Turncoat: Turncoat Trilogy Book 1

Chapter 14.1

I walked into the apartment after work the next day and almost missed catching the duffle bag thrown at me. I looked up to see Nick standing there in his armor, his helmet sitting on the table. "Hurry up and get dressed, Vicki and Kai are waiting for us already."

I nodded and began to pull the armor on, working as quickly as I could, donning the familiar gear in a few minutes. Nick handed me a different helmet, one with a visor and face shield. "No gas this time, not for you, so now you need to make sure your face is covered."

"How are we supposed to leave without them noticing us?" I asked. There are cameras all over the city, especially up here. It's harder to go unnoticed and the city watch systems would notice two people in full gear just walking out of an apartment complex.

Nick tossed a band to me. "Put that on your arm, the cameras won't bother us," he said.

I looked at the scrap of cloth he handed me and gasped. "A military police sigil?" I asked.

"We have a few from various divisions, on your upper arm, quickly now," Nick said.

I tied it on and Nick smiled. "Come on, no one will bother us now," he said. He passed me my helmet and motioned me to the door. I followed him out of the apartment and looked sideways at him as we walked.

"So, shouldn't I be laying low instead of operating with this dead head investigation?" I asked.

"Don't worry, nobody will even take notice to us," Nick said.

We walked in silence from then on, entering a very familiar section of the city. "Um, Nick, what exactly are you guys doing tonight?"

Nick remained silent as he motioned her down a dark alleyway with a nod of his head. I followed apprehensively and found us standing at the top of a set of stairs leading down into the tunnels below the streets.

"Nick, what are we doing?" I asked.

"Put your helmet on," he said.

"Nick, you're scaring me! What are we doing?"

"Put the helmet on, Tawny!" Nick snapped.

I slipped the helmet over my head as Nick secured his and slipped his shemagh up. I watched as the helmet linked with my wrist interface and began scrolling through the boot up processes before I realized what I had.

"Nick, this is a dead head special forces operation helm," I said. "Why do I have it?"

"It's better you don't know," Nick said ominously. "All you have to do is get the doors open and keep the cameras down. Got it?"

"Yes," I nodded. "Are you going to tell me what you are doing?"

"Just concern yourself with keeping the sensors offline," Nick said. He motioned to a panel on the wall. "That will give you all off the access you require."

I nodded and started walking over.

"Tawny, if this goes bad, you'll need this," Nick said. He held out a pistol and a second magazine.

I nodded and clipped the weapon to my hip. "Where should I go?"

"Head for the front lines, stay away from the camp and don't let them catch you, whatever you do," he said.

I nodded and opened the panel, revealing the maintenance screen below. I started typing falling back on all of my training, working without thinking. My fingers responded to firewalls as they popped up. The code flowed across the screen mixing in with the systems attempts to lock me out. Back hacking attempts were dumped into different parts of the system, routed into DMV records or city train schedules. Soon camera feeds filled the screen, heat sensor data, every sensor in the entire sector at my fingertips.

"Okay, I'm in," I said. "What are needs shut down?"

"Subsector fourteen," Nick said.

"Okay," I said. Singling out the feeds, I began to shut them down one by one, taking out all of the other various sensors as I moved. What the hell are these guys hitting that it's so dangerous that Nick won't tell me? What is subsector fourteen?

My fingers moved over the keyboard to bring up a map of the area, narrowing down on subsector fourteen I brought up a list of government establishments in the sector. Military barracks, training areas, a few warehouses, and...oh my god. Are they insane?

"Guys, tell me you aren't doing what I think you are doing?" I said.

Silence answered me.

"Vicki? Nick? Kai? Are you doing what I think you are doing?"

I felt my jaw begin to quiver as I reread the list, making sure I wasn't imagining things. Three military barracks, four training areas, six military warehouses and military detention center six, also known as The Pit. It housed Class A political prisoners, people who were considered worse than a Feral or Sympathizers.

"Somebody answer me!" I cried. "Are you guys breaking someone out of The Pit?"

More silence answered me.

"Are all of the sensors down?" Kai asked.

"Are you doing what I think you're doing?"

Kai repeated his question.

"Yes," I said.

"Good, make sure no one reboots the system and maintain radio silence until contacted otherwise," he said.

"You haven't answered my question!" I argued.

"You're a hacker, nothing more. Do your job!" Kai snapped. I heard a soft click as my communicator switched into maintained silence mode. Oh god, they're really doing it.