Chapter 13

Simmonds stared incredulously at Henderson as he delivered the situation report.

"Alpha Team is totally lost. Bravo Team is down to just the two Infiltrators that called for extraction and clean-up."

"What about Charlie Team?"

"They pursued the four tangos in their patrol vehicle. We tracked their transponder to the outskirts of the city near the end of one of the drainage canals before it went offline."

"This can't be happening."

"We had two dead HKs in the main stairwell and a seriously damaged Infiltrator in the lobby. There were three more dead Infiltrators in the street outside."

"What about the police?"

"We barely managed to remove all the bodies before they arrived on scene. There were plenty of witnesses to the battle and it's impossible to cover up the bullet holes. The cops are going to have a field day."

"Send the chopper to the last known location of Charlie Team. Get Valerie to try to misdirect the cops whilst we perform damage limitation."

"Valerie was assigned to Charlie Team. You asked us to make use of her."

Simmonds looked like he was about to suffer an embolism; his mouth moved but no sound emerged.

"We've still got an Infiltrator embedded with the police. She's only support staff but we can still make use of her in a limited capacity," Henderson informed him.

The CEO nodded glumly, wondering how things had managed to go pear-shaped so rapidly.

Watching the live feed from the helicopter on his desk monitor, Simmond's chest tightened as four bodies scattered over the barren ground came into sharp focus.

There had been no good news all day. The wounded Infiltrator from the lobby could not be salvaged and had been euthanized and placed into the reconstruction queue. The body count was rising rapidly, taxing their maintenance teams to the limit. There would soon be a paucity of replacement bodies. The loss of the Hybrid was catastrophic.

Henderson and Hodges sat quietly across the desk, totally at a loss as for words that would alleviate their boss's suffering.

"What's the state of play with the repairs?" Simmonds asked morosely.

"It's going to take the best part of the week to work through the backlog," Henderson replied. "The HKs are going to be the main problem because most of the spares have been used to fill the senator's requirements. There's one replacement Hybrid unit. After that we're looking at a four week lead time."

"Valerie takes priority over everything. Contact Procurement first thing next week. I want a substantial batch of new Hybrids in build, say thirty units."

"Thirty? They each cost more than a jet fighter. Won't the board need to approve that level of expenditure?" Hodges exclaimed.

"I'm not going to tell them. Take it out of reserves."

"But the audit..."

" ... is three months away. If we don't keep the lid on this then there'll be no company left to audit. Put them through as Companions and retrofit them if you must."

Bennett rushed to answer the phone, cursing his bad luck if the station was calling on his day off. It was.

He listened to the brief description of the events at the apartment block and was dressed and headed downstairs in three minutes flat. He used the motorbike as it could make the journey to work in half the time of the Panther under most conditions.

Pete Sands was already sitting at his desk when he arrived, as was rest of the team.

"The commissioner said you should go straight up to his office," Sands informed him.

"The commissioner's in?" Bennett asked. "He's not going to be best pleased if he had to miss his tee off time."

"I believe the mayor's been on his case. He didn't sound very happy."

"Give me the rundown before I go up."

"Witnesses report a firefight in the street with at least three dead. There's more blood than a slaughter house but no bodies."

"A clean-up crew?"

"Apparently a fleet of vans pulled up within minutes, loaded up the corpses and then vanished into thin air."

"This isn't organized crime Pete. This sounds more like a military operation."

"We've evacuated all the residents and have got the whole building locked down solid. I've got three forensics teams on double time going over the place.

"One of the residents told us that a bloke and two kids ran out the building pursued by this knife-wielding chick, all covered in blood. They fought until one of the kids produced a machine-pistol and shot the woman dead. The youngster then let loose on some others at the far end of the street."

"Why is this happening on my beat?" Bennett moaned. "This used to be a quiet city."

"Another woman then appeared from out of nowhere, jumped in the car and sped off with another four wheel drive in hot pursuit," Sands continued.

"Not a tall blonde by any chance?"

"What if I said yes?"

Their informal briefing was interrupted by the phone as Bennett received his summons.

The commissioner was a portly individual, just a few years from retirement. He eyed Bennett with the determined look of a man who believed that his pension hung delicately in the balance.

"The mayor's phoned me three times in the last hour. After the club massacre, he wants a speedy resolution of this to reassure the voters."

"I've got no bodies so it'll be up to forensics to provide any leads sir."

"Lieutenant, it's essential that we get a handle on this as soon as possible. People are already up in arms that no one has been arrested in connection with the previous killings. I've been told to offer you whatever you need in the way of assistance."

"What about my current case?"

"This takes absolute priority. Armed gangs fighting in the street like Arcadian warlords are not what the people have come to expect."

"No sir."

"I want a full report on my desk by the middle of the week at the latest."

"Yes sir."

"I believe the mayor already has a member of his staff on-site with you."

"Miss Hamel?"

"You're to keep her advised of all developments as and when they occur."

"Right sir."

Bennett quickly excused himself and returned to his office.

"We've all been reassigned to the apartment shooting," he told Sands. "The current case has been put on hold."

"You want me to drop the Syntel line of inquiry?"

"No. If we don't follow it up now then we'll lose it forever. Continue to work on it in the background. I get the suspicion that this one's going to lead nowhere. If we can at least get a result on the club killings then we'll have something to placate the mayor when he tries to chew our asses off."

The preliminary reports from the recovery team were sitting on Simmond's desk and made stark reading.

"What do you mean, they're gone?"

"The Datacores of the HK's were wiped clean. The lab's analyzing the results but it's looking like their electronics have been fried beyond any hope of repair," Henderson explained.

"How is that possible? What about the others?"

"We're not sure as yet. They're examining the Infiltrator and Hybrid as we speak. What's strange is that the HKs bore no signs of physical damage."

"What about Savage and his family?"

"They were definitely at the apartment. They must have spotted the assault teams before they were in position. The rogue Hybrid destroyed two of the Infiltrators on the street and then their two HKs on the stairwell. We think the husband took out the two members of Bravo Team just before the Hybrid escaped by jumping out of a second floor window," Hodges informed him.

"How on earth did she get the drop on Valerie?"

"This rogue unit is very determined. She seems to get better and more confident with each engagement. Don't forget that this was Valerie's first taste of action."

"So you're saying that every time this bitch kicks our proverbial ass, she's learning how to do it even better next time."

"I'd say she's definitely becoming more adept over time. The events at the club, the campsite and now this, it demonstrates a heuristic learning pattern that's far in advance of anything we expected."

Simmonds sighed despondently.

She walked barefoot along the banks of a wide river, dressed in a flowing white gown that fell to her ankles. Birds sang from the tops of nearby trees and a gentle breeze rustled through the long grass. The sun beat down from overhead and its rays warmed Valerie's skin, making her feel light-headed and slightly drowsy. The smell of lilac and lavender assailed her nostrils.

Further along the bank, a wooden bridge crossed to the other side where children were playing happily. She headed for the bridge and prepared to cross over when a voice called out to her from behind. Turning, she saw Greg standing against a tree, beckoning to her. She took a tentative step towards him and tumbled into oblivion.

Waking up on an examination bed, Valerie was covered in just a thin sheet. A bearded man looked down at her like a specimen in a jar, nodding satisfactorily to himself. She recognized her surroundings as part of the production area of the Syntel Advanced Cybernetics Facility.

"How do you feel?" Jackson asked.

"Okay," she replied automatically.

"Do you know who you are?"

"Valerie, Valerie Hamel."

"Where do you work?"

"I work at the mayor's office but at the moment I'm on secondment to the NAPD."

"What else?"

"I report to Gordon Henderson, Director of Operations."

"What do you remember about what happened?"

"I was shot. The rogue Hybrid ambushed my assault team and killed me."

"That's right," Jackson confirmed. "We've integrated you into a new body but don't go breaking this one as there are no more available."

"I'll try to take that into account next time Howard."

Howard Jackson was the principal architect of the SYLF project and the Hybrids represented the culmination of his life's work. He doted on them as a father might look upon his children: a mixture of pride in their creation and hope at what they might achieve. Her recognition of him removed the last vestige of his fears that she'd suffered permanent damage from the EMP discharge that had wiped out the remainder of her team.

"You were very lucky Valerie. A few metres closer and your Datacore would have been irreversibly damaged."

"My memories of the event are rather vague."

"You're going to be disoriented for an hour or so while your Quantum matrix stabilizes and you reintegrate your memories. After that, feel free to stand up, walk around and get dressed."

"How's Jeffrey?"

"He's fine. We went up to the coast at the weekend. It's the first time we've managed to spend any significant amount of time together in weeks."

Howard was gay and suffered a great deal from the prejudice that the majority of Oceania society held for people of his persuasion. The Hybrids accepted him for what he was and afforded him all the respect that his position warranted.

"We've got a new cat. A tortoiseshell called Sheba."

"That's lovely Howard."

"How's Felix?"

"As mischievous as ever. I can't seem to stop him clawing the furniture."

"He's probably frustrated. You should look at getting him a mate."

"One's enough for me to look after," Valerie lamented. "I don't know why I let you talk me into getting him in the first place."

"Give me a shout if you experience any further difficulties," he told her as he disappeared to supervise the repairs of the previous day's casualties.

She rested for a while then took Howard's advice to move around. She wrapped the sheet around herself then picked up a pair of soft-soled shoes and some loose fitting coveralls from a rack before slipping into a privacy cubicle to change.

Letting the sheet fall to the ground, she carefully examined herself in the floor-length mirror, looking for any subtle differences from her previous incarnation. Suddenly seeing herself naked triggered a cascade of changes that surged through her consciousness and caused her to lose balance. After rebooting, she picked herself up off the floor and tried to isolate the nature of the problem. She discovered the virus that had lain dormant until activated by her reflection.

Sections of her Datacore had been restored from a reserved area and she found that she could access a whole stream of previously inaccessible memories. It took several minutes for her to appreciate the significance of the alterations. She recalled the true account of her encounter with Claire. The most profound revelation was the realization that she'd taken her own life.

She dressed and wandered back into the assembly area, assessing the implications of her new knowledge. The outline of a body lay under a thin sheet and she felt compelled to lift the cover and see what was underneath.

Seeing her previous form laid out on a gurney drove home the reality of her nature. The chest cavity had been opened and resealed, no doubt to facilitate the removal of her Datacore. Her facial features were badly disfigured by the passage of the bullet through her brain.

"Hey, Hey," Howard exclaimed as he rushed to her side and slipped a supporting arm around her waist to steady her. "This isn't going to help you in any way."

He took the sheet from her trembling hands and covered up the body before leading her away from it.

"I told that stupid tech to remove it before you woke up," he grumbled.

"It just seems so strange seeing myself like that. I'm dead and yet I'm not."

"You need to rest. Go and have a chat with the others. They've been pestering me every few minutes for an update on your progress."

Valerie left the workshop and made her way down the corridor towards the recreation room set aside for the Hybrids' use.

Five women dressed in casuals sat around reading and studying sheaves of loosely stapled reports. A diminutive, youthful figure with jet black hair and striking features jumped up on seeing her and embraced her passionately.

"Val, are you okay?" she asked tearfully.

"I'm fine Emily," she replied, returning the affection.

"We heard what happened. I still can't believe it."

"I'm adjusting," Valerie told her. "I've got to take it easy for a couple of days."

The four other occupants of the room waved tentatively in her direction, not displaying anything like the intensity of Emily's response.

To look at Emily, people would see a young girl in her early twenties, but all six Hybrids were commissioned within weeks of each other. Their appearance bore no relationship to their physical age.

"Sit down and talk to me," Emily demanded. "It's been nearly two weeks since I last saw you."

Of the six, only Valerie had ever left the Facility. The others were employed purely in an analytical role, a capacity that Valerie believed impeded their development. She invented regular excuses to return to the Facility, the underlying reason being to keep in touch with her siblings and deliver detailed descriptions of life in the outside world.

She sat down beside Emily on a long, leather sofa. The remaining four remained stationed around a large square table littered with reconnaissance photographs, transcripts of telephone intercepts, and intelligence reports.

Tall and blonde, Elisabeth was the dominant member of the group and tended to co-ordinate their work.

Natalie, the most technically adept, used her skills to identify patterns in the data that the others sometimes overlooked. Her introspective demeanour was emphasized by the conservatively cut brown hair and the loose fitting coveralls that she frequently wore. Despite that, she'd informally assumed the position of second-in-command to Elisabeth.

The final two Hybrids, Helen and Vanessa, looked very much alike. Dark haired and pretty, they often worked as a pair and spent much of their free time in each other's company. Whilst performing whatever tasks were assigned to them adequately, Elisabeth often felt that they lacked sufficient enthusiasm for their role.