CHAPTER ONE #2
Much as he wants to stay and meet this strange, potentially new threat head on, Kade takes the old service stairwell up to the fifth floor. He requests blanket status checks through dark-band, and gets a reassuring round of, ‘Eight bells,’ from everyone.
Eight bells means all is well.
The fifth floor of the Tower houses Iron Star’s Control Room, the Watch. Directly above it, occupying the entire top floor, are the boss’s private rooms. The only way to get there is through the Watch itself and two separate sets of reinforced security doors.
The Watch is run by Cole and Finn, who typically work in shifts, but strange activity means both of them on deck at once. Together, the pair are the Eyes of Iron Star, a two-man surveillance and intelligence unit responsible for tracking almost everything that moves through the organisation.
Like Kade and two others, they belong to High Command, the small inner structure answering directly to the boss and, in practice, each other.
First Captain.
The Eyes.
Quartermaster General, or QG.
Overseer.
Cole and Finn both look over when Kade walks in.
‘Sorrenko?’ Cole asks, sounds curious.
‘Unconfirmed,’ Kade says. ‘Get me visual across the board and make sure we’re prepped for a blackout.’
They glance at each other but then get to work.
It’s barely been a minute before Finn says, ‘Whoa, generator six is down.’
Kade opens the cabinet on the wall, begins arming himself fully. Inside is a wide range of weapons and body armour. He ignores the latter.
Through the radio, he says, ‘Gage and Seth, come in.’
Seth and Gage are twin brothers, part of High Command.
Gage is QG. Seth is Overseer.
‘Gage here. We’re together.’
‘Good. I want two teams to a floor. All team captains on high alert.’
‘Heard,’ the twins confirm through dark-band.
Kade hears a beep from the monitors. ‘Gen seven’s down?’
‘And eight,’ Cole says grimly. ‘You must have some idea who this is.’
‘It’s strange activity.’ Kade straps two additional holsters into place, can practically hear his boss going over the rules.
Strange activity requires fallback observation.
‘Yeah, but.’ Finn looks over. ‘What do you think it is?’
‘I don’t know. Feels off. You two suit up, yeah?’
‘Kade, we don’t need—’
‘I said suit up,’ he insists crisply. ‘Both of you. Please.’
‘Heard.’
Once fully armed, Kade approaches the main hub of the Watch.
An oval operations console sits at the centre of the room, surrounded by live surveillance feeds, encrypted comms and continuous threat scans. It controls the Vine Mesh, and almost every security system inside the Tower. Cole and Finn sit on opposite sides.
Kade hovers behind Cole when he returns to his seat.
‘Are any main systems down?’
‘Uh.’ Cole types. ‘HVAC.’
‘The vents aren’t accessible,’ Finn points out when he returns to his seat on the opposite side, ‘unless you’re a mouse.’
‘Yeah.’ Kade frowns, tries to put it out of his mind. ‘OK, show me the tunnel entrances.’
‘They’re clear.’
‘Backtrack an hour ago, count how many Resets came in.’
While they work, Kade looks towards the steel door behind him in the wall. Something just doesn’t feel right, and instinctively, that makes him want to go tell Riley, but he can’t. Protocol comes first.
‘OK, forty-one people came in through the tunnels,’ Cole says.
‘I counted forty-one dead,’ Kade says. ‘Echo-pulse motion grid?’
‘So far nothing.’
‘Perimeter breach telemetry?’
‘Untouched.’
‘Tunnel hatch is sealed?’
‘Confirmed sealed, yes.’
‘Finn, show me the tunnels.’
Three of several screens switch to night vision relay of the tunnels.
Kade stares hard, watching for any movement.
Cole asks, ‘Should we not send teams down?’
‘No.’
‘But you took out that wave of Resets no problem.’
‘Pre-jam diagnostic is rare, and something is off. Strange activity.’
‘Strange activity,’ Finn echoes. ‘Maybe it’s Brightling!’
Cole groans. ‘Not now, Finn.’ He looks up at Kade. ‘Scan for air drops?’
‘Standard sweep but I know it’s the tunnels,’ Kade murmurs, staring without blinking at the green and black until finally a shadow moves unnaturally. Victory twists inside, adrenaline free flowing. ‘There you are.’
The screen flickers.
Kade feels an incredibly fine vibration against the soles of his feet.
‘Heat signatures on generators one through five. They’re out,’ Cole says.
‘Explosives,’ Finn confirms. ‘Only nine and ten left intact. How the fuck did they get to the generators?’
‘How the fuck did they get in? We’d have clocked them coming a mile away.’
‘Stay focused,’ Kade intones. ‘Where’s the rest of them?’
‘Maybe this is just a scout.’ Cole and Finn can clearly see the moving shadow now too.
Finn asks, ‘Who sends a single scout?’
‘This isn’t a scout,’ Kade says with utmost certainty. He watches the shadow move. Another fine vibration. ‘Nine and ten?’
‘Both down. If the power drops now—’
‘It will.’
‘Then everywhere but the Watch will be solidly blacked out for six minutes until the emergency line kicks in.’
‘That’s still intact?’
Cole checks. ‘Yes.’
The Watch’s backup generator sits in the corner nearby.
‘Six minutes in the dark elsewhere,’ Kade muses, glancing at the heavy-duty doors that lead to the spiral staircase, housing the boss of Iron Star. No electronics up there and his boss never uses earpieces or radios, much as that mildly annoys Kade.
‘What are you thinking?’ Finn asks him.
The temptation to go down and face this scout himself is nigh upon overwhelming but Kade knows his place is here. ‘Nothing. Six minutes. We can get through that. No other heat signatures?’
‘No, and what’s worse is this one doesn’t even show up.’
‘What do you mean?’
Finn taps the screen. ‘Visual confirms a presence, but echo-pulse reads clean and thermal shows zero.’
Cole shakes his head. ‘Are they masking?’
‘Must be.’
‘Are there any other shadows on screen?’
‘None.’
‘Then it’s one person? What the fuck is happening, Kade?’ Cole asks. ‘This might actually be a Paranatural.’
‘Brightling,’ Finn corrects.
‘Don’t start that shit,’ Kade warns, glancing again at the steel doors. If he goes and asks permission to meet the threat head on, it’ll be swiftly denied.
The second pulse checks in through dark-band.
Eight bells.
Using the same channel, Kade quietly intones, ‘All teams, prep for sundown. Repeat: prep for sundown. Engage night-vision. Delta Team, secure point around the basement hatch.’ He looks at the left screen, speaking to Cole instead of his radio. ‘All Tower Crew are secure?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘Lock the Pockets down.’
‘They’re navigating it well,’ Finn observes, tone worried, watching the screen. It’s pitch black in the tunnels, but the camera system, called the Vine Mesh, has multiple vision modes, including the ability to flash.
‘Cole, when this fucker reaches the curve there, light them up and get it as high-res as you can. Finn, backtrace entry. I want to know how they got in.’
‘I’ve been trying, but I can’t see any sign of additional entrance. We tracked the Resets, but there was nothing before or after. There’s no other way in.’
Kade’s blood runs cold.
‘Disposal extraction. That’s why they dropped HVAC.’
‘What?’
‘They waited for us to dump bodies into disposal, killed HVAC to access the extraction system, then came up through the chute. Holy shit.’
‘That’s fucking crazy.’
‘We don’t monitor the incinerator,’ Finn says quietly. ‘It’s smart.’
‘Cole, you ready to flash them?’
The shadow turns a corner, following the curve.
Cole types and then taps with flourish.
The screen whites out fully.
Several other screens capture the image in high-resolution in all different modes. Kade scans them as they form.
Ultraviolet, thermal, night vision and three versions of enhanced optical.
It seems to be a man with one arm thrown up in front of his face against the blinding light, but Kade clocks plenty.
Long, dark hair tied back. Full mil-spec rig.
Three long guns across his back, twin sidearms at his thighs, steel strapped everywhere worth protecting.
That alone would be concerning, but Kade sees more in the stills.
The holsters sit exactly where he wears his own.
The blades are positioned for either hand.
The spare magazines are seated for reload speed, not frontal ease.
It’s a professional. That much is clear.
Kade dips his chin, taking in everything the exposed skin gives away. Military build, no question, but he’s bare-armed, no armour, no plates, not even on the chest. A few tattoos are visible but nothing to identify which, if any, syndicate he belongs to.
‘He’s exposed,’ Cole says quietly, sounds astonished. ‘No armour, nothing.’
‘Has to be a Breacher, right?’
Kade shakes his head slowly. ‘Where is he holding it then?’
‘Could be internal.’
‘You think he swallowed six pounds of C4?’
‘We can’t rule anything out.’
‘Then why is he carrying so many weapons?’
‘He must want to make sure he gets central before he blows.’
‘Those guns are tactical, not wide spray and who gives a Breacher knives? No.’ Kade stares. ‘This one just thinks he’s too good to get hit.’
‘Or doesn’t care if he does,’ Finn suggests.
‘Shall we stream devices for hive vision?’ Cole suggests.
‘Yes, good idea.’
A larger screen on Finn’s side bubbles immediately with dozens of smaller green and black screens, showing every unit’s night vision scope as a streamed camera.
Live feed from the Mesh in the tunnels shows the man moving confidently through the maze.
Kade frowns deeply. The man drops low, feeling the base of the tunnel wall with his fingers.
Cole and Finn clocked it too. ‘Did he just…?’
‘There’s no way.’
‘I saw it,’ Kade says, moving closer and watching again as the intruder faces up, slowing but not pausing before turning the correct way. ‘He knows about the Touchtrail.’
‘This could be an insider.’
‘Then why not attack from inside?’
‘He knew how to read the Touchtrail, where to find it,’ Cole says, typing fast. ‘No one’s ever—’
‘Flash him again,’ Kade commands. ‘Brighter.’
‘Why isn’t the power out yet?’
‘Maybe it’s on a timer.’
‘There, flash him now!’