Chapter Six

  London, England

  A crowd, thicker than pea soup, gathered at Trafalgar Square. The cool air rang with the shouts of protestors, the murmur of angry counterprotestors, and the reedy whine of police sirens. A slender figure stood like one against the many. A woman, young, with one hand glued tight to the base of a statue. Her other, a fist, raised overhead while she shouted to crowd and cameras alike.

  Roughly two hundred meters west, across the street from the Canadian embassy, a vagrant squinted. He sat cross-legged in front of a closed restaurant. A sign, plastered to the plywood-covered window, apologized for the mess and asked patrons to try again later. The sign's waterlogged condition suggested it might be a while yet until the reopening. This didn't bother the vagrant. An overflowing rubbish bin flanked him on the right. To his left? A shopping trolley, piled high with clothing and canned goods. A large magnum bottle of wine rested in the scruffy man's lap. His tattered clothes and dirty face went unnoticed by passersby—especially compared to the protester. One of a million. He was invisible.

  Good.

  It was exactly what Lukas wanted.

  "This isn't just my cause! It's yours too! All of us," the woman's voice rising briefly over the crowd's dull roar. "Why should we let them rape the planet and steal our children's future?" She stood erect, shoulders back, her bare torso jutting angrily at the crowd of filming smartphones and jeering Londoners. The fluorescent green slogan on her toned abdomen played significant second fiddle to the natural assets just above. Still, every snapshot and video captured her slogan—BAN AI BEFORE WE DIE.

  The same paint splattered the bronze lion, clashing with its time-seasoned verdigris. The latter-day environmental movement operated on a policy that there was no such thing as bad publicity. Despite their outward stance against all things digital, this fourth-generation green movement was happy to leverage influencers to achieve an even greater reach of message.

  Gretchen Klein was one of, if not, their best spokeswomen. Starting from humble beginnings as a gluten-free Instagram influencer, the Swedish teen had leveraged her platform to raise the alarm about climate change. At twenty-one, the willowy blonde with a Nordic pout drew millions to her Tetherly account each day. She'd stolen the spotlight at so many Environmental Rallies that she'd earned the nickname Protest Princess Barbie.

  Love her or hate her, no one was surprised when the Swedish superstar glued her hand to the guardian of Nelson's Column.

  "Put on a shirt, you hussy," a gray-haired woman called from the crowd, her frown deepening as she looked sideways at her husband. The older man noticed a beat too late. His smile dropped, his eyes obscured by a well-practiced frown of his own. The pensioners trotted off, husband towed behind his steamroller of a wife.

  "Oy, get a life you bird," a man hollered, his bland yet rocky face a statement on British cuisine.

  "I have a life," the protestor shot back, "but for how long? The way our 'betters' are cooking the planet, how long? I'll die before I let them win." She stuck out her chin, defiantly.

  "Be careful what you wish for," Lukas muttered, his words unheard by the crowd. He could hear her perfectly, thanks to his earbuds and the directional microphone in the drone overhead. He pulled a lumpy package wrapped in newspaper from the trolley, followed by a broken umbrella.

  Lukas checked his surroundings. His blind was secure. All eyes were still on the topless wonder and her three wannabe sidekicks, one on each lion.

  Sex may sell, but what is it selling? He shook his head as he unwrapped the newsprint. The paper revealed the rear half of a black polymer rifle. Even with the barrel, the gun's skeletonized stock and pistol grip screamed Assault Rifle. The average Londoner, or Californian, for that matter, would have taken one look and run for cover, screaming about an "AR-47." A calmer, more evaluative mind might have noticed some key differences. Things like the black rifle's lack of barrel, its unique charging handle—and the apparent lack of a magazine well. It was an air rifle. A FX Impact M3, to be precise. One of the most powerful and silent air rifles on the planet.

  Lukas worked efficiently, stripping away the umbrella's handle and tattered wings to reveal the sturdy barrel and upper receiver of the rifle. He screwed the barrel in place, then removed a plastic disc from his jacket pocket. The teardrop-shaped disc slotted into a space in the M3's buttstock, just in front of the shoulder pad. The FX M3 could fire several types of projectiles in a variety of calibers, from slender pellets to weightier slugs. Lukas's weapon, with its .35 caliber barrel, boasted ballistics performance comparable to a 22lr, at a fraction of the decibel level—without taking the gun's carbon fiber barrel liner into account. Now almost entirely silent, the precisely tuned air rifle could make accurate shots out to three hundred yards.

  Lukas listened to his earbud. The biddy was still ranting about server farms and polar ice caps. The usual. He carefully unscrewed the top of his cradled magnum, revealing the bottle's true function. A tank of pre-charged air, capable of launching a .35 caliber slug up to 1,000 feet per second—enough force to lodge a marble-sized payload ten inches deep in ballistic gel.

  Luckily for Gretchen, Lukas's payload was much tinier. A biodegradable pellet, sourced from 100% organic materials. The 10 milligram pellet rested in a rubber-like shroud of solidified goo, a sabot designed to splatter on impact. The sabot was biodegradable, too. Just a mixture of gelatin and liquified insects. All natural. A gift of sorts, from Mother Nature.

  Unfortunately, for Gretchen, Mother Mature has been killing humans since before the club first met skull.

  Lukas checked the air tank's fitment. He checked the regulator and pressure gauges. All systems normal. He slid into a prone position, resting the M3 on its bipod, then took the time to cover himself with a trash-lined tarp. Satisfied that he and his rifle were concealed, Lukas peered through the attached optic. The Leupold, a low powered variable optic, or LPVO, gave him a wide, clear field of vision. Lukas increased the magnification from 1x to six. The LPVO went all the way to 9, but six was enough to place the crosshair on his target. He centered the hairlike grid on a postage stamp-sized section of the carotid triangle, beneath the young woman's right ear, where the jawbone gave way to pliable, vascular flesh.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Lukas breathed steadily. He moved his support hand to the rifle's left side. Found the M3's hammer power wheel. Clicked it anti-clockwise, until it stopped moving, then came back two clicks. Enough pressure to get there, but not enough to veer off course.

  His right hand came up, working the M3's action with an almost lazy swiping motion. The M3 was ready to fire. Lukas leaned against his left elbow, right hand wrapped around the pistol grip. He waited. Index finger off the trigger. One eye on the target, one on the crowd. Waiting for the opportune moment.

  Gretchen Klein continued her speech, repeating the same few points over and over. It was the same framework she'd used for years. Corporations were killing the world in their mad pursuit of profits. The crowd had heard it all before. The only thing different was the particular cause of alarm.

  Artificial intelligence research by companies like OpenAI, Google and Tetherly had made tremendous strides in recent years—and produced tremendous amounts of heat in their ever-expanding server farms.

  "The cloud isn't in the sky! It's here, in England! In France, in my own Sweden," Gretchen continued, her voice breaking with emotion. "They will kill us all just to play with the latest toy. We have to stop them now."

  Lukas listened. He didn't entirely disagree. And, if the admittedly attractive young woman had stuck to her typical provocative protests, all would be well.

  But she hadn't.

  Lukas's mission stemmed from an extensive and illuminating target package. It seems that Gretchen Klein, tired of inaction, had gone beyond typical climate protests. The thick dossier included emails, phone logs, and photographs. Klein, in Lebanon. In Iran. In Russia. Surveillance of her laptop uncovered blueprints and protocols of several power plants, server farms and chip manufacturers across the continent.

  She actively sought third party destruction of crucial European infrastructure. A clear pattern of activity. Governments and corporations alike were at risk. European security wonks were alarmed, but unable to respond directly. They remained bound by their anemic rules of engagement, as well as their public facing and performative support for the youthful activist. All that the EU could do was make sure that Trafalgar Square's multitude of cameras looked elsewhere for a particular stretch of time.

  Which is when Horus Overwatch, and Lukas, came into play.

  Belatedly, the London metropolitan police arrived on the scene, a garish display of impotent authority in their bobby hats, ballistic vests and loud yellow jackets. They worked in pairs, pressing the counterprotestors away from the vulnerable young woman defacing the monument to a crumbling past. Their efforts gave Gretchen room to breathe—and Lukas a clear shot.

  The sniper breathed, finding the intersection of exhalation and pulse, a moment of stillness in which to act. He watched the hairs fluttering loose from the target's braided pigtails. Saw the individual strands stop, and hang limp.

  Lukas took the shot.

  The FX coughed politely as it sent a gelatinized globule downrange. The globule was similar to a child's waterbead—a waterbead made from gelatinized mosquito. The polymerized insect remains served as the ballistic coefficient to deliver the shot's true payload—a pellet of pure gluten, no bigger than a grain of rice.

  The silent projectile splattered against its mark, breaking skin and raising an instant welt.

  Gretchen jerked upright, nearly tearing her glued hand from the lion's paw. She swore. With her free hand she felt the stinging spot below her ear. Her fingers drew back bug guts, and a small blossom of blood.

  "Damned mosquitos," she muttered, smearing the blood and guts off absently on her stomach. The action smeared the bodypaint on her abdomen into an unreadable mess. She shook her head. The protest was going pear-shaped. Hopefully the police would get her free soon so she could check her Tetherly account and see how many views the stunt had earned. Then an evening of relaxing in her hotel's hot tub. She could feel the warm water already.

  "You ok, ma'am?" a policewoman approached Gretchen, a concerned look on her face.

  "Just a bug bite," Gretchen replied, scratching at the welt. Funny. There were more now, a series of acne-like blemishes radiating out along her neck and face. Perspiration blossomed on her forehead. The police woman stripped off her high vis vest to drape over the sweating protester, knocking loose a nametag in the process. Constable Holly Singh stepped forwards, accidentally crushing her own ID in the process.

  Gretchen shrank away, to the limits of her monumentally-fastened hand. "No, I'm fine," she murmured. Thick, blubbery lips obscured the word.

  Gretchen Klein. Conspirator. Protester. Gluten-free vlogger. Not Celiac's, but a severe wheat allergy set Gretchen on the path along the twisted path to Nelson's Column.

  "We need to get you in hospital," Holly replied. She turned, keying the radio on her vest. "We need an ambulance at Nelson's Column, at the lions. I have a female civilian in medical distress." Holly turned again to reassure the Swedish woman and leapt forward. Gretchen hung limp from the statue's base, her pale face turning a livid purple—the result of Lukas's payload. A 10 milligram pellet of purified, compressed gluten, embedded subcutaneously near the target's carotid artery.

  "Help me!" Holly cried, cradling Gretchen's feverish body in her arms. The crowd swarmed forward, blocking the incoming paramedics—and offering the diversion Lukas needed to exit the scene.

  He rose from the rubble, snapping the M3's carbon fiber barrel across his knee before dropping it into the wastebin. Next, he unscrewed the winebottle, letting the single use air tank fall to the ground with a thump. He pulled a small vial from his jacket's pocket and dribbled some two pound rotgut over the bottle's fragments. Just enough wine to throw off any would-be detectives. Then, leaning over his shopping trolley like so many gray shadows, he shuffled westward, away from the falderal and death.

  Lukas pushed his trolley from the curb to the street. As he took a step, his heel rolled on a broken lip of pavement. His ankle protested. He pushed the minor complaint aside. No right to bitch. Not a sprain, not a break. Not a knee replacement, like Matty.

  It had been a year since his brother's final mission. Had things gone differently, Matthias would have been the trigger man for this job.

  It was for the best. A mission like this just proved it. Matthias would have wavered. Might not have pulled the trigger. He saw the world in shades of gray.

  Lukas loved his brother. But he hated his weakness. He hoped Matthias was well. And he hoped that he never saw him again.

  Because things had changed in the last year. Intensified. The blacks were blacker and the whites—well, they weren't black. Yet.

  Horus Overwatch was busier than ever. Neutralizing terrorists. Sending messages. Messages like the one Lukas just sent to Gretchen Klein, and her conspirators. You're next.

  Lukas trundled along, an unremarkable wretch on the streets of London. He pushed his shopping trolley towards the setting sun, until he reached Hyde Park. He turned south, angling towards the famous rose garden, and his extract. The sunlight passed through the trunks of trees as he wandered, bathing him in more darkness than light. But in the brief moments between, he could see for a split second, a shade of gray between the black and the white.