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!

 

Chapter 4

 

Antigua

 

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

She had fallen asleep on her mother’s chest at lunch. The boys took off to ride a roller coaster through the aquarium area while Ember took a nap in the shade with Zuhura.

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

Jethro curled up next to Ember in the shade of the tree. There were other families nearby. He watched the little imp sleep. She rolled onto her back and stretched and then curled up on his arm. After a few minutes, the arm started to fall asleep. When he tried to move it, the little imp locked onto it with her paws to keep her warm pillow in place.

He snorted and resigned himself to his fate for the time being.

“She yours?” a fox asked softly. He looked over to where the Vixen was nursing a trio of pups.

“No, my granddaughter,” Jethro admitted.

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

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

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

<<(O)>>

Suqi slipped down the hall and then waited. Her lead robot had cleared the path but she paused when something glittered in the vent. She checked the corner with a scope 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 single stream of nanites out and down the wall. It took time but for the moment she had time to spare.

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

She couldn’t hack it without the other side noticing. Nor could she just shut it off, 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 a snapshot of its view out the vent.

She then directed her AI to create a false image with a web of nanites over the vent. It took time. There were a lot of nanites to move into position and program with the RGB, but eventually, she had replaced the view with a false image.

Only when it was finished, did she move out carefully.

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

<<(O)>>

Sabu had a feeling that his sister was up to something. Their respective platoons were on Orbital Fortress 9 training against each other in a cleared section of the massive station. It was far better than a virtual game session, allowing them to employ some real world tricks and toys to test out in real world conditions. So far so good.

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

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

He had his squad activate a series of mines. The claymores were thin, coated to look like the bulkhead. When Suqi’s squad came around the next corner, it would go off.

<<(O)>>

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

The bot was covered in pink paint and immediately shut down, falling over in a simulated death. Suqi narrowly missed getting splattered.

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

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

Unless of course he’d thought of that too.

Well! She thought as she reconsidered her options.

<<(O)>>

General Lyon smirked as Sabu and Suqi faced off. He had traveled with the two platoons to the fortress in order to umpire the exercises and possibly even participate in a few of them.

So far Sabu seemed to have picked up the tricky side of Jethro’s lessons. But he refused to underestimate Suqi. There was something to be said about the female always being deadlier than the male of the species. No doubt because they liked to be underestimated.

The training and prep for the assault was going well. Pretty soon they would be ready to move out.

<<(O)>>

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

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

As the match cleared, the other side complained about being taken out by a pro. He grinned. “I am a pro.”

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

He blinked. “I’m not a vet,” he said, trying to cut in. It took a couple of tries before he got through their complaints. That earned some disbelief and raspberries.

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

“Marines or Army?”

“Well, he was in the marines.”

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

“No, he’s in the Cadre.”

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

He was annoyed when he pulled back to the main forum only to find out that word of who he was had followed. He was besieged by players wanting him on their team or wanting information about the Cadre. It bugged him. They were more interested in him for his dad than for his own skill set. That irritated him so much he ended up logging out.

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

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

“We cannot reactivate your ID. You’ll have to speak to them and create a new ID,” the customer service chatbot warned.

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

A knock at the door made him look up.

“It is for you,” Bast said from his computer.

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

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

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

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

“What is going on? Is my mom okay?”

“She’s fine. This has to do with you.”

He blinked and then his eyes narrowed. “What did I do? Do I need to call a lawyer or something?”

“You aren’t under arrest. We just need to clear up a few things,” the junior agent said soothingly.

He blinked and started to relax a little.

“You spoke about the Cadre and your father in a chatroom and in the forums earlier this evening?”

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

The lead agent nodded sagely.

“Your account was locked because you broke protocol. Are you aware of the secrecy act in regards to the Cadre and their family members?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Just remember, 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 your identity or to get you into trouble in other ways.”

Bagheera looked a bit affronted.

“And yeah, we know, you are too good to get caught out like that. Believe me, we’ve heard it before,” the female agent replied dryly. She shook her head in resignation at the stupidity of some people who thought that they were invulnerable. “Just think it through before you say something. Even something minor can get you into trouble.”

“Loose lips sinks ships?” Bagheera asked amused.

“Exactly.”

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

“Good.” They shook hands and departed.

<<(O)>>