Isis
Isis watches from her seat as the young boy she had seen almost a year ago in New Lur, walks off the stage with an escort of Erohsian guards dressed for the ceremonious occasion.
She shakes her head. Should be a real escort…
Isis bites her lip as the ceremony continues and forces herself to politely talk with the other people at her table during the short breaks between presentations. After the Erohsian and Borukin speeches about the new age of friendship to come, she even stands up and applauds with the rest. Finally the ceremonies conclude and the food is served. She grabs her knife and fork, slides it into a tender herb roasted chicken breast, and slices a piece. Steam rises from the fresh cut, bringing with it an assortment of flavors that tickles her nose.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Everyone in the half-domed banquet room drops their utensils and turn to the entrance; several groups of people have already jumped under their table. Flashes of more Aether weapons zip through the doors and shatter portions of the glass dome behind them. An Erohsian guard stumbles back from the entrance and slumps to the ground. Other guards slam the double doors closed and rush to wedge them shut with furniture.
“We're under attack!” Someone yells.
Thanks you moron. Isis calmly pulls up the holographic screen on her wrist computer and accesses the building security system as the banquet room erupts into chaos. She clicks on the emergency button, which triggers the alarm.
Almost immediately a video feed of the security officer pops up. “What's the situation Ma'am? We detected weapon fire on the 60th floor.”
“The banquet room is under attack by unknown hostiles. Send in help and set up a combat channel for notifications and orders through me.”
“Yes Ma’am.” The video feed cuts out.
Isis selects a security camera of the hall outside the banquet room. A group of Erohsians are taking up defensive positions against attack from the direction of the elevator and are preparing to set a charge to blow through the doors of the banquet room. Erohsians? What the heck’s going on?
The guards inside the banquet room have gathered at the door and continue to stack anything they can find on the barricade.
Isis grabs a pistol from one of the injured guards. “Pull that junk out of the way, I need to open this door.”
One of the guards stops and looks at her. “Ma'am?”
“Just do it!” She looks back at her holographic screen and the security camera shows two Erohsians finalizing the charge on the banquet door. They stand up and run back for cover. Just as the door is cleared, Isis pulls it open, fires her pistol randomly down the hall and snatches the explosive. She dives out of the way as Aether rounds tear chunks out of the door. In an instant she looks over the explosive and pulls out the detonators. She turns her eyes away just as they pop, burning the tips of her fingers. She lets out a breath. That was too close.
She waves the other guards back to the door. “What are you waiting for? Barricade the doors.”
The thuds on the doors from the enemy slow and Isis pulls up her wrist computer. The hostiles have moved forward again and are kicking at the doors with little effect.
Good, only one explosive with them.
She pulls up the combat channel and sends a note that the hostiles appear to be Erohsians and are dressed in military uniform. Isis walks over to General Lark and the Borukin king, who is surrounded by his guards.
“I thought this place was secured general?” King Kamin asks while his eyes blaze with indignation.
“It is King Kamin,” the general says. “Don't worry. You and your family are completely safe.”
“Safe? I’m not worried about safety but your complete lack of competence insults me.” The king turns to Isis. “Who’s attacking us?”
Isis looks at the general and back to the king. “It looks like Erohsians.”
“What?” The king roars. “You come here talking about peace and then attack us during dinner?”
The general holds up his hands, palms out. “There must be a mistake. I can assure you this is not our doing.”
The king looks directly into the general’s eyes. “For your sake, I hope not.” He turns away and begins yelling commands at the Borukin guards.
“What the hell’s going on Isis? General Lark asks.
“I don’t know sir. We’ve pushed back their first assault and have barricaded the door. I don’t think they have any more explosives to break through so it should hold fine. Reinforcements are on their way. This should be wrapped up shortly.”
“Good. Keep me updated and for the Creators’ sake, don’t let anything happen to the Borukins.”
“Yes sir.” Isis moves back to the secured doors where faint thuds can be heard from the other side. Erohsian guards are scattered behind make shift cover and all are aiming at the door. On her holographic screen she finds the reinforcements are only a few floors down.
“Reinforcements are almost here,” Isis says to the guards. “When they arrive I want to hit the hostiles from both sides. They look like Erohsians so watch your friendly fire.”
The guards nod in understanding and Isis pulls the security camera of the hallway back up and she taps on one of the hostile Erohsians. A profile of an Erohsian soldier pops up with an elevated Aether level.
What’s up with that?
She taps on the other hostiles and notices they all have higher than normal Aether levels for an Erohsian. She sends a note over the combat channel to link hostile Erohsians to elevated levels of Aether.
She sees friendly indicators of Erohsians pop up on the far side of the hallway. Flashes of light zip down the hall and explode off the barricades of the hostiles. The ones working on the banquet doors give up and move to face the new threat.
Isis signals the guards and they begin to clear the doors. The hostiles are soon cut down from both sides in a matter of minutes. None of them attempt to surrender.
Isis crosses the hallway and meets up with the light infantry soldier leading the reinforcements. “Good work soldier,” Isis says. “I want this floor completely secured. Mix up your soldiers and the guards to maximize our effectiveness. The Borukin royalty is your number one concern. Do you understand?”
“Yes Ma'am.” The soldier moves off.
Isis puts on an injured soldier's helmet, synchronizes it with her wrist computer, and programs it to mark Erohsians with elevated Aether levels as hostiles. She accesses the building’s security system and scans for other alarms and notifications. Two pop up. One alarm shows a breach in the door to the roof and another shows a fire alarm in Capping and Extraction. She pulls up the video feed of the room and sees a frozen picture of light-infantry soldiers being consumed by a bright flash in the middle. An error message runs across the bottom. She switches the view to the hallway outside Capping and Extraction and sees a mangled door covered in ice with the sprinklers causing pools of water to build. A few soaked Erohsians guards are just starting to pick themselves up. What's going on here?
She rewinds the video feed until there is a bright flash. She hits play and the video shows an immaculate hallway. After a series of events that leaves the hall a complete disaster, she sees a group of human children leave the room and scurry across the ice. Isis' heart jumps and she freezes the picture, zooming in on their faces. Them! But why weren't they detected? She taps on each child and an Erohsian officer identification pops up. Because the system doesn't register them as humans... She clenches her fists. How’d they do that?
She removes the security clearance on the fake Ids and puts a target flag on them. The security system tracks them to the 65th floor, moving down the stairwell.
She opens up a public channel to the security officer. “There are unauthorized humans in the building, somehow using Erohsian identifications, heading down the stairwell. I've marked their Ids. We need them brought in alive and with minimal injury so notify everyone to set their weapons to stun. I'm going to take a group and personally cut them off in the stairwell. Check the system to see if there are more fake Ids out there.”
“There’s a group of five soldiers on their way up,” the security officer says. “They’re at the 55th level and will stop anything from getting by.”
“Perfect.” She closes the channel and grabs two banquet guards and two soldiers, instructing them to follow her.
The door to the stairwell swings open and red hostile indicators pop up on Isis’ helmet. She starts firing her pistol immediately as hostile Erohsians burst through the door. One falls to the ground but the rest flood into the hallway. She jumps behind cover as a barrage of weapon fire fills the air.
Other friendly Erohsians quickly converge on the hallway and their steady training brings the firefight to an end after another few minutes.
Isis gathers the Erohsians with her once again and runs back to the stairwell with more caution. Once in, all she hears is the patter of footsteps from below.
She checks the location of the human children on her wrist computer and sees they are a few stories down. “They’ve passed us.” She says to the Erohsians following her. “Catch them!”
She begins to descend on a stiff body from her freshly healed injuries and is quickly passed by the light infantry soldiers. Just a floor down, she runs into a group of Erohsians in the middle of the stairwell, rubbing their heads and blinking at each other.
“What are you doing?” Isis asks. “You were supposed to stop the children.”
One of the soldiers looks at her. “We ran into them but they stunned us. We weren’t expecting it.”
“How could you let a bunch of human children stun you?” she asks incredulously.
“I’m sorry Ma’am.”
“Just get moving! We can still catch them.”
Isis pushes through them and the more coherent soldiers set off as well.
She opens a channel to the security officer while she bounds down the steps as best she can. “The humans got past us and are heading for the bottom. Send up as many as you can and we'll trap them between us. Have anyone else available converge on the stairwell.”
The officer acknowledges and Isis closes the channel to focus on running. The swarm of Erohsians in the stairwell slowly builds as more pop out from various floors.
“We're coming up on them now, should make contact in a matter of seconds,” an Erohsian soldier says over the channel. “We see them. They're exiting the stairwell at the 40th floor.” Isis continues to jump down several stairs at a time and hears Aether weapon fire. “We got one Ma’am.”
“I'll be there soon,” Isis says. “What about the others?”
“We’re still chasing the others but they have nowhere to go on this floor. We’ll cover all…” Static cuts him off.
“What was that?” The static continues. “Repeat. You’re breaking up.” What the heck’s going on?
Isis looks at her wrist computer, and the holographic screen is flickering. She jumps down another few stairs past the 43rd floor, just as a wall of Moltrik Aether expands through the floor. She clenches her teeth and closes her eyes right before the Aether hits her.
*****
“Ma'am. Are you all right? Can you hear me?”
Isis' vision slowly clears and she finds herself looking at a light-infantry soldier who is bent over her. The lights in the stairwell are flickering.
Isis props herself up against the wall and holds her head; the helmet she was wearing is lying off to the side. “What happened?”
“We're not sure. Some sort of Moltrik Aether surge.” The soldier offers her his hand.
Isis takes it and is pulled up. “What's the damage?”
He shakes his head. “I'm not sure Ma'am. I've just been working my way down and checking the injured.”
“Carry on then.” Isis wobbles for a second as she reaches for the hand railing. “How long ago did it happen?”
“About thirty minutes ago.”
Wow... She begins to descend one step at a time. The soldier watches her for a moment before moving to others.
Erohsians are scattered around the stairwell in various degrees of consciousness. Several fresh soldiers run from one to the next, assessing any critical injuries. Slowly, Isis progresses to the 40th floor.
An Erohsian she recognizes as the security officer is moving about, issuing orders to anyone capable. He sees Isis and quickly approaches her. “Ma'am. I'm glad you're on your feet. I wasn't sure where you ended up.”
“What are you doing up here?”
“After the event, all of the electronics were fried from floor 36 to 44. My position at the security center was useless, so I had someone cover my station and hurried here to assist however I could.”
“How bad is it looking?” Isis asks hesitantly.
“Actually, there doesn’t appear to be any life threatening injuries.”
Isis lets out a breath. “That's good news. What happened?”
“I'm not entirely sure. We caught the boy from the ceremony on this floor as you heard over the channel. Suddenly the video cameras died and the sensors on the floor started fluctuate. The event occurred shortly after.”
“The boy from the ceremony? He was measured with no Aether. Are you sure it was him?”
“The computers modeled the event. They pinpointed his location as ground zero, rating the event on the order of a four on the Boltz scale.”
“A four?” Isis says almost instantly. “That can’t be correct.”
The officer shakes his head. “I have someone picking through the data but it's a mess piecing it all together. We have to use the data from several floors away. It's too hard to say for certain at the moment. We’ll confirm with the soldiers closest to the event when they regain consciousness.”
“What happened to the boy?”
“We're not sure. When I arrived he wasn't here.”
“How about the others? Are you still tracking them?” Isis asks.
“I'm sorry Ma'am, they got away.”
“What!? How’s that possible?”
“There were other humans that set up a zip line from this floor to one of the adjacent buildings. They were using fake IDs as well. As soon as we discovered this we sent people to secure the building but they had already escaped through the basement using some of the old human tunnels they opened.”
“Damn those tunnels. They should’ve been cleared out 100 years ago. Did you figure out how the other children got in?”
“Reviewing the security tape, we established they sneaked in as extra servants for the Borukin princess' ceremony.”
“And have you found out how they fooled our sensors?”
“No Ma'am. It's something new that masks their biometric and Aethemetric signal. The terrorists are getting smart.”
“I wouldn't go that far. They're humans after all. Did you try to track them to their location before the banquet? That should give us a hint about their current destination.”
“We tracked them all the way back to where the Borukin and the Erohsian escort picked them up, but again the sensors failed for some reason.”
“Did you talk with the Borukin and escort?”
“The Borukin royalty is extremely angry and will not communicate with us. They think a group of anti-Borukin Erohsians was responsible. We did talk with the escort. He said nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The escort did comment that the Borukin was overall harmless and very nervous about being late for the princess.”
Could the princess be involved? But why would she be part of an attack on her own people? She is friends with the boy… but I can’t imagine she’d go that far to save him. “Any information on the Erohsians attacking us?”
“Nothing much. I checked their backgrounds and they’re all Erohsian military. I don’t know how they hid this from the mind sweeps.”
Isis shakes her head. “Their tactics were sloppy. Just because they’re traitors, doesn’t mean they’d lose all their training.”
“A puppeteer then?”
“It seems unlikely for the number of puppets.” It also doesn’t explain why their Aether levels were elevated. “How’d they get in?”
“It looks like a portion of them worked themselves in through normal security access. This first group disrupted the roof security equipment and the rest parachuted in carrying supplies. The humans that set up the zip line came in first and sneaked down using the same fake ID technology the children had. I believe the attack on the banquet was supposed to be a distraction for the boy’s escape.”
“All of this for one boy?” They were all working together… but why such a big distraction when they could sneak about so effectively? Something’s not fitting together. What is there to gain if the distraction and the boy were independently driven? “Continue with what you’re doing and let me know if you find out anything more.”
“Yes Ma'am.” The officer starts to walk away.
Isis clicks on her wrist computer but it doesn't respond. That's great. “Hey, do you have a com I can use?”
The officer turns and pulls a small gray rectangular object out of his pocket. “I brought a few just for the occasion.” He tosses her the communication device and continues his duties.
Isis places her thumb in the center of the screen. A welcome message with her name appears. “Call General Lark,” she says to it and holds it up to her ear.
“Isis, I've been searching for you. Come up to my office. We need to talk.”
“Yes sir. I'll be right there.”
Isis walks up a few floors to an elevator with a working panel and takes a ride to almost the very top of the massive building. She enters the general’s office and quickly surveys the horizon from the windows kilometers above Sunta.
He closes the holographic screen on his computer and signals for her to sit. “I'm glad you made it unscathed.”
“What did you want me up here for?” She asks.
“I'm not sure if you’re aware, but your target escaped.”
“I'm aware of that. Along with all the children rescuing him.”
“No, designation Uniform-Alpha.”
Isis' heart skips a beat. “What?! What do you mean he escaped? I thought he was dead.”
“He was, but as soon as the spooks got a hold of him they saw an opportunity for a new weapon and started his heart so they could study him. His body is impressively resilient.”
“But how did he escape? After the trouble we went through to take him down, they can't possibly be that stupid.”
“They said he was almost completely brain dead. They didn't think he would ever recover. They wanted to probe his mind since he wasn't going to tell them anything in his vegetated state. The cells in the probing room were up to the necessary security level and they kept him under watch and heavily sedated just in case.”
“What kind of watch?”
“Three light-infantry soldiers and an additional two were watching the ancient artifact.”
“What was that doing in the extraction room?”
“They were going to use it to speed up the probing process on the human child.”
“Tell me that's at least safe.”
Lark shakes his head. “I have no good news for you today.”
Isis let’s her head fall back. “So these children somehow managed to take out the soldiers, free the boy, take the artifact, and set free one of our worst nightmares?”
“Unfortunately that's not the end of it.”
“How could it get any worse?”
“The surge of Aether that destroyed the security door of the probing room was recognized by the sensors. You may not believe it.”
Isis throws up her hands and lets them fall. “Oh just tell me.”
“The Murderess.”
“No way. The last person who had any info on her was a Borukin hunter. I believe he clamed she was dealt with permanently and that was over ten years ago.”
“I thought the same.”
“Was she behind the Moltrik event?”
“No. I had someone look into it. The signatures were different.”
“Well then who was the target?” Isis asks. “I'm guessing one of the Borukin royalty. Revenge perhaps?”
“Actually, the Borukins were unharmed, and there was no word of one of her tokens. You know they usually create quite a big fuss. Perhaps she didn’t have a target.”
“She always has a target. How can you be certain it was her? Could it be an imitator?”
“Maybe, but other than the door getting blown off its hinges, there was no sign of her on any of the sensors. The only thing capable of that is her suit.”
“So it was either her, or someone with her suit... Fantastic.” Isis runs her thumb over the edge of her ear and looks at Lark. “Have you talked with the Borukin royalty?”
“With difficultly. They’re enraged and will be heading home immediately. Luckily no one was killed or injured too badly in this fiasco but it'll still take some time to get things back to where they were. We aren't going to have a treaty anytime soon.”
“That’s it!” The general looks at Isis and she continues. “The attack on the banquet wasn’t a distraction. Catalyst just wanted to frame us and hurt our treaty with the Borukins; a treaty would make their efforts more difficult. They must have had other motivations for rescuing the boy and somehow got the support of the Borukin princess… They also must have a new way for controlling individuals. I’ll have to review the data to see if there are any hints, so we can avoid this in the future.” Isis lets out a breath. “This is their biggest offensive yet. Catalyst is getting more bold.”
“As the new Brigadier General of Security for the city center, I hope you have a good plan to counter them.”
Isis lifts herself up and suddenly her pains are nothing. “Thank you, Richard. I’ll get on it right away.”
The general smiles. “No you won’t. We have everyone available hunting for the humans and Uniform-Alpha so not even you could provide additional help right now. I order you to get yourself looked at and catch some rest. It sure looks like you could use it.”
Isis stands up and glares at him. “Yes sir.”
Isis’ small communicator beeps as she enters the elevator. Seeing an incoming call from General Belshiv, she puts the communicator back in her pocket and leans against the elevator wall. I'll deal with that later. I have humans to hunt.