Part 18 (1/2)
”So why chew with him?”
”Well, he tipped his hand with this message,” Tony answered excitedly. ”He gave us info we didn't have before. He knows we've infiltrated his nets and he knows the people they're nilling are coming into our fold. And, perhaps even more interesting, he's contacting us in a clandestine manner.”
”True. Hadn't thought of it that way.”
”If you don't mind, Sonya,” Tony said, waiting for her nodded approval. ”Well, let's take each option in turn. Option one: We have him on the run and he wants to negotiate. If he is, he knows he has to offer something sweet to make us lay off. I think we'd be foolish not to at least listen to an offer.”
”Yeah, righ'. We ge' more from him than we're sucking up now!”
”Agreed. Option two: We have him on the run and he wants to buy time. Again, I think there's no loss in listening. If it's a ploy for a stall, we can always ignore it.”
”And we can shove it up his a.r.s.e if it's shonky.”
”Times two on that comment,” Colin added.
”OK, OK. Option three: It's a trap. I think ninety percent of avoiding any trap is knowing it's there in the first place.”
”And then we can shove it up his a.r.s.e.”
”Goes 'ouble for me.”
”OK, Suet, I think we understand your sentiments,” Sonya said.
”What about risks?” Jackson offered, almost as if scripted.
”Well, if we decide to go through with it, we can limit the damage by isolating the person making contact. Take one of the new recruits and limit their knowledge of our organization even further.”
”Agreed, but then we'd limit our ability to have a dialogue.”
”Not necessarily,” Linc offered from his professional knowledge. ”Have that someone, a cutout, physically tie two phones together receiver to transmitter. The person would only be needed to dial the number and put the phones together. Additionally, we could also use multiple cutouts before the call goes through. It's such an old dodge I don't think anyone would think of it.”
”Yes, and I'm certain Augustine could monitor a trace. Even if successful, the manual percomm links would deny anything but a signal to process for comparison on other lines.”
Now Sonya took her time thinking. ”Any other risks?”
”We could put everyone on watch duty to make sure if someone does show up we have time to escape,” Jonah offered.
”Well, then I call for a vote,” Sonya said. ”All opposed?” No hands showed. ”I guess just as a formality...all in favor?” Everyone thrust up their hand.
”Carried. The call time is set for tonight.”
”Tonight?”
”Better sooner than later. Set it up. Jonah, you set up security. Linc you handle the cutouts. Tony will be our voice.”
At one time in her early youth, Sonya learned to isolate a single nerve in her body and heighten or deaden its input, a survival trait. She sat in a lotus, nude, in the center of her meditation room with her eyes rolled up in her head. She searched inside her body for groups of nerves to deaden to attenuate the pain. Her head throbbed in a way she couldn't seem to control.
One by one she turned off the nerve endings until she couldn't feel anything of the outside world, but the pain remained. Many years ago her mother had taught her how to encapsulate illnesses and since then she'd never been sick, but she remembered some of those feelings-the loss of control, the pain and the lack of well-being, just like her body's responses now.
She turned her sight inward. For a brief moment she just relaxed and rode on the flow of her bloodstream, trying to adjust her senses to her new state. The pulsing motion, timed with each pump of her heart, started to make her nauseous. She contemptuously turned off those neural inputs, an oversight and lack of focus.
It took several more seconds before she got her bearings and realized she now navigated through her kidneys. Everything looked in exceptional health. She flowed along out of the kidney. Ahead she sensed a foulness. As she floated further down, the blood pathway became clouded with necrotic cells, obscuring her vision. As she rolled into the liver, lesions spotted across its width, with entire branches clogged in an all-out war between her body's immune system and the cause of the damage.
Breaking her consciousness from the easy flow of the bloodstream she fought through tissue to worm deeper into the liver. She stopped next in one of the more virulent patches, visibly expanding before her. Healthy tissue and body defenses fought a losing battle as the invaders left naught but the dead and dying in their wake. She'd never seen anything move so quickly.
Sonya encapsulated the infectious patch in a gossamer bag, allowing new defenders to rush to the defense. In the past this gave her body the ability to not only defeat the disease but to learn from it and become protected for the next time, just as a body is supposed to learn. But this time she watched the new defenders die just as fast and her isolation expand like a balloon continuing to be inflated. The rate of expansion slowed to a crawl compared to its previous rampage, but it continued. Sonya put more of her personal strength into the enclosure. Still it expanded. She poured even more power into it. Still it expanded.
For the first time in many, many years, fear touched Sonya's mind.
Adjust Plan Over the next hour, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of civilians, a single pony nuke or cyphod chemical bomb could've destroyed up to ninety-five percent of the GAM members.h.i.+p. They lounged inconspicuously in doorways, drank coffee in terrace bistros, drove lift-trucks in racetracks around city blocks, and even patrolled the street level. Not one felt comfortable in their role as lookout. Every one of them nursed second thoughts and fears about this mission. Each one put every other thought and effort into watching for the precursors of a trap. Reports from them all came into Augustine's neural net, every one of them comfortably negative.
”All clear, Tony. Make the call.”
Pus.h.i.+ng one single b.u.t.ton engaged the complex network of blind percomm connections and duplicitous network jockeying. In an age of crystal clear audio connections, this one scratched and crackled with odd noises.
”It's your nickel,” Tony said. While the elaborate system synthesized his voice, no one had any illusion that it couldn't be broken. They all agreed Tony should act as the GAM voice in this meeting. Only Tony and Augustine sat in presence even with all the precautions they had taken.
”What the h.e.l.l's a nickel?” wondered the voice on the other end of the line.
”A historical unit of currency. Ancient slang for 'you initiated the call, so get on with it.'” Tony looked at Augustine, who shook her head. No tracing attempts. .h.i.t the line or any intermediate connection.
”True. Thank you for your contact. I know the risk you are taking. My people have a.s.sured me that you are not tracing the line and I'm sure you have done the same.”
”So we have the minimum amount of trust. Trace or no, we won't stay on line long. Spill it.”
”Very well. I propose that you call off your attacks on Nanogate and its affiliates.”
”Getting that close to shutting your doors?” Tony immediately regretted the jibe. It might limit his opponent's candor.
”Frankly, yes. Call me a survivor if you wish, but I'd like to go on surviving.” Everyone listening, in person and remotely, took a brief pause at the admission.
”Well, we aren't going to just stop. Nanogate is a legitimate target in our eyes. What are you offering in return?”
”A new target.”
”We've got hundreds of juicy targets.”
”Not with inside information, you don't, no matter how good a wire jock you have.”
”What specifically are you offering?”
”I will provide you detailed information that will allow you to take this attack to one of the other major conglomerates. This information will include areas of sensitivity, detailed intelligence, and aid in obtaining even more information to make your attacks safer and more pointed.”
Tony's mouth gaped. ”How do we know you aren't setting us up?” he counterpunched weakly.
”You don't. What a.s.surances will you give me that you won't attack both firms under my care and these others?”