Chapter 5: You Know What They Say About Redheads

There was no time to dilly-dally; Brooke was still in the medical pod and I could tell that girls were starting to get a little frantic. One thing I’ve learned is that panic will get you killed; so I paced up and down the room calmly and gave the situation some thought.

‘Can we intercept them before they arrive at the Shard?’ I called up a satellite feed and queried Ce:Ri.

‘Satellite surveillance data suggests three air vehicles. ETA to NorthAm Matriarchal Shard: 127 minutes.’ Ce:Ri stated. ‘It would be possible to intercept, but just barely. However, I am unable to ascertain which vehicle contains the sketch plans. Higher resolution scans and further analysis are unavailable.’

‘What do we do, Kieran?’ Beth broke off from watching Brooke in the medical pod and held my arm tightly. ‘Brooke, isn’t ready!’

I had no contingencies for this. Paranoid me always had worst-case scenarios planned, but the last few days have been a cascade of disasters; I hated being blindsided like this, that was not how I usually operated. Worse, the only solution seemed to be charging in blindly and performing some form of heroics. I was seriously not up for this — but looking at Beth’s pleading, soft brown eyes; my stupid testosterone and machismo kicked in.

Well at very least this body seemed to be built for macho heroics.

Gathering the two girls, I gave them a tight hug. ‘It’ll be fine. I’ll intercept the squad of crazed femkuzas, kick their asses, retrieve the documents and be back in no time. See? No problem.’

Beth gave a sniffly snort, her eyes were a bit damp. Sandra was unexpectedly composed and pretended to miss my sarcasm, ‘Of course. It’s the last thing that they’ll expect, Master. Oh and bring a couple of new girls back as well ok? You need a couple of new slaves.’

‘It’s like I’m headed to the store.’ I sighed, ‘We have twenty minutes to prepare. Sandra, come, I’ll need your help.’

‘Come or cum? I’m up for both!’ Sandra, grabbed my arm, ‘The way Master talks, so confident ... so manly!’ She turned and whispered to Beth, ‘I’m so wet right now. Sorry, but I get first dibs when he gets back ok?’

Beth smiled and gave her a thumbs up.

Ce:Ri astonished me as we walked to the storeroom with a brilliant suggestion. ‘Sir, why not command the nanobots to fabricate an ensat uplink at the base of your jaw? That way you can you can be in contact with us realtime.’

‘We can do that? The smallest current ensat uplink is the size of backpack!’ I stopped and exclaimed. Currently an encrypted needlecast required a significant amount of complex hardware and circuitry.

‘Yes, Sir, nanobots are perfect for miniaturized fabrication, I can direct them, we should be able to get it down to the size of a pinhead.’

I could fit an entire engineering lab inside me at this rate! The possibilities seemed endless — but I had to focus on the task at hand. With less than an hour to go, whatever changes the nanobots could make to my body had to be done by then.

‘Go ahead Ce:Ri.’ I said. ‘Also explore any survival and defensive measures. I know there’s a thin sub-dermal neokevlar layer, but I’ll leave it to you to make any changes you see fit from now till we intercept.’

‘Very good, Sir’ she replied; I began feeling a slight itch in my lower right jaw immediately, no doubt the nanobots had started work.

During one of my manic sprees on the Dark Netscape; I convinced myself that I needed an armory of sorts (I’d been playing too much Battlefield Duty IX) — so there was a large case in the back of the room that I had hardly touched. It contained several Glory X-24 flech-pistols and a heavier hitting SIG Savage M-89 Compression Assault Rifle with the EMP addon.

Old me could hardly lift the modified assault rifle; new me picked it up and swung it around like a toy. Unfortunately, I had rudimentary practical practice with the guns.

Along with the weaponry was a jetblack mil-spec micro-weave light armor outfit — something the Mil Corp Shocktroops would wear. It didn’t fit quite well now, I’d lost a lot of girth around my waist, and it was rather tight around the chest; but the pockets that covered it were very convenient for storing all the magazines. Sandra helped me put it on, often squeezing me in the butt and groping my groin unnecessarily — she claimed that ‘she had to check if the pants fit’.

Despite how I must have looked right now, rushing straight in like a macho jock was never my modus operandi; I’m a nerd at the core — information and preparedness was the key to victory. I grabbed three of my custom-built autonomous surveillance micro-drones from the shelf and stuffed them into one of the myriad pouches. Once done, I turned around and saw Sandra staring at me like a dish.

‘Sir, sir,’ Sandra pleaded, ‘You have to fuck me wearing this suit later. You look so ... so ... dashing.’

Sandra was great for the ego and I was glad to play along — I puffed up my chest, encircled her waist with one arm, tipped her backwards and kissed her with fervor; just I had seen some of the cheesier holo-rom coms. My other hand couldn’t resist — it grabbed her perky little right tit and fondled the nipple roughly.

She groaned appreciatively, kissed me passionately back and swooned dramatically. ‘Normally, my panties would be soaked right about now. Except,... ‘

‘You’re not wearing any.’ I completed wryly, before rolling my eyes. She sniggered.

All set, I bid the girls farewell, reassuring them I would be in contact with them realtime. Taking the hovercraft was not an option, I would not make it in time. I jogged to the the cave where I’d hid the hovercraft, another vehicle awaited me there — a rust bucket of an aircar I’d stashed there for emergencies.

Taking the camo-tarp off, the aircar did not inspire much confidence, but Ce:Ri powered it up with no problems. It was corroded in many spots and the bright, glittery, lime green paint had thankfully faded to a less conspicuous but equally unappealing shade I called ‘algae vomit’. Ce:Ri took control and piloted us straight for the intercept rendezvous.

My chest and face began to itch a couple of minutes into the flight. Ce:Ri responded that she’d reinforced some of my vital locations with a bio-ceramic compound she’d pulled off some research papers she uncovered from the Augmented Industries servers. At this point, I realised that Ce:Ri was achieving autonomy and independence faster than what I had originally planned. She would be terrifying had I not coded loyalty in her core personality— visions of an apocalyptic rogue AI singularity had frightened me for weeks when I was working on her.

The itching got worse, coupled with the jitters for the mission, I could hardly sit still. So I closed my eyes, leaned back into the chair and tried to slip into a meditative state.

When the Matriarch’s vehicles were within range, I released the three micro-drones I brought with me. They we equipped with high-powered surveillance tech, the best I could buy back then and I hoped we could identify where the stack of papers were.

Ce:Ri cruised nonchalantly above the vehicles, purportedly another random aircar headed in the same direction. It wasn’t long before the drones reported back; they were certain the last car carried a rectangle box of biomass roughly one-and-a-half feet by one foot. Ce:Ri slowed down and positioned us directly over the last vehicle — my half-assed plan was to leap down on the roof and somehow punch my way in to retrieve the box. I retracted the aircar’s doors and got ready to jump.

Right about now, I actually noticed how high up we were, we were easily hundreds of feet above the rows upon rows of shiny glittery Corporation skyscrapers that were packed like sardines. This was the NorthAM Megalopolis One (NAM1), the largest unbroken urban conurbation north of the equator.

Here, we were ruled by the mega Corporations that provided food, power, goods and services for our daily lives — and they ruled their little fiefdoms brutally, small companies that tried to muscle in on a slice of the market share were quickly eaten up or crushed publicly.

The Corporations were powerful, heck, most had their own personal armies. However, the largest mega Corporations all answered to one entity — the Matriarchy. They had a finger in almost every pie; sometimes legally by controlling large chunks of Corporate stock or most often by the systematic use of threats, violence and harassment. Besides the Matriarchy was great for business; when it came to armaments and methods of destruction, guess who was the best customer?

The NorthAm Matriarchal Shard was the headquarters and the defacto palace of the NorthAm Matriarch. It was a massive acropolis towering two miles high and almost half a mile across — shaped like a giant inverted diamond teardrop with menacing, glossy, obsidian surface; it was designed to be unmistakably an excessively gross, gargantuan symbol of power and oppression.

And it loomed right ahead. Crap! We would arrive at the Shard in minutes.

‘Going in,’ I whispered to Ce:Ri over the comlink and leapt down on the black armored airtruck below. Landing with a loud thunk, I had underestimated the force of the aircurrents and it threatened to blow me off the roof of the vehicle. Swiftly pulling out a small plasma bowie from its sheath, I stabbed the roof, to gain purchase and hoped to make a hole that I could pry an opening from.

Of course they started shooting at me through the roof.

Note to self: Don’t expect people with big guns not to shoot just because they can’t see you.

I also learned (the hard way) that you can only attempt to dodge bullets if you could see their trajectory. Several flechettes connected I think; but Ce:Ri had already suggested dulling my pain receptors beforehand. The shots felt like someone prodded me with a blunt fork, belying the fact that they were lethal high powered shells.

Swearing, I gripped the edge of the small hole I made with the knife and pulled with all my might; the roof came off rather easily, too easily in fact — I almost fell off the airtruck. Four goons dressed in black mil-spec gear similar to mine stared up in shock. I could tell they were low-level thugs; the Matriarchs only allowed women in the upper echelons.

They trained their weapons on me and opened fire, but the buffeting wind hindered their aim; in addition the confined space only meant that melee weapons would effective. (Or so I was told; pasty, white shut-in programmer remember?)

I hit the deck of the truck, crouched and swung my knife at the leg of the nearest guy. Time slowed again, just like the encounter with Midori. Everyone else seemed to move sluggishly; this time I took full advantage — pressing forward, I grabbed the second guy and flung him through the hole in the roof. I then rushed the third and punched him hard, right in the solar plexus.

Sometimes I forget how strong this new body is.

The guy I punched flew straight through the length of the vehicle and crashed into the back of the pilot’s seat. The impact was so great the pilot was thrown forward; he was effectively brained when his head smashed into the windshield. This proved a terrible mistake, the airtruck suddenly accelerated, knocking me off my feet and plowed even faster toward the docking bay of the Shard.

My fall was broken by a cardboard box. There it was! I grabbed the box and tucked it under my right arm. Now if only I could find a way off this hurling ball of flaming death.

‘Ce:Ri!’ I urgently communicated, ‘I need a lift!’ Helplessly I looked out of the windshield, it was too late. We were already in the Shard’s airdock.

The airtruck ploughed right into a supporting beam.

It hurt all over.

If this was with my pain receptors already dulled; I think normal me would be writhing in agony, unable to function. Then again ... no, normal me would just be straight up dead. Slightly dazed, I victoriously stumbled out of the wreckage with the box under my arm.

The Shard’s dock was large hangar formed out of dull grey slabs of reinforced plascrete. It was functional and unadorned, dim strip lights delineated parking lots, this huge chamber wasn’t very well lit. Smoke billowing from the airtruck suffused the air, reducing visibility even more.

‘Ce:Ri!’ I gasped urgently, ‘Where’s my ride?’

‘Sir! I can’t pilot the aircar to you! It’s not Matriarch-authorised, the Shard’s auto-turrents are already tracking me.’ Ce:Ri responded. ‘If you can just make it a hundred feet out of the defensive perimeter, I can get to you.’

Coughing from smoke inhalation, I replied, ‘Roger that.’ The Shard was a fortified maze, the entire Matriarch’s militia and war machines were all stationed here, worse I couldn’t leave from whence I came, the huge hangar dock entrance was ten stories off the ground.

Klaxons began to sound and the fire suppression system turned itself on — the smoke began to clear. The two other vehicles had finally caught up; it was a hard landing, but the troops seemed unfazed and were jumping off into an organized formation.

My drones had snuck in as well and provided me with a tactical overview. It was not looking good. There were six or seven unenhanced goons, and three bionically-enhanced troopers. They were covered in what looked like thick, matt heavy-duty armor, and carried varied weapons — everyone seemed well trained and competent; the drones identified what seemed like the team leader crouching behind the last vehicle.