A Tiny Twitch

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The military is responsible for some of the most ingenious (and deadly) inventions of modern times. If left alone long enough, those minds in the government-sponsored killing trade can come up with devices that will not only obliterate all life within x miles, but will render the region uninhabitable for the better part of a century. Fortunately the military used to listen to the general populace and such weapons were swiftly decommissioned. Anyone caught with a weapon of mass destruction after the Age of Disarmament was deemed mentally unstable and immediately usurped in a sponsored coup d’État. Naturally, this was the basis for several creative mistakes that resulted in the execution of several people that did not, in fact, possess total-solution weaponry but were on many “Better off…” (dead) lists.

Once total annihilation passed from the military vocabulary and mindset, they turned their focus on what was to be termed ‘monetary warfare’. The concept was simple: A dead solder doesn’t cost the enemy anything. Keeping a wounded solider alive in the hopes that they would be able to return to combat quickly became an expensive endeavor if a proper treatment could not be found. Therefore, the military minds charged their biological ‘services’ department to develop a means of disarming the enemy without actually blowing them to their constituent elements and saving the terrain for other possible applications. The key was ‘non-lethal but with stopping power’.

They developed a nano-molecular virus, coded: Spasm.

Spasm, which is highly illegal to privately own, functions similar to the neurotoxin tetanospasmin (it is also where the chemical got its “street name”) that produces the muscle-freezing condition known as tetanus (or lock jaw). When Spasm is introduced into the bloodstream it causes near-instanteanous muscle lock. The strongest muscle groups determinte what shape the tetany takes, although the virus does not contort the body in such a way as to cause any bone fractures. Due to the mechanical-virual nature of Spasm, there is no way to flush it out of the system before the cultures die in six months. Nanite technology has been known to allow limited movement, but the combatting virus and microscopic machines is said to cause great pain to the infected.

The military, upon discovering this wonderfully complicated way to induce a ‘credit funnel’ into the enemy treasurey, instantly labeled the creation Top Secret, prompted the scientests responsible, and then had them executed to prevent the technology from being leaked to other countries. There is one facility that currently manufacturs Spasm in dart form (other methods of delivery are null. Gas being too indescriminate and injection being too impractical), and it is one of the most heavily guarded facilities on earth.

The warehouse that stores the deadly darts, however, is not guarded nearly as well.

[ section I ]

If one is going to steal from the military, the best time to try is during a thunderstorm. In order to allow movement and flexability, most body armor came in several pieces that left space at the joints. Rain seemed to seek out these areas and bore in with their coldest drops, forcing the ground troops to stay under cover and make their patrols with quick steps. Rain also destroys footprints in the mud, masks most loud noises and offers prime concealement.

The rain bucketed down, soaking the normally muddy walkways into a thick sticking sludge with pools of water that could easily sink an unprepared man up to his knees and require several hours of effort to become free. One of the soldiers patrolling the warehouse had a muddy stain that came up to his boot line, a clear indicator that this ‘highly trained killing machine’ had fallen prey to a deep puddle. He stepped quickly around the building and it was possible to hear a soft squelching noise every time he stepped with his right foot. Apparently it had happened recently and there would be much prodding at the trooper’s expense when he completed his patrol.

Lighting flashed and thunder boomed, causing the trooper to swing around. The .144 Parker carbines he carried was the military’s finest achievement in death dealing by bulk. It carried a 30-round magazine was loaded with rocket propelled explosive ammunition, and a trooper could cut a medium sized tree in half with two waves of their weapon. The top of the weapon was littered with electronics including a mini-Doppler and a pinpoint laser sight. Due to the ‘point and click’ nature of the weapon, a scope was included and activated only when the carbine was shifted to single-shot mode. Needless to say it was a rare sight to see a line trooper shooting only one round at a time.

Another bolt of lighting illuminated the sky and causes his optics to dim until the world was a deep green. He watched the line trooper round the corner out of sight and began counting softly. When he reached the right number he stood from his crouch behind the foliage and sprinted toward the fence.

Thunder rumbled as he skated across the muddy ground and leapt over the fence with his leg-servos humming softly. He cleared the barbed wire by inches and landed with a skidding step before the stabilizers kicked him upright. He ran a few paces, gathered himself and leapt again. He landed on the roof and pressed himself against the slanted metal to avoid slipping back down into the mud. The seconds ticked by and he remained motionless. His internal chronometer beeped and he heard the quick footsteps of the guard pass under him. The guard did not notice the stirred ground, as he kept his eyes on his boots and rounded the corner in an almost-jog.

As the guard’ slushy footsteps faded into the rain he began to slowly slither up the slanting roof. Once he was at the apex he took a small cutting torch from a pocket and sliced a tiny hole in the roof.

The inside of the warehouse wasn’t lit, so he slid a small tube-cam into the hole and spun it. He found what he was looking for about five meters toward the back so he withdrew the camera, sealed the hole with a water resistant epoxy, and slid quietly across the roof. Twice he set his hand in a slick section that almost sent him tumbling down the side and to the ground (no doubt into the lab of one of the patrols), but each time he managed to snag the point of the roof and pull himself back.

The second time he cut the hole a bit larger and peered down to find himself above a dumpster that contained packaging material. He rummaged around in his pack and produced a small rectangular device that was coated in black rubber. It was a screamer specifically keyed to the most common military frequencies, but unless the unit was active there was no way to detect the unit unless you were standing right on top of it as it went off. He attached the screamer to a string and lowered it to the bin. He had to jiggle it a few times before he finally raised the unit and cut the string. The force of the fall caused it to be buried well enough that a casual search wouldn’t uncover it.

He sealed the hole and rolled on to his back. From inside the coverall he produced a small oblong box with a control on once of the large faces. He thumbed the control and suppressed a grin.

Instantly every alarm in the warehouse began to sound. The building rumbled as the giant doors were thrown wide and the shouts of the soldiers echoed off the cold metal walls. He could hear their footsteps as they pounded across the concrete and the sickening click of weapons being taken off safety.

It took fifteen minutes before they were satisfied that the building was secure.

He waited for one minute after the doors had been completely resealed before triggering the screamer again and was rewarded with another thumping of boots, shouting of orders and a quick sweep. The guarded (he learned later) carried biometric scanners that could detect any living thing larger than a rat that may be hiding in the emitting beam. The only problem with biometrics is the fact that they are unidirectional. Scanning back and forth operated the unit, but it was useless if the person was hiding above the scan range (on, say, the roof). Intervening metal was also known to fog the readings on the other side.

On the third activation he heard the guards:

“Just turn it off! It’s probably a short from the damned storm. It’s not like anyone’s gonna walk off with uniforms!”

When he tried the control a fourth time he was greeted with silence. He shoved the control in his pocket and unsealed the hole. When it was first cut, he had made sure it was large enough to squeeze through, but not large enough to be noticed if someone were to look at the rooftop.

He slithered through the hole and hung for a moment, allowing the optics to adjust to the darkness. When the world illuminated itself in a hazy green he began to swing back and forth. Once sufficient momentum had built up he launched himself across to a large grid-like plasteel rack that contained five rows from floor to ceiling of bar-coded boxes. The magnetics triggered as his hands and feet touched the metal cross-grid and he adhered to the rack with a soft clang. Carefully he inched his way down the formed plasteel and dropped quietly to the floor.

[ section II ]

There were IR reflectors on either side of the aisle, but they were dark. Normally if the beam was interrupted, the alarm would trigger and whoever was still inside would be hamburger. He disabled the magnetics in his gloves and adjusted the optics again, enhancing the readout and gazing at a small set-screen on his arm. He pressed a button and the building overlay flashed over his ‘third eye’. A static red dot indicated his position and a blinking dot indicated what he had broken in to this installation for.

He clicked the display off and jogged between the tall walls of discolored boxed and expanded plasteel. When he reached the end he found himself in a ‘main road’ that was twice the length of the aisles. It ran in an east/west direction (from his facing) and every two meters or so the corridor branched off into another aisle similar to the one he was standing in. He took another reading, moved over one row and continued on, his feet making quiet plash-ing noises as he jogged.

At the end of the aisle he came to a solid wall of boxes that represented the end of the building. The sounds of the storm came through the wall and his temp gauge told him that there was a hole in the surface of the wall that allowed cold air to penetrate the otherwise warm warehouse.

The readout beeped quietly and he checked the chronometer. He noted the time and started to walk to his left, watching the two dots draw closer together. When they were right on top of each other his wrist beeped softly and the lights died. He found himself in an alcove where the walls and ceiling were made of racks stuck full of boxes. Sitting in the center of the rooftop cubicle there was a small desk, atop which sat a laptop. The desk was made of presses plasteel and the draws (three to a side) were print-sealed and probably wired with a high-rez screamer.

He sat tailor-style in front of the drawers on the left side and dug in the sleeve that contained the wrist-comp. From inside the dark material he produced a small wire and slid it under the thumb scanner. His wrist comp beeped and a flood of numbers lit the screen.

Technology, like most human-made contraptions, has its limits. An automobile is only as maneuverable as it’s driver allows, a computer can only run programs that are written by it’s operator and a thumbprint scanner can be worked around without having to cut anyone’s finger off or going through the tedious process of print collection and duplication.

The numbers flowed over the screen for a few cycles and then abruptly stopped. The indicator light on the printpad shifted from green to red and beeped quietly. There was a startlingly loud sound as the locks disengaged and the draws popped open. The noise echoed twice before it died and he pressed himself against the wall of boxes, frozen and sonics tuned to the sound of the door at the far end sliding open. When no one came he began opening the drawers.

All three of the drawers contained files and useless datasheets. There was a pass coded pad that probably contained inventory information for the warehouse, so he tossed it back and went on to the set of drawers on the other side of the desk.

They yielded more of the same.

He sat back on the cool concrete floor and sighed. This was where his information said the replicable sample was stored but it wasn’t there. Suddenly his eyes lit and he had to stifle a grin.

The military, in its own way, can be decently intelligent when it wants to be. There was an example back in the 20th century regarding a supposed ‘top secret’ installation in the desert that was once the state of Nevada. The government made a big deal about this place, posting guards and signs, ferrying personnel in unmarked jetliners, and generally making a big deal out of the fact that no one was supposed to know what was going on. People tried to penetrate the borders, but they were all quickly detained and subsequently charged with trespassing on ‘federal lands’. There were also several carefully fabricated reports that were ‘leaked’ from time to time in order to keep the curious public pointed in that direction.

When the United States succeeded in collapsing under its own weight, the doors to the Nevada facility (coded: Area 51) were thrown open and everyone leapt through the fences to find: Nothing. No aliens, no secret spy craft, nothing. All of this time and money was spent keeping attention from a secret lab that was buried under what used to be known as New York that eventually self-destructed and was revealed to the world anyway.

He got up from his sitting position and ran a hand between the drawers. After a moment he found a small stud and pressed it, hearing a click and watching a panel behind the desk slide away to reveal an unlit corridor.

[ section III ]

He made his way down the slim hallway with his optics turned to max. The half-light from behind him made the whole place glow with a neon green. There were refractor panels that resembled the IR detection system in the warehouse, and they were also dark.

Leave it to the military to use one system for the whole building.

The hallway, which was more like a two-meter long hole, opened quickly into a room cramped with equipment. There was a comset in the corner that was chattering away on the guard channel. Since he couldn’t hear it from the other side of the wall, it was safe to assume that the room was both shielded and masked against all forms of detection. There was a set of filing cabinets that looked to be unlocked set against one side of the cubicle and another desk that resembled the one outside pressed into the other. The walls that turned into the hallway were blank, but he noticed a wicked set of silenced auto-guns nestled in the corner. His reflexes took over and he jumped back down the hallway. It took a split second to realize that the guns were probably linked to the security system, and until they decided to turn it back on he was in no danger of being shot.

He crossed to the desk and rolled his eyes: There was a print-lock mechanism, but it was only one of the drawers. With a quick motion he unhooked the cable and set it up to the wrist-comp. There was a flurry of numbers that took a little longer to disengage the lock than before, which meant the programming on this little thing was more complex. It beeped after a full minute had elapsed and the drawer popped open with a dull thud.

Inside there was a pressed ferrofoam box that read:

Tetanospasmin Concentrate (Spasm)
Do Not Inject – Ingest
! Handle with Care !

He grinned, stuffed the package in his coverall and pushed the drawer shut until the lock reactivated. He had just turned to leave when the guard-net chimed in.

[ Guard, report. ]

[ Still rainin', Com. Though I think the thunder's dyin' down a bit. O'er. ]

[ Do you think there's a risk of a short anymore? ]

[ No sir. ]

[ Reactivate the system. Ack and follow. ]

[ Acknowledged, Com. O'er'n'out. ]

Shit.

He sprinted out of the room, squeezed down the hallway and leapt over the desk. He had left it blocking the doorway to alert him if anyone had moved it, but it turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. He banged his knee on the desk as he jumped and almost crashed. The stabilizers whined as he spun and stabbed the button under the desk. There was a pause while he waited for the door to start closing and then he sprinted down the aisle.

The sonics picked up one of the guards opening the door and chattering to his friend. He didn’t pick up the words, but used the sounds to gauge how long he had until the system was reactivated. He knew the control box was twenty paces from the door and it took the system five seconds to run a diagnostic and then fire up.

He figured he had half a minute.

The servos clicked and hummed as he keyed them for extra speed as he shot down the aisle. He reached the intersection and almost jogged in the wrong direction. He corrected his mistake by leaping, which almost took him past the right corridor. With his optics turned at their intensity, he could see the light pouring from the cracks of his man-made vent like the rays of a brightnova. He crouched down and leapt, listing to his repellors kick in to give him enough boost to put him at the top line of boxes. He skidded to a halt and was grateful that they contained something hard. Not one box fell under his feet. The jumps always made him disoriented, so it took him a split second to relocated the hole. Gathering himself, he lunged and caught the edge of the manhole. The force of his movement popped the temp-stick material and allowed him to push the cover off.

The countdown inside his head ended just as he pulled himself through and back into the rain. He felt the building hum and could see the infrared lines of the screamer system course through the corridor directly below.

The rain-slick metal roof felt cold (and therefore, good) against his skin. He felt sweat run down his forehead and into his optics, and even though the rain swept it away quickly, he had to wipe his lens to keep it from fogging. With a quick head movement he disabled his optics and the world plunged from neon green to a dull, faded color version.

There was a guard passing under him. He waited until they had gone around the corner before dropping off and sprinting across the yard. He cleared the fence in a jump and landed softly on the other side. As he jogged he became aware of the box that was nestled in a padded pocket inside his coverall. He had the mix, but he didn’t know if it was possible to replicate. That meant he had to ration it out or not use it at all until he could find a chem-brain that was good enough to unravel what the militant scientists had done.

He’d done enough for tonight. Sleep on it and figure the rest of the shit out later.

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