An Armageddon Duology (49 page)

T
hey stood
in front of the ruins of an abandoned factory, rusted fencing and untended wild grass waist high and swaying in the cold wind. Several inches of snowfall from the night before conferred on the grounds a peace alien to the turmoil around them. In the distance, the taller buildings of Newark could be glimpsed in the morning sunrise.

Lightfoote struck the butt of a rifle repeatedly against a convex metallic plate embedded in the ground. Clouds of vapor escaped her lips. Nearby, Houston leaned heavily Lopez’s shoulder, her wounded leg suspended slightly above the ground, her face a mask of pain.

“You’re sure this is it?” asked Lopez.

Again Lightfoote struck the disk. “Yes,” she grunted.

“You sure they’re
here?
”

Before she could strike the plate again, a muffled impact rang several times from the object.

“Yes.” Lightfoote smiled and lowered her weapon. A metal-on-metal screeching howled from the disk. “They’re here.”

The disk flipped sideways, revealing it to be a lid over a wide hole. They sprang back just in time as the barrels of multiple weapons pointed up through the opening, and one jerked back as it fired. A cloud of smoke induced a fit of coughing from inside the tunnel.

“Damn it, Morgoth!” someone choked. “Give me that gun!”

A head poked up quickly from the hole. It belonged to a heavily bearded, unkempt man in his twenties. He peered out from the hole, squinting in the morning light. He spun nearly a full circle before he saw them, eyes lingering on Lightfoote.

The beard smiled. “You Angel?”

Lopez exhaled. “Save us.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Lightfoote answered, stepping forward.

The man strapped a rifle over his shoulder and scampered up a ladder that extended from deep below. Behind him two men and a woman followed clumsily.

“I’m De-frag,” he began, swallowing overgrown chunks of hair as he spoke. “Two dudes here are SixtyFour and Morgoth.”

SixtyFour, baby-faced and gaunt, sported blond hair to his shoulders. He stooped and shuffled his feet incessantly, hiding a face pocked with acne, patches of unshaven hair scattered across his chin. Morgoth was older, graying hair trimmed to a millimeter in length contrasting with his deep black skin, a pair of smart glasses glinting in the rising sun.

“The little lady is Medea.”

A heavyset woman squinted at them, hair dyed red. She wore a pair of taped glasses, a faded Wonder Woman shirt, and a suspicious expression.

De-frag continued. “We all use our handles here. We’re the First Anarchists. Kinda the leaders but not really, ’cause you know there ain’t supposed to be leaders in anarchy, right? But nothing was gettin’ done, so we hadda come up with some kinda compromise, you see. Didn’t go down great with everyone.” He paused. “Sorry about the shot, yeah? No one’s hurt, right?” He smiled awkwardly.

Lopez chanted under his breath. “Hail Mary, full of grace. Our Lord is with thee....”

“So,” began Lightfoote loudly. “I’m Angel. It’s good to meet you in the real world, De-frag. The big guy here is Gabriel,” she said, nodding to Lopez.

Morgoth interrupted in a thick Kenyan accent. “And what’s he supposed to be? Some priest? We don’t need any priests here.”

Lopez held the man’s gaze. “Former priest,” he growled. “Defrocked for sexually assaulting young boys and as an enemy of the state. Wanted by the FBI for multiple murders and acts of terrorism. But I am open to giving last rites over anyone I kill here. I also do weddings.” The four hackers gaped. “Leaning on me and bleeding into her wound dressings is Mary. Now, are we going to stand out here, freezing and misfiring our weapons into the air, or can we get the hell inside and find her a place to rest?”

De-frag nodded spastically. “Oh, yeah, sure. Right, man! No problem.”

Morgoth hissed, pointing at Lightfoote. “And that one, I don’t care what you—”

“Morgoth, shut the fuck up and get SixtyFour down in the bunker.” He glared at the black hacker who continued to eye Lightfoote. “Medea—how about you help Gabriel bring Mary over here and down the chute.
Now
, guys! Come on!”

Faces still in shock, the hackers obeyed. The two men entered the large entrance and bolted down the stairs. Medea walked slowly over and continued to eye the new arrivals with suspicion. She allowed Houston to place an arm over her shoulders, however, and showed surprising strength in helping Lopez carry her to the entrance.

“Holy God-damned Angel!” piped De-frag, his face exploding into a boyish grin as he stepped alongside her, watching Lopez and Medea orchestrate lowering Houston down the three-foot wide metal tube. “You and Gabriel and Mary. It’s like some backwoods revival!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Everyone’s psyched you were coming. I mean, holy shit, it’s Angel! You fucking beat
Fawkes
and let loose the most goddamned crazy code into the wild—from the fucking FBI servers! You an agent? What’s your real name? You don’t have to say.”

“Angel,” she said, her face strained as she watched Houston disappear from sight.

“Oh,” he said with evident disappointment. “Anyway, like I said, you coming was
sweet!
But you fucking brought presents! The priest, ah man. Murder, terrorism, FBI most wanted!
Really?
Shit!”

“And child molestation.”

His face clouded. “Uh, yeah. Um, okay that ain’t so cool.”

“Don’t worry, that part’s a lie. Big Brother. Framed.”

“Really? That’s even better! He must really be a bad ass!”

Lightfoote turned sharply to face him. “Look, De-frag, we’re here for a reason. We need those servers you promised me. Tell me you have them.”

He nodded vigorously. “Yeah, yeah. For
sure
. I mean
stability
is still an issue in this old shit hole, but mostly,
yeah
.”

She held his gaze. “
Mostly?
You better not be jerking me around or that killer priest will be the least of your concerns.”

He shook his head. “No way, man! But, ah, look, it’s just, well—”

She grabbed his beard and yanked him toward her.

“It’s just
what?
”

De-frag’s voice raised slightly in pitch. “It’s just that not everyone gets
why
, you know? We got all these people together—man, it wasn’t easy, let me tell you—we promised them to fight for Fawkes. Help bring down the system. Dot gov, FBI, CIA, whatever, they get that. But what the heck’s this Buildingburg?”

“Bilderberg.”

“Yeah, that. You know, not everyone’s on board. So, you know, maybe like you could smooth things over down there? Make it clear why we’re all doing this? You got all kinda fans, Angel. And maybe some who’d like to take you down, too, you know? Hackers always gotta one up.”

Lightfoote let go of his hair and scowled.

“Yeah, I’ll make it clear all right. One way or another.”

She marched off to the hole.

L
ightfoote released
the ladder rungs and landed loudly on the metal floor at the bottom of the tube. De-frag swung the heavy lid shut with a grunt, cutting off the morning light above. Balancing on the wall-embedded ladder, he turned the wheel handle to lock the hatch shut, and the poorly oiled threads cried out and reverberated through the steel walls of the shelter. She tasted a staleness in the air as dust rained from above.

Lightfoote let her eyes adjust as De-frag climbed down slowly. Weak LEDs glowed along walls. Away from the chamber, a tunnel jutted into foggy light. Indistinct mumbling and chatter echoed down its length.

“It’s down that way,” said De-frag, wiping dirt from his hands on his checkered shirt. “Pretty damn big inside, actually, but this tunnel’s a squeeze.”

“Where’s the electricity from?”

“Well, we got some big-ass batteries and a diesel generator. But we don’t start it ’cause we all fucking suffocate. Morgoth wanted to put some solar panels topside, but I was all like, ‘Dude, it’s like an advertising sign saying we’re here.’”

“You’re not running this off batteries.”

“Right, no. So, this thing’s built close to an old transformer. Sewage line too, which helps some, you know. Some paranoid old boys back in the ’50s. Russian nukes, bam! You know?” Lightfoote eyed him impatiently. “Yeah, so we got some electricians who rigged a connection. Course they’re not really trained in grid-leeching, so we’ve had surge problems and whatnot. Lost some servers. Now we’ve got the boxes on layers of protectors. It’s a bit ridiculous, but so far so good! Ready for the hacker-pocalypse!”

“Okay. Let’s see what you’ve done here,” said Lightfoote, and she crawled quickly down the tunnel. De-frag sighed and hefted his bulk into the tube and slowly wormed his way forward.

Lightfoote reached the end of the metal cylinder and rose to a crouch, her shaved head scraping the lip of the exit, her eyes parsing the expansive space in front of her. The entrance opened three feet above the floor of an extended corridor that ran forward for perhaps fifty yards. The height of the ellipsoidal shelter reached ten feet at its apex, but forced stooping near the sides as the ceiling tapered off. Along the length of the main hall, doorways opened to side rooms.

People milled about the space, congregating at makeshift computer tables hosting monitors and keyboards, or at a long, central table where meals were taken. The walls and floor were a hazard of cables and wires running in bundles or loose, duct-taped in place or left unsecured. Dark power cords slithered along the length of the shelter, daisy-chained with adapter cords.

De-frag thumped to a stop behind her, panting. “This is the common area. Business end’s the rooms way in the back—hold our server farms, as much as we could stuff into this place. The rest are bedrooms and stuff. Have their own toilets. That’s probably where they took your friend. Makeshift medical. We have a real doc, too!”

By now, the din inside had begun to taper off, all eyes turning to Lightfoote. People had stopped eating and turned from their computers as heads cocked her way.

De-frag chatted on, oblivious. “It’s a functional hacker terrorist cell! We got some of the area’s best. Well, and not so best, too, if you want to the truth. But man! Fawkes started it all and then you two duked it out in cyberspace for control! Country’s down for a long count. This is it! Just look at it!”

A strange wind of whispers replaced the rowdy conversations, and Lightfoote could catch repeating instances of “Angel” and “Fawkes.” A heavily pierced woman at the end of the table stood up and faced her. She raised her hands and began an exaggerated and slow clapping. Other’s joined in, some standing, some remaining seated, and the sound swelled and accelerated. Yells and whoops topped the ovation as stomping feet climaxed to the calls of “Angel, Angel, Angel!”

She turned her head back to De-frag. “Seriously?”

He beamed. “I told you you had fans!”

“
W
ell
, let’s get this over with.”

Lightfoote coiled even tighter at the tube opening and sprang outward, the impact of her boots reverberating through the metal shelter like thunder. Hackers swarmed her as she moved toward the table in the center of the long room, back-slapping her, many with looks of awe. Behind her, De-frag lowered himself awkwardly from the tube and straightened his twisted shirt.

The crowd parted roughly. Annoyed cries were stifled, and people moved away to allow a group of men to march toward Lightfoote. At the head marched Morgoth, his expression fiery. Two brawny men stalked behind him. They held metal pipes.

Lightfoote watched them approach silently. People near her instinctively moved away, leaving her and the three men in a circle of onlookers.

Morgoth sneered. “She’s a Fed. She’s not one of us.
Come on,
people! She sabotaged Fawkes’s code. If it wasn’t for her, he would have taken the system down once and for all. She’s the enemy and shouldn’t be here.”

The chamber echoed with a chorus of boos. But some nodded their heads in agreement. Lightfoote stared impassively at the three men.

“Aw, shit!” came the voice of De-frag, and he pushed himself through the crowds. “Morgoth, fuck this, man! That’s enough! We agreed to—”

One of the large men beside Morgoth stepped forward and came at the bearded hacker with a pipe. De-frag cursed and warded off blows with his arms, but he had little fight in him. The men drove him out of the circle.

Morgoth stepped closer to Lightfoote. “This is an anarchist commune, De-frag. You can’t tell me what to do. And I’m not going to let this Fed stay here.” He raised a gun and pointed it at her, inches from her face. Gasps erupted like steam leaks. “You’re going to leave, or I’m—.”

Before he could finish the sentence, Lightfoote’s torso swept left and her hands darted in a blurred motion. There were two slaps barely separated, a snap and the gun was airborne, landing with a clank on the floor. Morgoth screamed and cradled his right hand.

“You fucking bitch!” He moaned. “You broke my finger!”

Lightfoote resumed her stance in front of him. “You were saying?”

An electric buzz spilled across the crowd. Morgoth backed up, doubled over, his mouth frothing. He turned to the pipe-wielding men. “Fuck her up!” he spat.

The two men approached her warily, their steps staccato, feinting to make a strike, hopping back, repelled by some unseen force as they approached within a given distance. Lightfoote balanced on the balls of her feet, never flinching. She rolled her eyes.

“You boys just do foreplay or are we gonna get it on?”

The man on her left growled and leapt toward her, drawing the pipe behind his head. He swung, but Lightfoote sprung into him, one arm locked and outward, her shoulder impacting his arm at the elbow, dissipating the strike. Simultaneously, the other hand assumed the shape of a slab, the fingers curled tightly, presenting the knuckles. They plunged into his windpipe, paralyzing him. She slung him into the onrushing form of his partner. The second attacker stumbled backward as the first assailant dropped to the ground clutching his neck, wheezed gasps erupting like barks.

Lightfoote had obtained a set stance again, eyeing the panicked man before her. “Time to quit, asshole.”

But she only riled him up. With a yell he charged forward holding the pipe over his head. Lightfoote sidestepped as he swung wildly downward, thrusting her hand to his bent form and augmenting his twisting motion. Losing control, his upper torso overturned and he flipped onto the floor, the impact knocking the wind out of him. The pipe clattered and rolled across the floor. The other man gulped awkwardly beside him, still clutching his throat in pain.

Lightfoote scooped Morgoth’s weapon off the floor. She stared at him as she held it up. “Not even competent street fighters. Let’s see, no bullet chambered.” She ejected the magazine and pocketed it. “I wonder if you even have another mag. Can you shoot lefty?” She tossed it at his feet, glaring at him. He turned away, his appetite for conflict vanished.

“Well, if that don’t beat all the shit out of a horse.” De-frag wandered back into the circle, nursing his bruised forearms.

Lightfoote turned her gaze around the gawking faces. She raised her voice.

“I could have killed this asshole! But my guess is he’s not the only one to think like that—want me out. So I want him and any sympathizers to hear what I’ve got to say.” All eyes were on her. “I don’t give a damn if you don’t agree with me. Between me and my friend,” she cast a glance toward the back of the room, “we’ll put anyone who tries to stop us six feet under.” Heads turned. Lopez stood silently in his priestly robes, a shotgun held across his chest.

A low murmur spread. She stood on the table now, brandishing her own weapon. “You don’t believe it? Try us. Right now.” She cast a withering glance across the crowd.

Stunned silence greeted her.

“Now that that’s clear, let me tell you why you’re going to let me do what I came here to do. Morgoth said I’m a Fed. He’s right.”

More murmuring. Louder.

“I took down Fawkes’s code because it was the wrong fucking way to fix a broken system!
I
have the right way.”

“She betrayed him! Betrayed us!” came a voice from the crowd.

“I watched Fawkes die, but I didn’t kill him! It wasn’t the Feds, or the CIA, or the police or government.”

“Then who?” came another cry.

“They’re called
Bilderberg.
An organization you need to help me stop. Fawkes’s last words—given to me—gave us the key. He sent me an encrypted file that
you
all helped me break. You’ve seen it. An image of a madman’s poster board. I’ve seen the online discussion—none of you could figure what it’s about. But we
did
. In that wall is the code to reveal the hiding place of a conspiracy that’s been controlling our world for centuries.”

“The Illuminati!” “Aliens!” “Fucking Jews!”

“
Bilderberg!
” shouted Lightfoote over the growing bedlam, turning in a circle. “I’ll distribute to you the proof. Make up your own minds. But I’m telling you it’s
real
, and it’s everything the worst conspiracy theorists have feared and more. And we have a way to track them down. A mad Nobel prize-winning economist gave it to us: economic equations to trace their center of influence.”

“What did De-frag promise you?” came a woman’s voice.

“Your servers. I need your raw computing power. You’ve all been fighting a long time. You just didn’t know the real target. Today,
here
, I can give you that target. We’re close to finding them. You can help me. And you can do it willingly.
Or
... we take control of this place until we’re finished.”

Several shouted protests.

“No, it’s not fucking democratic of me! It’s dictatorial. Right now we don’t have time to form a parliament or play teenaged anarchist. In case you haven’t noticed, the nation is tearing itself apart outside. Maybe that’s what some of you want. But if so, you’re gonna have Mad Max and worse. Or you can help us reboot this world, help kill a very real Big Brother, and stop people who’ve been secretly controlling all our destinies!” She shone with sweat, towering above the crowd. “There’s no more time for debate. I’ve got to get to work. Who’s with me?”

No one moved or spoke. Lightfoote scanned the room, jaw set, as Lopez stood silently in the back. And then, a slow chant.

“Angel.”

A few softly repeated her name. Others joined a growing chorus.

“Angel. Angel. Angel.”

The chant swelled and people stomped their feet or banged the table or walls. The chamber rattled and shook. Lightfoote glanced back at Lopez. He simply nodded.

Slowly, the applause died down. As the chanting stopped, Morgoth looked furiously at Lightfoote and cried out:

“She’s not one of us. She’s antithetical to the movement. You’re making a terrible mistake!”

“Your objections are noted,” said Lightfoote. “Gabriel, let’s put him and his little gang into lockup.”