Visisonor's blog
Chapter 9: The Contact
In a dimly lit room Kate was nestled in an armchair she pulled up from another corner. Wolf’s collapse from overdrive several hours ago triggered something close to overdrive in her too; like the light in the room, halfway between bright and dark, she couldn’t sleep, but was too stressed out to remain awake.
In place of dreams, glimpses of memories surfaced up, jumping back and forth between distant and recent past.
Driving away from Villa after a brief stand off; and in rear-view mirror, Wolf pushed Villa’s gun up.
Then Villa dying in Vera’s arms, right in front of her eyes; and he was trying to comfort her, however impossible it could be.
But Villa couldn’t be dead! she was just unconscious beyond that door when two of them bumped into each other in hospital corridor; did he come to visit Villa? or her?
And no, Villa was dead, and she shuddered remembering that time in the new hideout, right here, almost broken by guilt and grief; almost, for he was there for her.
And she was barely aware of him. A couple of lines in the diary.
He could be gone now. She nearly lost him. Must we always come to appreciate something only when it’s too late?!
A groan from the bed brought her back from the semi-slumber.
— Wolf! — she cried in relief. — How are you feeling?
— It feels like the worst hangover I’ve ever experienced, — Wolf stirred and strained to focus his eyes on Kate. — You look tired too.
— Don’t worry about me. Just talk to me.
— So that was the overdrive? — he sat up on the bed precariously.
— Unintended gift from our precursors, — murmured Kate wearily.
— Who else knows? Linda?
— Linda, — she nodded. — It happened all at once for her. The reveal, the loss of several friends… It was too much. A long story, Tess can retell it better than me.
— What about Vera?
— She is too vulnerable now. After Villa… — Kate trailed off and lowered her head, reawakened memory flashing by.
— I see. So that’s why Tess and Rick didn’t let her chase Max.
— Exactly! — she sprang up from the armchair. — And I had to play along, knowing it would hurt her.
— I think she’ll understand, — Wolf stood up from the bed too.
— Are you sure you can stand? — asked Kate anxiously.
Wolf stepped back and forth a few times, testing his balance.
— Better than I expected, — concluded he. — Is human command aware of overdrive?
— We don’t know. Even if they aren’t, one phrase could push Vera over the edge. But me, — she paused. — They can’t harm me like that.
— And now there are two of us.
— Yeah. I’m glad you are all right, Wolf.
She grabbed his forearm suddenly and pulled him closer.
Wolf tentatively put his other arm around her shoulder.
They stood like that in silence until Kate’s gaze fell upon the clock.
— It’s morning, — she whispered sadly.
— The others will be looking for us soon, — he whispered back.
— M-hm. Vera and Chloe must not know about what happened to you. Not yet.
The same morning Kate announced her plan to show up at the truce meeting.
It went more or less as she expected.
After initial shock subsided, she explained her reasoning — and even though there were no objections, apart from those appealing to emotions, she felt the audience remained unconvinced.
Wolf, who heard it all already, just heavily sighed.
Chloe, massaging her mostly healed wrist, seemed to be at loss for words.
Linda, when the silence born of the impasse became too heavy, proclaimed:
— If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.
She turned to leave, but stopped at the door and added:
— But make allowance for their doubting too.
And then left.
Kate, watching her go, commented:
— That’s a nice way to sum up the stalemate we’ve got here.
— I think she means you need to listen to us, — objected Vera, obviously ignoring Linda’s earlier line.
— But she also said… — started Kate.
— You don’t have to do this, Kate, — Vera interrupted her. — Please!
— Don’t you want to get back at them?
— I don’t want to lose you! — cried Vera heartily.
— I’ll be careful, Vera, — Kate took Vera’s hands in hers. — I can’t promise I’ll be all right, but I’ll be careful.
Two days later Kate joined Tess and Rick and set off to meet with human negotiators.
“Gee, this vest is so bulky”, — said a voice coming through static.
Then a video feed appeared on the screen, initially blurry and full of artifacts, but gaining clarity with each passing second.
The screen was now showing a blonde woman in white clothes and black bulletproof vest, with a microphone in hand.
“This is Milena from the first news channel, and you don’t really want to know what I had to do to get this assignment!”
“Stop”, — interrupted a male voice. — “We can’t broadcast that!”
“Oh. Aren’t we live?” — asked Milena disappointedly.
Kate snickered at that exchange.
She was sitting in a passenger seat of an ATV heading towards the meeting point. Tess was right next to her, at the steering wheel.
They were following another ATV, driven by Rick.
— This confirms our suspicions, — commented Tess from the driver’s seat.
— They are buffering it at the relay station, — agreed Rick’s voice from the intercom. — Delaying the broadcast by a minute or two.
— So they can cut it off any time, — nodded Kate. — Anything we can do?
— Glad you asked, — replied Rick. — They do not have default password at this relay…
— Surprising, is it not? — chuckled Sarah back from the base.
— But there is an unpatched buffer overrun vulnerability.
— We control the relay now, — added Tess. — But once they figure it out, they will power it down.
— However, we have everything we need to know about this stream, — continued Rick. — Frequency, encryption. We can simply replicate it from the a swarm of aerial drones. The swarm is already in the air, in case you are wondering.
— They’ll find a way to scramble it eventually, — commented Wolf over the radio.
— Yes, — agreed Tess. — But it will be too late.
In the meantime, the broadcast continued — or rather restarted, and they could also see the rendezvous point from a different angle, in front of them.
“Here is Marc, our negotiator. Say Hi, Marc!”
The camera lingered on a man in sunshades, flanked by two helmeted and armored troopers with rifles. Unlike them, he wasn’t carrying any weapons in his hands, but he still had two guns holstered on his belt.
— Do we have anything on him? — asked Vera’s voice.
— Not much. — answered Rick. — Just basic stats and rank. He is not an agent.
But they couldn’t continue discussing Marc because they reached the destination.
“And now I see the syncons approaching. Two vehicles. They are slowing down. Stopped now. One figure jumped off from the first vehicle, two more from the second. All cloaked and hooded, I can’t see their faces with this light. They are raising their hoods. This might be the best look at syncons we’ve ever had. The one on the left looks as synthetic as you might expect. Oh. The one on the right has clearly feminine features. The middle one is still hooded. Removing the… What. The. Hell.”
As Kate revealed her face to the world, she wished for a second she could see herself in the video feed. But then the look of shock, horror and surprise on reporter’s face was a much more interesting sight.