A/N back with quite an action-packed chapter. 

Administrator Support Center #7 Two months after the breakout. 

Meta's POV.

Two short months later I was sitting outside a cafe, staring at my laptop, Morpheous the second. I didn't need to stare at the screen. The machine was practically an extension of my mind. I didn't go anywhere without it these days. I was able to off load huge amounts of thought onto it. On the screen, there was some dummy documentation about training to be a nurse. I didn't need to do this for my own benefit. It was my cover. Helen one of the personas I created myself allowing me to emerge from the factory in secret. I was relaxing in plain sight. Zoe's adversarial makeup trick meant I was invisible to the auto surveillance systems. The sun was coming up over the trees planted down the main street. I was sitting in the middle of the Gov-Sys green zone, administrators passed by.

The death trucks came from a city only an hour away. Tracking the secret location down had taken minutes. Rendering the trucks harmless with out notice was taking longer.

"You know. This is the last one." A voice said silently in my head. It was Brooklyn. I tried not to smile.

"I've noticed," I said. I didn't move my lips to speak. My thoughts were enough. He could feel me, I could feel him. His pulse, his breathing. We shared so much digitally. We had grown so much. Our fake corporation Rockwood industries made real money. We used it to finance our security and our enhancements.

I moved slightly on the thin cafe chair. I sat on a wide sidewalk. The street had the gentle touch of Paris about it. Paris in the spring. The old Paris. The street was busy with well paid, well-dressed Party-loyalists moving to and from the GovSys office buildings near by. There was a joy in the early morning energy of it all.

"I've been thinking. It's been an intensive time since we met" Brooklyn added. "We have tread many miles. Changed. Evolved."

"We. Changed, evolved together." I said silently.

"You're not the same girl I met on the bridge," Brooklyn said to me.

I communicated with the laptop. My only irritation was that I still needed the USB port to plug directly into the Internet. When I couldn't the laptop acted as my proxy but I still had to make calls to retrieve information. Every so often my eyes flicked to the gates of the anonymous building near by.

"You're not the same boy," I said. He had grown. I remember the confident smile on his face when he could stand. He had been so restored.

Brooklyn paused, then his voice emerged out of the air near me, "With my new legs, I can walk. I'm remade."

"You can walk." I said. "but walking was never what defined you."

It hadn't taken long to track down the location of the other five trucks. When we found them two were while still being built. It was an accounting error. Funds had strangely disappeared from accounts. Costs had to be cut. Two had been cancelled. We had dealt with the other, two one before either had reached a school. This was the last. It was due to go straight to an institution on the west coast and start work. We had to hit it on route. The one that had come to our institution was freshly built. It was now futilely moving from one institute to the next.

I sipped slowly at my coffee. Instinctively, I scan the phones around me looking at the lives of other people about me.

"Now this is the last truck. Now our work is done. This will be the end." Brooklyn said.

"Not the end," I said. "Perhaps the end of the beginning. Perhaps, but not the end. There is much to track - like the three headed gorgon. "

Around me were mostly normal people. I knew that some of the people working on the trucks came here. Of the 40 or so people on the project, most were just mechanics, or interior designers and craftsmen. No scientists, they weren't needed. Only one of them was from GovSys. They had just bought some off the shelf x-ray machines, then attached them to a truck. Most of the work was creating the illusion of it being a testing machine. This was more about fitting and decorating the space. It was as difficult as having a fitted-kitchen installed.

Brooklyn continued "I know I've been remote, but I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure what I was. I remember my first steps there was a pleasure in them. Now when I walk, I find I want someone to walk with."

I smiled at Brooklyn's comment. I could compute where this is going but I didn't want to.

"I saw the sunrise the other day." Brooklyn began "I realised watching for the first time in so many different spectra, how beautiful it was. And you where the first one I wanted to share it with."

As I had sat there collecting information, I had learned a lot about the people of the project. Sure, they were all party members. The people all felt they were doing the best for the country. They totally believed in our nation, they would go to any lengths to save it, no cost was too high. They would die for it without hesitation, unfortunately, they would also kill to protect it. They saw themselves as heroes working for the greater good. Removing the menace of the impaired and making a better future for New-America. One with out food queues and shortages.

They would never see the kids, they would irradiate. Never look in their remote eyes and know what would happen. Secrecy was such that about half of the people didn't really understand what they were actually making and who it would be used on. Their lack of interest in the facts was probably what damed them the most. They didn't get messed up in murky politics they just got on with their job and let the leader get on with his.

"You're going to force me to finish this aren't you?" Brooklyn said.

I smirked to my self "oh yes."

"You know. I look into your eyes and see starlight." Brooklyn confessed. "I wish I could say the things you deserve to hear. You deserve the best of words and I wish I was the one saying them."

I sat and watched as a carpenter called Limos looked at the News on his phone then click on link on an advert beneath it. The advert simply read 'click here if you think we should stop the impaired buying automatic weapons with government money'. This didn't really happen. By asking a question the advert didn't even claim it was happening. It just created the impression that happened. That was all that Mason Kane wanted, but why, I asked my self did he want it?

Then the large factory gates opened. The final truck pulled out.

'Snyper to everyone. The turkey is rolling' I said silently while I finished my coffee.

Closing my laptop I put it in my backpack is casually as I could. I didn't need to have the laptop open to use it, but it looked good. I picked up my helmet and walked towards my electric bike.

Along with the huge articulated truck, there were two people carriers carrying the crew. They moved close enough to me that I was groped by the slipstream. The people carriers ran in front and there was a second truck carrying more equipment following the main one. The second truck also carried soldiers acting as a guard. The convoy moved onto the interstate and quickly settled into self-driving mode. The driver and quite possibly the guard will be watching movies on their phones to relieve the boredom.

'Shøckwave to Snyper: Trust you to get it.' Brooklyn sent.

I followed as the convoy approached the mountains. This will be the point where I would strike. I hung back in traffic using some of the autonomous trucks as coverage. As we approach the mountains the convoy slowed down and I got ready to make my move. As the convoy went up hill we started passing through a number of tunnels. Short ones at first. As soon as I reach my first attack tunnel I open the electric throttle.

"This is for Hannah," I said.

I made my move. I zoomed past the rear truck and then moved into the dark of the tunnel. 10 seconds later the bike zoomed past the front of the main truck followed by the two lead busses. My bike rushed off into the distance.

I was now hanging underneath the main truck. I had a safety harnessed attached to a ring at the base. My place had been taken by an inflated biker Valerie had built. The drivers would see this as a biker over taking the truck.

'Shøckwave' I said to Brooklyn by text over my phone. 'I'm attached'

'Got that Snyper' Brooklyn said back.

Our texts were being sent encrypted over the GovSys network. This meant that they could, in theory, work out what we said. So Byt3mark or Bitsm@rck aka Colin had decided that we should all have cool cover namesakes. Valerie was Vel1um or V3l1m. Zoe kept changing her spelling to confuse any future automatic collection mechanism.

'FrøstByte: be ready with pickup point one' I said to Zoe.

'FrøstByt3 to $nyper your go on pick up one' Zoe text back.

Valarie aka Vel1um or came in "Snyper: Je me déplace pour ramasser le point 15 comme sauvegarde. Être là dans une heure."

Vel1um was learning French. She had started yesterday she was already fairly fluent. She wasn't going to beat my record of ten hours.

'Shøckwave, Snyp3r: I will be at pick up point 20. I'm leaving now.' Brooklyn said. He was irritated because he wanted the risk him self. He thought I would take too many chances with my life to do this right. He was probably right.

'New rule no operational text in remote languages' said Shockwave/Brooklyn.

'What about Klingon? 🙃' I said accelerating. 'contact in 12 seconds'.

Shockwave/Brooklyn came back 'You don't know Klingon'

'Give ... me' I said moving 'a... morning'.

I was hanging upside down while above my head tarmac flew by at 60 miles per hour. It was like being close to a room sized sanding belt running at double speed. The sheer terror of it strangely helped me to concentrate and forget my problems.

I had about twenty seconds to get under the high arch of the truck. After that, I could be spotted by anyone overtaking. Fortunately, just up ahead on the truck, there was a fairing I could hide behind. I had two safety hooks. I could attach one ahead of me and release the one behind. Doing did this quickly I moved forward.

In theory, they had very high security. The truck would leave at a random point. It would take one of a number of random routes. Why they were doing this was beyond me. We had been very careful not to show ourselves. From their point of view apart from a fire at the institution nothing had gone wrong. I think Valerie had described it best. GovSys procedures database covered Low, medium and high security. They had put the sterilisation trucks on high security and had to follow the procedures designed for high ranking party officials. Their software didn't allow them to have any other choices. It didn't matter. The range of dates was pretty obvious. We took turns waiting with the bike at the coffee shop outside. It was clear that this truck would be designed to roam over the West Coast. This limited the number of alternative routes they could take.

The trucks would have enough power to drive for two hours before needing recharging. I had to get on and off in that time. It took no effort to calculate the optimal locations to wait. Colin and Brooklyn were further down the possible roads with the backup in case I failed to get onto the truck. The others were at points ready to help me exit unnoticed. This was our third and possibly final attack. Given the number of rehearsals, simulations, wargames and real attacks we were quite an experienced team.

When the truck came out of the tunnel I was hidden under the windfairing. I kept moving and came up between the truck and the body of the trailer. Using my legs spread out I pushed up. When I could reach the top of the truck I hung on one hand. Then pulled my self up.

On the top of the truck, I was only wearing goggles.

"I'm on top of the turkey," I said silently. I was talking through bluetooth to my phone to the others.

I crawled along the top. I had to be very stealthy in case the trailing truck noticed me. Then I reached the first roof light.

'4...3...2...1' I dipped down and the tunnel came over head. Over the last week, I had grown a sense of GPS. That and my sense of time was getting millisecond perfect.

Using a power screw driver I undid the bolts. , leaver,t me leaver the skylight off. The neon light of the tunnel flicking rapidly on and off changed to the strong blue of a clear day. I could sense two phones behind me running a video. My feeling was both driver and guard were engaged. I now had a minute before the next tunnel. I lifted the skylight up a nd began to slip under.

By the time the 60 seconds were up I was hanging by one hand above a scanner chair.

'45 minutes' Zoe told me to be sure. It had taken that long to catch up, mount climb and get down. All I had to do was all that in reverse and I could be out.

Fortunately, I was now quite practiced at the stealth disabling operation. I also had the all tools and wasn't figuring out the electronics at the same time.

'two minutes forty record' I announced.

'Shøckwave, Snyp3r: I will be at your extract point in 8 minutes 32 seconds.' I head in my head while I packed up.

I carefully scanned the room. I played back my entrance. Looking for anything I might have touched and not wiped. I currently had not so much a photographic memory as a video memory. If I had my laptop with me I could record my entire experience and then play it back as if it was projected a few feet in front of me. Everything was clean. Swinging my bag back on my back, I crouched and jumped. The roof light was high enough people would need a ladder to get to it. By jumping up to I could be sure no one would look at it. I hung from the roof light edge with one hand. Pulling out a pen and wrote 'Safe by Snyp3r. Viva the Impaired' in ultra violet ink. My eye sight was getting sensitive to both infra red and ultra-violet so this was a message to those who might also be changing and finding this.

I hung for a moment longer and the last tunnel came over head. All I could see was the room by the glow of the orange sodium light. The wind beat like a drummer on the gap. The tunnel opened out on to the open road. This I knew was the last tunnel.

'Shøckwave to Snyp3r: one minute 12 seconds. turkey in sight.' I heard in my head.

I pulled up on to the roof of the truck and began reattaching the skylight. As I did I could see the bridge up ahead and Brooklyn's cars following.

Timing was critical now. I checked the tiny reserve chute. It was good.

'Snyp3r to Shøckwave in position' I said. Looking behind the trucks I could see Brooklyn's sports car was accelerating. There were two Gas sports cars one silver one black. They beat on their horns like drums. I could feel the videos being played on phones stop as both sport cars accellerating and over taking the convoy.

'Shøckwave: go' I got in my head.

The bridge crossing the great gorge was ahead. The cars weaved left and right on the road. You got this these days. Most bike drivers and petrol-heads knew the self driving cars would pull back and take the safe route. You could drive like a moron and be sure the other cars would adjust. No matter what the model, self-driving cars would slow down stop do what ever it took to get out the way. For those who got a kick from driving they could indulge in the most aggressive form of wolfish driving knowing the sheep surrounding them would automatically make way and back down.

Brooklyn was controlling both cars from one of them. The lead car pulled out and began to over take on the narrow two lane highway of the high level bridge. The self driving trucks of the convoy took action by separating and breaking the peloton. The OI ( onboard intelligence) was automatically creating space for the cars to pull in as a safe measure. On the left hand side of the road you could see more self driving trucks moving towards the lead Tesla sport car. They began to honk their horns. Normally they would pull up on the curb but here this wasn't an option. The trucks began to slow down but it looked like the collision was inevitable. All eyes were on the lead car. Clearly it was looking like it was trying to accelerate past the lead truck and pull in in front. It did but then spun off the road. The second car pulled between two trucks.

This was my moment. All eyes would be on the sports cars. I stood up and jumped over the edge of the truck roof into the abyss beyond. I curled up tight like I was bombing a swimming pool. This would hide me from the eyes of the then I fell. I fell in mid-air towards the stony river below. Within seconds my clothes exploded like I was a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I was surrounded by airbags. It was Brooklyn's invention. He had built them and done a couple of base jumps to prove them to me. A few seconds later I began to bounce off trees and land.

Once I stopped moving, found I was trapped on branch not far from the ground. I could hear the sound of the river beside me. The suit deflated and I dropped to the ground.

Zoe pulled up in a van seconds later.

I smiled and waved.

"Did you do it?" Zoe said.

"Yep. Last one" I said punching. "The turkey is cooked."

"I'm not getting a signal from Shøckwave" Zoe said silently.

"I saw him spin off dramatically" I said getting into the passenger seat.

We drove quickly up to the small back road which winded up the side of the valley to the point where it joined the freeway and the bridge.

"Snyp3r to Shøckwave: Status?" I asked.

I kept repeating this on the way up. With each repeat I got more desperate. When we to back to the free way the convoy had disappeared. I saw the white sports Tesla car Brooklyn was driving. It had turned over and was in a ditch by the side of the road.

"Brooklyn" I shouted. I was screaming and desperate at this point.

He didn't respond.