2047: Hell In A Handbasket Read online

  Gwinnett nodded. In his present mood, he was impervious to Sarah's smile. The executives watched with interest as she tossed the helmet onto a well-upholstered couch and stripped off her suit revealing a sweat-stained Georgia U T-shirt and shorts emblazoned with the Dawg mascot. A three-inch shorter version of her father, but with her mother's sky-blue eyes and blonde hair, she'd joined the company after several duty tours in the Air Force. The smell of sweat and jet fuel filled the room. Gwinnett watched the men respond to her stripping down into shorts and t-shirts, and debated whether he'd say something to her or the captivated men. He thought about it briefly, decided it would be her, privately. His thoughts were interrupted.

  "Really, you wear t-shirts and shorts under a quarter-million dollar suit?" asked Simpson, the Head of Internal Security.

  "Well, it's better than shorting out the damned sensors by not wearing anything at all and sweating all over them. Wrecking the tech would get me grounded by the good folks in accounting; I'd rather not have to explain why I'd killed their multi-bajillion dollar attack quad-copter. Besides, you got a problem with the Dawg?" asked Sarah. It was a challenge for Simpson to drop his eyes and take another look at her chest.

  A challenge he refused as he continued to meet her stare. He frowned. "What I don't understand is why you have to fly at all," he said. "Isn't that why we have the drones?"

  "Well, you ex-army pukes think pushing buttons gets things done. The Air Force knows the best drone-jockeys are also real flyers." Sarah smirked. "That's why you ground-pounders are always begging us to fly you out of problems your people can't handle," she said.

  To laughter from all.

  Gwinnett put his glasses back on and the data flow resumed. He checked for problems requiring his input, found two minor ones, and ignored them. He looked down at the polished Southern heartwood pine floors he'd ordered salvaged from one of his warehouses across the river in Savannah. These old planks could tell a thousand stories if we let them he thought. A wave of sadness and regret for the passing of an entire culture threatened his focus.

  His team waited for his thoughts to mature. They were used to his taking short breaks like this as he absorbed a new piece of information. His heads-up display constantly scrolled through all five of the world's major news channels and their latest stories. As sole owner of QuellCorp, the largest Security force in the world, Gwinnett followed them all.

  "We lost Sergeants Shaw and Berry last night," said Gwinnett.

  "God damned gangs?" asked Sarah.

  Gwinnett nodded and watched as his team absorbed this, dropping their eyes from his. He watched their faces tighten and then, one by one, make eye contact with him and nod in understanding. Gwinnett smiled inwardly, these were all good people, and they'd been with him long enough to understand, almost without words, what he was thinking.

  "They were partying along Broughton - shotgun blasts from close range. Typical Savannah police response - not a damn thing. I was just told the gangs have escalated the so-called game to hospital or morgue. I don't mind a random fair fight - boys will be boys - but this has gone far enough," said Gwinnett.

  "I want this stopped." He paused, his eyes narrowed slightly, took a deep breath and said, "Now!" The single word, quietly delivered, was emphasis enough for this group and they understood it as clearly as if he'd screamed at them.

  He continued in his quiet voice, "Keep the planning for a payback to the six of us. Sarah, you head it. Nobody else in the loop until necessary. The police department and city are porous and corrupt as hell. Has been for thirty years, so we aren't sharing shit with them. This one is for us."

  "How big a message do you want to send?" asked Sarah.

  Gwinnett took a breath, paused for two seconds, exhaled and said, "How big would you make it if it were up to you?"

  "I'd take them all out. Every last blooded member goes down in both gangs. I'd clean out the viper's nest and leave the city as clean as we can," said Sarah.

  Gwinnett's eyes didn't relax around the edges, they still sent the same deadly message. He knew Sarah had excellent potential to inherit the company although she tended towards violence without adequate negotiation beforehand. Was this too violent a response Gwinnett wondered? The way he felt now was the same feeling he got just after he parachuted out of an aircraft. Making the decision to jump and leaving the plane were the hard parts. The trip down was the easy part. Having made the big decision to trust oneself and the team, everything else was only a detail. Was it time to make the big jump and take out all the gangs?

  "This is mass murder," said Chris Richards, QuellCorp's VP-Legal. "I shouldn't be in this room for the discussion." Despite his careful words, he didn't move.

  Gwinnett's eyes never changed as he looked at Richards, but the corner of his mouth turned up, and he nodded at him. "My South is dead and somebody will pick the carcass. I don't want it to be the gangs. Somebody else might have a chance to rebuild it if they were gone. The cops won't bother us, hell, they'll take over and run things themselves. Besides, the rank and file agree with us about bringing law and order back. Might even do it properly. The force is big enough to do that.

  Harrison, QuellCorps VP Accounting, wasn't able to contain himself and snorted. "Right, but we're bigger all over. Bigger guns, bigger..." He left the last hanging to smiles from the other men and a snort from Sarah.

  Gwinnett, smiling as well, his sky-blue eyes relaxed now the decision had been made, looked at his daughter. "Sarah, this is the real world after your retirement from that cushy Air Force Captainship and playing with toy aircraft you wrangled. You're in command on this one, set up a working plan, and the rest of us will back you up. Welcome to the trenches. Co-ordinate with me as soon as all y'all have a plan."

  13/01/2047 12:15

  A small group, unknown to each other in the physical world were disembodied voices on a well-hidden, voice-only network. Protected by random switching and bouncing off servers around the world - the last one an unused storage unit in the White House - their voices were unrecognizable. All traces of sex and accent removed, scrambled and reassembled for this meeting, these were the most experienced hackers within Anonymous and responsible for more than one computer system giving up its secrets. Staying one step ahead of both government and industry security forces, they saw themselves as freedom fighters. In typical Anonymous contrarian fashion, their group signature was DarkLord and they were a prime target for security forces around the world.

  The Ottawa Convention agreement of 2031 established the rules for computer warfare. You could spy and hack information but you couldn't set up a network to fail if it would cause an effect in the real world. Stealing secrets was part of the game; crippling physical systems was an act of war. All developed countries signed this, even the United States who was the first country to physically wreck a country's power grid at the turn of the century. The country, Iran, neither forgave nor forgot but merely delayed revenge until a more appropriate time.

  Advancements in both individual tracking from the Internet of Things and video surveillance meant that few possessed the smarts and the technology to avoid detection when working against secure networks and systems. It was a Darwinian struggle to gain a small advantage.

  Their personal feeds and systems exchanged introductions and security codes, various computer analysis programs agreed on the validity of their identities, and the conversation began.

  : "I'm still browsing QuellCorp - they still don't know I'm in there - the shit's about to hit the fan. George just gave Sarah the green light to take out the gangs. They're going to whack every blooded member."

  "Shit, what brought this on?"

  : "Two QuellCorps troops were killed. Shotguns from close range. Guess they've had enough."

  : "I've met Sarah, you don't need to know how, but she's one sick mother. Seriously sick and twisted. George is a soldier but Sarah's a psychopath and the Air Force didn't make her any better with that drone syst
em they've got. She watched the damned things all the way to the target and had a score sheet above her console. I bet she killed at least one person a week for all four years she was in the drone unit. I've even seen her work out in the dojo and she takes that as seriously. There's no soul in that girl."

  : "Are you saying we should stop her or warn the gangs?"

  : "Nope. Six of one, half dozen of the other with all of them. Just don't get in Sarah's sights if you can avoid it."

  : "Anything else interesting in there?"

  : "Oh yeah, a few other things. The first is I pulled up the list of overtime salaries by going into accounting. Those stupid bastards think they're so secure, they even list the salaries as miscellaneous employment. No security on this at all; it's out in the open. Sent the data to that reporter Gordon as normal."

  : "Share those on the normal network, I may be able to use them. What else you got?"

  <>: Found a hidden and more secure drive that's had an address but is removable. They don't leave it plugged in so there must be something either mobile or ultra-secure. I'm working on an alarm that will ping me when it's plugged in and I hope to have that installed by next week sometime.

  : So could be good, or could be a waste of time.

  : Isn't everything?

  : Whoa, look at Mr. Neitzsche - the optimist here.

  : Bite me.

  : On that enlightening note, I'm done. Talk next time.

  One by one the other members signed off.

  Sitting in his office, wondered what he should do, if anything, with this information. Just let it slide for now. File it, he decided.

  27/01/2047 05:00

  3-d helmet and vehicle cams broadcasting a 360-degree view marked the progress of the twenty armored cars through the moonless South Carolina night north of Savannah. Overhead drones scanned for problems. Packed with troops wearing the latest exoskeleton combat suits, the vehicles arrived separately into town on this, the first moonless night of the year. Those crossing the Talmadge bridge were well spaced out, didn't use their headlights and allowed the computers to steer them to their goals. Others rolled around the longer routes, to come at the city from all directions. The machines used military-vehicle stealth technology, and all approached their targets within minutes of each other.

  The two-story apartment buildings they targeted surrounded the historic district and were over 50 years old. A few surviving street lamps showed peeling white paint over the gray concrete blocks, and hard-packed red Georgia clay lawns without grass. Odd bits of clothing hung from balconies, and the scavenged carcasses of cars littered the parking areas.

  "All teams, move to final count," said Sarah.

  George watched his daughter, monitored command frequencies, chain smoked, and paced back and forth in front of the screen-filled walls in the command center. He knew Charlotte would give him royal hell when he crawled into their bed tonight with what she described as the "stench of tobacco" on him but he couldn't help himself. Old habits die hard he thought with a wry grin and wondered how angry she'd be and what he might have to do to appease her.

  The thought of Charlotte had taken his mind off the raid so the team's final check-in startled him, "Radio check Carolina."

  "Five by five, Team One. Countdown is 2 minutes from the mark... Mark," said Sarah.

  "Final comm check with the drones." Sarah ran down the checklist while listening to the drone technicians reel off ready states of all electronics and troop movements.

  The Gwinnetts had been a military family for five generations, been on the losing side only once, and even though Sarah was more than capable and experienced enough to plan and execute this mission, George reserved the right to worry as a father and the company president.

  How did they ever do this without drones? wondered George. "Sarah, did last night's tidal surge take out any of the planned land-routes?"

  "No, Sir. It took 80 out to Tybee again. Five bucks says they don't rebuild it this time."

  "Damn stupid to support a community on a sand bar when the oceans are rising," said George.

  "Do you think the governor will rebuild when they get the latest tidal averages? I heard they were now running 12-feet above datum," said Sarah.

  "Your guess is as good as mine," said George.

  "Quick note f y i," said Sarah. "Just before they left, all six squad commanders passed along the men's thanks and their personal appreciation for this payback operation. Losing Shaw and Berry pissed them off and so did your ban on any retaliation. Now they understand what was going on."

  George was about to reply when Sarah held up her hand.

  "All teams, one minute on the mark. Mark," said Sarah and turned back to her father who resumed.

  "I shouldn't have left it so long but I used to love this city. Don't look at me with that air of disbelief. It was a great city before we had to decide whether we put the gangs or the cops in jail. And when the live oaks died, the city died with them," said George. "Pity to clean it up this way."

  "Well, I'll give you that, there won't be much left to sweep after the boys are done. Here we go, clock's ticking," said Sarah, standing and turning to her monitors that supplemented the feeds she was taking directly into her corneal transplants.

  "All teams, you have green light in five seconds. Four, three, two, one. Go. Go." Sarah gave the command in a calm voice but that was the last bit of calm in Savannah that night.

  When Sarah gave the final orders, George got goosebumps and the pit of his stomach tightened with the memories of similar fights in his own Ranger career. Time hadn't erased the memory or the feeling of killing fellow human beings face to face, but he'd learned to live with it. George knew a few of his less-experienced men would find the same personal hell tonight.

  He shook his head to clear it and wondered how the night would play out. It was always the small, damn details that trip you up - or have the most impact.

  27/01/2047 05:03:10

  Simultaneously across the city, seventeen doors blew off their hinges. Battle-armored troops tossed stun grenades inside to further paralyze and confuse the now-awake residents. The noise barrage continued from the one hundred troopers with their repeatedly screamed orders. "Lie down! Down! Down!" This was their only command as they worked from room to room shooting gang members, upright or lying down, on sight.

  Sergeant Ian Fraser led his five-man team into the gang president's apartment and shot the three dobermans struggling to their feet. Long experience taught him the only way to control dogs, even stunned ones, was to kill them. Three laser flashes and he'd solved this first potential problem. He heard the wailing of a young child in an upstairs bedroom. Two of his men cleared the downstairs while he and the other two ran upstairs.

  At the top of the stairs, they met Sayshan Roberts staggering towards them with an old-fashioned, sawed-off shotgun. Fraser burned him twice in the chest with through-and-throughs.

  "Roberts down. Dead. Clearing the rest of the house." He was about to turn towards the other doors when a screaming woman charged out of the open master bedroom door struggling to aim a heavy laser rifle at him. Fraser never hesitated. He burned her. She bounced once and lay twitching while he kicked the weapon away and stepped over her to enter the now-empty bedroom.

  "Clear."

  The static electric crackle of a laser weapon came from another bedroom. The troopers all heard and saw the action on their heads-up screens.

  "Baby's room clear."

  Heads swiveled in every room of the house and the 360-cameras broadcast the dead as each trooper watched for movement. Fraser had each of his teams in one panel of his heads-up display and he flicked through them. Then shared them with the squad, "Anybody see movement? Twitching?" There was none. "Base. Biometrics aren't showing any breathing. We're done here."

  The baby continued to scream.

  "We have one infant." Fraser knew city services would
deal with survivors. Or not. It wasn't his concern.

  "Sergeant, two houses south, directions are on your heads-up display. Team Three has met superior resistance and has requested assistance. Automatic weapons and heavy armor in the upper floors. Apparently metal flooring installed. We have them contained but requesting outer window support. Take them out. Don't worry about survivors, we don't want any," said Sarah.

  "Team 1, with me."Fraser led his men back out into the Savannah night replying as he ran down the stairs.

  "Copy that, control. Team One, move two houses south. Kelly, use those anti-armor rockets you've been lugging around and blow out the front windows. We'll see how they do against our big boys. Aim for the side of the window - it may be good but those old brick walls won't stop shit. Once blown, the rest of you rifle up a grenade each. Let's blow this one apart." He checked his heads-up display. "Intel says no kids."

  The rocket explosion left gaping holes in the wall, and the window unit, with its heavy metal frames and aircraft-level armored glass still unbroken, fell to the ground in front of the house. Grenades took out the support walls, and the roof collapsed into the upper story leaving a smoking ruin. The walls from neighboring buildings stopped the building from totally collapsing.

  "Team Three, here's your building with our compliments," said Fraser. He smiled at the thought of this night's work. Berry had been a good friend of his. Tonight's action wouldn't make up for losing him, but he'd tell his buddy's parents the killers wouldn't be able to do it again.

  With minute variations, the evening unfolded much the same in all the targeted houses. None of the armored QuellCorp troops were seriously hurt although there were a few sprained ankles and minor burns. But the gangs were decimated. The real numbers would emerge over the next week as city officials counted the bodies and checked hospital records. But this wasn't QuellCorp's concern; they'd leave the counting to the locals.

  One hour after the first shot, every member of the team enjoyed free beer and breakfast in the base canteen.