James Swallow - Deus Ex - Icarus Effect

The console unlocked and bloomed with new display windows, welcoming him into the main lines of its data store. Saxon’s eyes narrowed as he saw line after line of files, labeled with places, dates, names…

Targets. There were hundreds of people listed here, and they were all objectives for the Tyrants. He scrolled through the names, looking for points of commonality, struggling to understand. There were men like Mikhail Kontarsky, high-profile figures linked to criminal groups like the Hong Kong Triads and the Russian Bratva, others tagged as in collusion with terrorists and activists—Juggernaut, L’Ombre, Purity First, and others. On the surface, people who looked like bad guys, up to their necks in illegality.

But Saxon had only to scratch the surface to find lists of action orders ranged against the names of civilians, politicians, scientists—people the Tyrants had no business going against. Some of the orders were straight kill commands, others ghosted under setups that would appear as suicides, robberies gone wrong, accidents. A few were tagged as “coercive”—no deaths there, instead the application of violence and intimidation.

Saxon felt betrayed. The mission of the Tyrants, the reason he had allowed himself to be recruited by Namir, was a lie. The faceless men of the group giving the orders were not using them to help maintain global stability—they were using them as enforcers, eradicating anyone who might prove dangerous to them, killing or intimidating all across the planet.

He picked a handful of files at random and opened them. June SellersDepartment of Homeland Security—terminated; Donald Teague, advisory staffer on the United Nations science council—terminated; Martine Delancourt, founder of the French Bioethics Association—terminated; Garrett Dansky, CEO of Cadin Global—terminated; Ryu Takahanada, cybernetics research scientist at Isolay—terminated … The list went on and on, and among it all, Saxon found the data on the men he had surveilled in Glasgow and Bucharest; one was a technology researcher on the payroll of the British government, the other a politician. Both files had additional information beyond what he had turned over to Namir; there were still images, digital shots of a body in an alleyway, throat slit and pale, another of a car on fire. Neither man had been a criminal, but clearly, someone had considered them a threat. Now they were both dead. Both killed by the Tyrants. He saw expedited code tags on the files, bearing the idents “Green” and “Red.” Scott Hardesty. Yelena Federova.

Saxon closed the files and sat in the dimness and silence, musing on what he had seen, silently cursing his own stupidity. At first, he hadn’t wanted to think too hard about what he was doing, about what the meaning of the Tyrants might be. It was only as time had passed that the nagging disquiet in the back of his thoughts had grown to a ceaseless churn—and now that he had an idea of the truth, it made his blood run cold. He thought about Janus’s repeated question, and nodded grimly. Do you know what master you serve? He was beginning to build a picture, and he didn’t like what he saw. This was what the Tyrants did. This is who they were, and he was a part of it.

With a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone, Saxon brought up a search function and keyed in the phrase “killing floor.” He wasn’t sure what he had expected to see—the name drew up ideas of some kind of arena, perhaps something like the fight room in Namir’s home. Why the members of Juggernaut were so eager to find it was beyond him; but instead of opening a file, the computer showed a new set of data panes. It took Saxon a few seconds to realize what he was seeing; the console launched an interface protocol via an encrypted tight-beam signal to an orbiting communications satellite, and then on into the global web of data net connections.

On the screen, the Killing Floor unfolded; a virtual space existing in a realm of pure information. Shielded by layers of smart attack barrier programs, firewalls, and baffles, the non-place was a shifting island in a sea of data. Program nodes contained files at levels of encryption so powerful that the console read them as impregnable, spiked spheres—but there were other panels of text that were clearly visible, doubtless open for Namir or anyone with the same access level. Saxon read them, but in isolation there was little he could glean. He saw references to Federova’s current mission, to the “primary target” Namir had mentioned in passing—but who or where that person was did not make itself clear. He frowned, activating the vu-phone’s wireless link, starting the process to copy the contact protocols from the jet’s mainframe.

It was clear that the Killing Floor had no true physical reality to it; it was a synthetic server construct, a clever agglomeration of computer programs moving through the data net in a chaotic, unpredictable pattern that no outsider, no hacker, could ever hope to calculate. Without the locational key to gain access, there was no other way in—how could you break into a fortress you couldn’t find? It was an encrypted virtual space, reachable in seconds from any location on earth if one was granted clearance, a place where the group could exchange target information with the Tyrants without fear of ever being overheard. It was the digital equivalent of a piece of espionage tradecraft over a hundred years old—the “dead drop.”

The vu-phone chimed, signaling the conclusion of the data transfer. Saxon wasn’t willing to risk using the device to contact Janus, not yet at least. After they landed in Europe, maybe then… But before that, there was still one more thing he had to do.

He entered two words into the search protocol and waited. Instantly, a file tagged with numerous security flags unfolded before him. There, laid out in stark text, in emotionless, clipped terms, was the reality of what had happened during Operation Rainbird. A dark, fearful impulse made Saxon hesitate; part of him didn’t want to know. He wanted to disconnect, to erase the file and bury the memories of that night deep.

But that would be a betrayal, of Sam and Kano and the other members of Strike Six, of himself, of the truth.

Saxon began to read, and as he did he felt himself detach from the moment, losing all sense of where he was. In his ears, he heard the rattle of gunfire and the howling of torn metal; he felt the heat of fuel fires on his bare skin, and the sting of burning plastic and spent cordite in his nostrils. It was as if no time had passed, and he was there again on the Grey Range, fighting to stay alive.

What he read on the screen hollowed him out. He saw the reports from the Belltower recon, the intelligence profiles of enemy strength and numbers, the warnings of sleeper drones; and with them, he saw mirrors of the same data, only with all threat and nuance carefully bled out of them. Fabricated reports showing the area of operations for the Rainbird mission clear of enemy contact. Lies and more lies, dressed up like truth.

A truth Ben Saxon had accepted without question. A truth that had cost his men their lives. He heard the crunch of metal and glanced down; his augmented hand had fractured the arm of the seat he was sitting in. Sucking in a breath, he released his grip and glared back at the screen. Where has this false data come from? How long has Namir had it in his possession? Saxon’s jaw set hard, and his thoughts turned toward darker places.

When he heard Namir’s voice call his name, it didn’t come as a surprise.

Dundalk—Maryland—United States of America

Passing a network of accessways leading from the rail tunnel, Anna let herself be led by D-Bar and his two minders along a maze of featureless concrete corridors, until they finally emerged in a parking garage. The hacker brought her to a van with blacked-out windows that was uncomfortably similar to the prisoner transport she’d escaped from less than a day earlier, and once inside they set off. The trip was brief; the next thing she knew, the van was halting and the doors were opened once again.