The Split

Chapter 26

Boston, 2085

For the next few hours Cyrus continued to work on various files, every so often pausing to explain them to me. The effects of the SynAdrene faded however, and he fell silent for a while.

Suddenly a spike of pain pounded through our shared mind "Cy, what the hell? Did you bang your head on something?"

I knew he heard me and had registered what I had said, but it took him a few seconds to look away from his tablet and response.

"No Burl, this is just the comedown you're feeling. Just try to relax we have a lot to do before tonight."

This was some comedown. It was like every bad hangover I had ever had, mixed with the tingling energy I had first felt from the synth. Everything was louder than it should be, and me and Cyrus both flinched as Sarah burst into the room behind us announcing loudly,

"Report is ready to go cap! How are things up here?"

"Sssss", Luce made a pained hissing sound as he rubbed his temples, "Not so loud please?"

"Aw what's wrong? Baby coming down from tweaking and needs a bottle?" She teased him and walked over to the corner near her equipment.

The look on Luce's face soured, but he did not respond. Instead he furrowed his brow and went back to the screen he was looking at, as if he confused but finding a way to cope with it.

"I'm going to second that you quiet down Sarah. Just because you're Nancy Reagan, that doesn't mean the rest of can't enjoy all of the wonderful drugs this great land has to offer. I think we're ready on my end." We gestured for her to come over and pointed at an image projected from his interface. "I put together all of our counts and I think I have the pattern here. If what we have is right, the amount of MPs on this block will be low, and the guard change is at 22:08."

Sarah looked down at her digital display on her wrist, "That's in less than two hours. Will we be ready?"

I turned from her to Luce, "I don't know Luce, will we be ready?"

Wordlessly he raised a small access chip and held it above his monitor. I walked over to grab it and stood over his shoulder waiting for him to talk.

When he didn't I broke the silence, "So if the protocol is ready, did you get around to those blueprints yet? Also, will Charlene be ready to go?"

"Charlene's BEEN ready," He finally responded. "and as for the blueprints... Bloc Intelligence pulled them from the server. They aren't anywhere, not on the old municipal network, not on the Bloc secured network, they're not even in the City Hall file system. I think I may... Have figured out an alternative though."

"An alternative?" Sarah inquired.

"Yup. Remember those frequency depth gauges I got with the drilling equipment that you said was a waste of money? Well I got them working." He swept his hand across his desk to display 4 gray pads covered in wires and blinking lights.

"Yes we remember them, what's your point?" Cy could barely conceal his annoyance, Luce had a tendency of drawing this sort of thing out.

"My point," he said, drawing the word out, "Is that if we can get these placed we won't even need the blueprint."

"How?" Sarah asked gruffly, she was annoyed too.

"Well, once these are placed properly I can activate them from my position up here and wire the frequency reports to my monitor. I'll be able to see everything, walls, sentries, even defense platforms and cameras as far as the signal broadcasts. The guy claimed they would go 200 meters but even half of that is more than enough."