is a chaotic system. And as much as men are exactly the animals you expect them to be, sometimes they are not.' He frowned. 'I don't need to ask you to choose. I can see the answer in your eyes. You can't let go. Hardesty was right. You don't have the strength to kill cold.'
'I'm pleased I can prove you wrong.' With a blink, Saxon shifted vision modes, getting ready.
Namir drew a wicked-looking combat blade from a sheath on his belt. 'You are going to fight for it, aren't you?' he asked. 'At least show me that courage. Let me know my faith in you wasn't entirely misplaced.' Saxon drew the stun gun and thumbed off the safety catch. The other man laughed. 'Oh, that's a choice you'll regret,' he sneered.
Saxon met his gaze. 'I'm not going to use it on you.' The reflex booster kicked in and he brought up the nonlethal weapon, firing two rounds into the flat, glassy surface of the main display console. The stun darts, thick shells the size of a shotgun cartridge, discharged a powerful surge of voltage on impact; the console erupted in a violent shower of sparks and acrid smoke. Surge buffers in the ops room tripped, plunging it into darkness, but Saxon was already seeing the space in low-light mode.
Namir reacted, sweeping in with a lunging, lethal attack that Saxon dodged by a hair, the blade cutting the air near his face.
The stink of burnt plastic reached the fire sensors in the ceiling and immediately triggered a carillon of buzzing alarms. Saxon snatched at a monitor screen and tore it from a desk, with a snake nest of cables trailing behind it. As puffs of fire-retardant powder began to rain from safety nozzles overhead, he slammed the display into Namir's head with such force that the screen shattered and the Tyrant commander staggered back under the blow.
Saxon took the moment and vaulted over a workstation and into the corridor beyond. As he ran, the familiar itch in his jawbone arose, Namir's voice issuing out of his mastoid comm. 'All call signs, ignore the alarms' he snarled, 'Gray is rogue. Intercept and terminate!'
Dundalk-Maryland-United States of America
'Hello,' said the voice, bereft of anything that could make it possibly seem human. 'I'm pleased to see you are unharmed.'
Anna glanced at the videoscreen set up inside the army tent, and then back at Lebedev, who stood near the door flap, watching her reaction.
'What's this? More games?'
'Some of the people we work with prefer to keep their identities a secret,' he noted. 'Isn't that right, Janus?'
'I'm afraid so, Juan,' said the voice. 'It would compromise not only me, and Juggernaut, but also your lives if I were to tell you who I am.'
Anna folded her arms and gave the hazy shape on the display a level stare. 'After all that stuff about conspiracies and distrust, you're playing the need-to-know card?' She shook her head. 'If I know anything, it's that the less truth you have, the less trust follows. You could be anyone.
You could be working with the Tyrants or the… their masters.'
'You find it hard to say the name, don't you?' On the screen, the digital shadow shifted slightly. 'Illuminati. A layered word, heavy with meaning and counter-meaning. You don't want to believe. It's an understandable reaction.'
'Our colleague here has been opposing them for a long time,' said Lebedev.
'How did you get mixed up in all this?' Anna demanded. 'What's your angle? Are you in it for the kicks, like D-Bar, or for the greater good like him?' She inclined her head toward Lebedev.
'Neither,' came the reply, and for a moment Anna thought she sensed something like melancholy under the words. 'I found Juggernaut and became one of their circle. I'm doing this for the same reason as you, Anna. Because they killed someone who was important to me.'
It didn't sound like a lie; but then with all the layers of digital masking in place, she wondered if she could ever read anything about the ghost hacker.
'Trust is a rare commodity these days. But you can only accumulate it by spending it. An ironic fact, in present circumstances.' There was a pause. 'You have questions. I'll answer them if lean.'
Anna frowned. 'This… vote. The United Nations. You're telling me that all the assassinations have been to set that up to fall one way?'
'Yes. ' The screen blinked and became a map of the world. As Janus spoke, dots of red appeared across the span of nations, each briefly displaying a data window with death certificates, accident reports, security camera footage, and other information sources. 'What you're seeing are the targets of the Tyrants. Hundreds of people, all of whom have lines of influence that can be drawn back to the proposed regulation vote, and how it will play out. '
Over the map, a matrix of connections formed, a web bringing each person together, showing the human effect of the targeted individuals. Anna was suddenly reminded of a stone dropped in a lake, the ripples radiating outward; only here, the ripples were being guided, controlled-and in many cases, erased.
One thread through the complex knot of effect was highlighted. 'Consider this ' said Janus, displaying an image of a smiling middle-aged man and his family. 'A midlevel minister in the Italian government, with many friends in the Euro-Parliament. His son was cured of debilitating brain damage because of a neural implant. He is well disposed toward the spread of human augmentation technology. The recommendations he makes carry weight. A committee of United Nations representatives are currently entertaining a suggestion from certain groups to call for a vote on the regulation of H.E. development…'
Lebedev nodded slowly. 'But before the minister can be consulted on behalf of his country, his wife is suddenly diagnosed with a variant neo
SARS strain. His family comes first. He's unable to fulfill his duties. Instead, the man who replaces him on Italy's technology advisory board is a known associate of William Taggart, the pro-humanist… and now that country is supporting the push for the ballot.' He spread his hands.
'That's just one story. You saw another, more violent approach firsthand, with Skyler and Dansky.'
Anna's eyes narrowed. 'What happened to the minister's wife?'
'She died from complications. The minister has been suspended on medical grounds and is currently undergoing treatment for depression.'
The map returned. 'This is how they work, Anna. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny actions, individually small, collectively gigantic, all working in concert. Every person they have exerted control over has been a part of a plan to dominate a vote that has yet to happen. And even this is only one element of an even greater schema.'
'The Illuminati are working in tandem with one of their satellite groups, a faction called Majestic 12 born out of the Cold War era, a technology division of sorts… Together, they're in the process of securing a power base for something beyond the scope of the UN vote. Something much bigger.'
Anna was reeling from the import of what she was hearing, caught between incredulity and acceptance. 'Bigger than regulating the most radical science ever created?'
'We can see only the edges of the conspiracy ' Janus told her. 'But what we can be sure of is that the Illuminati s goal is and always has been command over the future of humanity. A New World Order, without freedoms, without questions. Without end.'
She turned away, shaking her head. 'No… No! It's too much! I've come here looking for a murderer and you're telling me that the world is turning on all this?' Anna looked toward Lebedev. 'Listen to me. I don't care about your damned conspiracy theories! I don't care about who else they've killed! I've thrown away everything I have because I want just one, single thing-Justice, for Matt Ryan.' Her voice caught. 'He saved my life. I couldn't save him. So I am going to find the person who killed him and make them pay. If you won't help me do that, then I'll be better off alone.' Furious, she stormed out of the tent and strode away over the uneven concrete floor.
Aerial Transit Corridor-Gulf of St. Lawrence-North Atlantic
Saxon tried to think of a worse tactical situation he had been in, and came up empty. Trapped on board an airborne jet with four heavily augmented mercenaries and no means of escape, armed only with a couple of rounds of stun-dart ammo that was nearly useless against these adversaries…Yeah, it's pretty grim, he told himself. About the only positive point he could find was that without Federova among them, at least he would see the other Tyrants coming. He wondered how much good that would do him.
Despite Namir's commands, the fire alarms were still in full effect, but retardants had only been triggered
