Cynetic Wolf
HIDE AND SEEK

I turned to answer Lars to find I was alone on the cold hard floor of my two by three room, lying on the cheap micro pad. Did I dream that?

It didn’t matter. It would work, I knew it.

Almost six a.m. No point trying to sleep. Let’s see where my feet took me.

The hallways were dark as I exited my cubicle, reddish glow enveloping everything.

The emulates were the key, they always were. Despite being five percent of the population, they were the ones with true power and influence, the ones we all despised.

It must be strange to be immortal, to not fear dying. I’d never thought about it. With a backed up brain-field, you do anything, like a Get Out of Jail Free card. Were they more prone to risk?

Paer? “You’re awake?” I asked as she walked toward me.

“I always get up early. Gives me time to train and think. You?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Had an idea and had to work it out.”

She raised a dark eyebrow. “Want to tell me about it?”

“The emulates are the key to everything. They control three-fifths of the Board and the majority of the Lower Government.”

Her brow furrowed.

“We’ve been thinking about assassinating the Board,” I said, “to cripple their leadership and leave the GDR in chaos. What if we killed their immortality instead? Could destroying the brain-field banks have the same effect?”

“I’ll be honest, it isn’t something we’ve considered.”

“Really? Why not?”

She shrugged. “Too far-fetched I guess. Wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“But you think it could work?” I asked.

“Maybe... if we pulled off the other parts, I mean. But how do we find the storage locations? Those are their brain-fields—their everything—they must be incredibly well protected and hidden.”

I shook my head. “I’m not so sure. I don’t think you can have both. You can’t be both well hidden, and well protected. Protection means people and weapons, right? And those people talk, or show up in stats. Makes ’em hard to hide.”

“Fair point.”

“The emulates don’t want others to know, especially the cynetics,” I added. “So the locations have to be secret. They’re hidden, so they can’t be well protected. And what emulate would work guard duty? So, it must be animotes or enhancers working there. They probably wouldn’t want enhancers. Might figure out what they’re guarding and have the political power to do something about it.”

“So we look for that in the data,” she finished, understanding at last what I meant.

Bingo! “We do that, hit the possible locations. Heck, it could be a single facility or two. Would make ’em easier to hide. If we do that and destroy the brain-field backups, the world changes overnight. If we defeat the GDR at the same time, we’ve got our revolution.” I couldn’t help but grin.

“I’m impressed,” she said. “You were just a boy when you first came here—a strong boy who’d gone through hell and back, sure—but a boy nonetheless. You’ve grown, Raek. The plan has legs.” She put her hand on my shoulder in the first real sentimentality I’d seen from her.

I nodded, not sure what to say. “Thanks,” I said at last, not trusting myself to say more. Coming from Paer, it meant a lot after all I’d been through. She left not long after.

Three hours to kill before the Council meeting, I had to think. Our data on GDR forces was disappointing, old and sporadic. We wouldn’t get what we needed. And we couldn’t miss a single brain-field facility or they’d recover. It had to be a total reset of the playing field.

How could we get that intel? That was the question.

Calter came to mind. He was the Minister of Security and while he was cynetic, if anyone knew exact troop deployments and military facility locations, it had to be him.

That was it! That’s how we’d use Thorn.

Operation Kiag had taken on new significance. If we could capture Thorn, we could blackmail his dad… That could work.

We could get the intel.

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