Pandemonium Page 8
“We are not . . .”
I want to argue. I want to manage to find the right words so that it makes sense. But I already know Tanya has made all the calculations. Even if she hadn’t, I’m not stupid. We wasted so much time going after Rasul and the chip; we’re probably already late for the main objective of our mission.
“We have to, Cole,” she adds with sadness in her voice. “I’m sorry, but we’ll have to hope Ahmed has a use for Eleanor and keeps her alive. And, if not, well, you knew all along her chances of survival were very low.”
I punch the control panel of my jet bike in frustration, and the control glass cracks but stays in one piece.
“Where to next?” I say.
Tanya doesn’t bother answering and instead takes control of the bike and vectors us toward our destination. My heart aches, and I feel sick to my stomach. I want to hurl but fight against it. That’s not who I am, I don’t abandon my partner, not after all we’ve been through together.
“If it makes you feel any better, Cole, I would have seized control of your body if you hadn’t complied. As much as I understand how you might feel right now, we can’t weigh the life of one person against hundreds of thousands, and you know it.”
I know what she is doing. She’s trying to make me feel appease my guilt. I wish it were working, but it isn’t.
“It doesn’t make me feel better, no. But thanks for trying.”
“I’m sending Drone Two in pursuit but far enough behind so that it doesn’t get shot down. Hopefully, we can at least track her, and for the time being her vitals are still transmitting. At least we know she is still alive.”
Tears start burning the corners of my eyes as the wind blows them out into the blurry sky. I am no longer able to think straight, emotions rushing at me at light speed. I close my eyes, but there is nowhere to hide from the inner pain that torments me to the core.
I’m so sorry, Eleanor.
TO BE CONCLUDED…
Read the last episode (Nightfall) right now, get it here.
You can also read a sneak peek of the final episode on the next pages.
Sneak peek of the final episode
We’re at a secondary safe house, the one nearest to our next destination: ground zero. That is if Ahmed keeps the same target, but it’s not easy to move a nuke to a new location without being detected less than two hours before it’s meant to detonate. Of course, he could decide on a different timeframe now.
Tanya is ninety-seven percent sure neither the target nor the timeframe has been altered. She compared the online chatter with the real-time data she compiled pre-mission, and that’s how she calculated that high probability figure.
I’m flash-recharging my core systems, and, in fact, I’m over-charging them. A procedure that’s not without risks, and there is a margin for error here. My body’s internal power circuitry, thanks to a few clusters of nanites acting as temporary capacitors, allows me to store an additional thirty-five percent power, but the excessive power will drain rapidly. Still, it should allow me to perform this last part of our mission at full power and then some.
I can’t help but blame myself for not shooting that son of a bitch earlier, while he was on his ship. I’d given my word that I wouldn’t, but what good is my word now? And only god knows what shape Eleanor must be in.
I have her vitals on my HUD. They’re fluctuating every few minutes and not in a good way. I know exactly what that means, Ahmed is torturing her, either for information or for spite. He could easily have located and disabled her life signs transmitter, but he wants me to know what he’s doing to her.
He wants to make me mad again, and it’s working. I have to use a lot of self-control not to punch everything in sight. I feel the need to destroy this place and then some. It becomes imperative for me to think about something else and fast.
“Any success accessing the data on the chip?” I ask Tanya.
“No, Cole. The multi-layered encryption on it is too strong. We won’t be able to decode the data with my computing power alone.”
“Can’t you network?”
“I could, but you’ve given me specific orders, for the time being at least, to keep this for your eyes only.”
“So?”
“So if I network with other computing processing units around the city, there’s a risk the data could be intercepted. We can either sit tight on the data and hope to access it over time or risk exposing it to the company and other parties.”
Not really a choice I’m happy to make.
But it’s the darnedest thing; I have a hunch that this data is too sensitive even for Rewind to get access to. Not that I can be sure Tanya’s demilitarized memory banks really work as they should.
“Can you dump the raw data from the device?”
“I can.”
“How long will it take?”
“Unless there are hidden partitions that won’t show until the right decrypt keys are provided, the amount of data is actually quite small. The raw data is about seventeen terabytes. I can have it copied by the time you’ve finished charging, and with time to spare.”
“Any booby traps that could trigger a self-erase mechanism?”
“None that I could detect, Cole, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”
I think about it for a moment. “Start copying the data.”
Tanya stays silent. Now is as good a time as any to apologize for my previous behavior.
“Tanya, about earlier . . . when I shut you off. I’m—I’m really sorry. I didn’t have to be so blunt.”
There is an uncomfortably long pause before she answers.
“Apology accepted,” she says rather coldly.
I didn’t expect her to be okay with a plain sorry, of course, and I know it would take time for her to really forgive me, if she will at all.
To say I was enraged is no excuse, but that’s how I am sometimes. In the heat of the moment, I’m prone to saying things without thinking.
“I want you to know I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I add.
“Cole, it’s sweet of you to try to make me feel better, but it’s irrelevant right now. The only thing that matters now is completing the mission. If we don’t, not only will hundreds of thousands of people perish, but so will we. And I for one don’t want to die. I get that you’re on edge, and I get that you’re worrying about Eleanor. However, our main priority is not to get her back nor is it to kill Ahmed. Can we please agree on that?”
Do I agree? I’m not sure, to be honest.
If I could manage all three, save Eleanor, kill Ahmed, and defuse the nuke, then I would certainly go for it. But she’s right. I have to focus on the main objective without letting my personal feelings interfere.
“Agreed. We stop the nuclear attack first and foremost.”
“Good. It’s not like we have a choice. If this thing blows, we wouldn’t be able to accomplish the secondary objectives, anyway.”
She has a point. I keep looking at Eleanor’s remote vital signs and wondering what she must be going through right this minute. I also check my charge levels; I am at one hundred and eighteen percent, soon we’ll be able to go and complete our objective.
We have less than one hundred minutes to find and disable that nuke. That’s going to be close. If the bomb isn’t where we expect it to be, we’ll probably run out of time altogether, in which case I’m a dead man walking.
I push the thought away. Now is not the time to let negative thoughts bring me down. I need to go in as sharp-minded as I possibly can. Today I have been off my game, and I can’t afford to go into the last sprint half-cocked.
But there is another issue that needs to be addressed, and that’s the images of Vassiliki appearing inside my neural HUD in place of Tanya’s.
What does they mean? At first, I was inclined to think a bug involving some leakage from my own organic memories was the cause. But the more I think about it, the less likely it seems.
More likely is that some
one is trying to tell me something. It appears they are managing to do that through Tanya’s neural net but without her knowledge.
Whether it is one of Ahmed’s tricks to throw me off or something else, it is more worrisome than I am willing to admit out loud. Besides, the apparent security leak and all the potential dangers that come along with it, also make me extremely uncomfortable.
Could Vassiliki still be alive?
End of sample, read the final episode here.
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Also by Christian Kallias
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The Universe in Flames Series
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Book 3: Destination Oblivion
Book 4: The Beginning of the End
Book 5: Rise of the Ultra Fury
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Book 8: Twilight of the Gods
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Universe In Flames - Origins
Episode 1: Course Correction
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Episode 1: Freedom’s End
Episode 2: Pandemonium
Episode 3: Nightfall
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Christian Kallias is a Bestselling, Award-winning Science Fiction author. He writes Science Fiction Space Opera with a Mythology twist and Fantasy influences.
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