Chapter 78: Contact
The gate closed at eleven forty three.
Michael heard it from the courtyard, the deep mechanical engagement of the lock, and felt it on the building system the moment Anya triggered it from the lobby pane.
This meant Anya had heard the three pulse alert and had gone directly to the gate without being told which was the kind of response that only happened in people who had thought through the scenario before it became the scenario.
The courtyard cleared in ninety seconds. Cole’s group through the building entrance first, materials abandoned in place, weapons out in the transition from one mode to the other without a pause between them. Damon’s four behind them. Shin and Rei from the east face.
Michael came in last and looked at the seventh panel sitting half seated on the east face exterior with its anchor bolts three quarters engaged and the blast wall sequence incomplete by one panel and felt a specific frustration at that and set it aside because the wall was what it was and the contact was what it was and the turrets were running and the fight was starting.
He went to the lobby control panel.
The turret status display showed all four units active and tracking. The zone priority configuration he’d set at four in the morning was running, each turret holding its assigned primary zone, and the targeting indicators were live and showing him the approach vectors.
Northeast. Three variant signatures at one and a half blocks and closing. Fast, the pulse showing the particular speed differential that made them different from everything else he’d tracked in forty days.
Southeast. Fifty one Aberrant signatures at three blocks and moving at the sustained approach pace Dr. Kang had estimated from the early briefing notes, faster than human baseline but not variant fast, a pace that covered ground steadily and wouldn’t stop for obstacles.
He looked at the two approach vectors simultaneously.
The variants would hit the wall first. Significantly faster, the northeast vector put them at the perimeter in approximately ninety seconds at current pace. The Aberrant group would hit the south and southeast faces in approximately four minutes.
Ninety seconds.
He activated the comm pulse and sent the position update to the full building. Everyone who had a role in the contact sequence needed to know the timeline and the vectors right now before the noise started making communication harder.
He looked at the turret northeast targeting indicator. It was tracking the three variant signatures, the speed differential already pulling the targeting priority system’s attention in that direction the way Gareth had predicted, and the zone configuration was holding it to the northeast turret’s primary zone rather than allowing it to cascade to the other three.
Good.
He went up.
---
The first floor blast wall interior was Sera’s ground team position and she had them placed before Michael reached the lobby stairs.
He could see the positioning on the comm pulse system, the squad tracker showing him the interior ground team locations in the building structure, and the placements were exactly right, each person at a channel point with the movement range the channeled space allowed and the modified contact approach Maya had flagged this morning and briefed to Sera in the training room two hours ago.
He went up to the third floor barrier level.
Shin was at the primary barrier position on floor three, the junction that Gareth’s map had identified as the most critical interior chokepoint if anything got above the blast wall layer.
She had the axe and the focused stillness and she looked at Michael when he came through the door and he looked at her and they didn’t need to say anything because the position was right and she knew it and he knew she knew it.
Rei was at the secondary barrier position twenty meters east of Shin, the second chokepoint.
She had the pipe she’d been carrying since the warehouse and her jaw was set and her eyes were calm in the way they were calm when she had something to hold and was holding it.
He went up to the sixth floor.
---
Maya was at the lobby control panel by the time he got back down and he stopped at the top of the lobby stairs and looked at her.
She was at the turret manual override interface with the tablet connected to the panel and her eyes on the approach vectors and her hands on the controls with the particular focused stillness of someone who had been running scenarios in their head for two days and was now in the scenario.
She looked up at him briefly. "Northeast turret is tracking the lead variant," she said. "The other two are staggered by approximately forty meters. The turret will take the lead, the other two will be in the arc on the follow through."
"Can it take all three in sequence," he said.
"If the speed differential holds between them yes," she said. "If they’re coordinating the approach spacing they might compress to simultaneous arrival to force the turret to split targeting." She looked at the display. "I’ll manage it manually if that happens. One at a time."
He looked at her at the panel with the tablet and the approach vectors and felt the specific clarity of the right person in the right position.
"You have it," he said.
She looked back at the display. "I have it," she said.
He went to find Cole.
---
Cole was at the east blast wall interior face with his group positioned at the southeast channel points and he was looking at the pulse relay indicator Michael had installed in the lobby extension corridor that fed the real time position data to anyone in the blast wall interior without needing the watchtower view.
He looked at Michael when he came through. "Three minutes on the Aberrant approach," he said. It wasn’t a question.
"Approximately," Michael said. "The variants hit the north and northeast wall face in under a minute."
Cole nodded. He looked at his group arranged at the channel points with the weapons and the modified approach positioning Sera had integrated this morning and the focused ready stillness of people who had been trained for exactly this and were holding the training in their bodies.
"The turrets take the first wave," Cole said.
"Yes," Michael said. "What gets through is the ground team problem."
"Understood," Cole said and looked back at the relay indicator.
Michael went to the watchtower stairs.
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