The Phoenix Variant: The Fifth Column 3 (6 page)

Aviary didn’t need to look. ‘Thirty-nine.’

Sophia nodded. ‘More than I thought.’

Panning the map back to the US, Sophia noticed at least a dozen on the eastern seaboard. They were clustered; six in Washington, three in Philadelphia and three only ten miles east of her, in Newark. That made her uneasy.

Aviary reached for one of the phones on her desk. ‘Something else.’

Sophia shook her head. ‘Don’t even try,’ she said. ‘They’re too dangerous, and they’re unnecessary. I might as well check in with Denton on FourSquare.’

‘You’re kind of embarrassing. No one uses that anymore,’ Aviary said. She showed her the iPhone, wrapped in a powder-blue rubber case. She peeled back one side of the case and popped the SIM card tray with a paperclip. The tray was empty.

‘No SIM card,’ Aviary said. ‘No IMSI number. No voice. No text. Just data. Sexy, sexy data.’

Sophia glared at it. ‘So it’s an iPod. I have one of those already.’

‘You don’t have this,’ Aviary said, pressing the home button. ‘But you’ll want it.’

The screen warmed to show the usual rows of icons. It looked just like any iPhone screen. With her finger, Aviary pulled up the control center. The icons and labels looked somewhat more sinister.

‘This first button toggles hijack mode,’ Aviary said. ‘Try it.’

Sophia knew it was just easier to get this over with so she pressed the circle that had the little wifi icon inside. The circle lit up and underneath it said
Searching
…

Aviary tapped and a full list jumped out.

The Promised LAN

blizzard

Wi-Fi 4G-58A1

Michael’s iPhone +1 (940) 603-8 …

NetComm Wireless

00:18:0f:c5 …

Pennsylvania 6-5000

BlackBerry 9700 +1 (267) 210-4 …

Jessica Hyde +1 (212) 294-1 …

attwifi

Abraham Linksys

The LANnister Always Surfs The Net

‘You can pick one manually if you like.’ Aviary was grinning again. ‘Someone’s phone. It can pick up anyone who has wifi—Wireless LAN—or Bluetooth turned on, which, let’s face it, that’s pretty much everyone.’

Before Sophia could choose, Aviary picked one herself, Jessica Hyde’s phone. The list disappeared and the word
Searching
changed to
Connecting
. A few seconds passed and it said,
Connected
, highlighted in pale green.

Aviary swiped the control center away and tapped another icon that Sophia didn’t recognize. A browser window popped up with a Google search. ‘Secure browser. You’ve—’

‘Hijacked her phone,’ Sophia said. ‘And she doesn’t know?’

‘No clue.’

Sophia felt her eyebrows rise just enough that Aviary would’ve noticed. Without saying a word, she’d admitted she was impressed.

‘Once it has connected to one network, it will connect to two others in the background—usually in opposite directions if possible. Covers you if you have to move off quickly. Think of your connections like spider legs. That way, your connection will never drop,’ Aviary said. ‘And! It measures the fastest of the three connections and automatically preferences the fastest one! And if they are all slow it uses multiple connections. Does a small transfer and latency test. Saves you paying phone bills too.’

Sophia nodded. ‘That’s actually really good,’ she said. ‘But what if there are no other phones around? What if I’m out in the mountains?’

Aviary swallowed. ‘Well, it won’t connect automatically but—’ She swiped on the control panel again and hit the icon next to it, an antenna icon. ‘It can connect to cell phone towers and use false IMEI numbers. I have it on a five-minute changeover but you can reset it manually if you suspect you’re being tracked by someone who is trying to kill you and stuff. But this really should only be used as a last resort. And actually especially not in a remote region because—’

‘I’d be triangulated in a heartbeat,’ Sophia said. ‘I know, I used to track people for a living.’

‘Yeah, the old-fashioned kind, gotcha. But they’d have to notice the new IMEI numbers that keep popping up, which is like counting hats in a crowd. Not easy. So GPS is safe but it’s not accurate since it uses the coordinates of the phone or modem you’re hijacking. Unless you connect to a cell phone tower, of course. And it goes without saying not to log into a website that connects to you in some way. Then you’re just waving a big red flag at the Fifth Column. Unless you plan to high tail it out of there after they come hunting.’

Aviary turned the phone up, revealing a second headphones jack. ‘Don’t stick your earphones in there. It’s a hidden wide-angle lens. You can take photos or record covertly. And my camera app even records from three angles at once, so you can cover yourself in every direction by looking at your screen as you walk—or run the feed to someone else like me, or someone using one of these phones.’

Aviary hadn’t drawn breath for that entire explanation and inhaled rather suddenly.

‘OK,’ Sophia said.

‘I’m glad we talked about this too,’ Aviary said.

Sophia tried to spot the lens but it was difficult to see.

‘The lens records 4K video, one-twenty-degree view,’ Aviary said. ‘Combine that with the two cameras already built in, you have a 360 view that is so fucking fabulous it’s off the scale.’

Sophia turned the phone over in her hands. ‘Off the scale,’ she said. ‘I guess I could give it a shot.’

Aviary’s eyes lit up. ‘Great! When Nasira’s back you can give one to her as well. And if you see the boys at all.’

Sophia watched Aviary pour half a dozen phones into her own ruck. ‘Sure.’

‘I was wondering,’ Aviary said. Her gaze flickered. ‘If I give you this location data for the operatives, I was giving some serious thought to maybe you training me some more.’

Sophia felt a knot in her chest. ‘What sort of training?’

‘I don’t know, operative stuff,’ Aviary said. ‘I mean, the Jaguar Knights—the Force Recon guys—they taught me some weapon handling and movement, maybe you could teach me some more? Of that stuff. The stuff I just mentioned.’

Sophia handed the phone back to her.

‘Or other stuff,’ Aviary said.

‘I’ve already taught you some pretty high-level anti-surveillance and security,’ Sophia said. ‘That’s more than most soldiers know. And a lot of field agents.’

‘I know, but I’m not prepared for
everything
. Not like a—’

‘A black swan event,’ Sophia said.

Aviary wrinkled her nose, confused. ‘Yes, how come I’m not prepared for a black swan event and other cool things?’

‘It’s an event with no precedence or warning,’ Sophia said. ‘You can’t deal with that, not yet.’

‘Don’t you think it’s a good idea if I could?’ Aviary said, waving the phone dramatically between them. ‘I mean, you have Nasira helping you all the time. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone else as well? Someone with cool hair maybe.’

Sophia didn’t know what to say.

Aviary pointed at the map on her laptop. ‘Is that why you want them? Only operatives can handle black swans? I wouldn’t be useful.’

‘You are useful,’ Sophia said. ‘You found the map, for starters.’

‘I’ve read the Akhana’s survival guide for humans,’ Aviary said. ‘I know it inside and out. I know every type of psychopath, I know all about the Fifth Column, I’m on the operative ketogenic diet. I think I would make a very good operative. No one ever suspects the weird Hawaiian girl.’

‘I’m not an operative,’ Sophia said. ‘And neither are you.’

Aviary chewed the inside of her lip. ‘And you’re the authority on that?’

‘It’s dangerous, hacking into the Fifth Column,’ Sophia said. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’

‘I just granted you your wish!’ Aviary said. ‘And you don’t want it anymore?’

Sophia felt the heat build inside her. ‘This isn’t a game!’ she yelled. ‘One mistake and I find you in the bathtub with your brain splashed across the ceramic!’

‘I don’t make mistakes!’ Aviary paused. ‘And more to the point, I don’t have a bathtub.’

‘But you have this!’ Sophia said, trying to bring her volume down. She gestured to the couch, to the kitchen, the apartment as a whole.

‘Yeah, and it’s boring as hell,’ Aviary said. ‘Your life might be dangerous but it’s exciting.’

‘This is something real,’ Sophia said. ‘Your life is real. Mine’s just … I don’t know, like some passing reflection in the glass. I’m there one minute and then I’m gone. That’s how it is.’

Aviary’s hands uncurled. ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ she said. ‘I have plans tonight and you’re coming.’ She handed the phone back to Sophia. ‘To something real.’

With her ruck on her back, Nasira opened the door and stepped across the hard snow. The blizzard was gone and for the first time Nasira could make out the village. Only it seemed very different from what she expected. The buildings were Incan stone walls with new roofs and doors. Some new huts were sprinkled around the outskirts made only of timber and metal sheeting. Their walls were painted more colorfully than the stone.

A trio of kids played near the center of town in colorful ponchos and snowshoes. The bare ground beneath their feet seemed almost visible in the snow, but the more Nasira looked the less obvious it became.

She paused mid-stride and tried to focus. The light from behind the clouds seemed different now. And the darker patches in the snow seemed deeper, richer. She didn’t know what she was seeing and it didn’t make any sense.

‘Are you OK?’ Lucia said. ‘Would you like more potato soup?’

Nasira shook her head. She removed her hood and knelt on the snow. She pinched the fingertip of her glove and pulled it off, touched the snow with her bare hand.

‘Is something wrong?’ Lucia said.

‘The snow’s changed,’ Nasira said.

She looked up and noticed the snow extend through the village to the mountains. Then a pair of legs obscured her view.

It was an old man. She looked up. He was short, thin and only seemed to have a few teeth.

He said something to her, but it wasn’t in English or Spanish. Then he nodded to himself and continued a nimble walk through the snow. As he moved from her field of vision, she could see the shape of the earth. But it wasn’t quite the shape.

The kids were chasing each other, laughing. One girl crashed into another and they toppled into the snow. She could see the collision. Not the girls, the collision itself.

The girls started to laugh hysterically. They climbed to their feet, gasping for air.

Lucia stood beside Nasira, watching her curiously.

‘I can see the magnetic field,’ Nasira said, turning to her.

‘I thought you couldn’t
see
it,’ Lucia said. ‘You told me—’

Nasira massaged her temples. ‘That buzzing last night. Don’t know what the hell it was, but it’s like that. Except it’s focused.’

Lucia had her hands on her hips. ‘I guess that makes you some kind of superhero.’

Nasira’s stomach crawled at the thought. ‘What did he say to me?’ she said. ‘That man?’

‘Oh,’ Lucia said. ‘The world is as you dream it.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Nasira said.

Lucia smiled. ‘I’ll take you to the trail.’

She led Nasira to the edge of town, occasionally passing other residents who stared at Nasira. She gave them an awkward nod, which they returned with enthusiastic waves and gleaming smiles.

They soon reached the outskirts of the village. Nasira could see the snow continue for a distance before breaking. It made way for the sharp tips of the mountains that surrounded them. Lucia indicated southwest, where the trail would take her back to the path she knew, under the mountains.

‘Thank you,’ Nasira said.

‘You came a long way,’ Lucia said. ‘For that one story.’

Nasira pulled the hood over her head to keep her ears warm. ‘It was an important story.’

‘And I’m glad you could tell it.’

Nasira nodded and started towards the trail. She stopped. She couldn’t just leave it like that. Lucia was already walking back to the village.

‘Wait,’ Nasira said.

She walked back to Lucia. Her mind fumbled for the words. She didn’t know how to start this part of the story. Maybe there wasn’t a way to start it.

‘Your brother. And your sister-in-law,’ Nasira said. ‘Lucia’s parents.’

‘Yes,’ the older Lucia said.

‘You told me you knew how they passed away,’ Nasira said.

Lucia nodded. ‘Their store was robbed. They died from gunshot wounds.’

‘The … As children we were programmed,’ Nasira said.

She was doing it now. There was no turning back.

‘The first operation is to … We … They’re taught … fooled into thinking someone is a terrorist. Or some sort of bad guy, you know.’

Lucia watched her, silent. Nasira could tell her mind was working, decoding Nasira’s words quickly.

‘The first operation … it was to kill … it was meant to complete your programming. If you were successful, there was no doubt.’

Tears were running down Lucia’s cheeks. She saw it coming.

Nasira couldn’t stop now. She had to go through. She had to see this out. ‘Our first operation was to kill our own parents.’

Lucia’s mouth was open. She tried to scream but no sound came. Nasira moved for her but Lucia flinched, stepped back. She hunched over, gasping.

‘But it wasn’t her,’ Nasira said. ‘Lucia didn’t do that. The people who programmed her did that.’

Lucia straightened up, eyes glassy and cheeks flushed. She said nothing. Just stared through Nasira.

‘Did you kill your own parents?’ Lucia said.

‘No,’ Nasira said.

‘Why not?’ Lucia said. Her words struck Nasira with venom. ‘Were you too
good
for that?’

Nasira swallowed. ‘I was an orphan,’ she said. ‘I was given a different assignment.’

Lucia glared at her. ‘Go.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Nasira said.

‘Just go.’

Nasira felt the sting of tears in her own eyes. She turned, her hood up, and walked for the trail. Her legs seemed unwilling to walk anywhere. Not now, not after that. She didn’t want to go anywhere. But she certainly didn’t want to stay there a moment longer.

She found the trail, a meticulous row of stone steps that led as far down the mountain face as she could see. She blinked and wiped her face, clearing the older Lucia and the village from her mind. She was finished now and she could return to Sophia.

She wished she had her wooden staffs to take the pressure off her legs but she’d left them behind when Lucia had rescued her. It took her an hour to make it to the bottom of the stone steps and into the foothills.

And that’s when she heard it.

Yelling in the distance.

It sounded like someone shouting a warning, or giving orders. And, more interesting still, it sounded American.

The noise had come from the west, farther along the mountainside. She could see the ground drop off sharply ahead. Well, she couldn’t see it at all, but she knew the contours now.

Ordinarily she would have circled around the voices and continued on her way, but she was curious. She decided it was best to identify the speaker, make sure they were just mountain climbers and that no one was in any danger and then move on quietly.

She moved quickly through the snow, each step squeaking. She carefully stepped towards the sharp drop, planning to negotiate her way around it, but she stopped in her tracks when she caught sight of what was far below.

It was a temporary camp, and it looked new.

But this was no ordinary camp. Nasira couldn’t help but notice the security perimeter. She dropped to her stomach, removed her ruck and searched for her binos. She wriggled forward, slowly, until she had just enough space to get a visual. With the magnification of the binos she was able to identify a silver half-pipe shelter that wrapped around a dome-shaped structure. It looked like a donut. The half-pipe was large enough to drive a tractor through, and the dome tent was the size of an Olympic swimming pool. But what lay inside, Nasira did not know.

The perimeter of the base was fringed with coils of razor wire, except for one entrance. And she could already make out three pairs of soldiers in white camouflage. Their attention was focused on the entrance. They watched people in white, baggy uniforms walk out of the base. On closer inspection, Nasira realized they were wearing contamination suits with hoods and visors removed. Some of them carried crates, others shiny black bags.

The soldiers in white carried M4 carbines. There had been no effort to camouflage the carbines for the snow, although it did make her wonder if there were surveillance and sniper teams in the forest or higher on the mountain.

Yeah, time to get the fuck out of here
.

But the core of the base drew her. She didn’t know how to describe what it was doing, but it riveted her attention. It burned.

Her fingers started to shake. She balled them into fists.

What the hell was happening?

She calmed herself. Thought it through. Tried to figure out the many possible explanations for this base. But her mind wandered to the rear of the perimeter. A part of her had already planned a way inside.

Hypothetically, of course.

If she were to go in, there was a door at the rear of the half-pipe. Her hand touched the belt around her waist. The knife wasn’t the only thing she carried. She had lockpicks too, and a door like that would only take a minute, maybe two.

Without patrolling sentries, it could be done with minimal risk. The soldiers at the front seemed fixed in position. But inside the base was high risk. She had no idea what was in there. The chances of being seen once she was inside increased from ten percent to fuck off don’t even think about it percent.

It was a real stupid idea.

And she was already moving. Behind the ridge line, out of view. Through a finger of forest. Her breathing quickened as she padded through the snow. She knew the fall of the land before she placed each step, so she never tripped or misjudged the depth of the snowfall.

That’s coming in handy, she thought.

And then she was there. At the rear of the base.

No sentries.

Just the razor wire and a large empty space between the wire and the base. She fished for her multitool from her ruck and snipped through with just four cuts. She held her boot over the final coil before it could retract along the fence. She knew she couldn’t leave sign of her entry. If they found the village they might interrogate Lucia. She didn’t want that.

She stepped through the gap in the razor wire and unthreaded paracord from one of her boots. She used the paracord to draw the wire back together. So close that it looked intact from a distance.

Her boot was tight enough that she could still walk on it, but she moved carefully through the deeper patches of snow, trying not to accidentally lodge it and have to make the rest of her trip with a missing boot.

With no sign of sentries on either side of the base’s rear, she moved in a direct line for the door. If there was a surveillance or sniper team watching from above there weren’t too many places for them to position themselves. She’d checked as she moved into position. But if they found a position to surveil then she was about to get sprung. And she had only her knife. So a confrontation with any carbine-wielding sentries was not high on her to-do list.

She reached the door and, mouth open, listened for a moment. There was no point scrambling to get inside from a sniper. If there was one, she’d be dead by now. And rushing this was not a great idea. When she was satisfied she couldn’t hear anything in her vicinity, she inserted her rake lockpick—the one with three triangular bumps—and used her other lockpick’s end, which doubled as a torque wrench.

She started raking and in two strokes she’d seated most of the pins. She used the rake lockpick to feel out each pin, slowly working her way from the end towards the front of the lock, testing each pin and lightly guiding it out of the shaft. With each seated pin, she felt the lock turn just a fraction more.

Footsteps.

Squeaky footsteps.

They were coming from around the donut curve of the base. The stride was purposeful but not too purposeful. They weren’t looking for someone, but they did seem to be patrolling. Well, one of them was. She couldn’t hear a second set of boots in the snow. Any moment now, the sentry would see her and have enough distance between them to drop her where she stood, or capture her. Either wasn’t ideal.

She worked hard on the second last pin. It felt seated but the door was still locked. She could move away from the sentry, work her way around the base. But she would soon run into another sentry. It was open ground out here in the snow.

Her only way out was through.

Last pin.

The footsteps squeaked closer.

Nasira’s eyes were on the edge of the base. Her fingers worked independently of her vision. She tried to listen to the pins, to hear the last pin seat. To hear the click as the lock turned.

She heard the sentry sniff with a runny nose.

Her hands were shaking.

Not now, she thought, not fucking now.

She almost lost grip on the rake lockpick. The footsteps were very close now. The sentry was one, maybe two steps away. adrenalin iced through her.

Click.

The lock turned.

She palmed the lockpicks, stepped inside and looked down to notice she was missing a boot. She spotted the boot in the snow behind her. She opened the door, just wide enough to reach out, and plucked the boot. She pulled the door back in quickly, then slowing as the door reached the frame and—painfully slowly—closing the door with the handle turned. She released the handle last, very slowly.

Then she held her breath.

The footsteps moved towards the door.

She reached for her knife, positioned herself beside the door. There was no one around her, no one to see her. She didn’t move.

The footsteps continued past.

She waited a moment and then exhaled.

The half-pipe tent was surprisingly bare, lined with white vinyl and two continuous strips of fluorescent lights. It was like a fridge in there. Microwave-shaped heaters were suspended from various points in the ceiling, but they weren’t turned on. She exhaled again and saw her breath curl in the air.

Along the sides of the half-pipe she could see tiny rectangular windows. She kept under them as she moved through. One side allowed her to look out into the snow, and she didn’t want to be spotted by a wayward sentry. The inside looked in to the dome-shaped center.

Nasira moved to the first window and peered through. It was eerily lit by purple light, and only in certain places. The rest of the dome was bathed in darkness. She could make out a smaller dome inside. It looked like a semi-transparent bubble; the colors of its contents were blurred and smeared. Outside the bubble there were banks of equipment and what looked like a row of study workstations, self-contained like cubicles.