Jethro 9 Snippet 4

 Sitrep:

So, I received the manuscript back from Goodlifeguide this morning. I'll be uploading it this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

 On to the snippet!

 

 

Antigua

 

Zuhuraand Jethro managed to pry Bagheera away from his gaming system but the othersiblings were busy. The trio of adults took Ember to the zoo. Ember was wide-eyedand a bit fearful of some of the larger animals. She did enjoy the petting zoobriefly; that enjoyment ended when a pig blew snot on her fur.

Shehad fallen asleep on her mother’s chest at lunch. The boys took off to ride aroller coaster through the aquarium area while Ember took a nap in the shadewith Zuhura.

Whenthey returned, they were a bit damp and giddy. Zuhura was amused by theirantics as they playfully swatted at each other. She ended up trading withJethro in order to go on a ride with her younger brother.

Jethrocurled up next to Ember in the shade of the tree. There were other familiesnearby. He watched the little imp sleep. She rolled onto her back and stretchedand then curled up on his arm. After a few minutes, the arm started to fallasleep. When he tried to move it, the little imp locked onto it with her pawsto keep her warm pillow in place.

Hesnorted and resigned himself to his fate for the time being.

“Sheyours?” a fox asked softly. He looked over to where the Vixen was nursing atrio of pups.

“No,my granddaughter,” Jethro admitted.

“Granddaughter?”the vixen asked blinking in confusion. Jethro flicked his ears. “Well, there isquite a family resemblance.

“Somethinglike that,” Jethro admitted and then yawned. The fox looked politely away andafter a moment looked down tenderly to her trio as they finished up nursing.

Jethrorelaxed and waited for the others to return. He knew he was going to feel a lotof guilt over leaving the little imp behind but it couldn’t be helped.

<<(O)>>

Suqislipped down the hall and then waited. Her lead robot had cleared the path butshe paused when something glittered in the vent. She checked the corner with ascope and noted the glitter again and then carefully changed position.

Tricky,she thought as she rested her hand against the wall. Her AI sent out a singlestream of nanites out and down the wall. It took time but for the moment shehad time to spare.

Thenanites went around a hatch and then into the vent. They found a small sniperrobot waiting there. It had a camera lens and barrel ten centimeters from thevent. If the user hadn’t bent the vents apart to allow the barrel and camera toget a good shot and view, she wouldn’t have picked up on it.

Shecouldn’t hack it without the other side noticing. Nor could she just shut itoff, that would alert them of her location and that their trap had failed.

Instead,she had the nanites form a camera above the robot camera and then take asnapshot of its view out the vent.

Shethen directed her AI to create a false image with a web of nanites over thevent. It took time. There were a lot of nanites to move into position andprogram with the RGB, but eventually, she had replaced the view with a falseimage.

Onlywhen it was finished, did she move out carefully.

Shegrinned slyly and then hand signed her team to begin moving out again. That wasa trick she had picked up from Sabu, and it was nice to use it against him.

<<(O)>>

Sabuhad a feeling that his sister was up to something. Their respective platoonswere on Orbital Fortress 9 training against each other in a cleared section ofthe massive station. It was far better than a virtual game session, allowingthem to employ some real world tricks and toys to test out in real worldconditions. So far so good.

Heknew his sister was highly motivated to get revenge for his trouncing her inthe last exercise. Well, he had no intention of going down easy even though hewas playing the defender in this round.

Shehad found his sniper hide but had missed a patch of light sensitive naniteshe’d put up as a tripwire at the corner. That told him her approach path.

Hehad his squad activate a series of mines. The claymores were thin, coated tolook like the bulkhead. When Suqi’s squad came around the next corner, it wouldgo off.

<<(O)>>

Suqi’srobot crept around the corner and then paused. It was programmed to stick tothe shadows and to the sides of the corridor. It tripped the sensors for theclaymores and the mines went off.

Thebot was covered in pink paint and immediately shut down, falling over in asimulated death. Suqi narrowly missed getting splattered.

“Missedme, bro,” she murmured as she deployed a second bot; this one she directed toclimb the wall and then hang from the ceiling. It would move slower but itwouldn’t trip any pressure sensors on the ground.

Shewinced when a second claymore went off with a loud thud and the bot was rippedoff the ceiling and went flying into the wall across from her.

Unlessof course he’d thought of that too.

Well! She thought as she reconsideredher options.

<<(O)>>

GeneralLyon smirked as Sabu and Suqi faced off. He had traveled with the two platoonsto the fortress in order to umpire the exercises and possibly even participatein a few of them.

Sofar Sabu seemed to have picked up the tricky side of Jethro’s lessons. But herefused to underestimate Suqi. There was something to be said about the femalealways being deadlier than the male of the species. No doubt because they likedto be underestimated.

Thetraining and prep for the assault was going well. Pretty soon they would beready to move out.

<<(O)>>

Bagheerawas playing a first-person shooter and managed to win the match using a fewtricks his dad had taught him. It was a simple matter of finding the right spotto snipe and having an escape plan if they spotted him.

Whenhe took out the enemy medic trying to revive a shooter, that more or less wonthe match for his side. They easily captured the objective.

Asthe match cleared, the other side complained about being taken out by a pro. Hegrinned. “I am a pro.”

“Dude!Not cool! Vets have their own servers!” a couple of players complained.

Heblinked. “I’m not a vet,” he said, trying to cut in. It took a couple of triesbefore he got through their complaints. That earned some disbelief andraspberries.

“Look,my dad is a sniper. I picked up some tricks from him.”

“Marinesor Army?”

“Well,he was in the marines.”

“Oh,he’s out now?” one of the gamers asked. “Why?”

“No,he’s in the Cadre.”

Thedisbelief was almost palatable and then people went ballistic with excitement.He became peppered with questions about the Cadre to the point that the nextmatch countdown was forfeited. The team he had been on wanted to keep him butthey wanted to play too.

Hewas annoyed when he pulled back to the main forum only to find out that word ofwho he was had followed. He was besieged by players wanting him on their teamor wanting information about the Cadre. It bugged him. They were moreinterested in him for his dad than for his own skill set. That irritated him somuch he ended up logging out.

Whenhe logged in later, he was flagged with an email and then an alert that his IDhad been frozen. Incensed he emailed corporate to find out why and found thatthey had been told to do so by the FBI.

Hewas confused. “Look, I’m not a piker …”

“Wecannot reactivate your ID. You’ll have to speak to them and create a new ID,”the customer service chatbot warned.

“Areyou serious?” he demanded, incredulous that he’d lost all of his stuff as wellas his points and prestige. He had been about to make the next tier damn it!

Aknock at the door made him look up.

“Itis for you,” Bast said from his computer.

“Damnit, leave my PC alone!” he growled as he got up. “Who is it?” he demanded. Avideo screen window opened, and he saw the video camera image of two people inbusiness suits. They looked either corporate or … “Ah hell,” he muttered.

“BagheeraMcClintock?” the lead agent asked as he opened the door.

“Yes?”Bagheera asked. He had his headphones around his neck.

“Myname is Agent Smith; this is Agent Roberts,” the male agent said, indicatinghis female companion. “We are with the FBI.” He showed off his credentials.

“Whatis going on? Is my mom okay?”

“She’sfine. This has to do with you.”

Heblinked and then his eyes narrowed. “What did I do? Do I need to call a lawyeror something?”

“Youaren’t under arrest. We just need to clear up a few things,” the junior agentsaid soothingly.

Heblinked and started to relax a little.

“Youspoke about the Cadre and your father in a chatroom and in the forums earlierthis evening?”

“Damnit …,” he muttered. “Is that why my account got locked? Look it wasstupid I know. Someone was bitching about my being too good, and they thought Iwas a ringer. I said I learned from my dad.”

Thelead agent nodded sagely.

“Youraccount was locked because you broke protocol. Are you aware of the secrecy actin regards to the Cadre and their family members?”

“Yeah,”he sighed heavily. “I know; I screwed up.” He felt his ears flatten. Somethinghis mother had taught him was not to make excuses, especially to theauthorities or to her.

“I’mproud of my family. I should be able to show it,” he muttered resentfully.

“Weget that. But you need to understand that they need to work from the shadows towork effectively. And for their safety and your own, you need to help them keeptheir anonymity,” the lead agent said patiently.

“Okay,fine,” he growled. He wasn’t looking forward to starting out as a nugget againthough.

“Ifonly to keep from a repeat interview from us?” Agent Smith asked. “We could ofcourse take this downtown, take a day or two …”

“No,no, I’ll be good. Honest. I know I screwed up. I’m sorry,” Bagheera saidhastily. The two agents looked amused.

Bagheerarolled his eyes. The agents looked at each other and chuckled a little.

“Justremember, people can and will bait you. They’ll try to get details out of you.Some of the best cons out there gather the data and use it to steal youridentity or to get you into trouble in other ways.”

Bagheeralooked a bit affronted.

“Andyeah, we know, you are too good to get caught out like that. Believe me, we’veheard it before,” the female agent replied dryly. She shook her head inresignation at the stupidity of some people who thought that they wereinvulnerable. “Just think it through before you say something. Even somethingminor can get you into trouble.”

“Looselips sinks ships?” Bagheera asked amused.

“Exactly.”

“I’vebeen told that a few times. I’ll try to be more careful.”

“Good.”They shook hands and departed.

<<(O)>>