Chapter 1: Grieselda

“They’re getting bold,” Grieselda snarled.

Eyes glued to the virtual plans beaming from the palm of her mech suit.

“Hmm,” the captain murmured absentmindedly, seated across her, strapped into a four point seatbelt with the blank look of someone half-lost in the virtual network.

Grieselda studied the layout of the Rhodesia Waterworks once before dismissing the plans. She glanced out the window as the small carrier streaked through the sky. No clouds in sight, giving the harsh sun free reign to scorch what remained of the impoverished earth.

“A state transport carrier, BioWear’s lunar labs and now an old waterworks,” Grieselda said. “What do you think it all means?”

The hacker group known as Agents of Fate were the perpetrators in all three heists but to what end.

‘Profit? Perhaps.’

But from their manifestos online they behaved like No-chip sympathizers. Like many of the barbarian clans they claimed to provide refuge for No-chips, preached of privacy and all that other nonsense No-chips ate up.

No-chips acted like they were losing their freedom by getting chipped. Standard citizen chips were nothing more than traceable personal computers and where was the harm in being tracked and digitally surveilled?

Like her mentor used to say: only thugs and anarchists protested for privacy because they wanted to commit crimes and have the luxury to get away with it.

“They’re biding their time,” The captain said with blinking eyes, flushing out the remnants virtuality from his sight.

Grieselda perked up, leaned forward as much as her seatbelt would allow. “What do you mean?”

“Their amassing resources, accumulating power. Enough power to ignite a movement of epic proportions.”

Grieselda bobbed her head in agreement. She hadn’t expected such a response.

‘But it makes sense. I guess.’

This was coming from a cybermage whom according to Lieutenant Rafinya was the most knowledgeable when it came to the Agents of Fate. So she didn’t immediately dismiss his claims but she didn’t wholeheartedly agree either.

And as to what a movement of epic proportions meant.

‘Rebellion?’

It pointed to that but she couldn’t rid herself of the nagging suspicion the agents were different somehow from the other barbarian clans scattered throughout the Scorchedlands.

“However,” the captain continued his voice deep and hollow. “They’ve bitten off more they can chew this time.”

Grieselda met his dark uneven eyes.

He didn’t have a lazy eye or anything. One of his eyes was a cybernetic implant. Granted the fake eye had the same colour and size as his natural eye. The robotic eye was forever energetic, always wide open making his exhausted natural eye seem droopy.

His ominous look was further compounded by the dark rings under his eyes and light skin stretched tightly over his face.

Her infamous boss: Captain Ray Dawn Zappa. Who headed his own cybercrime unit and despite how sickly he looked, one of the sharpest minds she knew.

And if the rumours were true a dirty cop to boot.

Not you’re dirty to profit kind of dirty. A more dangerous kind of corruption. The do whatever it takes to complete the mission kind of mentality. The lawman unafraid to stray out of bounds of justice so he could save the day.

He oozed that noble for the greater good kind of attitude which magically justified all his unscrupulous actions. Grieselda sneered at such deluded self-righteousness.

“Indeed, the AoF has fallen short this time,” Grieselda said evenly.

Agents had intruded into a decommissioned waterworks for whatever reason. They’d triggered the facility’s alarm system which was still functional. A police tactical response team was sent over. They clashed with the agents but were quickly overwhelmed. Fortunately one brave officer managed to send out a distress communication, informed cybercrime the intruder was an agent before he was taken hostage.

Hence their unit – minus Shenko, working another case – had been brought in, tasked with infiltrating and taking out the agents responsible.

‘And failure isn’t an option.’

The waterworks was located in the remote swamps on the outskirts of Gau City. So if they failed she suspected the council might take more drastic measures like drone striking the lone facility.

‘They’ve done worse to keep situations like this from escalating.’

The council wasn’t tyrannical but they had a hard hand when they dealt with crime involving No-chips and/or the barbarian clans. Even at the cost of human collateral.

‘No, it won’t get to that though,’ she promised herself, a determined expression on her face.

Her mind buzzed and she accepted the incoming com-link. Her brain chip decoded the communication and Charlie’s voice rang through her ears.

“Get ready darlings were approaching the drop zone!” The pilot said.

The captain unbuckled his seatbelt and stood. The middle aged man had perfect posture but it could mostly be attributed to the mechanical suit he wore. The slim mech suit was dull grey and radiated a dim crimson hue at the joints.

Why he didn’t sport more fashionable colours was beyond her. She found it quite depressing to even look at.

From the back of his neck a few pieces of metal folded forward, flowed over his head, shifted into place and formed a helmet with a dark tinted visor. The captain motioned toward the cargo door. Two droids in similar colours but at two metres tall kept him company.

Grieselda took a breath and her helmet came on, folded around her long braided ponytail. Her mech suit was bright scarlet with a polished sheen and a green tinted visor.

She joined the captain as the cargo door shook open. Unfortunately she didn’t have an entourage of her own. She wasn’t licensed for the usage of droids on the count she’d flunked droid controls.

As do many cybermages, obviously. Droid controls required an extreme talent in multitasking that few possessed because the droids lacked an AI. Those devils were banned since the fall of the old empire. So Ray Dawn had to remotely control their operating system, command their every movement and monitor their surroundings all whilst working his own body.

“Fly out whenever you’re read,” Charlie said.

The carrier flew across the bright blue skies, bearing down on the lone facility in the wetlands. The swamps were near the city border were 30m alloy walls were erected and travelled right round the whole of Gau City. Beyond the city borders were the Scorchedlands, barren cracked earth that stretched out in every direction.

“Let’s go over the plan again,” the captain said, staring down at their destination.

“Land on the roof. You jack the ventilation doors, just long enough to let one of your droids through…”

The ventilation doors were a series of reinforced steel panels covering entry through the ventilation shaft. They could open to out filter hot air but since the waterworks was decommissioned they had been shut closed.

The captain could temporarily jolt them open before the security system detected an error and initiated a reboot, automatically resealing the panels. The system reboot would take approximately three to seven seconds to complete the aforementioned hence only one person could safely pass through in the allotted time. Well, one droid in this case.

“…it will fly down the vent shaft, into the maintenance door at the base of the vent near the turbine. It will head to the switch bay where there will hopefully be access to the virtual network. Hack into the network, override the security system and keep the vent doors open indefinitely. We follow and assess the situation from there before neutralizing the agents.”

The plan was simple enough and was dependant on the droids and their cyber intrusion skills.

The captain regarded her for a moment, his gaze weighing down on her but she returned his gaze unfazed.

“Nervous?”

“No,” she said honestly.

Grieselda had been longing for some action since she started this detail few weeks back. As a cybermage she was a duty bound protector of the law. A duty she took pride in fulfilling.

“Let’s go!” The captain said. Without waiting for a reply he jumped out, controlled the droids to follow and she brought up the rear.

They free fell a bit before Grieselda, the captain and the droids almost in unison engaged their thrusters and propelled themselves toward the factory.

They landed atop the roof.

Grieselda strode out to the parapet keeping a look out. Not that there was much to look out for.

The marsh was barely a foot high at its deepest points, and the vegetation was underwhelming – too hard for anything to grow unassisted in the harsh climate.

The blazing sun hung straight above them, sucked at the swamp’s moisture, one of the surviving water sources that dared oppose the heat’s glare.

The captain headed for a small access panel by the enormous ventilation shaft. His helmet retracted, revealed his weary face. He forced the access panel open exposing the circuitry and stopped. He remained motionless long enough to draw Griselda’s curiosity.

“What’s wrong?” She squinted at him through her visor.

He didn’t reply. Instead he sighed and moved to place an ear over the dust layered ventilation doors.

He lifted his head scratching at the unkempt stubble on his bony face.

“The turbine is on,” she guessed.

He nodded eyes unfocused, contemplating, working the problem.

Operating at full speed there was no way the droids could fly down against the massive air currents generated by the turbine.

“New plan,” the captain proclaimed. “I jack the vent doors. You quickly jump in. Use your powers to disable the turbine. Dive down the vent to the maintenance door. Head to the switch bay. Hack open the doors for me to follow. We’ll assess the situation from there before neutralizing the agents.”

“Yeh?” She yelped and jerked her head back. She considered him with wide eyes as if he’d misspoke.

“You know pulse controls.”

“Yes.”

‘One of the few mage controls I excel in.’

“It’s not as dangerous as you think. You’ll only drop so far until the air pressure is so strong it catches you. So you can take your time preparing a pulse. The turbine motors are located beneath the rotation blades so you can’t miss.”

Grieselda crossed her arms understanding what he expected of her but she didn’t like it.

He was conveniently omitting how the pulse controls would affect her electronics as well.

She also didn’t appreciate how unfazed he was whilst placing her in such danger.

However most frustratingly, try as she may she couldn’t think of a better solution. She’d flunked basic circuitry so they couldn’t possibly switch roles.

“Okay I’ll do it.”

“A small one okay. Don’t take out the power to the whole facility.”

“I know,” she snapped.

The captain didn’t spare any more words on her and returned to access panel. Grieselda loomed over the ventilation doors and a few moments later the captain glanced in her direction. She gave a curt nod and he nodded back.

Electrical currents buzzed as he bridged the ventilation door switch connections.

The ventilation doors swung open and she leapt in. The doors thumped closed a moment later, snipping the edge of her trailing ponytail as she plunged into the dark shaft.

Grieselda manoeuvred. Spine arched, arms and legs stretched out, transitioned into a belly first dive. Strong air currents pushed against her, opposing her entire fall through the shaft.

Halfway down the air pressure grew so great it kept her in floating in place.

She took in a few hurried breaths as she fought to rein back her panicked heart.

Her visor display switched to night vision. She glared down at the enormous turbine blades, they spun ferociously and a loud mechanical hum filled her ears. Just above them was the maintenance door.

Grieselda took her time. Let her body bob under the massive air cushion until her chest stopped heaving and thoughts had cleared.

A mental command and she accessed her mage chip interface, then pulse control software and set the parameters for a small electromagnetic pulse.

She exhaled audibly and launched the pulse.

A wave of translucent energy burst from her person, spread out in every direction and pulsed through the turbine. There was a loud clank and the motors stopped humming.

The turbine fans decelerated. The air cushion deflated. Allowed Grieselda to resume her decent.

Her visor display went dark but she still caught the glint of the turbine blades as her decent gained speed.

She grimaced. She was dropping faster than the blades were stopping. Not that they needed much pace to slice her in two.

She made an attempt at rebooting her mech suit but received no response.

“Fuck.”

She tapped on her armoured thigh. A slot slid open and she fumbled out her shard gun. With trembling hand, she aimed the firearm and pulled the trigger without delay. A shard of crystalized radiation blasted into the sidewall and shattered into countless particles of bright crimson upon impact.

The flash of crimson light momentarily illuminated the long shaft.

But more importantly the recoil sent her to the opposite wall. She adjusted, kicked off the wall at an angle, rocketed herself toward the maintenance door.

As long as the door wasn’t reinforced, even if it was locked she was confident she could force her way through.

‘Probably.’

She rammed into the door which flew open under the impact and sent her tumbling through.

“Fuck!” She cursed, rolling into a stop.

“Are you injured?” The captain’s voice echoed through her ears.

Grieselda rose to one knee, her body aching from the litter of bruises.

The crash seemed to have rebooted her mech suit and the notifications flooded in, flashed incessantly in the corner of her visor reporting the status of her suit.

“I’m fine.”

She rose and stretched out her bruised knee.

“Then open the doors. We might’ve alerted the agents by turning off the turbine.”

Her eyes bulged.

‘Why didn’t he mention that before?’

They were endangering the lives of the hostages if the agents found out they were here.

Grieselda clenched her teeth, swallowed her frustrations, rushed down the hallway.

‘Does he even care about the hostages or is he just hell bent on capturing these agents.’

She didn’t like making sacrifices, especially human sacrifices but the plan was already in motion.

‘No thanks to my role in it.’

They had to see this through because there was no time to conjure up another plan. The council would resort to drastic measures anyway had they delayed the rescue attempt.

Her advance was halted by an electronic door. Her visor swapped to thermal vision. She scanned the area beyond, confirmed no ambush awaited her on the other side.

She motioned a palm over the keypad. The door buzzed and sliced open.

She stepped into the control room. Lined with control panels on either side, plastered on the cream walls above the button littered panels were numerous virtual monitors displaying the operation status of the water distillation machinery. On the far end of the room was another electronic door leading to the main building of the waterworks.

She cleared her mind. Accessed her interface and let her consciousness dive into the facility’s private virtual network.

The captain and his two droids joined up with her. Without explaining himself, he positioned himself in a corner of the room and dove into virtual network and begun the search through the waterworks database.

She didn’t bother diving into virtual again. She’d barely scraped though program controls so she’d let the captain take it from here.

Ideally they would’ve carried out their cyber intrusion of waterworks from the outside but the facility ran on a closed network.

Built this way to keep their kind from easily invading their servers. Well not them in particular. Against hackers who get illegal upgrades to mimic their powers. They were the good guys. She glared at the captain submerged into virtual.

Rather they were supposed to be.

“Hmm?” The captain hummed absentmindedly like someone whose mind was in two places at once.

“What is it?” She asked.

“Look for yourself.”

A notification popped up on her visor display. She accessed it. Multiple video feeds loaded. She went through the different views which displayed live feeds from every camera in the facility.

Grieselda paused on a feed of the filter room. There was an enormous empty tank with numerous drains systematically positioned over the base and an alloy bridge across over the dam like tank.

Tactical response had clashed with the agents in this room as evidenced by the score of bodies pooling patches of blood into the tank. They were regular cops with basic combat chips. They never stood a chance against agents whom were upgraded to be on par with cybermages.

She moved on, located a feed displaying the hostages. Within a compact office, bound with electromagnetic handcuffs and abnormally calm for captives.

‘He must’ve wave controlled them.’

The tempering of the human mind via subliminal waves, this made the wave controls perhaps the most annoying of all the mage controls.

‘21 plus 15,’ Grieselda counted the dead plus the hostages. She grimaced but not at the score of dead bodies but at their total numbers.

‘That’s six squads.’

Which was five too many. Why would six full squads respond to a breach of an inoperable facility? Not like they had known beforehand it was an agent intruding.

Grieselda grimaced. ‘Seems this place isn’t as decommissioned as the council would have us believe.’

She flipped through the rest of the feeds and discovered another anomaly.

“Where are they?” She asked. “Did they escape?” She glanced to the captain for confirmation.

“It’s one guy,” he said.

Another notification on her display, she quickly opened it. A video file loaded.

‘Must’ve pulled it from the archived records.’

The footage played. Showed a lone figure dressed in a simple black suit, white shirt and black tie. More eye-catching though was the medallion he wore, made from gold. The AoF emblem on it: a blazing sun with an F at its centre.

‘The mark of fate.’

The agent had curly hair that flowed to his shoulders. A rugged looking face, a full beard and was leisurely smoking a cigar.

‘Pharma by the looks of its size.’ Not that she knew any other brands.

The footage went on, the figure searched around the factory for a while until he found a hidden door. On the east wing of the waterworks, seemingly at a dead end a heavy door appeared after he triggered a pressure sensor.

‘Sure enough the agent’s intrusion wasn’t random.’

There was something here the council hadn’t informed them about.

Grieselda clenched her fists.

It was one thing for the captain to keep things from her. He was just another assignment but the council as well. How was she supposed to optimize her performance when they withheld information related to the assignment at hand?

There was a buzz, the electronic door on the far end of the room slid open. The captain and his two droids slipped out and headed into the main building. She was drawn out of her stupor and chased after them.

She strode into a corridor, lined with patches of darkness at stretches were the lights weren’t functional. The passage was pressed with the smell of rust. The alloy walls were stained auburn and corroded giving their path a dilapidated feel.

Their footsteps clanked on the steel floor as metal brushed metal, echoing down the corridor.

They stopped at an intersection.

The captain gestured to the centre pathway and said. “The hostages are that way in the 3rd office on the left.”

The captain twisted his fingers toward the right path. “The agent is that way. He’s made this easy for us. We’ll split up. You’ll secure the hostages and radio Charlie for extraction. While I hold him off. Once the hostages have been secured you can return and if I haven’t defeated him by then we’ll take him down together.”

It sounded like a solid plan but Grieselda wore a struggling expression.

“No,” she finally managed.

The captain stared at her, hard.

She didn’t waver, found her voice and continued. “We should stick together.”

She could make many concessions but one she could not easily make was to let him out of her sight. It would make completing her assignment that much harder. This became a challenge since she was the subordinate in this relationship.

“I’m your superior,” he snapped.

“Which is why I should be by your side to protect you?”

‘To watch you.’

“I don’t need protection just do as I say.”

He stopped arguing with her, swirled and stalked down the right path.

She watched his back for a contemplative moment before she stubbornly followed. He did not like her insistence but superior or not, how she asserted herself early would dictate how she would be treated in future.

So she would persist even at the risk of being charged with insubordination. Well, technically it’s wasn't insubordination as long as it served toward the completion of her assignment.

The captain grumbled without turning back. “Just do as I say. I’m your boss dammit.”

‘Sure you are.’

“How about a compromise. Send one of your droids it should be enough for a simple escort. Its better we take him together. Just in case.”

“Tsk,” he clicked his tongue.

Yet despite his annoyance one of the droids trailing him eventually turned back to the intersection.

Grieselda’s lips curved, unable to contain her grin.