Tunnel Rat

Chapter 285: Unknown Player

"Eighteen of our men have been arrested, most of them severely injured, and two are dead. The rest of the operation is in shambles; the remaining personnel are getting out as fast as possible. Explain to me what the hell they ran into and how this happened."

"Richard, we just don't know. We're analyzing the video we have from each man's cameral and looking at the footage from all angles. Tech support is working on it, and they'll have the footage up to us in a few minutes. This operation went from easy to strange and then deadly in a short period of time. The intelligence we had was way off, to the point where I wonder if we were set up. What's left of Seimovich's people said nothing about this resistance level. It's a damn habitat, and we already had the security guards paid off and sitting on their thumbs. Nothing indicated anyone else was operating in there, and our crews were in control of the area and chasing the girl down."

"In control, until it all went to shit. And isn't that just classic?" Richard Argyle had seen his share of 'classic' shitfests in his lifetime, some of them so close that the blood splattered across his face as a team-mate died nearby. Everything was good, and then half your squad was dead, and you were hoping to get out alive. 'Bad intelligence' was usually the answer, and someone would calmly explain how it happened. "Brad, contact whoever is in charge of the contract and tell them the cost went up. The standard death and injury clauses just went into effect, and if they bitch about paying, hint heavily that I might go for 'Damages from purposefully withheld information.' And where the hell is that video?"

"Coming up on the screen now, sir. One of the techs left the area of operations and uploaded it to us on a scrambled connection. We just put it back together."

The multiple screens in the room lit up, showing several squads that were operating in the South Philadelphia Habitat, searching for Belinda Seimovich. The individual screens followed the various squads as they hunted through the barely lit tunnels. Several times, there were images of the girl fleeing ahead of a squad in her wheelchair, but always moving too fast and and eluding capture.

"Slow that down, where she goes around the corner, zoom in, and put it down to one-twentieth speed." The tech adjusted the image, bringing it to a crawl as the girl slowly navigated the corner.

Richard cursed, "Crap, Stop. Right there. See that? The image comes apart for a split second in these parts. That's a hologram! They were chasing ghosts. Which probably should have been damned obvious with her getting away over and over. Skip ahead to the weird part you talked about."

The screen changed and showed the confrontation with the two robots a team had stumbled over near the stairs to the roof. The squad had retreated quickly when they started taking hits from lasers that could burn through their body armor. Richard put both palms on his face. "Oh, you have got to be fething kidding me. Video game robots?! With real laser beams? Rewind and slow it down. There is no fething way those are really robots from the Beserk game. Who do we fight next? Robbie the Robot? Pac-man? Space Invaders?"

As he'd expected, the slowed video analysis showed the flaws in the holograms. The bullets were passing through the images and impacting the wall, the dents in the machines appearing after a small delay. The lasers were real but coming from an angle that placed their origin nearer the floor.

"Some sort of security drone, maybe. Skip to the end where the guys got hit; run it through at normal speed first." The video skipped to the end. Twenty men entered the courtyard, the few people nearby leaving and locking doors. Richard grimaced when they grabbed the girls and the old woman. He was old-fashioned enough to dislike threatening women but wouldn't have interfered if he was there. They weren't paid to be polite. Bloggy lived up to his reputation for bluntly getting the job done as he began his interrogation.

Until his hand disappeared, replaced by a charred stump. The small armored figure gave them a chance to surrender, and then all hell broke loose. It happened too fast for the eye to follow. Men were going down as they took similar injuries to Bloggy, and the small figure moved too fast for the eye to see. Two men ran, and others were holding their ears or puking. There was blood spraying everywhere as the small armored figure got among them, spinning and leaping while slicing through armor and muscle. Then, the rapid gunfire killed whoever was in that suit, if it was a suit. Richard had his doubts; it was too small. Finally, the revelation of their foe and men trying to stomp the armored security Roomba. The last scene would have been entertaining if it hadn't been for one of his men having his brains spread on the walls. The old man had balls.

"Rewind. Slow it down. Let's watch it again a few times. Something else is going on. Men are bleeding out of their ears and disoriented."

"After talking to the survivors, we think it's narrow-beam targeted infrasound, sir. The microphones picked it up underneath the soundtrack. The effect was different depending on where the men were hit, but none of it was good. Both the Chinese and US military have developed the technology, but it hasn't been used in large armed conflicts. Easier to shoot people."

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Richard agreed, bullets were cheaper. But he'd just seen one operative with drones take out twenty of his men. "But highly effective for a security force if you didn't want to kill people outright. Holy shit, who are we dealing with here? Run the tape at one-quarter speed." He watched again, trying to gauge the reactions of the armored figure tearing through his men. It wasn't human. Nothing could move that fast, exoskeleton or not. Almost too fast. That was the only mistake, moving through the pack instead of staying in the center. It gave his remaining men shots, and they hit. He paused the image.

"No blood. No penetrations. The plastic guns aren't the best, compared to what they could normally take in the field, but at short range they have stopping power equivalent to a big gun like a .44, and those shots should have gone through. They barely left a mark, and the damned guy gets back up at the end."

He watched as a crowd of adults and children left, and security showed up with police.

"Play it again, and turn up the volume when they talk. See if we picked anything up." Richard had them play the video six more times. By the last time, he was sure someone was in that suit. This had more and more of a corporate stink to it—a specially trained operative using an exosuit and combat drugs. He probably knocked a year off his life during that fight. They might even be dead the next day. Moving at speeds that fast did horrible things to the human body. Add state-of-the-art military drones with lasers, holographic displays, and infrasound guns, and it was no wonder his team went down. That hardware had to have a ten million dollar price tag, not counting the enhanced cyborg operative inside that armored shell. He'd certainly pay that much for a team like that. And a big corporation would spend a billion on research and development and consider the price a bargain. It made sense when he remembered how much Belinda Seimovich was worth.

"We are done, people. I don't give a crap what the client says. There are unknown players in this game spending a lot of money. I don't feel like losing more men so they can test their hardware on us. My best guess is a bio-engineered operative using combat drugs, enhanced musculature, cybernetic limbs and programmed combat moves, all encased in a shell of next generation personal armor. I don't want to face something like that again. Pull everyone out."

The door opened, and Brad returned, furious. "The asshole is trying to stiff us. The bank transfer was reversed, and they claim he's broke. I've got legal threatening his lawyers. They must have known he couldn't pay and gambled we'd find the girl."

"So, Victor is broke? He must be desperate as hell. He knows what will happen when we catch up to him."

"Dead broke. Other people are yelling as well. The bastard has nothing left, and his people are scattering to the wind, mostly unsuccessfully. It's going to be a bloodbath for anything left of his organization."

Richard looked at the screen. The video might turn this around. "I want three copies of that video put in the secure storage areas, and everything else burned and erased. None of this gets out. And no one talks. This might be worth enough to put this operation in the black, even with rehab, prosthetics, and death benefits. As long as we're the only ones who know about the new tech on the market, people will pay to see what they're up against." He needed to find out who had this tech. The three corporations operating in that habitat didn't seem likely. Manpower obviously didn't have that technology or Victor would controlling it and using it. Rhebus was just starting construction, and they were a bio-tech company that through away billions a year on humanitarian causes and were opposed to human experimentation of this sort. And Claw Master? Too new, and barely with a presence yet, other than video games and some cool gaming gloves. On impulse he brought up images of the fight, zooming in on the gloves and compared them to what Claw Master was selling. Take that gaming glove, upgrade the armor, add those nano-blade claws, and the inertial dispersal system he was sure was incorporated in the armor... and? He started laughing. He might as well say that mask with the ear-sensors was made from a kids Mickey Mouse hat. It was just a slight similarity in looks, and his own paranoia. He'd start putting out some feelers, see if anyone bit. And he was very, very curious who actually had control of Belinda Seimovich right now. If she showed up in the hands of any of the major arms consortiums, that would be a clue. For now, the footage could just sit in some very secure locations.

Far away, someone else was looking at a video that had been broadcast over a coded signal through the habitat to a technician at the base camp. Zander watched it twice before nervously going to the others. Bork was going to freak out.

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