His step uninterrupted, the youth laughed. “Oh, a threat. From the internet’s biggest, baddest company.”
“You should take that seriously. We can make you. Or break you. Don’t fuck with us or you’ll never work in the valley again.”
Finally the pacing stopped and the man stood over the desk, facing his superior. “Make me? What, move up the ladder? To what? Chief of sucking China’s dick? You dumb ass, I can make more money hacking clueless banks than you pay me here. I thought maybe there was something good in the corporate cesspool. Man, you guys have let me down.”
The man behind the desk looked stunned. “There will be no more talk of illegal activity in my office.”
“‘Cause the NSA is on the line, you mean. How much of your soul did you sell for this shit?” He laughed and shook his head. “Let’s get this straight. You're actually upset about me tapping the evaporation off these big companies while you prostitute yourselves to a dictatorship? Keeping information from its own people? Allowing our government to spy on its own citizens? Okay, this place is actually seriously evil. God, I didn't see it. I didn't want to see it. I mean, what’s left? I can be a legal criminal here or a black hat out there? This whole tech industry is in deep with the devil.” He threw a chair across the room. “Fuck you! And fuck the slave masters. The entire system’s corrupt.”
The bald man stood up behind his desk and pointed to the door of his office. “Get out of here. You’re fired! No, as of today, I can promise you, you’re finished in this industry.”
The youth laughed again. “You fucking moron. I’m just getting started.”
45
Sara Houston stared through the window of the helicopter at Washington, D.C. The familiar landmarks were gone. The bejeweled arteries of transportation dark, the lights extinguished by a city-wide black out. Along with the loss of the grid, the monuments vanished as the spotlights winked out — the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the pillar of the Washington Monument. Gone.
But there was light — orange, glowing in a primitive anger rising from the ground. Fires.
The pilot’s voice rang in her headphones.
“I’m going to put you down as close to 1600 as I can. I’m broadcasting on all frequencies — if anyone is listening we’ve got the codes to prove we’re friendlies.”
“Maybe they’re shooting first and asking for ID later,” mumbled Lopez beside her, his words barely discernible in the thunder of the blades above them.
“Might be,” said the former Blackhawk pilot. “But the rest of the city is chaos. The food riots from the lockdown last week exploded earlier tonight when the power cut. It’s like something out of a zombie flick. You’ll never make it through the streets.”
Houston shouted over the noise, “The President is still there? Are we sure?”
“As of twenty ago, yes. They’ve had a marine contingent keeping the mobs at bay.”
“Why hasn’t she been evac’ed?” asked Lopez.
“Got me. Word was filtering through that they were going to. They were flying missions in. Marine One should have choppered her out, but something happened.”
Lopez looked at Houston and mouthed, “The Worm.” She nodded staring back down to the patches of red and orange flickering below.
The pilot continued. “But I don’t know why they haven’t been able to get a military mission in there. Someone must be running interference.”
Houston gasped, pointing vigorously below. “Maybe those?”
Lopez and the pilot glanced downward. Over the dark city, underneath and in front of them, structured like a migrating flock, small objects reflecting the moonlight sped along their vector. The outlines of the White House could be made out, approaching quickly, the building still illuminated by emergency power. The objects raced straight for it.
“Look!” cried Lopez. “The ones in the back — they’re carrying people.”
“Drones,” said Houston. “They’re dropping in a hit squad. Can you outrun them?”
The pilot shook his head. “We’re too close. This old shit heap you forced me to fly can’t compete with the new birds. It’s too slow.”
“Gun it!” she yelled, releasing her safety harness and grabbing a machine gun from the back. “Just gun it. Bring us into firing range.”
The pilot accelerated sickeningly. Houston was nearly thrown against the back of the cabin. Lopez leapt up and steadied her, pulling her forward beside him near the side door. They mounted one of the weapons on a makeshift turret, Lopez slinging the other weapon against him.
The helicopter darted forward, closing the gap between it and the flock of drones. They approached the back rows, human forms dangling from the larger machines, a strike team of nearly ten black shapes descending with the flock toward the growing form of the President’s house.
Houston slung the door open. “Keep it steady!”
They fired. At their distance accuracy was poor, but they compensated with a full spray of bullets. Houston worked the larger, mounted gun, the ordnance dramatically blowing apart machines and men. Between them, they managed take down more than half the team before the killers realized their peril. The rest dove straight to the ground and out of range.
The remaining drones ignored the helicopter and accelerated downward. Houston and Lopez fired maniacally at them, but only managed to down a handful more. The remaining plunged like kamikazes toward the White House.
“Aerial strike!” said the pilot.
Around the property, explosions erupted. The fireballs lit the drone’s targets — military trucks, fortified gunners, the power generators. The building was plunged into total darkness.
“Setting you two down!” came the pilot’s frantic words.
The chopper dropped like a brick, the lurch in their stomachs only matched by the strength of the crush to the ceiling. They held on for dear life. The aircraft came to a bone-shaking stop as the landing skid struck the grass on the front lawn, hopped, and slammed down again.
“Go!”
They leapt out of the helicopter and crouched, automatic weapons at the ready. The chopper climbed quickly to an altitude the pilot hoped would be safe from the madness below, prepared to return and retrieve them once Houston and Lopez had located the President.
They’d taken no friendly fire on landing, and it was quickly obvious why. Flames raged around them and smoke filled the air. The initial wave of explosive drones had more than neutralized the military defenses, leaving no one to guard of the nation’s First House.
Lopez pointed to the blasted remains of the fence in front of the building. Bodies of rioters were strewn everywhere. It was unclear whether they had been killed by the deceased marines or by the blast that had torn the barrier down. He screamed over the cacophony around them: “The assassins landed back there! They’ll be coming through the front gate.”
Houston nodded, motioning for him to follow. They sprinted forward, and she made a beeline for the blasted remains of a military barricade. Soldiers and their remains littered the makeshift rampart. Houston heaved one off a mounted machine gun, pointing the weapon toward the street.
“They wanted shock and awe,” she said, looking around. “They got it, but we punched a hole in their plan. We can stop them.”
Lopez crouched beside her and removed pieces of a weapon from a backpack. He quickly assembled a rifle and attached a night-vision scope. Placing it on the cement barricade in front of him, he aimed through it.