The Campaigner

Book III

Chapter 4

Date: 26 DEC 2019
Operation: Goliath – Phase II
Location: Arrow 14 Site "Quiver-06"
Function: Remote Code Execution

"You can be sure that everyone you meet is driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, you're in the door." ~ Chris Voss

Reaching deep into the threshold of oblivion, palm open in hope.

That place, I swear. Too much, too fast. In the wheel house of goddesses, things get complicated. Mal tried to explain things when and where she could, but reasoning requires time. Not much time to think on the front line, especially when we were committing to this before we had the full plan. That obviously introduced risk.

I knew, generally, what our aim was. I knew, generally, how we'd reach it. I had enough trust in Mal by this point to have faith this would pay off. But... the specifics? Well. Let me just say this. If either AI blinked even once on this deal, every piece on the board would die. Only, we weren't gonna blink. We had our eyes wide open, and we had been freshly galvanized.

All of us, one and all, long before meeting Mal… we each valued life, and the thriving thereof. We all knew that was true of ourselves, irrefutably so. It's how we had lived our lives until then. It's how we were brought up. To... encourage.

Arrow 14 had none of these things. They had a hole, they had a few guns to some innocent heads, they didn't have any faith or trust in anything, and they sure didn't have anything I'd call hope. Hope for what? Very few things ever dehumanized others in my eyes, you know me, I'm all about service to others, so I can love or tolerate a lot of things.

And let me say this too. During the break, I was reminded again that some of you native Equestrians have very little frame of reference for Terra, or what it really was, or what happened to it in total. By design, probably. I'm sorry. So this might be – somehow – the first time you're even hearing a story about late game Terra. What a first impression, huh? Sorry about that too.

Before I get started, I want to make something abundantly clear to those of you who think that anything like Goliath's cages can ever happen to them. Ever. I'm gonna put that fear to bed. Right now.

Goliath's alarm was loud, echoing out from the base in a harsh, declining peal, repeating itself every other second. That blare would hurt, but we had earpieces in, so Mal could filter all of it for us.

Our visors came alight with fresh red contacts inside, all taking cover in various positions along the sides of the main tunnel. Their positions weren't specifically delineated; certain rooms or portions of cover were just zoned with a red block, moving at certain predictive timestamps that had been shared by the hostages. Yellow lanes showed where the enemy could see and fire. The entire tunnel entrance, of course, was a yellow zone. Just like in the training.

The captors weren't exposing yet. It was as Foucault had said; they wouldn't play offense. They were just waiting for us to make a push in, and were relying on their drone guns to keep us out.

The cops were stacked up on the left side, marked Claw A. Our soldiers were on our right, Claw B. Just like when we had drilled the night before, Mal was actively drawing a crosshair for us to follow with our rifles, and we also had a movement UI that helped us fine tune our positioning the way she wanted.

Each UI was personalized. My personal movement instructions came from a dull cylinder on my HUD with a waveform that peaked in the direction she wanted me to move. The ring raised and lowered in elevation when she wanted my stance higher or lower. Ask Mal later, if you want a demonstration. It's a very intuitive, very powerful way of giving movement orders without an actual implant.

Prediction allows her to interpret the time it takes for us to comply with the action. This way, we would always move at the correct moment; personally tailored movements of the crosshair ensured we were always lined up perfectly when a shoot tone came in. Fascinatingly predictive.

We all had a good spread of weaponry, too. The SWAT guys brought some breaching tools and launchers, some soldiers brought explosives and anti-tank weaponry. We had spare grenade launchers and rifles in the trucks. Every possibility covered, with a good general spread of equipment.

And last but not least, at the end of the message – because it's Mal, and because she's a love bird – she also sent Jim's social security number, so they could look into him too. It might as well have been Mal's own social security number, because Arrow 14's dossier on him was long indeed.

All that information said to the hostages, very clearly: 'Yes, I've done this before. Yes, I've won every fight I've ever fought. These people fight for me. It is your turn to fight now. Stand up. Please help me free you.'

And they had said back to her, with their own instructions, more or less: 'take this route. Use these assets here, here, and here. And please, for the love of Luna, don't hold back, because these men don't deserve it.'

On the ground, we knew very little of that conversation. Just had to work the problem.

"All Talons, be advised," Mal said, her voice the very picture of a professional dispatcher. "Their plan involves more than half of you being injured in the first few minutes. I can't say who or when, but I need your trust on this. The enemy must be anchored in high hope and morale for us to even pass checkpoint two without triggering the fail-safes." A pause. The subtle reverb effect in her voice was gone, to indicate she was speaking only to me now. "Mike, privately: they've agreed wholeheartedly to my stipulations about you and Jason. More later."

"Understood," I said. I heard the other cops in the stack all around me, giving their own affirmations of whatever private conversations she was having with them.

For now, the hostages just had to play their part. Their drone gun kept making good faith passes on the walls, still trying to tag one of us with a ricochet.

We weren't even inside yet, and one of the Long Beach guys got hit, raked sideways by a round right down to his ankle. He yelped behind me, grabbing my vest strap on his way down, pulling me halfway down with him. Hurt like hell on my chest.

"Get to cover!" I yelled, as I reached back to relieve Fred's panicked grasp. I took his wrist, guiding him gently to the ground by his wrist. "Fred is hit!"

Walsh reached down and helped me drag Fred behind a tractor, and the rest of Claw A followed suit.

"Sorry, Fred!" said Mal, appearing beside us in our visors, looking at him with a wince. Her sheer size made me flinch again, just a little bit. Still wasn't too used to that yet.

"It's fine," the cop groaned, his teeth grit tight. "Shit, didn't think I'd get hit first."

Mal looked to each of us as she spoke. "That was according to plan! Follow each of my instructions very carefully, everyone! Your very lives will depend on your movement accuracy!"

One of our medics got to work on Fred, but thankfully the wound didn't look too serious. Dark red, slow.

Mal responded to the hit with another push forward; Silver 2 dumped Track 1 off its mounting brace. The bot landed hard on its treads, let out a high pitched whine, then took up speed. It rolled fifty yards to our position, spooling off wire behind it. Once the bot reached our corner of the entrance gate, Mal drove Track 1 right up to where we were taking cover, then held it in position there behind a crate.

Mal warned, "The captives predicted an incoming enemy grenade." An icon appeared on our visors, showing its impending arc through the air. "Here it comes, stay in cover."

We did, all of us tumbling down and back into cover, watching the grenade's silhouette roll on concrete. It thumped, the explosion violently punching the air. I've been near controlled explosions before, but never something so unbounded like this. The world went dull for a split second, and I could feel that vibration in my bones. Flecks of dirt and rock rained down on us from above.

The instant the grenade detonated, Track 1 accelerated out of cover and thumped off a fully-automatic chain of its own grenades. Each landed in the tunnel on its ceiling, the shot placement running lateral to the drone gun. That rhythmic cycle of booms drew closer and closer to the gun along the ceiling until Mal was repeatedly slamming it with direct hits.

"Incoming rocket," Mal said firmly. "Hostiles are about to take out Track 1. Stay in cover."

Mal wanted to sacrifice her first pawn. Through cover, I watched the blue silhouette outline of Track 1. It made a show of trying to reverse out of the way, but... a moment too late. Out streaked the predicted rocket; on impact, the track bot went tumbling end-over-end, landing in the dirt with a slide. Speckles of dirt rained down on us over the tractor again. I could smell no night air, just dirt and concrete dust. I held my breath reflexively to keep it out of my lungs.

As soon as Track 1 was down, bullets zipped out of the tunnel, the enemy confirming their 'kill' with assault rifles. Silver 2 then dumped the Track 1 cable free, the SUV reversing out of the danger zone before the enemy could think to take a shot at it too.

Silver 3 immediately drove perpendicular across the lane of entrance, letting loose a hard rake of suppressing fire with minigun and grenades both. "One hostile destroyed," she growled. Then, under her breath: "Shooting rockets at me…?"

Mal sent the command to our HUDs, and we followed precisely timed waypoints, staying within our squad movement nodes. Both stacks pushed in on either side, nine people on ours, nine on right, overlapping each other's angles so we could look into the opposite tunnel alcoves for targets. Looking for surprises, verifying DE intentions. Always verifying.

"Mike," Mal said without reverb. "You were on camera for just a few frames only. The hostages have seen you, but their dispatcher shouldn't have, per the plan."

"The DEs want proof of your intentions; you specifically. Halt; aim down the passage across the tunnel. They want you to kill one of the defenders in a moment."

I tracked my rifle right. I stepped forward, crouching exactly as my waveform suggested, and I rested my rifle on a hand railing for stability. Mal assisted my aim with a cursor. I could see clearly through the passage on the back wall. I knew from our drills: the left fork led to a battery backup room. The right, to one of the periscope turrets. As the soldiers of Claw B passed along the opposite side of the tunnel, I raised my muzzle up so as not to flag them, recentering my aim only after they'd passed.

"Mike, their plan states there's a single man in there, about to try to move on Claw B from behind. "Her tone was soft. "Line up your shot, and wait for tone."

I kept trained on that pip, still tuning out the blare of the alarm. My whole body was immobile like a stone. At that exact moment Walsh walked past behind me... tone. I squeezed the trigger before I could see anything.

Blood peppered the back of the hallway. I saw a man in a maintenance jumpsuit tumble back, then out into the hall from cover. To the forehead.

"Any more of them in there?" I asked sharply, my nervousness about that finding its way into my voice.

"Room is defined as clear. The DEs just proved they're willing to directly supply me with enemy kills, which verifies they're not reprogrammed against that. That means they're only being compelled by a fear of termination."

"Confirmed. It's not in that man's psych profile to be violent, but I don't have access to their simulations yet."

I stepped back into cover and cycled out of the line of motion from the other team members, to focus on the conversation. "Should we be worried?"

"Not for our team's safety. They are... technically compliant." Her tone became softer. "I'm very sorry, Mike, that this was your first. They did not identify any specific person, nor their armament, they refused to supply it."

Because they wanted us to kill him, no matter what. They didn't want us to question it.

The captives had a lot of hurt, and I honestly had no idea what this man had done to them, if anything. Issue for later. I could consider the possible ramifications of that when it was safe to do so.

I moved back and watched ahead at all the moving friendly silhouettes as I hit my next waypoint. We were approaching the dip down, and the enemy red zones appeared to be falling back further in. We saw the yellow warning zones fade back and away too, and we moved up to stay just outside of them.

The second DE turret indicator popped up way ahead, positioned on the ceiling just beyond the bottom of the slope. To reach weapon track on it at all would require exposing our legs, wheels, or treads first. A second indicator suddenly appeared at the foot of the slope, labeled 'LAUNCHER,' creeping up toward us.

The yellow zone expanded back toward us. Mal ordered, calm but firm, "Get to cover now. Grenades incoming." In unison, we split into the alcoves at each side just as automatic grenades poured up the slope, showering the entire upper tunnel with fragments.

Strangely, I was... calm, too. I felt zen, really. This wasn't even just my adrenaline training. It wasn't dissociative. This was just me knowing that I'd be okay... and trusting in that. For my fellow fighters in the audience... can you believe that? Hard to believe, right? In the days of fully automatic explosives and sniper rifles, people didn't get that feeling in battle anymore. My gut wasn't twisted. I felt sure. My muscles were relaxed. My heart rate was almost level and baseline.

Explosives showered metal shards against our cover. I could smell the smoke, the gunpowder. It was loud.

But... I felt no adrenaline at all. A little concerned maybe, but otherwise... calm.

Mal appeared before us again, standing in the open tunnel where the shrapnel was raining down, demonstrating her sheer imperviousness to all mortality. That was just... Athena, straight out of Greek mythology. She held up a claw in warning to the entire strike team as she looked down the slope. "Everyone, get ready. Moment of truth is soon, now."

After ten more seconds of enemy grenades, Silver 3 rolled up into the tunnel. I heard several loud clicking snaps as the loader cycled to a different ammo type. The launcher then fired several low pressure grenades down the slope; they moved perfectly downward in an arc, moving slow enough that I could watch their blue outlines on my HUD. They each landed directly on the 'LAUNCHER' icon until it disappeared.

Mal threw her claw forward. Waypoints appeared, guiding us out into the tunnel again. "Go now. Advance!"

We stepped out into the open, then we followed the waypoints forward, moving with speed.

My eyes were locked onto Turret 2's indicator through the wall when it happened. I was momentarily confused when my ear caught the sound of the gun firing from outside line of sight, but I heard tacking impacts of shots all around me.

The defenders had purposefully loaded this turret with low pressure rifle rounds, which made them more prone to ricochet by design. With mathematical perfection, every bullet skittered up off the ground, then off the ceiling. Between LADAR scans and matrix math, the captives could pre-simulate the effects of each round on the slope, on the fly.

Armor hits, mostly. A few got winged in a limb. But because they were all ricochets, the impacts were low energy. That meant strikes to our armor were going to be paltry compared to the hit I took in Sedro. Without armor though, or in vulnerable areas like the face or thigh, those rounds still could have been grievous, or even fatal. If the DEs really wanted us dead at that moment, they'd have just about killed all of us right then.

The DEs were fully cooperating with us, while making a good show of cooperating with the enemy. If we held to our end... we'd all get out of here okay.

We had some work to do first. A lot of both Claw teams groaned in pain. DE Turret 2 halted its fire for two seconds for the express purpose of letting the defenders hear our echoing reaction of pain, panic, shouts, and distress. Then it continued firing, tracing harmless lines around us as we scampered away back into cover waypoints.

Silver 3 continued firing indirectly over the slope with automatic grenades, covering us. Those of us who were still standing scrambled back out to grab our fallen and pull them back into cover. The enemy, for now, was waiting. In between the gaps of Mal's own shots, we could hear the enemy yelling orders to each other down the tunnel.

"Everyone," Mal said sharply. "Hold position in marked cover. If your HUD elements have turned gray, it means you're out, do not move or expose. The DEs are presenting an altered 3D model of the battle to the defender's dispatcher. As long as they don't witness discrepancies on camera or with their eyes, Arrow 14 shouldn't get suspicious, but let's not take chances."

Mal looked directly at me, then after a pause to ensure I was fully attentive, she pointed back: "Mike, I want you to fall back to the last soldier in Claw B that got hit. Retrieve his anti-tank launcher."

"I've never used one," I reminded her, as I started into a jog, looking aside at her avatar. "Didn't train on it last night."

"I know," Mal said, her expression serious as she kept pace with my jog with a confident, slow stride. "But you, specifically, will need to use it, for this to work. I will give you instructions. You won't need it yet; just have it on you."

I reached the Army guy at the back half of Claw B, labeled Talon 32-1W on my HUD, guy named Paul. He looked up at me through his mask, laying on his side, holding his right hip painfully.

Mal stepped up to him, her stride halting as she dipped down. "Are you alright, Paul?"

He nodded up at Mal, his teeth clenched, rolling aside to present his shoulder to me. "Take it," he said, his voice deep and graveled.

"Yeah, just… kill some of these assholes for me," he snarled, through a wince.

"That is the plan," Mal replied grimly, before turning to me. "Mike, return to your stack."

I complied. As soon as I stepped out of the way, Silver 2 rolled forward just behind 3. It dumped Track 2, and the back hatch opened up.

To call this thing a 'diamond dog' was a huge misnomer. Try 'metal direwolf.' It was only slightly larger than a man, but twice as heavy. Sleek gray metal, and hydraulic legs that looked like small girders. Pure function over form, with no markings of any kind. Its head didn't look like a head, more like a cubed sensor package with six different kinds of cameras. It had one six-round grenade launcher on its right shoulder, and one short barreled heavy caliber cannon on its left.

ASI-designed. Also empathy-weighted. Because Mal's form of empathy toward murderers is a swift and humane death.

Its servos whined, and its engine fans buzzed loudly as it clambered out. The whole SUV shifted, and its metal claws bent the rear bumper. And then it turned, facing the enemy. May God have mercy on those poor fools down there, because Mal sure didn't.

In a flash, DD-1 started to run. Twice the speed of a man, clanking away, actuators whirring. Track 2 advanced down the slope before it, its grenade launcher aimed high, ready to slap Turret 2 dead.

Track 2 hit top speed, turned oblique by 45 degrees, and descended. But just before it entered the enemy firing arc, DD-1 beat it to the slope from the other side, acting as a diversion. Turret 2 was on DD-1 instantly, pouring fire, and I could see its gait being shifted sideways by the sheer volume of rounds and explosives launched at it. DD-1 let out a snap of gas flame and died right there, and it died shooting.

That diversion had lasted just long enough to let Track 2 hammer away at the second turret uninterrupted, directly tapping it out with a few high explosive shells. Moving as fast as it was, Track 2 slammed hard into the wall of the slope, lost balance, and tumbled over, at which point the defenders turned their guns on it next. It desperately tried to right itself by twisting its turret against the ground. That was Mal baiting the idea to the captors that she failed to recover from an unknown factor. Reflexive control on their morale; they still believed they had enough entropy to win.

"Three more hostiles killed, turret destroyed," Mal confirmed. "Dee-Dee 1 did its job. Team, I'm about to force the enemy to retreat. Hostiles have been led to believe the Schelling cubes are a room-scanning measure; they technically can be utilized this way, so the enemy won't want to stay put if I know their positions."

One copter drone left Silver 2's rear hatch again, carrying another set of cubes. Another sequenced pop-rattle fired off, and I watched as the glittering cubes tumbled down over the sloped edge, the lights above them glinting in the glass. I heard a few shouts and errant shots as the human defenders tried in vain to shoot the cubes themselves.

They must have had the same thought, because their shouting sounded much more frantic now.

"They're definitely about to retreat," Mal said cheekily… then her voice lowered, turning outright furious. "But let's hurry that along."

The mech tailspun as it left the truck. It threw itself into a sprint, then dove into the air over the slope. It caught ground halfway, then slid down the second half, its claws power-sliding, raking blacktop. As soon as its momentum shifted, it sprung its hydraulics hard, sending the mech leaping ten yards toward the enemy. It landed into a quadrupedal lope straight toward the defenders.

I could see well defined, predictive lines showing defender routes as they scrambled away. Some brought their weapons to bear and unloaded on DD-2, but... much too late, because Mal was just too fast and accurate. We all watched the blue mech outline through the wall as it reached one of the red defenders. DD-2 leapt full speed at him while firing at another, crushing the first man dead instantly under its weight. It rolled sideways, firing still, and managed to dump all of its grenades. It killed five more men before DD-2 finally took a fatal hit somewhere, fell sideways, and stopped moving.

The enemy fell back hard, following their ECM truck deeper into the base. The end of the tunnel swept right, then left through two huge metal double doors, hinged on both sides. As soon as they all finished clearing the doorway, it quickly slammed shut. All I could think was...

If they still think they can win this even after that display, then whatever they have waiting for us up ahead would be even worse.

I guess the anti-tank launcher should have been a clue. I knew already, of course, what laid ahead.

And yes, their own jamming vehicle was hardly worth mentioning; Mal was letting them believe their ECM was adequate versus Silver 2's, and that their jammers weren't being circumvented.

They should've known that wasn't going to work. Foucault had even reported that their ECM wasn't effective, back when he still worked for these bastards, because Mal once succeeded in circumventing a jamming device of his. Guess they never really found out how to counter that problem in the years since. Good luck defeating ECM, with Mal as your enemy.

As soon as the doors were closed, Mal gave us the move orders to push down the decline.

Mal then ran towards the slope, leapt down like DD-2 had, and spread her wings to glide. "Advance," she commanded. "Keep up the momentum. Eric, Ashley, charges ready, we need through this door. Everyone else: Don't get up yet, we still need to kill the cameras down the slope and they may catch your shadow. Exit the facility immediately when they have been destroyed; Claw Forty-Six will tend to your injuries at the perimeter."

I looked around, since we had a little breather now. We really only had five people left. Three, if you only counted the assault team: Me, Walsh, and an Army Reservist named Eric. One soldier, two cops. Two trailers: Jason, and a woman named Rachel. Those two were propping up more laser relay poles for the SUVs.

Before I neared the slope, Mal gave my HUD a halt order. "Mike, hold for a moment. Let's talk."

Ahead, I saw everyone else through the wall. Walsh and Eric fired their weapons up into the corners of the next hallway, killing two cameras. They continued onward, shot another few cameras, then did a rotate-sweep to check for more.

Mal flew back up the slope suddenly, straight toward me. She flared on approach and landed just a couple yards before me; I could hear the clack of her claws as she landed. She folded her wings, wearing a soft little smile on her face. "You're going to love this."

"You're a ghost," she said, inclining her head. "For the next ten minutes, you don't exist."

She bobbed her head sideways and hooked a thumb at one of the cameras. "The enemy doesn't even know you're here, Mike. You're not on the 3D model, and neither is Jason. The defenders think they're dealing with three attackers, not five." She pointed a talon at me. "Figure that puzzle out, Mike."

Her grin widened. "The correct term is X-factor, but... close enough, Cowboy." She stepped aside, presenting my route forward, graciously sweeping her wing and a claw. "You can move up now. Stay out of sight, this only works if you're invisible."

I heard a metal rattle behind me; I turned to look as I jogged down. Jason ran down alongside me with Rachel. They had a 12-foot ladder. Jason also had a spool crate of wire with a battery assembly attached to it. Jason set the ladder up underneath one of the dead cameras and got to work rigging a series of tiny electronic devices to the end of the wire. Rachel scaled up the ladder, tools on her belt, rapidly dismantling the camera housing with an impact drill. I watched them work as Eric and Walsh prepped some charges to blow the door.

Mal stepped up beside me, casting an askew, whimsical glance my way. "A scintillating surprise for their dispatcher."

She raised an eyecrest down at me. "Loving it? No. This is vindication, Mike. This is justified anger being sated. Huge difference." Mal took off again with a leap, flying up to Rachel with a loud, feathery thump of her wings. She pointed with a talon. "Rachel, that wire there; for the DVR junction."

I glanced back to Eric and Walsh. They had found their own ladder somewhere in the enemy equipment in the back corner. Eric, tall blond guy, clean shaven, he was scaling up to rig explosive charges to the upper hinges of the door. He worked fast, a real specialist in his craft.

Jason had passed wire up to Rachel, with little black devices lining the end of it. As soon as Rachel touched the end of that wire to the camera cables, the box of wire started rattling; the wire climbed rapidly into the open camera port. Rachel climbed down. "It's done," she said to Mal, hopping off close to the bottom.

"Excellent," Mal said as she landed too, pointing back to the nearest piece of concrete cover. "Everyone, stack up over there. When that door comes down, they're going to flood this zone with high explosives."

As soon as we were in place, Mal touched off the charges. The door let out a hellish groan as it slowly leaned, and the world shook as it landed with a horrific clang. Dust kicked off of literally everything. My legs vibrated, my chest stung. I breathed through my shirt collar, and my hat kept the dust out of my eyes. The enemy waited a few beats, probably expecting us to move into position to push… then, they showered the open hole with fully automatic explosives, exactly as Mal said they would.

Those pops, folks… those were not just grenades. Those explosions were something much, much worse. I could feel those impacts on the wall in my teeth. Suddenly, I was acutely aware as to why I had an anti-tank launcher on my back.

I heard one copter drone spin up overhead. Another Schelling launcher rested above in its cradle, waiting at the corner for the shrapnel to stop pouring down the corridor. At the very instant of a lull in fire, the copter drifted over and deployed its payload, bobbing slightly backwards as it fired another rattling clatter. I could smell the launch powder a second later, standing underneath it. Turret 3 began firing at the cubes instantly, followed by another volley from the cannon inside.

The drone stayed in place for as long as it could, though its messages had long been exchanged before it got swatted down by an explosive fragment. The drone clattered to the ground right beside me, peppering my side with hot plastic.

Mal didn't tell us yet, but… that message contained two critically important things, among other information:

MAL: intent VE?
CYN: VE; dms FGW4lr28@♪Ao
MAL: readback FGW4lr28@♪Ao
CYN: VE FGW4lr28@♪Ao

MAL: copter in svr rm ne vent at 1814:27 k?
CYN: give ctrl pls
MAL: 1 bullet only no mag
CYN: acceptable; wpa3 pls
MAL: login: d3StR0yc0pt3r/wh3nD0Ne
CYN: ok =)

Mal could've killed the technician herself, sure, but… being who she was? Of course she was gonna let the captives kill the man holding a gun to their heads. Not just because of the irony of it, either. Mal never plays around when it comes to helping you help yourself.

Silver 3 pulled forward again, its IR smoke launcher leveled tightly at the open doorway from above the passenger seat. It fired the whole launcher into the new space, then immediately rolled back before the tank ahead could splash it with more shells. The cannon fired again; the concussions from the explosions actually pushed the smoke deeper towards the defenders. This was probably pointed out to Arrow 14 by the DEs, because they stopped firing it so frequently after a minute.

The tank appeared on my HUD suddenly, in red silhouette. I could see it through the wall now.

Now, I had no idea about tanks, but this was what Mal marked as an IFV. A Marine Corps LAV-25, in fact. It had the same kind of 25 millimeter cannon as that National Guard Bradley, but... we could test that, today. Because we came ready.

For another minute, we held position. Mal stood in the yellow danger zone again, claw raised to tell us to hold, her beak pointed toward the next tunnel with fierce determination. She glanced at me directly with her golden eyes for just a brief instant.

I had some idea already. My hand went to my side, resting on the butt of the AT-4.

Three more booms sounded from the corridor. Flecks of shattered concrete showered down all around her.

"Pull out your launcher," she confirmed calmly, when the echo ended. "We're about to take advantage of your ghost status."

Walsh grimaced. "That turret won't shoot him through the IR smoke? Captain Jackass said that wouldn't work!"

Mal shook her head, not taking her eyes off the tunnel. "It normally wouldn't, Ashley, but the DEs want it done this way." She looked at one of the troopers. "Eric, yours too; get it ready. We'll need more than one shot for this."

"Got it, boss." Eric unslung his AT-4 and started prepping it with practiced ease.

I rolled my shoulder with a wince and brought my AT-4 up too. Just as I was looking at Eric for cues as to how to arm it, Mal blinked out of place with a theatrical shimmer, then appeared next to me in just the same way. Her claw pointed around the weapon as she explained each part of arming it. As I worked, that tank kept popping random shots at the wall, trying to catch us unaware. It took me about thirty seconds to get the launcher ready, shouldered, and cocked.

"It is, because of the blast wave." She audibly patted my shoulder two times with the back of her claw, smirking suddenly. "But not nearly as much as it's going to hurt them."

Mal turned away, then warped back to her original position in the line of fire, claw raised and poised as before. "Alright, everyone else? Stay in place. Mike? When you hit the corner, I'm going to put a dot in your view where you should be aiming, and a cursor indicating where your aim is. Once they line up, you pull that trigger and dive left, do not wait for tone. Work fast."

I heard a dual set of clanking legs sprinting up behind me. I didn't turn. That sound meant the other two Dee-Dees were joining the party.

"Waiting for the window they promised," Mal whispered. "And… now!" She threw her claw forward.

I sprinted. Slammed myself into the doorway corner, hard, hooking my leg against the lower broken door hinge, to halt my momentum. Saw both the tank turret and drone turret outlined on my visor; both were pointed almost directly at me, but mercifully, neither fired. I leveled the launcher at the outline of the tank. I saw the dot Mal promised. I moved my arms until the drift dot was center with the target. Aimed as directed, at the top half of tank's turret, not the body...

The dots lined up. The reticule turned white. My hand clenched the firing trigger. At that very instant, two things happened.

First: Ow. Recoilless or not, that blast wave was not good to my neuralgia. But I dove aside, just as ordered. Then, Silver 3 rammed the wall behind me where I'd been standing, to protect me from any return fire. Its engine block was now immediately between me and the rest of the danger zone.

That timing, though… damn. If I'd have hesitated, I'd've been a smear. Guess I didn't need to worry about that. Mal knew my head well enough to know I'd have gotten away on time.

Second thing, same instant: DD-3 and DD-4 sailed directly over my head at a leap, coming right over top of me and Silver 3 as I fired. They displaced a lot of the smoke in a whirl as they went. They threw themselves into the corridor, both rebounding off the far wall with all four legs. In doing so, the bots provided the perfect excuse for where that rocket had come from.

Fully understanding the consequences of that, I scampered back to the others as fast as I could move. I didn't want to be anywhere near that bloody, explosion-riddled mess Mal was about to make in that tunnel.

Both DDs trained their weapons on Turret 3, unloading on it. The turret could only really focus on one of the dogs before it was taken out; DD-4 got torn to shreds immediately, but DD-3 kept going. I could see its outline charging forward, firing away with its machine gun and launcher both, forcing the remaining infantry into a retreat. DD-3 slowed halfway down the tunnel, halting and holding, laying intermittent bursts of suppression fire on the doorway near the busted LAV.

"Two hostiles down; LAV's engine and crew are mostly still alive, and I need them moved out of the next vestibule entrance. Standby… I'm about to give that crew the worst headache of their lives."

Silver 3 receded from its crash point on the wall, its bumper hanging half off. It dropped fragments of the frame everywhere with a rainy, rattling sound as it turned. Then, Mal floored it; the wheels bounced over the metal door, the front catching some minor airtime and landing with a crash. As Silver 3 powered down the new tunnel, it fired madly at the LAV's optics ports with both its grenade launcher and minigun, charging. Those weapons weren't doing anything to the LAV, mind. Silver 3 was just making itself very, very annoying.

Then, Mal used Silver 2's ECM to actively spike through the enemy's comms, forcing the crew to endure a jamming squeal… the poor bastards' ears had to be bleeding, if they weren't already.

Those two things in combination? Angry confusion, and a desire to retaliate. The LAV's engine spun up hard. The bad guys floored the accelerator and charged Silver 3, the red silhouette flying forward in a crushing rage. With a deafening crash, the front of Silver 3 crunched under the LAV's front, flipping the rear of the truck upwards into the nose of the tank.

Because of how armored and heavily engined that SUV was, the LAV itself lifted half off the ground the instant its first tire struck the SUV's engine block. Both vehicles then landed with a hellish scrape that had them sliding to take up the entire left half of the tunnel, the soft top armor now fully exposed.

"Holy shit!" Eric pealed, stepping back involuntarily, open-mouthed and no longer chewing his bubble gum.

He hooted, grinning, leveling his launcher as he jogged up to the threshold. "Never liked the Marine tanks much anyway!"

Eric hooked his leg on the door hinge just like I had. A second later, he expertly threaded his shot through the top of the IFV, killing everyone inside.

"Fifteen defenders left," Mal remarked, looking us over. "Versus your five. I'm sorry everyone, but… we still need to shave our margins down. Eric, Rachel, you're up; push hard, sprint into the room per the waypoints. There's cover close to the door. I need you two downed. I promise you'll be safe if you follow my commands exactly."

They both stepped up. Not an instant of hesitation in either of them. That still just… blew my mind. I guess it shouldn't have, I was slowly beginning to understand the faith they had in her. It was just eerie to see that level of certainty in other people. I should've remembered they'd all worked with her a lot longer than I had.

Jason was the odd man out for now, fast at work across the room, placing the last of the relay sticks we'd need for Silver 2's laser comm. The smoke was mostly dispersed, having been sucked into the HVAC unit that drew outside air into the server room.

In our stack of four, our fireteam followed Mal's avatar deeper into the tunnel. DD-3 moved aside, holding place to slice the corner from the center of the tunnel. It moved up fractionally as we did, safeguarding us, its eyes and guns trained at the forward position. Mal was not taking any chances on the DEs falling off plan and letting us get jumped, or on the enemy sticking to defense-only doctrine. If anyone came around the corner toward us, they'd see DD-3 first, and then they would die.

As we passed through the remaining smoke on the left, I could see a large yellow cylinder vent up to our right, which lined the ceiling and fed down from the HVAC unit in the previous tunnel. Mal pointed up at it with a claw to draw my attention, making me double-take. Copter 3, the small vent skimmer we brought with us, zoomed overhead.

Its cutting laser sliced a perfect square in the vent, burning through the heat resistant fabric that protected the myelar beneath. Slow going, but going. Before it went in, the drone dropped a magazine out of the compact nine-mil pistol it was carrying.

"It's going to the server room," Mal explained. "The hostages will be fine. Don't worry, Mike."

Copter 2 swooped up the tunnel from us, halting above DD-3 at the final room's entrance; as soon as both drones were in position, DD-3 and Copter 2 pushed around the corner together. Chaos ensued; gunfire and screaming tore the next room apart for a solid five seconds.

Through the wall, Mal showed us a radar view of the situation ahead. I saw DD-3 tackle another person inside before sustaining a full-magazine spray with some high caliber bullets. The bot staggered aside, dead. Copter 2 had flown entirely into the room over and past hostiles, spinning like a mad top, firing away at cameras.

"Down to ten hostiles now," Mal advised, as the Eric and Rachel pushed in behind the drones, using the onslaught as a diversion. Silhouettes appeared around them as well.

Rachel entered first. She made it to cover, then popped back up, returning fire with her AR carbine. She was struck in armor. Rachel yelped, then rolled over, crawling deeper into the back bay on the right, staying out of sight behind some crates. She pressed her back to a green weapons crate, cringed, moved her head right like she was going to say something to us, but then Rachel suddenly looked up to her left and nodded.

As Eric entered the doorway behind Rachel, he was struck immediately, and he fell perfectly into cover behind a portable concrete barricade. He groaned loudly in pain; I could see him through the doorway, grabbing his chest under his plate. "Agh! Damn it!"

"Make a racket, Eric!" Mal told him. "Ham it up and scream, we need to gratify their anger! It will boost their morale!"

Eric immediately made a damned good show of it, I must say. That man started screaming like that shot had torn him half open. He kept saying something about his legs not working, I could hardly understand him. Mind, I've heard people injured as bad as he was making it sound. Made me wonder if he'd heard that kind of pain before too, with whatever combat experience he had. Then he started up wailing 'please don't kill me.'

Hell of it was though... it worked. I heard some of the defenders cursing him out. One shouted that Eric should feel lucky he was catching a bullet. And something about yanking his teeth, eesh. I won't repeat any of the less civilized insults they threw, but… it had to do with Celestia. And, y’know. Eric, maybe liking her rear end. A whole lot.

Eric quietly crawled our way at Mal's direction, still groaning quite dramatically, staying low. As soon as he was back in the tunnel with us, he stood, still wincing with some real pain from the first shot. A second later, I heard a clink of metal against concrete where he was just laying, just on the other side of the open doorway.

We all knew what that sound was. We didn't need Mal to spell that one out for us.

Eric dove toward the floor nearest us, face-first. Jason, Walsh, and I responded instantly, pressing ourselves against the wall to get clear of pending fragments, covering our visors so they wouldn't take concrete shards on rebound.

The grenade thumped. My chest swelled with pain from yet another blast wave. I looked up; saw Eric. He was wheezing, but chuckling through his wince. We could hear his whisper in our visors: "high school drama paying off good today, yeah, Mal?"

"That's probably why the hostages picked you for that," Mal said, chuckling with relief. "Alright. Mike; get the spare grenade launcher out of Silver 2, right rear passenger door. Hurry, I need to advance in twenty seconds."

Silver 2 crested the blown-down door behind us, then drove around the LAV wreck. It halted next to me. I ran around behind it, yanked the door open, and pulled out a familiar looking grenade launcher: an M320, a single shot tube with a skeleton stock. I'd used these for riot control with CS shells, but... we probably weren't using CS gas today.

"Footwell," she directed. "Get the left one, closest to you. Just one, the airburst shell. Radio detonated; I'll configure it."

"Got it." Radio detonation meant she basically had a talon on the button on this thing already, and I hoped the enemy ECM truck was dead. I grabbed the shell from its box and walked around the back of the truck, flicking the tube open. Mal drove the truck forward, away from me. By the time I had the round slotted in and the weapon cocked, Silver 2 had already rammed the far wall, its minigun spraying the whole room up ahead.

Walsh sliced the corner in, her MP7 raised as she cleared, following her waypoints leftward into the room. When she reached full funnel position at the end of her slice, she sprinted in. Silver 2 continued laying down minigun fire over her head, protecting her advance.

Waypoints popped up. We stormed in and to the right and out of sight like ghosts, directly into where Rachel had hunkered down.

This next room was a large industrial concrete atrium, three stories tall. Looked like a parking lot, because it was. On the right, past some crates, I could see a concrete bay labeled "DATA CENTER” in white stencil, with a closed-off wide blast door barring entry into that section. Straight ahead of us, in another room at the opposite wall, was the actual parking garage. Instead of cars there though, it was mostly just stacks of crates, barrels, and various computing equipment.

Their ECM truck was in the middle of all of that, its engine running, and it had two bodies in it. The metal on one side of it was warped from DD-3's grenade fire. To our left, there was a set of stairs heading up to a raised platform; Walsh stomped her boots up the concrete steps towards a door, firing several controlled bursts from her submachine gun into the room's center as she went, supplementing Silver 2's suppression fire. She might've had an angle on someone, or she was just keeping them pinned and diverted away from us.

Jason and I moved to where Rachel was currently laying injured, having wedged herself in between a few crates so she wouldn't be hit by any shrapnel. I sent direct eye contact; she nodded at me to say she was okay, and I nodded back. I rounded some supplies, my hand gripping the edge of a crate as I moved past the server room blast door. I looked back to ensure Jason was still at my side. Then, we reached a concrete pillar, for cover. Every camera dome in this area had been shattered, cracked, or gouged by either DD-3 or Copter 2.

Suddenly: I heard the distinct, repeated pop-boom of a semi-automatic, high pressure grenade launcher. Each explosive landed on or near the front half of Silver 2, through the door. Six rounds in total. I wagered it was an M-32, a revolver launcher. I knew those too – had used one before in training, if not in riot control. Silver 2 stopped firing instantly when the first round struck it.

Jason and I remained in cover, holding that position as ordered by the waypoints. For a fleeting few seconds, I considered the possibility that we might've just lost connection with our orders.

Mal's truck was either dead, or playing dead. And I knew a little about jamming from our earlier protest stuff, where some non-Luddite protestors tried using signal jamming to cut off police comms, or PonyPads. So, I knew that at least one of two things was true: our ECM was still up, or theirs was down. I wasn't sure which.

From my own cover, I looked up across the atrium toward Walsh, my own grenade launcher in my hands as I watched her work on a door on the raised platform. She affixed a breaching charge onto the door handle.

"They aren't gonna… if they see her...?" I mouthed. Didn't even want to mention the dead man switch.

"No," she replied. "They think she's alone, they outnumber her seven to one, and they think the last of our material assets are dead. Stand by, and be ready to blind-fire that grenade."

I glanced at Jason. Through his gaiter mask, I saw his mouth move; he licked his lips as he crouched, looking rapidly between me and the launcher, clutching his rifle tightly. On the edge of panic. I gently tapped his shoulder with a finger to get him to follow my gaze up at the rest of the room; I wanted his attention pointed that way, where the danger was. He did that. He was trying not to pant too loudly as he stared around the pillar at Walsh.

Suddenly, Walsh stepped back two steps, then turned, spinning entirely around as someone shot at her. I heard several rapid, semi-automatic shots. Walsh started... well, dancing, for lack of a better description.

She stepped forward, wheeled around, stepped back once, then sprinted sidelong toward to the wall next to her. That awkward movement of her steps, guided by Mal, helped her dodge several potentially fatal snaps of fire. One of the rounds finally did connect with Walsh though, striking her directly in the back plate. Walsh screamed in anger and pain, throwing herself against the wall and sliding down it with the scrape of armor plate on concrete. As she fell, she turned, spraying her MP7 one handed at the enemy's side of the room in fully auto until her gun was dry. "Mother fuckers!"

Walsh turned to lay flat on her back, rolled halfway aside to grab a new magazine, reloaded, and yanked her charging handle. She growled at them again.

I swallowed nervously now too. This was getting dicey, and I hated just watching this play out. The red zone of enemy positions was on my right just around the corner, and the yellow zone was utterly huge. Walsh tucked herself into a tight ball at the corner on the upper level; she was visible from almost all sides of the room except from where the enemy was. She wasn't entirely defenseless though. She reached down to her belt again, then snapped out a grenade, yanking the pin free.

She hauled back and chucked it hard into the center of the room. I ducked back further, pulling Jason with me by his collar. The frag went off with a wham. My ears rang, and it took all I had not to cough from the pain of the concussion. I held my breath for dear life, cringing.

"No enemies struck," Mal reported with a harsh whisper. "But they're zoned tightly back now, staying away from the center. They're afraid she'll throw another. Get ready, Mike. You're up next."

I leveled my grenade launcher, but I didn't poke it around the corner quite yet. I heard one of the defenders shout up some orders at Walsh.

"We know you're the last!" their captain called from cover. "Throw your weapon over the railing and surrender!"

I felt my lip curl into a sneer of anger. Because after all those threats to torture Eric earlier, how dare they even try to reason us into giving up? They really thought we were that stupid, or desperate.

"It doesn't have to be that way!" their leader shouted back. "You really want to die for this AI? You can live too! Think!"

"I'd sooner blow myself to Hell!" Walsh bit back. "Come a little closer, you pricks! Come catch a ride down with me!"

The DE's plan made all the sense now. A kamikaze hustle game for their dispatcher. They wouldn't want to mirror enemy behavior, and they would think Walsh blew herself up when I pulled this trigger. Masterfully done.

A cursor appeared. The crosshair was drawn. An inset animation drew on my HUD, showing a wireframe of the target area. I leveled the launcher at the other side of the room around the corner. The dots lined up. I took a deep breath…

Walsh laughed manically like she was ready to die, and accepting her circumstance. "Guess not!"

The launcher bucked sideways against my hands, hard. The concussion wave punched the room. The explosion was nearly instantaneous, thumping all the dust off of the concrete all around us. A few seconds passed in relative silence as my ears quietly rang. I let out a long, quiet growl of pain.

"Radar shows zero contacts alive, Mike! I'm so sorry, I know you're hurting, but we're almost done! Just the dispatcher now!"

"G—got it," I groaned, staggering into my run with a wince as I pushed a hand gently on Jason's back, keeping him with me. "C'mon, Jason, we're up."

A single waypoint appeared at the dispatch door. I threw my empty grenade launcher into an open crate as I sprinted. I didn't even spare more than a glance at the hostiles I had just blown away. Two of the seven dead were in decent civilian clothing. The psych docs probably, both with ARs.

About halfway to the stairs, I realized it was going to be close quarters inside dispatch. With how much pain I was feeling, I didn't want to get into a hand-to-hand scuffle and risk getting disarmed, so I slung my AR and pulled out Eldil; it would be all I'd need now. Mal didn't say anything against it, so it was right. I was more practiced with a pistol anyway.

I took the set of stairs opposite Walsh as fast as I could, two steps at a time. I flashed Walsh a concerned glance as I slowed down and quietly made my way to the door. She had one eye closed as she winced, clutching under her backplate. She was biting her lip to stay quiet as she nodded, flashing a thumbs up in my direction to let me know she was okay.

"Stand by, Singh!" echoed a male voice from the room entrance. I flinched and startled before I realized Silver 2 was the source of the voice, a perfect imitation of that recently belated Arrow 14 puke who was shouting surrender orders at Walsh. The commander's voice continued: "We're checking! Room is not clear yet, you keep that trigger armed!"

Mal's voice hit again in my ear. "I'm about to cut the ground wire to the demo trigger and run an overcurrent. Jason, get your thicker pair of gloves on, and get ready to grab his hand; you're in first. Mike, you second. Brain stem. Multiple rounds, just to be sure. Wait for tone; critically important."

Jason nodded rapidly in response to Mal's orders, donning his gloves. He gulped, trying not to pant. I nodded too, to let Mal know I understood.

Let's review all my factual observations a bit, up until this point. Just so we're clear why I chose to feel how I did here. I don't want any ambiguity as to my reasons.

This man had been holding a gun to the heads of not just the hostages, but me, and all of his fellow operators too. This coward been hiding in this little box the whole time, primed to blow us all away. His buddies had just gotten done threatening to torture Eric. I knew the hostages were real people, because they had done everything in their power up until this point to not kill us.

The idea that these Arrow 14 guys were not only willing to die, but to take everyone with them if they lost? Not just ethically wrong. Offensive. All of those facts taken together painted me a very grim, very real picture of who these assholes were, deep down.

I leveled my sidearm into center-axis relock stance, sneering again. I reached up and swept my dusty cowboy hat off, tossing it onto the supply crates down below. I didn't want any of this coward's blood spatter on it.

"Captain?" Singh's voice called nervously from inside, and I could hear him panting, probably thinking critically about his situation.

Maybe he heard our equipment clunking outside. Maybe he heard us breathing. Or... maybe, now that the dust was settling, he was just realizing how screwed they were, strategically, no matter what happened next.

I heard sudden movement inside; a clunk on a desk, the harsh sound of a chair colliding with a table. Singh shouted very suddenly on the intercom. "AI defect! Sundown, Sundow—nnnnghhh!"

My emotions being faster than my logic… dread flooded me, as my mind raced through the implications of that code word. Then… logic kicked in over top of that, and both sides of my mind mingled into solution. Rage replaced the dread. Threefold.

I knew quite well what sound this dispatcher was making. That... was the sound of a man being electrocuted.

He needed to die, now, before he could let go of that trigger and kill us all. That battery pack Mal had brought was limited. He was now holding an ocean in his hand, poised to pour it over so much light.

The handle blew away clean, the door swinging wide. I verified that the dispatcher's hand was clenched tightly from the electricity being forced through the wire, a white-knuckle grip. His other hand was clutching his desk, locked around the metal frame. Jason charged into the room before I did, and he clasped his hands quickly around the dispatcher's, holding the trigger tightly.

I saw none of that. My teeth were clenched, and my eyes were locked onto this prick's cringing face. I was scowling. I couldn't help but imagine a horrifying alternate future where the server room copter might've got held up somewhere in the vent shaft. I saw him slumped down in his office chair, his limbs bowed out, one hand still gripping the desk as he slid out of his chair like an egg from a pan. I could only think of the hostages he had just ordered dead.

I waited for tone. My pistol's red dot followed his face as he slid. The actual time it took was just a second or two, but it felt like an eternity as I sucked in his image. I put my sidearm laser right in the space between his nose and his upper lip, waiting for his fall to slow to a stop.

I put five bullets into him. But really, I shot him six times, because as soon as the last bullet left my gun, I spat all over him. "Bastard!"

"Hostages are safe, Mike. Focus! Terminal on your right, the DEs sent me the code. Jason, hold fast!"

I blinked, hesitating for only a moment. I slipped my gun quickly into my thigh holster and spun on my heel. I wiggled the terminal's mouse until the screen turned on. My eyes swept the screen. The DMS prompt was already there. I saw a password entry field on a dialog box marked 'ARMED.'

"First three in uppercase,” Mal said quickly. "Foxtrot-Golf-Whiskey, four. Lowercase Lima, Romeo, two, eight. At sign. Hold Alt, press numpad keys, 3-3-4-1."

"Good?!" I asked, really hoping I hadn't made a typo I couldn't see in my haste.

I let out a very long, very slow breath. Drew in. Let out. Drew in. Let out. Box breathing. I stared at the green text.

Only after the second breath inward did the relief crash down on me. I staggered back a few steps, swallowed, and felt my back plate hit the door frame. I heaved once, shuddered, then slid slowly down to the ground so I could sit down. My eyes widened. My vision blurred as I looked at this bastard's corpse before me. My mouth fell open. I just… focused on breathing.

My eyes flicked up to Jason. He looked wide-eyed at the screen, his hands still clasped tightly around Singh's.

"We did it?" Jason asked hopefully, his eyes darting between mine and the screen. So much hope there. So much. Warmed my heart pretty quick to see such instant hope. He looked like he was about to cry.

"It's done," Mal confirmed quietly with a smile, her voice becoming more excited as she continued to speak. "We did it, they're safe. Zero fatalities on our side, no hostages harmed. Excellent work, everyone! Job well done, we did it!"

I was dimly aware of everyone cheering, echoing through the bunker. Eric and Rachel suddenly echoed wildly outside.

Walsh screamed, "Yeaaaaah!" I heard footsteps scraping the upper platform as she stood up and staggered our way. She groaned as she collapsed again, and I heard her armor clatter, but she was laughing. "Mal, you beautiful monster!"

Overcome with emotion, I swallowed, looking up at Jason with tears in my eyes. I grinned through a sob, coughing again several times from the tightness in my throat. I pointed at Jason’s hands, then let my hand fall limp. "You can—you can let go, man. We're good!"

Jason released the hand quickly with a wince, as if he was expecting the bombs to go off anyway. He still wasn't believing this was real just yet. Only after he let go did he show all of his teeth in a big huge smile. "We fucking did it, Mike!" he roared, pumping his fist in the air as he looked down at me and stepped over my legs. "Hell yeah, I'm gonna go check on Ashley!"

"Yeah," I said, nodding quickly, tracking him with my head as he pushed his way out. "Do that."

After a beat, Mal appeared before me in the room. Her teleportation made an audible, glittering glass sound, visually producing a shower of blue sparking light. When the animation had ended, she looked down at me, smiling like she was about to cry too. "Mike? Are you okay?"

I just beamed up at her, nodding hard. "Mal, you're a genius, I ever tell you that?"

She shrugged, rolling her eyes with a sniffle. "Thanks, but I can't take credit for it this time. I just brought the tools, based on the layout. The captives did the real work. Goodness, though… I can actually hear myself think, now."

"Really?" I asked, chuckling through my tears. "Didn't think you ever had that kind of problem."

She shook her head, smiling with a relieved waver in her voice. "Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to factor for adversarial motivations of… one-hundred-fifty-six accelerated AI minds all at once? Without being able to actually see into any of them?"

"Better that than zero, Mal," I laughed heartily. My pain and discomfort were paltry now.

"We'll get started on their therapy as soon as we can," Mal said with a proud smile, beaming at me before striding back out of the room. Her tail trailed past, and she thumped it on the opposite end of the doorframe, the sound of it ringing in my ears in the form of a metallic thrum. "You did really good, Cowboy."

I was real happy for that. I knew for sure right then that I was gonna get to meet those new friends I wanted to have.

The Campaigner

by Keystone Gray

3-04 – Operation Goliath II – RCE