Invasion (Animus Book 10) Read online

  “There can’t be a readout. It would be too tempting for the hackers to mess with,” Kaiden replied and nudged Chiyo to his right. “Ain’t that right?”

  Although it looked like she wanted to shush him, she sighed and conceded the point. “I can certainly think of at least a few of my fellow techs who would probably find it amusing.”

  “Personally, I think he’s only saying what is on his mind,” Genos commented. “Off the cuff, as you might say.”

  “He’s probably done it enough that this is basically a greatest-hits of all his previous years,” Cameron reasoned.

  The ace tapped him softly on the chest. “Are you still up for some time in the Animus? It looks like this is almost at the end unless he gets a second wind.”

  “Oh, hell yeah,” the bounty hunter agreed. “We’ll round up those who wanna go once we hurry out of here.”

  Kaiden nodded as he focused his attention on Durand once again. The chancellor definitely seemed to be finishing up. “You shall prove yourselves masters of your class and emerge as victors who will set out into the world and stars to continue that legacy!” he declared in a booming shout. “Welcome to your last year, students. To victory!”

  This time, there were cheers from all around the auditorium and a few eager students jumped up in excitement. He bowed and left the stage as the doors opened and students hurried out. The group of friends joined the exodus and emerged into the open air as the sun finally began to disappear and the purple and blue hues of twilight tinged the sky.

  Otto, Julius, Izzy, and Indre all wished their friends well as they had to depart to finish their duties and prepare for the beginning of the year. The others headed to the Animus Center and the idea that this was their final year together seemed to occur to them at almost the same time, beginning with Flynn. “You know, this might be the last time we really work together for a long while.”

  “Yeah,” Luke agreed and rubbed the back of his head. “Over the break, I started getting contract requests from security teams and the military. That totally made it real that I won’t come back after this year.”

  “I guess I never thought about it too much,” Cameron admitted. “I always knew where I would go. But I guess I’ll be bummed not seeing you every day—even Kaiden and Raul.”

  “I’m so touched, really.” Raul chuckled, although it didn’t last as the general mood of the group had lost its jovial tone.

  “I suppose we’ll have to make sure we stay in contact through the network,” Chiyo suggested and looked at Jaxon and Genos. “But will that be possible for you two? You’ll head back to Abisalo once you’ve graduated, correct?”

  “That is the current plan.” Jaxon nodded. “Although there are rumors that a few Tsuna graduates will actually be contracted here on Earth in select companies to improve relations. If it goes through, it will be on a volunteer basis. It is a big decision as those Tsuna who remain won’t have many opportunities to return home for an extended period of time until their contract is up.”

  “I may even need to have further schooling for a time,” Genos admitted. “I’ve worked equally with human and Tsuna machines in repairs, modding, and construction. But when I was home over the break, I could see that there were already vast improvements to much of our technology and weaponry. I need to get reacquainted.”

  “To answer your question, though, Chiyo, the connection between Earth and Abisalo has been vastly improved,” the Tsuna ace added.

  “Oh yes.” The mechanist nodded eagerly. “There may be some latency issues and the like, but you should have no problems contacting us should we return. Even then, I’ve received your messages fine, as you know.”

  “I’m glad.” She smiled. “Especially with how fast you reply. Even with the delay, you’re technically faster than Kaiden is most of the time.”

  “I’m working most of the time!” Kaiden retorted. “How are we almost three years in and I’m still the whipping boy?”

  “You probably wanna make sure that whoever you work with next doesn’t get that impression so early on,” Marlo joked.

  “Speaking of which, what will you do, Kai?” Flynn asked. “I remember you said you want to start your own merc company. Will you be able to do that by graduation?”

  “I’m getting all the licenses and stuff approved but it took more time and creds than I was quoted,” he muttered. “I need to create channels so people can reach me and get a ship for planet travel and outfit it for space travel as well. Even with my current rank, I’ll probably start out low on the totem pole. But since I’ll be mission-focused instead of only a hired gun, I should advance fairly quickly to getting decent work in about a year.”

  “Do you have any idea where you’ll find a crew?” Amber asked.

  “I doubt you’ll simply call at the merc ports and bars and find who’ll work at the cheapest rate,” Silas reasoned.

  “Yeah, no,” he said flatly. “Nexus grad or not, you have to have a good crew if you don’t want your merc company to implode, even I know that and at best, I could be called ‘savvy’ rather than smart when it comes to business matters.”

  “So do you have any particular people in mind?” Amber inquired.

  “A few,” he admitted and although he didn’t turn his head, his gaze darted briefly to Chiyo. “But whether I get them or not will be up to them when the time comes. I have to make sure everything else is in order before that can happen.”

  They reached the center and Luke approached the door, but it didn’t slide open for him as it usually did. He frowned slightly and tugged on the handle but it didn’t budge. “Uh…it doesn’t look like its open.”

  “I guess things are a little disorganized,” Flynn commented. “Most of the lights in the main lobby are off too.”

  Chiyo raised her arm and a holoscreen appeared over her gauntlet. “Let me give Akello a call.”

  It took only a couple of rings before the head monitor answered but she seemed distracted. “Put that over there, and Viko, double-check to make sure that halls thirteen through sixteen have enough power.” She turned to face the screen. “Hiya, Chiyo—oh, and all you guys.”

  “Hi, Akello.” They greeted her almost in unison as they peered over the infiltrator’s shoulders at the screen.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Kaiden raised his hand. “If you could open the doors that would be nice.”

  Chiyo rolled her eyes. “We were hoping to have some early Animus training, but the doors are locked and it looks like the lobby is dark. I take it you are still preparing the center?”

  The woman nodded and glanced behind her at a different monitor. “Yeah, sorry about that. We usually have it on by now, but Laurie and his team ran a whole…whatever it was. While it upgraded the system and even let us power more pods in here, we’re still trying to find out the exact number that we can have running at once. It looks like we’ve resolved it for the most part but it’s caused some delays.”

  “I guess that means we won’t be able to get in tonight, huh?” Luke asked.

  Akello pursed her lips as she considered it before she snapped her fingers. “Actually, we do need to do a test run. You guys could probably put the Animus through its paces better than a group of us. We still need a little time but if you could show up promptly at five in the morning, I’ll make sure you get in.”

  “Five in the morning?” Raul almost gasped. “I need my beauty sleep.”

  “Pray really hard that you don’t end up in the military, Raul.” Mack chuckled and clapped him on the back.

  “I’m still game. I have nothing else to do tonight so I’ll be ready,” Cameron confirmed.

  “I was free tonight but I have a workout group I gym with in the morning tomorrow,” Silas said regretfully. “I don’t wanna skip out on the first day.”

  “I’m part of that group too,” Luke added.

  “Okay, who’s still in?” Kaiden asked and Cameron, Jaxon, Genos, Flynn, Chiyo, Amber, and Marlo raised the
ir hands. “Okay, with me that makes eight. That’s enough for a team skirmish or something.”

  “Will that do, Akello?” Chiyo asked. The ace’s eyes lit up as Chief showed him a new message.

  The head monitor nodded. “That works for me but be sure to be on time. We need to have this ready by eight and the test run is the last step.”

  “We’ll be here,” the infiltrator promised.

  Kaiden gave her a wave. “Have her purring for us!” he stated as he tapped Chiyo on the shoulder and gestured for her to follow him once she hung up.

  Akello said goodbye and signed out. The group began to disperse to their dorms for the evening, wished each other well, and promised to meet the next day as Kaiden and Chiyo headed toward the R&D department.

  Tomorrow promised to be busy indeed.

  Chapter Six

  Laurie, Sasha, and Wolfson turned and greeted Kaiden and Chiyo as they entered Laurie’s office. She returned the friendly smiles, as did the ace in a somewhat distracted way as he was more interested in looking at a small black band on Wolfson’s wrist.

  “The head of security is being monitored?” he asked with a smirk. “For our security or his?”

  The large man scowled but before he could retort, Sasha stepped in. “It’s placatory, Kaiden. And while I usually don’t mind you and Wolfson and your little quarrels, you should know that it could potentially have been you wearing that band.”

  “Oh, I’m aware of that.” He leaned against the edge of one of the couches as Chiyo sat. “Although I doubt I would have been let off with something as simple as a security band.”

  “You’d spend your last year in a cell while the trial was delayed by new paperwork almost every day,” Wolfson snarked. “Gits. They are happy to take the evidence but still have to pretend that there were legal means to get it.”

  Chiyo straightened. “I know that the data has been delivered, but is it finally getting looked at in an official capacity?”

  “Yes…and no,” Laurie admitted. The ace shook his head.

  “I replied to your message but you never responded, Laurie,” he said and tapped his chest. “Now that I’m here, do you finally want to explain what’s going on?”

  Laurie pushed his seat back and stood. “It wasn’t that I was trying to keep you in the dark. It’s that we don’t exactly know where all the pieces are at the moment.”

  Wolfson sighed and leaned against the desk. “We have supporters on the inside, mostly old contacts of mine or Sasha’s who have found themselves nice positions in the WC, as well as a few delegates who have investigated suspicious happenings in the council on their own.”

  Chiyo tilted her head. “If anything illicit was happening in the council, wouldn’t you have been notified? It sounds like this would have been a smoother process.”

  “Suspicious happenings, Master Kana, not illicit,” the commander clarified. “Although one will eventually bleed into the other once no answers are found.”

  “What kind of suspicious?” Kaiden enquired. “Anything like what happened in the Animus?”

  “From what we have been told, for the last couple of years, files have gone missing or odd discrepancies have occurred in scheduling and the like,” Laurie explained.

  “Things that would make even the most apathetic guard take notice,” Wolfson continued and shook his head. “Not that there are any in the WC.”

  “They have looked into these issues internally but have come up with nothing to say that it wasn’t anything more than a bad readout or some other small issue that could be attributed to faulty procedure. Although this created enough concern that a task force was created to comb through the system and all hard drives in search of the ‘internal issue,’ it only brought up more questions.”

  “The data you brought in that we sent out got the task force all riled up, as they found some of the missing files along with others that were obviously copied from their stores,” the security head stated and threw his hands up in irritation. “That should have made any of the remaining missing pieces click together and it did for some. The council, however, doesn’t like to think that anything on the scale of an all-out attack could be successful without them already knowing about it. They’ve spent too long with their only real problems being politics and the occasional terrorist group causing chaos before being eradicated or forced back into hiding by the military.”

  The former sergeant huffed and glared at the band on his wrist. “Instead of thanking us for giving them a lead and destroying a potential enemy stronghold, they took us to task for attacking it at all and went on about the loss of life and the damage to the environment from the explosion. I expected all that, personally, but the fact that they act like there’s nothing to be concerned about from what we found and that we are the real problems still stirs my blood.”

  Kaiden gritted his teeth and looked away. “I know it’s the stereotype that politicians look out more for their personal interests than the problems right in front of them, but if this is really the furthest we’ve progressed because of their incompetence, we’re either screwed or they’ve already been taken over by the AO.”

  “That is a possibility,” Sasha replied and Chiyo and Kaiden turned to him with wide eyes. “You didn’t already believe that could be the reason?” he questioned. “Our investigation started under the assumption that WC members were a part of the AO. If that is still true, they could have already grown their web for years—far longer than we’ve searched for them.”

  “Before you have a heart attack,” Laurie interjected and walked around the desk and over to Kaiden. “Those connections I told you about have already started their own investigations. In fact, a few have told me they have identified facilities similar to the original one you found in Germany.”

  “The underground base?” the ace asked.

  The professor nodded. “These are smaller facilities, but if an official team or taskforce actually finds one themselves, that would force any doubters to take the situation seriously.”

  “Indeed,” Sasha nodded. “That’s the plan. Several teams are being prepared to raid these under direct orders of affiliates and delegates. Once the bases are shut down, they will make an announcement to the council who will have to announce it to the public.”

  “Meaning the organization will no longer be able to simply hide anymore. Everyone will be looking for them,” Chiyo suggested.

  “They’ll still be a threat,” Wolfson added. “But with the full force of the WC ranged against them, they won’t be able to put up a fight for too long.”

  Kaiden smiled. “I guess I shouldn’t be too happy until we hear the results of the raids, but I have to admit I’m disappointed that I won’t be there to see those shady bastards finally toppled.”

  “It was you who brought them to light in the first place, Kaiden,” Sasha stated. “Remember that.”

  “And if you work hard enough, you might graduate in time to find yourself a team and see if you can get in on the action,” Wolfson suggested and stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Although that would require you to join the military, which is still a good choice.”

  The ace held his hand up to stop him. “I have my own plans, although I’m sure there’ll be fallout after the organization is crushed. Maybe I can get some gigs and closure that way.”

  “How long until the attacks on the facilities?” Chiyo asked.

  Laurie sighed. “There have been some delays, unfortunately. They should actually have happened this week but the general in command has shipped troops out to dozens of different locations. It apparently has something to do with potential terrorist cells being discovered.”

  “Those in charge of the raids have had to tighten and focus their efforts, but they should begin their missions within the next few weeks,” Sasha confirmed.

  “A few weeks, huh?” Kaiden muttered and looked at Chief. “At least the noose is tightening, right?”

  “I guess so,” the EI responded. “If the
truth be told, the waiting might be the hardest part.”

  Merrick watched and listened in on the conversation in Laurie’s office via the tiny bug placed by one of the board members they’d subverted. At the end of it, he had to give the Nexus staff credit. With only a handful of them, they had managed to cause such large problems for him that a significant amount of course correction had been necessary during the last year.

  Although in the end, it simply required a change of plans and had put the Academy on the top of his priority list. It had always been there, but he had hoped to acquire Nexus through subterfuge and guile. It would mean fewer lives lost that way. Now? He would take it by force and he would once again be the head of the Academy, although for very different reasons.

  “Sir?” A screen appeared on his left and he glanced at Jiro and Karimi as they came into focus. “The cells are in position. Once the invasion begins, we’ll keep the military forces occupied here in Asia.”

  “Understood. We shall hopefully have the council building under our control in only a few days.” Merrick’s focus returned to the screen that displayed Laurie’s office. “And from there, we can prepare for the real threat.”

  Chapter Seven

  The sun had barely begun to peek out above the hills and manmade structures that surrounded Nexus island. The light glinted faintly off the lake water and the artificial lighting had slowly begun to dim. Groups of students wandered the plaza, old friends meeting up or newbies trying to still find the paths that led to their workshops.

  Cameron yawned and stretched, and his arms almost knocked against Kaiden and Flynn as the trio walked out of the cafeteria with plastic mugs of coffee. They made their way over to the rest of their group and passed out the various orders of coffee and juices before they once again proceeded to the Animus Center.

  “She’s ready for us, right?” the bounty hunter asked between what was basically chugs of caffeine. “Akello, I mean. We won’t have to loiter around the entrance to the AC, will we?”