Part 25 (2/2)
It had taken long hours to work their way through the Stryker ranks in Europe under the pretense of Keiko checking on their status as the world rioted. They couldn't reach their people in The Hague. Africa had been easier, with less than a dozen surviving cities across the entire continent. They bypa.s.sed the Middle East, which, like most of Russia and nearly all of Asia, was full of deadzones. They'd skipped from Africa to Asia's ravaged coastlines along the tip of India and the southeastern swatch of land appropriated by China. Australia was nothing but desert and firestorms, and they'd just come from j.a.pan.
They still had two continents to work their way through, with at least 250 Strykers left that they needed to reach.
”Here's hoping this group doesn't argue like the last one,” Quinton said tiredly as he touched the bruise on his face.
Jason snorted. ”I can't believe you let her get past your defenses.”
”I wasn't going to burn a fellow Stryker. I figured she'd accept Keiko's authority as chief operating officer after picking through my memories. How was I supposed to know she'd have an emotional breakdown?” Quinton shrugged uncomfortably. ”She still believed us and didn't question Ciari's orders.”
”Telepaths tend to believe more quickly than anyone else,” Keiko said as she stepped off the arrival dais in the corner of the large garage. ”So let's find one.”
They didn't even reach the door before a short, young man was palming it open. Telekinesis slid against their own s.h.i.+elds, a heavy weight that made Keiko's headache worse. ”Daeng,” she said. ”We're here on the OIC's order.”
Daeng pointed at Keiko's companions. ”Sir, you know we've got kill orders for those two.”
Keiko managed to dredge up a smile from somewhere. ”Orders have changed. We're here to save your life and that of every other Stryker in the Slums.”
He hesitated, not quite believing her, but they didn't have time to deal with wasted moments.
”You got a telepath on-site?” Jason said.
”Yes,” Daeng said. ”Tanya is our senior telepath right now. She's upstairs.”
”Call her down here so she can verify our actions and that we're not trying to kill any of you.”
Daeng looked at Keiko for confirmation; she gave it. His eyes lost focus for a second or two as he tapped into the psi link he shared with his team. ”Tanya's coming.”
A minute later, a thin Mexican stepped into the arrival room, wariness in her gaze. ”Sir?”
”Link with Quinton,” Keiko said. ”Ciari's orders.”
Strykers knew better than to disobey their Syndicate's officers, especially the OIC. Tanya pulled Quinton into a psi link, taking the memories that he shoved into the forefront of his mind and reviewing them.
”You're kidding,” Tanya said, staring at them in disbelief. ”That should kill us.”
”Hasn't killed anyone we've dosed so far,” Quinton said.
”Ciari wants her Strykers to live,” Keiko said, her voice cracking from exhaustion. ”You will accept her orders and recall in s.h.i.+fts every Stryker in the Slums. We don't have time to waste on petty arguing.”
”No,” Tanya said after a moment. ”I suppose we don't.”
”Tanya?” Daeng said warily.
She gave the younger Stryker a lopsided smile, eyes bright. ”It's fine, Daeng. We're going to follow their orders.”
It took ten minutes for Tanya to telepathically contact all the Strykers a.s.signed to the Slums and coordinate teleportation for everyone. Keiko, Jason, and Quinton left her to deal with the transfer while they went to set everything up.
The Slums were filled with rioters, the buffer zone around the city towers a veritable bloodbath between the military and a.s.signed Strykers holding back the deluge of people hoping to reach a transfer shuttle. The safe house had been ignored only due to psionic interference. The World Court had tasked those Strykers in the Slums to keep everyone down on the ground and out of the city towers. Not that it mattered any longer, with most of the registered humans leaving, but the Strykers still had a job to do and they were going to do it to the bitter end.
That maybe the end wouldn't be so bitter was why no one really fought this procedure. The virus could save them, and no one living with a kill switch in his or her head was going to say no.
Jason rubbed a hand over his burning eyes as he gestured at the first few Strykers who had arrived. ”Find a place to sit or lie down. It can't be administered standing up.”
Daeng was the first to pick a spot, sliding to the floor with his back against the wall. ”What exactly does it do?”
”Turns off the kill switch so the government can't fry your brain. The virus reprograms it around the internal security system. We can't turn off the tracking signal yet. If Strykers started going missing on the security grid in large numbers, the World Court would just fry everyone before we got to them,” Jason said as he prepped the dosage. ”Took the doctor who wrote the code months to get it right.”
”What happened to the doctor?”
”He's still alive.” Jason knelt down and pressed the tip of the hypospray against Daeng's throat. ”Hold still. This is going to hurt.”
”The government won't know?”
That was the fear and the choke hold that all Strykers lived with, the knowledge that if the neurotracker processed even a glitch in its programming, they would die. Jason tapped the hypospray gently against skin.
”It's bioware the code is targeting and nanites are machines.” Jason smiled, but it was more teeth than anything else. ”We're nothing more than biological machines, when you get right down to it. The virus is going to create a backdoor through our wetware. It'll take a few minutes to complete.”
Jason stabbed his thumb against the hypospray b.u.t.ton. The soft shus.h.i.+ng sound the thin cylinder made as it pressed a dozen tiny needles into skin was echoed by air sucked through Daeng's teeth. Jason moved back and switched the hypospray to his other hand, lifting his free hand to sc.r.a.pe his teeth over the small bruise on his thumb.
He'd pressed that b.u.t.ton hundreds of times since leaving Toronto. Those that received the shot came away with a perfect circular bruise on their throat, right over their carotid artery. The rest of the procedure was just as painful, as if the kill switch itself had been flipped.
The nanites, already activated within the hyposprays, followed their programmed orders. Even as Keiko, Jason, and Quinton urged the other Strykers to relax, the nanites were already moving through the internal carotid to where it joined with the arterial circle of Willis. From there, the nanites disseminated through the smaller capillaries and reached the areas where bioware filaments connected to the nerves and brain.
The neurotrackers, when the bioware died, felt as if they took their bodies with them, the way the Strykers thrashed against the agony, nervous systems out of whack and bodies suffering through an unwanted machine's death throes. When it was over, the Strykers remained unconscious for a minute or two as their bodies and brains adjusted to the absence of something they had lived with for most of their lives.
”Breathe,” Keiko was saying to another Stryker. The recipient shoved herself up straight in her chair, face pale and bleeding from the nose. ”Take a deep breath, it's going to hurt for about an hour.”
The Stryker ran her fingers over the back of her head, where the neurotracker sat beneath skin and bone. ”Hurt doesn't really cover it.” She opened her mouth wide, trying to ease some of the pressure in her skull. ”f.u.c.k, that burns.”
”You sure it's off? That it can't kill us?” Daeng said from where he sat. His breath was coming quick and fast through his mouth.
”We're sure. Ciari would never risk her people on something that wouldn't work,” Keiko said. ”The signal is still going strong. Take a minute to catch your breath, then get back to your posts.”
Keiko, Jason, and Quinton managed to get through five more s.h.i.+fts of Strykers before the clock ran out. Their luck couldn't last, but that didn't stop Keiko from reaching desperately for the Stryker beneath her hands, who suddenly reared backward, clutching at his head. He started screaming and wasn't the only one. Other Strykers they had yet to dose keeled over screaming, clutching at the back of their necks and heads.
Keiko yelled wordless protests as bodies convulsed around her. She'd seen too many Strykers die like this over the years to not know what was happening. The ma.s.s termination was quick, but it was brutally painful to watch, made worse because they could do nothing. They had no way to save the Strykers writhing on the floor as their entire central nervous systems were fried from the inside out.
Keiko didn't know she was crying until she couldn't even see through the tears in her eyes.
”f.u.c.k,” Jason yelled, slamming his fist against the wall. ”f.u.c.k.”
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