The Unseen (24 page)

As they inched forward, the garage door, which was littered with burn marks and small energy holes, raised up, revealing the massive mechanical army outside. The red LED stripes common to all of Joseth’s work were unifying and intimidating. They pulsed as one and turned their attention to the auto-autos.

Over the top of the enemies, Kari could see Joseth and his minions standing where she had last seen them. He was shaking his head as the auto-autos screeched forward.

Half of the hijacked auto-autos didn’t even make it out of the garage before being disabled by energy blasts and EMPs. Luckily, Kari’s auto-auto was in the center of the group. She covered her head and clenched her teeth tightly as her auto-auto shook violently. It plowed into Joseth’s mechanical minions recklessly. She could feel it picking up speed before it jumped and lurched onto its side. Kari felt her body being tossed around like a ragdoll.

“OK! OK! Geez! I can walk on my own.”
Kari pushed the hands of MagicWaffles and Motorcad off her arms, using extra force on Motorcad. They backed away and looked to Joseth, who nodded. His army parted and cleared a path for them to return to Valhalla.

Walking was tedious, as Kari had to step over the smoking pieces of destroyed drones and crawlers.
There was a thin layer of nearly invisible nanobots that made the ground slippery. Her body hurt all over, but it was no worse than the other crashes she had experienced over the past year.
I’ll survive. If Joseth let’s me, that is.

SeptemberMist had gathered the rest of the Unseen into a circle on the steps of Valhalla and was pitching the rest of Joseth’s plan to them.
Kari wanted to scream at her, call her a liar and a traitor, but she feared it would only cement her as being the crazy one in their hopefully undecided minds.
The best thing I can do is look like the victim. Shouldn’t be hard, because I am.
Kari limped past the group and let them see the pain in her face and tears in her eyes. A few of them looked over at her, concerned, but most were still wide-eyed, staring out at Joseth’s private army.

“What we have here is just the start, with the help of only a few of us. Look how far we’ve come! Imagine what we could do together!” SeptemberMist preached louder as Kari passed behind her and into Valhalla, defeated.

That’s why SeptemberMist is in his inner circle—she’s so good at manipulating people into believing what she wants them to believe. Social engineering at its best.
She followed Joseth and the rest of the Unseen who had stood against her up the stairs and into his room.

Joseth gestured for her to sit on his bed as he walked to the opposite side of the room and looked out the windows.

“I’ve never seen it all at once before,” Joseth said. “It’s beautiful. Although I must admit that I thought it would look even more impressive. I think the trees ruin the scope.” Kari sat on the bed, and four other members of Joseth’s inner circle were scattered throughout the room. Motorcad stood closest to the door, out of Kari’s sight.

“Tell me,” Joseth said, turning his attention to Kari. “Did you think your uprising would work?”

“I had my hopes,” Kari said. “It was worth a shot.”

“Not really,” Joseth said. “You weren’t even close. All you’ve managed to do is cause a small scratch in my forces, one that will be healed in a matter of days once I recycle the fallen.”

“Did you expect me to go quietly?”

“Of course not. No blind spots, remember?”

“Not that again. Please. Just do what you have to, but not that speech again.” Kari’s head hurt too much to deal with his crap one more time.

“You wanted me to know something was happening. Using Miss September to plant a false idea of your escape was clever. Of course I saw through it. You see, it’s all about seeing two steps ahead, especially when you have a half-competent opponent. It’s one of the reasons I’ve become who I am, and one of the reasons I will become who I am destined to be.”

“A tyrant.” Kari’s biting comment didn’t sit well with Joseth’s goons. They looked to him to see if it warranted any physical response, but Joseth shook his head.

“A liberator. A liberator now in possession of the final piece of his plan.”

“My drones.”

“Yes, your drones. I told you that you would give them to me.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it giving them to you,” Kari said.

“I do,” Joseth said. He smiled widely, which accented how proud of himself he sounded. “I had no plans to move this week. I told you that so that you would do something rash and hand your drones over to me on a silver platter.”

Kari grew more upset with every word.
He thinks I’m a fool.
She wanted to yell at him, to tell him he was wrong, but she held it in.

“But now that I have your drones, it shouldn’t take me long to get your designs ready, and then I will free the people of this once-great country.”

Shouting from outside reached their ears. Joseth looked out the window casually to see what was happening. Behind her, Kari heard footsteps running up the stairs. She checked the time and smiled.
11:05 a.m.

“I have just one question for you,” Kari said. Joseth looked back to her. His eyes squinted, and his forehead had lines on it. He made brief eye contact before closing his eyes to focus elsewhere. “If you’re so brilliant, then why didn’t you see the honey pot right in front of your electronic eyes?”

“Oedipus,” SeptemberMist said, panting in the doorway. “The news! We’re everywhere!”

“What did you do?” Joseth said without opening his eyes.

“Oedipus, I’m getting all sorts of incoming traffic!” MagicWaffles said. “All over the perimeter!”

“What did you do?” Joseth yelled.

“Called in an old friend for some backup,” Kari said.

“Everyone, grab a division! We should be able to defend ourselves.” An anonymous message showed up on her screen.

“We’re all guilty, but run if you want to be free.”

It was the last thing that Kari was able to read on her mind chip before the EMP bomb went off. Kari turned her head and closed her eyes as the rush of blue light flooded the room, destroying all electronics it touched. Her hair stood on end as she felt the energy pass through her.

“No!” Joseth screamed. “What is happening?” He looked out the window again and went silent. The other people in the room gathered at the windows, Kari included. Outside, the ground was covered with Joseth’s dead army. Cheetahs, drones, crawlers, and everything else lay on the ground, smoking. It was incredible sight to see. Moments ago, Joseth had an army fit to rival a nation, and now there was nothing left of it but lifeless mechanical corpses.

“That’s a shame,” Kari said.

“You!” Joseth reached out for her, but Kari darted out of his reach, scrambling backward. She hit the bed and fell onto it. Two of Joseth’s inner circle grabbed her by the arms and held her down from escaping. “You did this!”

“Of course I did,” Kari said. “It should have been obvious. But you were so focused on stopping me from escaping that you didn’t realize that I wasn’t trying to break out. I was trying to break other people in! You sucked all your defenses in so you could stop my little rebellion. And it worked. You stopped me, but you also made it so a single EMP bomb could knock out everything you have!”

Joseth’s face grew more infuriated with every word.

“Oh, and do you know what’s even better? You destroyed all your transportation and means of escape while stopping me.”

“Impossible! How did that EMP get through my defenses?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” Motorcad said from behind them. Kari strained against her captors to see him leaned up against the wall, blocking a horrified SeptemberMist from getting in by putting his arm across the doorway. “It’s almost as if the person who was responsible for monitoring that part of the defenses just let them right through.”

“You helped her?”

“Of course I did,” Motorcad said. “I’ve been trying to find a way to bring you down since my first week here. She was the only one brave enough and smart enough to do it.”

“Get him!” Joseth yelled. MagicWaffles and the other Unseen in the room rushed at Motorcad before he could defend himself. They piled on him, but they had to let go of her in order to do it. Kari tried to climb off of the bed, but Joseth pounced on her. He forced himself on top of her and pinned her to the bed with his knees.

“You fool!” Joseth said.

She tried to squirm away from him, but she couldn’t get loose.

“Now we’re all trapped here!” Joseth slapped her viciously across the face. It stung badly, but Kari refused to cry out.

“The rest of us have always been trapped,” Kari said. “Sucks doesn’t it?” Joseth hit her again, this time with a closed fist. Her eyes went blurry, and she felt blood running from her lip and down her chin.

“That’s enough!” Motorcad yelled from the middle of his fight.

“Shut up, Motorcad!” Joseth yelled in response as he wrapped his hands around her throat. Joseth looked over at him briefly, his face disfigured with rage, before returning his attention to Kari, who was trapped beneath him.

She tried to scream but couldn’t get the air out as Joseth choked her. She heard faint barking as she tried to get Joseth off of her, but she was too weak from her injuries to do much. His hands slowly squeezed the life out of her. She felt her face start to swell, and little black dots started forming in her vision. His eyes were rabid, and he sneered down at her, mumbling something that she couldn’t understand. Kari could tell from the look in his eyes that he wasn’t going to stop.
At least I took down the great Oedipus . . .

Kari was just about to pass out when she saw Lars jump on her chest and bite Joseth on the arm. He screamed and pulled his arm back in pain, allowing oxygen to flood into Kari’s body. She choked at first, but quickly got the hang of breathing again.
Bless you, puppy dog!
Kari’s arms were still pinned under Joseth’s knees, but she tried again to wrestle herself free.

“Stupid dog!” Joseth swatted at Lars with his unbitten arm, but Lars ducked out of the way, still growling and barking. From the corner of her eye she could see to the other side of the room, where Motorcad was busy fighting three other men. He was quite a bit larger and more fit than them, but he was having a rough go at it. Joseth drew his fist back again. Kari refused to turn her head. She just stared back up at him, a man she had once admired.

“You’re pathetic,” Kari said. It was the simple truth. He was an amazingly talented hacker but he was an overwhelmingly poor human being.
Skills alone aren’t any reason for respect. Oedipus the Pathetic.
Joseth growled and brought his fist down. But it didn’t make it to her before someone flew over Kari and tackled him.

“Get the hell off of her!” David yelled as he threw Joseth off of the bed. Joseth stumbled backward but kept himself from falling. That was all the time he had, as David was next to him in an instant, punching him hard across the face with his right hand. It made a sickening cracking noise, and Joseth crumpled to the floor.

Kari sat up, continuing to feel the oxygen returning to her body. MagicWaffles was knocked out cold in the corner of the room, and the other guys Motorcad had been fighting didn’t like their odds now that David had arrived. They went half running, half limping from the room, leaving Motorcad behind. He was bleeding in a few places, but he looked like he was going to be fine.

“Well, that was exciting,” Motorcad said. Joseth moaned on the ground, and David continued to shake his fist and stare down at him. Kari had never seen him so angry, but she had never been so happy to see anyone in her whole life. It took David a few seconds to realize that Joseth was not going to get back up right away, and then he turned his attention back to Kari.

“Are you OK?” David said, rushing over to Kari.

“I’m fin—” David kissed her on the mouth. He let her go a second later, before deciding he wanted to kiss her again. Kari kissed him back.
Now this is what a kiss is supposed to feel like.

“Not to interrupt anything . . .” Motorcad said. “But we should probably get going.”

“Who’s he?” David said as soon as he stopped kissing her. He stood up and eyed Motorcad suspiciously.

“A friend,” Kari said. “Motorcad meet David. David meet Motorcad.”

“Great, great, nice to meet you. Now can we get going?” Motorcad was anxious for good reason. Kari had been in federal prison before, and it hadn’t been a fun experience. If they didn’t get out of there quickly, she’d be back under Henderson’s care.

“Yeah, David, lead the way.”

“I’ll break out,” Joseth said. His voice was weary and tired. “If you can break out, I can break out. I’m twice the hacker you’ll ever be!”

“That’s true,” Kari said. Pausing long enough to get one last look at him. “You are a much better hacker than I am. But I’m a much better person. You see, I was arrested for trying to help my friend, not for murdering presidents. I doubt you’ll get the same treatment that I did.”

“That’s the guy?” David said.

“Yeah, hard to believe by looking at him, isn’t it?” Motorcad said.

“Good-bye, Oedipus,” Kari said. “Let’s go, Lars.” They left the room in a hurry, leaving Joseth alone. David paused at the side of the stairs and picked up a brown burlap bag.

“Take one of these,” David said, pulling two EMP guns out of the bag and handing one to Motorcad.

“These won’t work—they got fried with everything else when that EMP bomb went off,” Motorcad said.

“Nah, they should be fine,” David said. “I kept them in a grounded box in my truck until after the explosion. I thought they might come in handy. Here’s a processing unit for you, Kari. Didn’t realize we’d be bringing a friend.”

“You’re brilliant, David!” Kari said and kissed him on the cheek. She grabbed the processing unit and quickly switched it out for the now-defunct one behind her ear.

“You thought of everything,” Motorcad said. They hurried down the steps and out the front door.

“I was top of my class,” David said. “In front of some very qualified individuals. Or at least one.” The front of the house was deserted, except for the countless lifeless machines covering the ground.