As Sebeck looked around, he realized these men didn’t view him as a human being. He was like a piece of meat. An objective. Nothing more.
He could hear another mercenary behind him speaking on a radio. Sebeck couldn’t understand why the soldiers suddenly had radio communications. Didn’t the ultrawideband emanations of the darknet disable other radio communications? He was probably misunderstanding it. Or perhaps the heavyweight defense people were starting to get involved. Someone had invented ultrawideband, after all, and Sebeck didn’t think it was Sobol.
Glancing around he saw there were twenty or thirty soldiers in the field, all dressed as farmers or laborers—some with bandages on their arms and legs, real or faked. They were a mix of races. So their bond was the mission. Or their contract.
A few soldiers approached Sebeck with what looked to be a parachute harness. They roughly grabbed him and wrapped it around his torso. As they worked, he could see two other men unwinding a steel cable from a spool.
One of the soldiers, a Latino with a teardrop tattoo under one eye, grabbed Sebeck’s jaw. “You’re goin’ for a ride, hombre!” He laughed and turned Sebeck so he could see what looked like a weather balloon being lofted skyward, dragging a steel cable up with it. As Sebeck looked farther up into the sky, he could see another elongated, translucent balloon already ascending with a cable beneath it. Just then Sebeck saw Laney Price lifted up and hurtled skyward.
What the hell?
Then a steel cable lifted up off the grass nearby, coming taut just as the harness around Sebeck yanked tight. He suddenly launched up into the air, too, rapidly ascending. Sebeck twisted in the wind, watching the ground recede beneath him. In just a few moments he was hundreds of feet in the air with a view of the distant town of Greeley, still shrouded in columns of black smoke. He could also see torched farmhouses dotting the landscape—a scene of devastation. The only hopeful sign was the variegated landscape of grass, crops, and the saplings of recently planted orchards.
However, as Sebeck kept ascending, rising thousands of feet into the air, his view broadened, and he could see the bigger picture was the larger ocean of corn in which this island of variety was planted. The monoculture of corn stretched from horizon to horizon—and none of those farms were burning.
Sebeck hung there realizing the vastness of his failure. They hadn’t even made a dent in the old system. And here it was carrying them away—to disappear forever.
Sebeck kept rising, listening to the slap of the steel cable against the back of his harness as he swayed in the wind. He wondered why he wasn’t afraid of the height. Between his feet he could see thousands of feet to the broad plain below. He was actually level with the nearby clouds.
Then he heard the roar of approaching aircraft engines. He wriggled his body to turn enough to see—and there, some miles away, he could see the head-on view of what looked to be a C-130 cargo plane, chopping at the wind on a collision course with him. He watched it with silent amazement. No effing way . . .
As the plane approached he could see what looked to be a V-shaped fork extending from the nose of the aircraft and running some ways away from the fuselage. It was collection fork, and, as Sebeck watched, the C-130 headed straight for the balloon. He winced as the plane roared past only fifty feet overhead.
As it did so, the steel catch fork grabbed the balloon, instantly yanking the cable and accelerating Sebeck so violently that he blacked out again.
Chapter 34: // Cold Reality
Darknet Top-rated Posts +1,295,383↑
The Corn Rebellion may have been won, but mainstream news is spinning ever-scarier doomsday scenarios. Celebrate later—our fight isn’t over. Something big is coming.
Xanbot****/ 1,630 13th-level Fighter
Pete Sebeck sat strapped to a thick wooden chair in a brightly lit holding cell. The chair was bolted to the concrete floor with L brackets. They’d taken his clothes and left him nude. He felt vulnerable. Helpless.
That was no doubt the purpose.
Just then the steel door of the cell opened and a man he recognized from darknet news feeds entered. It was The Major. In person he was more intimidating—a stern man with buzz-cut hair and a firm jawline. He appeared to be in excellent shape for his fortysomething age, and wore full combat fatigues in a shades-of-gray urban warfare pattern. He carried no weapons, however.
He closed the cell door behind him and examined Sebeck without betraying emotion. No surprise. No irritation. Nothing. “Detective Sebeck.”
“Major.”
The Major narrowed his eyes and dragged a heavy wooden chair across the concrete floor to sit across from Sebeck. “Sergeant, I must say that I’m surprised to find you, of all people, serving the Daemon.”
“I don’t serve the Daemon. Where is Laney Price?”
“Tell me about your quest, Sergeant.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where is Laney?”
“He’s safe nearby—telling us everything about nothing we care about.”
Sebeck stared into The Major’s cold eyes. “What are you doing to him? He doesn’t know anything.”
“Tell me about the quest Sobol gave you. You’re supposed to justify the freedom of humanity, is that it?” The Major studied Sebeck’s bonds. “How is that going so far?”
Sebeck said nothing.
“What are you supposed to accomplish to achieve this quest of yours, Sergeant?”
“When are you people going to leave me alone?”
“Answer the question.”
“Are you with the government?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me!”
“Don’t shout. Shouting will only make you hoarse. And it won’t change anything. A lot of prisoners make that mistake. Now, let’s get back to your quest. How many darknet operatives are tracking the progress of your quest? How many are donating darknet credits toward its success?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play dumb, Sergeant. We’re already creating darknet objects—like the quest thread you followed to us.”
Sebeck stared at the floor.
“We have a complete breakdown of your activities from darknet news feeds, and we know your circle of operatives. You’ve been on quite a journey.”
Sebeck shook his head slowly. “You evil prick . . . you’re carving up young people to—”
“Yes, we’ve infiltrated the darknet, Sergeant. We’re more creative than you imagine. And unlike you, we’ll do whatever’s necessary to win.”
“I’ve seen what you’re capable of.”
The Major looked at his watch. “Belief is malleable. All one has to do to gain access to the darknet is believe in its purpose. The teenage runaways I introduce to the Daemon consider me their dear friend. A friend who rescued them from life as a sex slave in some brothel—one who showed them a world they never dreamed existed. And once they’re in, they become very useful to me.”
“You cut off their heads and hijack their accounts!”
“Soon, we won’t even need to do that.”
“I thought I knew what evil was. But I was wrong.”
The Major just shrugged it off. “I don’t care, Sergeant. There’s no shortage of unwanted people in the world. Now let’s get back to this quest of yours. What happens if you succeed? What Daemon event are you trying to trigger?”
“Fuck you.”
“You won’t answer?”
“I don’t know. That’s the answer. Sobol gave me a quest, and I have no idea how to accomplish it.”
“What about this D-Space Thread you’re following?”
Sebeck realized with a pang of loss that he no longer could see the Thread. He no longer had HUD glasses, and D-Space was invisible to him. “I can’t see it anymore.”
“And what if we brought your HUD glasses? Would you lead us on the path of this Thread?”