Hard Target
Babylon bled.
Yuri watched it in the news, with reports of raids and gunfights across the city. He heard it late at night, as sirens howled through the neon-drowned dark. He sensed it on the street, in the way the people scurried from place to place, keeping their children close, moving only in tightly-knit groups. He gauged the truth on the Internet, in the social media reports in the hours before the New Gods scrubbed them from the web, in the few independent news sites still operating in Nova Babylonia, in the raw real-time reports from the city’s emergency dispatch network.
Every day and every night, he prayed for every soul swept up in the chaos. The souls of the innocent and the souls of the damned. The former didn’t deserve this. The latter needed it.
It was the only thing they could do.
As knives flashed and guns barked in the night, the team went about the business of insurgency. They stocked up on essential supplies. They dispersed to motel rooms around Babylon. They retrieved or stowed gear from long-term storage. They reviewed intelligence.
They waited for the hammer to fall.
Five days after Peter reached out to the New Gods, he summoned the team again. He had quadrupled the number of Angels on guard inside the warehouse, but until their return, he had been the only human in the building. Operational security, he insisted. If the New Gods came for him, better that they did not sweep up the rest of the team with him.
Now everyone was gathered in a small space at the back of the warehouse. He had fashioned a workspace for himself here. Six screens rested on a desk. On one side of a mechanical keyboard he had placed a gigantic mouse with a stupendous number of buttons; on the other he had a touchpad. All three devices were perfectly flush with each other. At the heart of the assembly was a humongous desktop tower. A silent fuel cell powered everything, keeping the New Gods from tracking him by his power consumption.
“The Void Collective is moving to sign an alliance with the Singularity Network,” Peter said.
“How do you know?” James asked.
Peter gestured at his screens. Three monitors showed three different emails. The fourth displayed a database. Lines of code streamed across the remaining two.
“I have been monitoring their internal memos. They are aware of Finn’s untimely disappearance, but are unable to convince the other factions that they were not responsible for it. The Singularity Network has assured the VC that they weren’t responsible for the abduction either.
“Both factions believe that there is an unknown third party responsible for the attack, which is manipulating the other New Gods into attacking them. They think the Seekers benefit too much from the situation to attempt to call off the attack. With the other New Gods attacking them, they have decided to accelerate their timetable.
“They are planning to join forces, uncover the true attackers, and set the foundations for a long-term alliance.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” James said.
“Indeed. They see themselves as victims. They are preparing to launch a coordinated counterattack. They are holding back only long enough to sign the agreement. After that, they will wage war on the streets of Babylon.” Peter smiled wolfishly. “But we can prevent that.”
“How?” Yuri asked.
“The VC and the Sinners will hold a final round of talks to iron out the details of their partnership. It will take place on neutral ground: the Langston hotel. The talks will take place this Friday and run through the weekend. We’ve got four days to prepare.”
“We’re saying we should hit the talks,” James said.
“And do it in a way that will decisively pin the blame on someone other than yourselves,” Peter said.
“Where in the hotel will the talks take place?” Yuri asked.
Peter pointed at another screen.
“They have rented out the Silver Ballroom, the smallest ballroom in the hotel, as well as the entire forty-fifth floor. They have also arranged for catering services at the ballroom for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. We can expect the talks to be held in the ballroom, and for the parties to retreat to their respective rooms after dinner.”
“How many of them are there?”
“They’ve agreed to each send three principal negotiators, as well as a twelve-man close protection detail.”
“That’s a lot of targets,” Will mused.
“There’s only six of us, and who knows how many civilians in the area,” James added.
“Can we borrow your Angels?” Karim asked.
“That would not be wise,” Peter said. “The Angels are only capable of simple tasks. They require manual oversight for more complicated operations. In a dynamic operation, the risk of an unexpected occurrence would be too high.”
“What kind of ‘unexpected occurrence’?” Yuri asked.
Peter shrugged.
“I’ve replaced their wayfinding packages with AI lifted from a military simulation video game. Unfortunately, it is still somewhat buggy. They can navigate open spaces safely enough, but they do not always grasp the concept of cover and concealment. Not without human control. They also have a slight tendency to run into each other’s lines of fire during fire and maneuver.”
“That would be bad,” Karim said dryly.
“Very,” Kayla added.
“The Angels are best suited for static defensive tasks, or operations that can be monitored by a human operator. For a mission like this, we’re going to need humans,” Peter said.
“We need to call in the other teams,” James said.
Yuri held up his hand. “Hold up. How does this fit into the big picture? How does raiding the talks achieve the goal of preventing an alliance? All this will do is to drive them into each other’s arms quicker than before.”
“It will buy us time,” Peter said.
“Not a lot. And they will be even more motivated to roll hard against those who attacked them.”
“They still need to coordinate and deconflict with each other.”
“And they can do that remotely. Simply hitting the talks guarantees that the next round won’t be in person.”
“Not doing it will also guarantee that they will ally with each other,” Kayla said.
“There is one more consideration,” Peter said.
“What is it,” Yuri said warily.
“Project Concord. It is a joint project between the VC and the Singularity Network. Zen and I have found multiple references to it, but the project data is stored in a highly secure server. Despite our best efforts, we haven’t been able to crack it.
“The VC and the Sinners have each agreed to send at least one negotiator with knowledge of Project Concord. We can safely assume that this project will be critical to the talks, or indeed, the entire alliance. We need to know what that project is.”
“You’re saying we should snatch those negotiators,” Yuri said.
“Yes. Or, failing that, secure intelligence that could tell us what it is.”
“If this is going to be a capture mission, six of us aren’t going to be enough,” Will said.
“We should have sixty,” Kayla added.
Yuri knew one-third of that number would be more realistic—or even optimistic.
“No chance of leaking the info and letting the other New Gods take care of this, huh?” Karim asked.
“No way,” Yuri said. “More likely than not, they’d just blow up the hotel.”
“Or they will try to capture the Concord tech, and reverse-engineer them,” Zen pointed out. “Then we’ll have an even bigger problem on our hands.”
“So much for that idea,” Karim said.
“Peter, can you cyber your way in and shape the battlefield?” Zen asked.
“Of course. But hacking is no replacement for firepower,” Peter replied.
Karim shook his head. “This is going to be a very hard target.”
Kayla glanced at Yuri. “Do you have any ideas?”
He knew the look in her eye. She was really asking if he thought the mission was possible in the first place. And the hell of it was…
“A few,” Yuri replied.
