DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3) (8 page)

And it was not the most exciting of views for a lot of the trip. They crossed into the Southern Protectorate just south of Lexington in what had been Kentucky. Visible habitation had been thinning for a while, but it tailed off faster as they arced south-west, passing to the north of the ruins of Nashville. Here, the depopulation was primarily due to the unpredictability of the weather. Tornados had all but obliterated Nashville while further south there were tornados
and
violent storms which came up out of the Gulf of Mexico. Florida was depopulated because much of it was under water.

By the time they were passing Memphis and heading into what had been Arkansas, the effects of water were more obvious, both the lack and the excess. Here the topsoil had been eroded by flash floods and periods of extended drought. The land below them was bleak, a dirty yellow-brown that seemed to have coated the whole landscape in silt.

‘Do you think they’ll ever get this land back?’ Fox asked as the navigation system said they were entering Texas airspace. Jackson had been running things, but they were approaching their destination and it was time for Fox to take over.

‘Yes,’ Jackson replied. ‘We’re seeing some favourable results in Africa now. I don’t expect to be alive when it happens though.’

‘Cheery thought.’ Fox slipped into the second seat in the cockpit and took over the controls. ‘Head back and keep Terri company. You can launch the two guard frames when we’re down.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Jackson replied, smirking as he pulled his gangly legs out of the foot well. ‘I’ll have them airborne as soon as possible.’

‘Just remember, no one even opens a door until we’re sure it’s clear. Some of the gangs out here would just love to get their hands on us and this jet.’

‘We’re both aware of the danger, Fox. Don’t worry.’

Fox was worried. She would have preferred a military aircraft, more weapons, or not being there, but she realised that it was all, primarily, about not especially wanting to see the place again and she had decided that
maybe
Terri had something. Maybe coming back and settling some ghosts would be a good thing. Checking the flight plan, she started the descent toward what was left of MarTech Dallas.

~~~

‘I’m getting nothing larger than a cat out there,’ Jackson said as Fox made her way back into the passenger cabin from the cockpit. ‘Nothing on radar or infrared.’

Fox nodded, picking up an assault rifle which Terri had put out ready for her. ‘Put the frames on an orbital perimeter search.’ She began checking the rifle, popping the magazine to visually check the load.

‘I did check that thing out when I took it out of the rack,’ Terri said, her lips twitching.

‘Yeah, well, ever since this place, I like to do a check over any weapon I have to use which doesn’t spend all its time with me. It’s mildly paranoid, but after all the jams we had thanks to Marshall…’

‘That,’ Jackson said, ‘is an all-electromagnetic feed. Gauss rifle mounted over an electromagnetic grenade launcher. It won’t jam.’

Fox smiled at him. ‘I know. Mildly paranoid, remember?’ Slapping the magazine back in place, she walked to the rear cabin door and punched the pair of buttons which unsealed and opened it. And the heat rolled in and hit them like a wall. ‘I hope everyone remembered their antiperspirant.’

‘Unfortunately, this aircraft doesn’t have a shower,’ Jackson commented. ‘However, the atmospheric analysis is clear, dust levels are low.’

Fox put on an anti-glare visor and started out of the hatch as the steps locked in place. She felt sweat break out almost immediately under the harsh glare of the sun, but she had selected a material for her bodysuit which drew fluid away from her skin and had dispensed with a jacket. ‘Make sure your arms are covered,’ she said before starting down to the concrete of the landing strip.

As with MarTech East Africa, the Dallas facility had had its own landing strip, a perimeter wall, and a fence surrounding both the bunker and the airfield. From the looks of it, a tornado, probably several of them, had torn the fence apart in the past three years, but the wall looked to be standing. On the other hand, Fox could see a gate to the east which was open or down so they had minimal security. The best she could hope for was that it limited where anyone might come from if their arrival had been noticed.

If they had been noticed, it would likely be by people living in the city, forty klicks to the south-west. The bunker was not actually in Dallas, but outside the major urban area, set between the Ray Hubbard and Lavon lakes, or what was left of them. The two big bodies of water were at a higher level now than they would be in a few weeks. Spring rains had washed in, bringing more silt in with them, further clogging the rivers, but deepening the sluggish, algae-laden waters.

Using the enhancement features on her visor, Fox could see the buildings of the city in more detail. Nothing much had changed, but one of the taller structures had given up fighting and collapsed. She knew there were people out there: anarchist and survivalist groups fitted out with biomods to survive the harsh conditions. They found it easier to handle the tornados and storms when they could have a solid roof over their heads and there were structures in the city which would provide good cover, if you avoided the ones which might fall on you.

Fox checked behind her and found Jackson and Terri carrying a box between them down the steps. ‘You two okay with that?’

‘It’s not heavy,’ Jackson replied, ‘and I’d prefer you had your hands free for that rifle.’

‘Paranoia, Jackson?’ Fox flashed him a grin.

‘I believe it’s only paranoia if they aren’t out to get you.’

‘Reasonable.’ Fox started off across the grass-broken concrete.

Like in Africa, the Dallas bunker had been a low, concrete structure on the surface with extensive underground facilities. Here the ‘low and smooth’ build had been particularly important because of the danger of high winds. Here the communications antennae had been housed inside a structural plastic shell, but it and the equipment it had protected were all gone now. Fox doubted the winds could have shattered the dome, which probably meant that it had been cracked by some large chunk of wind-blown debris before being ripped open. Luckily, the tornados
tended
to stick to early evening, when the temperature was even higher, so arriving before midday was fairly safe.

Unlike Africa, large sections of the structures here had collapsed in. Toward the middle of the buildings, there was a pit maybe three or four metres deep and now filling up with silt. It marked the main elevator shafts which had collapsed in on themselves as the bombs Fox had planted had torn the underground base apart. The main entrance building with its ground vehicle bay was still standing and fairly intact. Fox walked toward it remembering the last time she had seen it: three years earlier when she had been running out of it leaving death and destruction behind her.

There was a side door which looked like it had been broken open and Fox switched her visor to infrared before pushing through and checking the room. It had been a reception area and there was still a counter for receiving visitors. Behind it was a set of double doors leading to a corridor filled with concrete rubble.

‘Looks clear,’ Fox said.

Jackson entered carrying a large lamp. ‘Yes, this should do. It’ll keep the winds off for a while at least.’

Terri followed, dragging the crate they had brought over. ‘Yeah, this should do. To be honest, though, now I’m here, I’ve no idea what to do…’

Turning, Jackson flipped open the box and pulled out a couple more lamps, checking the floor by them as he moved over to the reception desk. Infrared was good for finding many things, but a dormant snake might be missed. ‘We have the flowers to lay. It’s clichéd, but it’s something to show we haven’t forgotten them. And the thing they died for has finally come to fruition.’

‘Yes,’ Terri said, her voice soft. ‘Finally.’

The first order of business, which Fox wanted it done quickly because it would take time and make noise so it was best handled first, was the plaque they had had made. Jackson had actually programmed the Yliaster unit in Sam’s house to make it since that seemed appropriate. It was a simple, plastic rectangle which had been manufactured to look like brass with letters cut into it. It said ‘Never Forgotten’ and they fixed it to the wall behind the reception desk, next to the door, with bolts which had to be drilled into the concrete.

With that done, Jackson and Terri took bouquets of roses from the box and placed them under the plaque. Both of them looked like they wanted to say something but could not really come up with anything that worked. Terri gave the plaque a frown and then swallowed, and said, ‘At least I can say now that none of you died for no reason.’ She looked like she might say more, and then shook her head and stepped back, looking at Fox.

Fox took her own gift of flowers from the box and walked around the reception desk. There was, in fact, only one flower in Fox’s hand: a single red and gold tulip which she placed on the ground and stepped back. ‘When I first met Pieter and asked about the accent, he said he was Dutch. And I said, “That’s clogs and cheese and tulips, right?” And he laughed, and he bought me tulips after that.’ She looked through the broken glass of the door at the rubble. ‘I finally got them all, Pieter. Mission over. We can move on to the next.’ She grinned. ‘You have no
idea
how hard it was to find that damn flower.’

There was a rumble of subdued laughter from Jackson and Terri, but Fox was moving again, picking up her rifle from where it was resting on the counter. ‘We need to go. There’s something on radar moving up from the south-west.’

‘They’ve got a ground vehicle?’ Jackson asked, connecting through to the jet and the feeds from the airborne guardian frames.

‘Looks like it. I’ve tasked one of the units to give us a closer look, but we should get that crate back on the jet.’

By the time they were pulling the door shut, the cyberframe was in visual range of the ugly-looking truck that appeared to be carrying maybe ten men in outfits which would have looked right for some sort of post-apocalyptic survival movie. The truck itself had no hood and then Jackson looked over the feed from the frame and said, ‘They’ve adapted a gasoline engine to run on alcohol. Clever for someone like that.’

‘They’re clever enough. Most of the gangs have at least basic internet via those high-altitude, wide-area drone relays. A lot of them are pretty busy on the anarchy meme sites.’

‘They’re going to break in and mess this up as soon as we’re gone, aren’t they?’ Terri said.

‘No,’ Fox replied. A second later, on the camera feed, the trails from four missiles could be seen lancing out in the direction of the truck. ‘That should discourage them.’

‘What’s left of them anyway,’ Jackson said.

Part Two: The Future of Murder

New York Metro, 20
^th
June 2060.

Fox sat in a room filled with monitors and sensor data. The screens showed the feeds from cameras all over the house; they floated, rearranging themselves in space as Fox decided to look somewhere else. She had multispectral views of every room in the house, the roof, and the outside walls. She had feeds from all the security monitor systems giving times for last entry and exit through both doors, along with environmental data and a schematic map showing the location of everyone in the building.

Right now, that was her since she had waited until Marie had gone out running before checking out the virtual room the house’s security systems fed into. Using the security feeds was something Fox planned to do only when she really needed to, but checking it out when no one was around seemed like a good idea.

‘Everything meets your requirements?’ Belle appeared, all prim and proper, with her hands clasped before her and her heels together.

Before Fox could answer, Kit appeared in her own more proper outfit and glasses, stood in precisely the same posture, and said, ‘Everything appears to be adequate.’

Fox tried to keep the smirk off her virtual face. ‘It seems quite complete, Belle. Thank you. Have you two sorted out this calendar synchronisation thing?’

‘We have,’ Belle said. ‘Kit has been most accommodating. The fact that we are both MarTech AIs obviously helps. It has been less trivial to produce a reasonable policy for Miss Shaftsbury. She has a haphazard view of maintaining her social data.’

‘She’s young, and she’ll likely rearrange things when she starts working. Have you access to Sam’s schedule?’

‘Yes. I have constructed an aggregate calendar accessible by all of you, which shows when you can expect to be alone, or to be able to find one of the others. However, it currently says that Miss Shaftsbury should be in when, in fact, she has gone out.’

‘You’ll need to expect changes in plan. Doesn’t Marie use that LifeFit thing? I think if you monitored that, you’d be able to follow her plans for running
and
expected time to return.’

Belle raised an eyebrow and then turned, raising a hand in an unnecessary gesture to open a new display window. This one showed a local street map and an indicator showing Marie’s current position. ‘Thank you, Fox, I can do that and follow her. And she will be re-entering the house approximately…’

On one of the displays, there was movement and Fox more or less automatically pulled the screen forward to see Marie bouncing into her lounge in very short shorts and a cropped athletic top. Before Fox could think to push the display away, she got to see Marie peeling off her top as she headed for the bathroom. And then there was movement on the basement bathroom display which Fox studiously ignored.

‘And this is why I don’t want to start coming in here unless I need to,’ Fox said. ‘I could turn into a real voyeur.’

‘You have seen Marie naked before,’ Kit pointed out. ‘Quite close up, in fact.’

‘It’s not quite the same when I’m spying on her through the house sensors. It’s probably a human thing, don’t worry about it.’ Closing her eyes, Fox dropped out of the virtual world and into the real one. Belle and Kit were both standing over her when she looked up.