Chapter Three

Griffin

Les Pont de Brogny, Annecy. France.
March 13th. Tuesday 11 PM. 125 S.A.

In front of the abandoned building the convoy of nine vehicles stopped under the shelter of the night. Silence reigned in the area, broken only by the rustling of branches in the cool night breeze. Along with the rustling the only thing that could be heard was the humming of small drones being deployed from one of the vehicles of the convoy, scanning the site.

The building was a three-story one, with simple architecture. Obviously it had known better times, but at that moment everything around it looked rickety and vines climbed up the walls like a skein of spiderwebs.

The self-driven convoy was composed of four large trucks, transporting heavy machinery, one small truck for transport of personnel, and two slightly larger trucks for transporting multifunctional humanoid droids. At the front and rear were two armored trucks.

[Green pattern. Normal oxygen. No intruders in the area,] was the message transmitted by the drone controller, to the person in the armored-truck at the front of the convoy.

[Let's proceed,] Jansen frowned, and sent the orders to the rest through the Neurowire. [You heard it, people. Each to his own function.]

["Let's go! Everyone knows what to do. Every hour counts, in a week we have to get this place up,"] said another male voice, with a somewhat humorous tone.

Jansen got out of the front armored truck, and so did the other five who were traveling in the vehicle with him. He was a black man, already somewhat older, with wrinkles on his temples and white hair cut in Mohican style, with a short goatee. He wore dark cargo pants and a gray camouflaged tactical coat.

From the small truck, the side doors opened and several people began to exit, with various types of equipment and industrial suitcases in their hands. Some were in tactical uniforms, and others in plain clothes, although all of them were carrying weapons, even if it was only a pistol, and protective vests.

What could be heard were orders and bustling footsteps all over the place. The silence that had reigned until that moment had left, to give way to all kinds of hurried chatter and movements of people heading towards the heavy trucks.

As Jansen said, everyone had their orders and they knew what was expected of them. One team got lost in the city streets, going towards the abandoned and decrepit buildings, while another went down the main street. Others were unloading industrial suitcases of considerable size, while another group was levitating some sort of huge cubes, which were deposited in the tall grass surrounding the building where they parked. A team of three were currently tinkering with energy cubes.

It was going to be a relief not to have to connect to the power grid of the nearby cities, because the whole operation depended on stable power levels, without getting tagged by Edison or arousing the suspicions of the power plants.

There must have been at least 30-plus people all over the place moving like ants.

"Be alert for any eventuality. We have to set up our lookout points before the sun comes up!" ordered Jansen once again, and snorted as he looked around.

Annecy was a lively town until the outbreak of the Great War, when the people evacuated to the West. Even after the war there were attempts to re-inhabit the town, but today it was nothing more than a completely abandoned relic of the past. A ghost town in the southeast of France.

Whether it was a coincidence or not, was at least a consolation that the very spot where Jansen had to be was an abandoned city, far from prying eyes.

After all, that was a mid-range operation, totally illegal, but incredibly well paid. Because Jansen and his men were no ordinary soldiers, they were soldiers of fortune. Mercenaries.

The bodies of all those present, except Jansen's and someone else's, were all synthetic. Mere puppets in human form, which could be discarded in case something went wrong, since whoever had paid for the operation had ensured that all of them would keep copies of their personalities in case of any eventuality.

Jansen for his part did not like being in a synthetic body at all. He already died a couple of times in his life. And the feeling that his current self was simply a copy of his already dead selves, in a human body, had always left a bitter feeling in his mouth. He had decided that, for the next time, if he had to die, it would be the last time. Even so, after making that decision he survived for another thirty years in a human body that continued to age at a normal rate. And as far as he was concerned, that was fine. If he didn't end up with his bones on a battlefield, then the passage of time would do that for him.

"Wrinkling your brows already?"

Jansen turned and looked at the one who addressed him. Walking towards him was the other man who did not had a synthetic body in the mission.

He was a man slightly shorter than Jansen, dressed in a beige shirt, a brown jacket and old jeans. On his leg he carried a simple automatic pistol in a holster. But if there was one thing that stood out about him, it was that his head was wrapped in bandages, and dark glasses were covering his eyes. Whatever the reason he had to wear those bandages and dark glasses, even on a closed night, was beyond the level of what Jansen knew. He reminded Jansen of those old-timey invisible man movies, even by his last name.

"Griffin. Shouldn't you see the state of that thing?" Jansen asked, pointing with his chin at the building.

"It's not my area. I'm the tourist here, remember?"

"Are you planning on scratching your balls for the whole week?"

"What's wrong with that? Particle science is not my forte," said the mysterious man, with a shrug and walked away, as he kicked a few rocks out of the way on his path towards the entrance of the building.

"What is your area?" Jansen asked, raising his voice.

"I'm a rocket scientist," Griffin said, in a theatrical tone without turning around.

Jansen watched him walk away and wondered what the hell the man was up to.

Yes. Everyone had their orders. And whatever the function of the man called Griffin was, it was beyond Jansen's understanding.

In Jansen's case, he was just a team leader of nine mercernaries who had a mission on the spot. Nothing else. All to check that everything was going as it should be on the outside. In case of unforeseen events, they had to stop anyone who dared to enter the city. To do this they had separated two other trucks, one equipped with the autonomous tactical assault mecha, which would be near the building, and fifty multifunctional droids with industrial work functions.

The other truck had another team of one hundred droids with security functions. The security droids were the ones who would work with Jansen's team, making sure that no one entered the city through any blind spots, through the abandoned buildings or through the surrounding streets.

The other twenty synth people in the small truck were for the work to be carried out underground, along with the other fifty multifunctional droids.

The man with the bandages was from the group that would go underground. They were scientists. There were engineers specializing in Von Neumann construction machines, particle specialists, a couple of chemists, two doctors, and three others were industrial mechanics.

Whatever they were protecting must have been something huge.

Almost all of the mercenaries were hired from BlackThunder, the mercenary company to which Jansen belonged. But that wasn't all. Apparently there were three other companies involved in the operation and they were scattered in two locations in France, Boneville and Seyssel. The third, and somewhat smaller, was on the Swiss side, in Geneva, near Lake Lemac.

Whoever was paying for the whole operation must have been enormously wealthy to be able to afford the logistics of moving so many droid companies to such distant locations.

As far as he knew, the scientists would be working in along with those at the other three points. But what was striking was that moving so many droids was only in case of emergency, and as a last resort. Precautions had been taken so that no one from the surrounding area would snoop around, but Jansen didn't know what kind of measures had been taken so that during the time the mission lasted, people from nearby towns wouldn't ask about what it was all about.

He had heard rumors that NW mind-crackers had been hired to keep people passing by from approaching. But who knew if that was true.

A couple of people, through their Neurowires, were lifting the side doors of the big trucks and from them began to descend the humanoid droids that divided into different teams, some marched towards the building, while others were divided and moved away to different parts of the city. Another group of at least twenty-five droids marched towards the remaining four trucks and began loading more equipment into the building.

It's going to take time to unload all that, Jansen thought worriedly.

They only had a few hours to finish unloading and hide the vehicles in case any satellites detected the activity. The group of three soldiers who had left for the city had the task of setting up disruptors so that the satellite signal could not detect any sudden change in the energy of the place. The same should be happening at the other three points, where the operation was taking place.

At that moment a metallic giant was waking up from one of the big trucks and Jansen turned to look at it.

The huge autonomous assault mecha looked like it had just come out of the factory and its silver and blue color glowed in the light of the vehicles. It walked slowly to the unkempt garden surrounding the building and, sticking the hydraulic spear of one of its feet into the ground, adopted a kneeling posture and disappeared from sight, activating the optical camouflage.

Jansen gave a few more orders, to get used to what was to be his routine for the next few days and walked towards the entrance of the building.

To one side was the name of the building. Black letters on a yellowish wall that had surely once been white and without vines climbing around it. The huge letters welcoming the establishment were already corroded by the years, and a couple of them were fallen on the grass, but nevertheless, the name could still be read in the dark of the night.

Centre Européen d'études Nucléaires. LPCC

"Lepton-Positron Computing Center," Jansen said to himself. "Seriously, what are these guys looking for?"