.
"You're sentient?" she asked. "Some sort of new synth, maybe?"
"Some sort," it agreed, walking forward. Without warning or preamble, it deployed a spike from its forearm and shoved it into her head. There was a bright flash, and the last thought that Margaret Jansen had was of her home in Georgia.
"I'm not seeing Jansen's frigate on sensors," Avelar said.
"Does she ever deploy it without her being aboard?" Jacob asked.
"I've never seen it happen," Avelar said. "Doesn't mean she hasn't, though. On the surface, there's not a lot I'm privy to she doesn't explicitly tell me."
Jason frowned but kept the Phoenix's weapon systems armed and ready. They'd meshed-in close to Plaki Prime, ready to engage Jansen's ship in a surprise attack. When they'd arrived, however, the ship was nowhere to be found. A deep scan with the active sensors accounted for all the traffic in the system, with no sign of a frigate-class vessel.
"Let's push ahead with the plan," he said. "We're already here and if she's on the planet with her ship missing, all the better."
He put the Phoenix into a standard orbital approach and requested a landing clearance that would let him put down in the open area Avelar had indicated on a map of the continent. It was a remote, wilderness area the agent swore would give them a backdoor into Jansen's compound. He was confident 784 would be able to overcome any security provisions they ran into that he wasn't aware of.
"This is strange. All coms seem to be down at the base," Avelar said. "I'm not even getting the nav beacon for shuttle landings."
"That should be broadcasting constantly if it's an approved airfield," Jason said. "Crusher, what do the sensors say?"
"Buildings all look like they have power," Crusher said from the sensor station. "Nothing moving around on the ground the optics can see. Doesn't look suspicious, just not busy."
"There's not a lot of people at this compound," Avelar said. "Most are at the main base farther south, but there should still be people and vehicles moving about."
With a growing sense of unease, Jason circled and descended, keeping just out of the line of sight of the compound. Jansen knew what his ship looked like so he didn't need to advertise they were coming before they even walked off the ramp.
The plan was simple, yet elegant. Avelar wanted to take advantage of Jansen's low-profile, hiding-in-plain-sight approach to security at the smaller compound along with one of her many escape plans to sneak up on her within her inner sanctum, bypassing security completely. Once they landed, and Jason secured the ship, the four biotics geared up while 784 went outside and looked around.
"Seems all clear," he said as the others joined him on the ground. "According to Agent Avelar's directions, we are approximately six kilometers from the tunnel entrance."
"Let's get to it," Jason said, taking off at a steady, ground-eating run the others could easily keep up with.
He looked back to make sure Jacob was with him, and then pressed on. His son was still nursing several serious injuries from his fight with Hodges, and Avelar was just a normal human, so he kept having to rein himself in and keep his impatience in check.
Thanks to the brutal terrain and their inability to take a direct route, it was nearly two hours later when they reached an overgrown, unassuming concrete structure with a steel security door that looked like it could have belonged to a public utility company. Avelar nodded, and 784 walked up, taking multiple readings of the door, and scanning it in every wavelength available to him.
Satisfied there were only the mechanical locks to contend with, he reared back and kicked the door. He overestimated the strength needed, however, so instead of breaking down the door, he'd actually just kicked a hole through the steel plating.
"Damn," Jacob said, looking through the hole. "That's half-inch plate you just booted through."
"I will try again," 784 said, getting ready to kick it again.
"Easy there, Baby Huey," Jason said, stepping in the way. "Let's try a little finesse here."
"This coming from you?" Crusher snorted.
Jason ignored him and reached through the battlesynth foot-sized hole and felt around for the lock release. It was a large, mechanical quarter-turn lever that would pull all the locking bolts in simultaneously. When he pulled the lever, it moved smoothly and silently. Apparently, Jansen kept up with the maintenance of her escape plans.
"Clever," Jacob said. "Can only be opened from the inside, unassuming, and works even if they kill all the power or use a tight-beam EMP."
"It also doesn't draw attention like a biometric reader or keypad would," Avelar said.
"No cameras?" Jason asked.
"Not tied into the compound system," Avelar said. "There's a closed-loop circuit with the monitor right inside the door here."
"What's this?" Crusher asked, pointing to a hole that had been neatly punched through the concrete near the locking mechanism. It looked recent and couldn't be seen from the outside because of the overgrowth.
"Vent hole?" Jason asked. "Maybe to make sure it doesn't get stuck because of a vacuum?"
"That looks like it was just done within the last few days," Avelar said. "So, I wouldn't have been around to see what was going on."
The team moved into the tunnel and found it actually wasn't dark, just very dimly-lit.
"What was the rest of this plan?" Jason asked. "She comes out here and goes for a hike in the woods?"
"This plan required a pickup from her ship," Avelar said. "There's a clearing up on a hilltop to the northeast. I'd have directed you there, but the Phoenix would have been too exposed and too close to the base."
The tunnel ran a full half a kilometer before terminating in a stairwell that went up to another door, this one laying horizontal and presumably set into a floor. Avelar climbed the steps first and inspected the door. There were a few stifled curses, and then the light of his flashlight bouncing around as he took a closer look.
"Problem," he whispered. "This door has been tampered with. From this side."
"How so?" Jason asked, keeping his voice down in case Jansen sat right above them.
"This side has a shielded, hardened electrical lock system with a keypad recessed into the floor. The wires going to all the solenoids that would pull the bolts back have been cut, disabling the door."
"Someone wanting to make sure she couldn't leave through here," Jason said, looking back down the tunnel and thinking of the perfectly bored hole near the handle of the other door. "Can you force it open?"
"Each bolt will need to be pulled back manually," Avelar said. "There are twelve."
"Will they remain open once pulled?" 784 asked.
"They should. They're not spring-loaded. Power would need to be applied to lock them back in place."
"Please, step aside," the battlesynth said. "And, everyone, ready yourselves."
784 climbed the stairs and, moving so fast his hands were a blur, pulled all the locking bolts and shoved the door up and out of the way. He switched to combat mode and fired his repulsors, flying into the room above while the others sprinted up the stairs.
"Clear," 784 said. "My sensors aren't picking up anybody in the vicinity."
"Abandoned?" Jacob asked, sounding defeated.
"Not quite," Crusher said. "Take a deep whiff."
"Dead bodies," Jason said, sniffing. "Come on."
They moved cautiously out into the area outside the lavishly appointed office. Once they came around the cubicle walls and the front desk, Jacob just let his weapon drop and let out a huge sigh.
"Fuck," he said, pointing at a very dead Margaret Jansen sitting in a chair, her open eyes staring at the wall monitor ahead of her.
"All this blood isn't from her," Jason said. "784, check out there."
"Someone blew her hand off." Avelar sounded clinically detached as he inspected the corpse. "Then it was wrapped with wire to stop the bleeding. The death blow was something piercing the skull here. No other injuries."
"Huge pile of human bodies in there," Crusher said, pointing a thumb behind him as he and 784 walked back in. "All throats cut and one Ull decapitated."
"What in the fuck happened here?" Jacob asked, awestruck. "There's no real sign of a battle or any marks from weapons fire. How did a team come in here and kill everyone like this?"
"Either way, it's over," Jason said.
"Not quite yet, Captain," Avelar said. "We still need to recover the physical encryption keys to fully unlock those crypto traps, and I'd like to take a look at who our mysterious assassin is."
"There are cameras in this place?" Crusher asked.
"Oh, yes," Avelar said. "Jansen was nothing if not completely paranoid. Rightfully so, it would seem."
27
"Here's the vault," Jacob said. "You think you can get it open without ruining the contents?"
"Easily," 784 said, stepping up to go to work.
Jacob and his father had ripped the office apart, operating under the assumption Jansen would have her most important stuff closer to her so she could grab and dash if the compound was compromised. They'd found it behind a false panel in one of the bookshelves. None of her hiding spots for her safe or bugout tunnel were particularly clever, but they were quick to get to.
Avelar sat at Jansen's desk, working at her terminal to access the secret surveillance system she'd had installed along with the primary system everyone could see. Jacob had noticed the agent logged right in, apparently having compromised Jansen's first layer security credentials some time ago.
"I can access a lot of stuff from here, but any deeper, and I'll need her biometrics. She's been sitting at room temperature too long for a retinal scan to be valid. Her eyes looked a little milky," Avelar said. "But I can definitely get to her camera system. She had this installed more to keep an eye on her people and make sure they were actually working than as a serious security measure. Here we go— What the hell?"
"What?" Jacob asked, walking over. "Is that Hodges?"
"Yeah…three days after he was killed on Koliss-2." Avelar frowned. "And, apparently, he grew his hair back out to a style he wore two years ago in the time it took him to resurrect himself and fly here."
Everyone except 784 huddled around the terminal to watch as Hodges walked into the compound unchallenged by the gate guards, whom he killed first. A blade seemed to deploy out of his arm and damn near decapitated the guard.
"Oh, no," Jason whispered. "Oh, fuck."
"What?" Avelar turned.
"Shh!" Jacob hissed, pointing to the screen.
The computer automatically tracked through the different feeds to follow Hodges after Avelar framed him on the screen. He went and killed everyone in the common area, dispatching four before anybody had even caught on to what the hell was going on. Once they started to panic and scatter, Hodges moved so fast the image flickered as the camera's refresh rate was too slow to track all the movements.
Once everyone in the common area was dead, Hodges's form shimmered and, suddenly, he was Margaret Jansen. She walked into the bullpen and quietly ordered everyone to stand up and file out into the common area, which they hurried to do without complaint.
Once out in the other room, Jansen morphed back to Hodges for some reason, and then got to work killing the rest of them, efficiently slicing their throats with that wicked blade that came from his forearm.
Hodges then piled all the bodies up in the middle of the room, another inexplicable action. He was almost done when an Ull came into the room, taking in the scene with an unreadable expression.
"Hodges! What have you done!" it asked. "Jansen will—" it was cut off as Hodges crossed the distance in the blink of an eye and lopped its head from its body.
"This is…intense," Crusher rumbled.
784 walked over just as Jansen walked out of her office and encountered the thing that killed all her people. The interaction chilled Jacob to the core. He knew what was coming, but he couldn't look away. The calm, detached mannerisms and the way it led her to be slaughtered were more frightening than if a team of Korkarans had come in and ravaged the place like wild animals.
"Here we go," Avelar said, turning the audio up as Jansen was led to a chair.
"Just watch this, and then it will be over."
When the video started on the wall monitor, nobody could believe who was on the screen. As soon as a clear image of the person's face came up, Avelar paused the video and leaned back, exhaling loudly.
"Holy fucking shit," Jacob hissed. "Director Welford?!"
Many, many things fell into place for Jacob with this revelation. He knew Welford was a confidant of Captain Webb, which would explain why One World was always one step ahead of Scout Fleet.
"Wait," Crusher said. "Isn't that the asshole who posed as a lieutenant way back years ago on Earth when we killed Deetz?"
"That's him," Jason said quietly. "He was CIA back then. Later, he was assigned to Terranovus and helped us defeat Jansen there. He apparently flipped once he was given the directorship of the NIS…or he's been playing us the whole time, and he was never our ally."
"Captain Webb is going to shit a brick over this," Jacob said.
Avelar resumed the video, and they listened as Welford implicated himself in a massive conspiracy involving both the OSO and One World. Then, before Jansen was killed, the thing mimicking Hodges dropped the disguise. Crusher and Jason both groaned, the other two humans just looked confused. 784 didn’t react at all.
"Friend of yours?" Jacob asked.
"Sort of," Jason said, glancing at Avelar. "He's an assassin. New player in the game."
"I'm going to go check to see if that video is still on the unit out there," Avelar said, appearing to not care or not notice Jason's discomfort. Once he left, Jacob turned on them.
"So…who is he?"
"He goes by the name Seven," Jason said. "He's who we're going to be hunting soon."
"Yeah, I can't wait for that," Crusher grumbled.
"Wait…you mean—"
"Seven used to be Lucky," Jason sighed. "We think Lucky is still in there…somewhere. For right now, though, he's become something dangerous, and it's our fault for meddling in things we didn't understand."
"We will assist you, Captain Burke," 784 said. "777 is one of us. He is our responsibility as well."
"We'll need the help," Jason said. "Thanks."
"Unit was wiped clean," Avelar shouted from the outer office. "The only copy of that video is on the surveillance footage."
"You better call in Webb," Jason said. "This site will need to be sanitized, and he has some serious decisions to make."
"I'll do it from the Phoenix," Jacob said.
"I'll go with you. We can just fly her back here and put down. No point walking miles through the woods over and over."
As he walked with his father through the tunnel, and then the forest to get to the Phoenix, Jacob's mind was in freefall. People had died, friends of his, and it turned out the real enemy wasn't some splinter faction. That was a front for a group within the government pulling the strings and using the One World boogieman as a cover for their activities. Commander Mosler and Sergeant Taylor were both dead because of Michael Welford's betrayal.
He now understood what Avelar had meant when the agent had told him he was tilting at windmills. One World never really even existed. He'd been chasing a ghost the whole time, trying to grab onto smoke and choke the life out of it because he was too naïve to look at the problem from all angles.
