Standing at the bow of the glide boat, the lights of New Hollywood came into view.  They looked strange to my eyes.  A lifetime had passed since I’d last been downtown; at least, it felt that way.

   For the mission, we were using a Peppard Mark VII cruiser.  The big old taxi was actually more of a ferry.  The Cavalry had reinforced the hull with armored plating and painted it to look like wood.  Astaire was on the pilot deck over the engine compartment.  The rest of the team stood on deck, leaning against the gunwale and looking out at the night.  Each of us was lost in our own thoughts, as we glided on a cushion of air down the grand canals to an alley behind The Hotel Berlin.

   We were all dressed as hotel wait staff.  The disguises were meant to throw off suspicion, but since we were sneaking in through a fire door and had four large duffle bags filled with weapons and other equipment, I really can’t say how effective they would have been if they were put to a test.

   Once our feet hit the dock, Elvis led the way.  I was in the middle of the pack.  At first, I thought it was to protect me, but then I wondered if they were worried I would take the opportunity to run off, and were keeping me hemmed in.  It annoyed me that they might think I’d desert them.  Abandoning the mission had never crossed my mind; at least it hadn’t until that moment.  I looked over my shoulder at Chaplin, who was bringing up the rear.  His eyes scanned everything in front of him, taking in every detail.  There would be no chance of slipping by him.

   We marched down the stairs, until we reached the boiler-room in the sub-basement.  Elvis set the charges against the northwest wall.  If our calculation were correct, we would soon have a doorway into the Barton Central Bank and Depository.  If they were wrong, the room would soon be flooded with canal water.

   Fay and I started breaking out the gear, while Boris and Chaplin kept guard on the door.

   “The fuse is lit,” Elvis said, as he dashed away from the explosives, warning us he was about to hit the detonator.

   We all took shelter behind the industrial boiler, and he flicked the switch.  For a few seconds, fire lit up the basement like the noonday sun.  The room erupted with a shriek and rubble showered down all around us.  When my ears stopped ringing, I noticed that the noise of the blast had been replaced by the sound of the fire alarm. 

   Water wasn’t pouring in, so we were clear to seal the door behind us.  Chaplin took care of that with a welding torch.  I wasn’t crazy about shutting off our only escape route, but we needed to, if only for the little extra time it would give us.

   We had estimated that it would take emergency response squads twelve minutes to reach the sub-basement, once they got the signal from the hotel’s security system.  It would take them another two minutes to cut through the door.  But if we were lucky, there would be enough confusion that they would be slow to get to work on it.  We were counting on having fifteen minutes before they discovered the break-in and alerted the police - fifteen minutes to shake the world.

   As soon as the final weld was in place, Chaplin tossed the torch aside, and we all started crawling through the opening into the bank.  The lower level was filled with backup generators.  There were no lights, and the beams of our flashlights captured little more than the thick dust that filled the air after the blast.  The only way I could find my way, as we wound our way through the machinery, was by following the faint outline of Boris’s back.  Fay was having an even harder time.  I could feel her fingertips brushing against my shoulder.  The sensation was reassuring, even though I knew I was just providing her a guide through the darkness.

   The lack of visibility made it a slow go, but it was a good sign.  It meant that the explosives had successfully fired backward into the hotel and hadn’t triggered the bank’s security systems.  The alternative was having the place lit by emergency lights, but we’d never complete the mission before the Exec raiding units got there.

   At the top of the stairs, Fay pushed passed me to get at the door and override the lock.  I leaned against the railing trying to get a bit of a breather before the next push, but she had it hacked as soon as she reached it.

   We entered the vault level.  After the dark, dirty sub-basement, it was dazzling.  I may have just stood there in the doorway mesmerized, but Chaplin gave me a gentle push and got me moving again.

   The floor was a high-gloss, white plastic and the lights reflected off of it in incredible patterns of abstract beauty, but it was easier to focus on it, than the Coral-Core chips. 

   As we wove our way through the narrow maze of the vault, I occasionally would look at the expression of wonder on Fay’s face.  The colors from the prisms swirled on her skin and sparkled in her eyes, as she stared into the secret face of Network.  A sudden twinkling, blue light caught a tear in the corner of her eye.  I would have given anything to know what she was thinking in that moment.

   Despite our slow progress, everything was going like clockwork, but when we got to the vault door things started falling apart.

   The door was a twenty foot square made of solid titanium.  Fay worked the lock from the small control podium directly in front of it.  Her face no longer hinted at any emotion – it was all business. 

   Boris and Chaplin took up their positions to ambush the guards.  From our information there would be two of the androids on the other side watching the elevator and the stairwell.  Since all of the security was setup to keep people from getting in and not from getting out, it should have been easy to catch them by surprise.

   The lock disengaged, and the door started swinging towards us sluggishly, inch by inch.  By the time the gap was about two feet wide, it was clear that we had been wrong.

   Maybe our intel had been off, or maybe the alarms over at the Berlin had put them on alert.  But in either case, they were waiting for us, and there were a lot more than just two of them.

   “Get back,” Elvis screamed, as water-gel bullets tore through the crack.

   Without a second thought, I dove behind the podium with Fay.  The soft hiss off the spine-rifles filled the air behind me, along with constant hard splat of gel ammo pounding against the walls. 

   Fay leaned out from behind our cover and fired her spine-rifle in unison with the others.  Her body shook next to me from the constant recoil.

   I glanced out from my hiding place and saw Elvis pressed against the door, which was still opening at its glacial pace.  He spun quickly and fired his shotgun around the side.  The explosive shell thundered over the other gun fire, and was followed by a noise my imagination told me was a body hitting the ground.

   A siren filled the room and all of the Coral-Core chips instantly turned red.  Someone had triggered the alarm.  In the gloom of the high alert lights, I saw that the door had stopped its progress and started closing shut again.  I waited behind the safety of the console, but Fay dashed from the cover.  By the time I glanced around the corner, she was already passing through the door.  The rest of the room was empty.  The others were pressing the attack.  They had decided to risk the dangers outside, rather than get trapped in the vault.

   I started to follow, but fear stopped me before I could get through the narrowing gap.  All I could think of was the four tons of metal that would crush me like a prawn.  My knees went numb, and I was rooted in place.  I knew the longer I waited, the worse my chances got.  I tried thinking of the others – my friends – my comrades – and how they were risking themselves by charging into the face of death, and I got myself moving again.  One, two deep breaths, then I dashed through.

   My foot caught on the door sill and my legs went out from underneath me.  Stunned, I lay halfway on either side.  The door started to press down on my hip like a vise.  Screaming in terror, I tried to pull myself free but found myself wedged in tight.

   Then, someone grabbed hold of my left arm and yanked me free.  The jolt nearly dislocated my shoulder, as my rescuer lifted me up and flung me clear.  Beyond my feet, the door was sealing itself shut.  Whoever saved me hadn’t been gentle about it, but I wasn’t complaining.  

   I looked around and got a glimpse of Boris heading up the stairs. No one else was in the hallway.  There was only the bodies of the fallen sentinel units on the floor beside me.  Did Boris Karloff just save my life?

   It took a moment to get myself up off the ground.  More gunfire could be heard coming from above.  I ran up the stairs stepping over two guards along the way.  My pistol was in my hand and I was about to burst into the lobby, when the shooting stopped.

   The main floor of the bank looked like it had been in a war.  Actually, it had been.  I reminded myself that this was the first battle of the war to come.

   The floor, the walls, the pillars, everywhere I looked, was ripped apart.  The polished marble was chipped and shattered.  Some of the spines were still embedded in the stone.  An ornate crystal chandelier had crashed to the ground crushing two androids.  And there were another half dozen of them scattered around room, their lifeless, acrylic skin bathed in the eerie red flashing light of the alarms.

   My team was still intact and busy reloading their weapons.  All except for Fay, who was working on getting the second floor access door open.  If things had been going as planned, we would have about seven more minutes to complete the upload.  But that plan was gone.  How much time was left?  It was anyone’s guess.

   I looked to the front of the building.  From floor to vaulted ceiling, giant metal shutters shielded it from the outside.  I wondered what was happening on the other side of them.  Were the police setting up a perimeter?  Or were Exec raiding units moving in?  Or was there a Payara jet hovering just beyond the front door, with its missiles locking onto our heat signatures?

   “Dammit!” Fay said.  “The place is on full lock out.”  She cursed again, brushing her hair back in frustration, and walked away from the access panel.

   Elvis said: “I’ll try blowing it.”

   “There’s no time for that,” Boris said.  “We need to abort.”

   “Let me try,” I said.  I had no idea why I said it.  And I had even less of an idea about what to do about it.  The others looked as stunned as I felt.  But Elvis nodded and made an ushering gesture towards the panel for me.

   I walked over to it and pulled out my Pewter – there had to be something there.  My mind raced through its familiar pathways, until I came across a Prague called Maximum Override.  I ran the small black box over the panel.  The alarms stopped, the lights went back to normal, and the door clicked open.

   I could tell that Fay was dying to ask me how I did it, but the others were already racing up the stairs.  We’d have to have that conversation another time.

   When I entered the Teller’s office, Boris and Chaplin already had the workers lined up against a wall, and Elvis was off preparing for the getaway in the manager’s office.  Fay immediately started crunching her way through the security matrix.  I stood by waiting, my palms sweating.  It seemed funny, after the break-in, the gun fight, and nearly getting crushed, I was getting nervous about a simple upload.  But I guess it wasn’t just a simple upload, I was about to violate Network.  I was about to cross a line that I could never come back from.

   Then she said: “Okay.”  I couldn’t help feeling that the moment required something more to be said, but all I got was that one simple word.

   I stepped up to a terminal, pressed my Pewter to the glass, and published my story.  It took less than a second, but I knew everyone, everywhere on Network was now learning about the government’s cover-up.

   Still a little in shock that I had actually gone through with it, I took a step back from the console.  The others were watching me.  I nodded to let them know it was done.

   “Now for the fun part,” Boris said.

   It took me a moment to remember what I had to do next, but I quickly pushed my crime to the back of my mind and got moving.  I went to Elvis and gave him the signal to fire the explosives.  He nodded and jammed his thumb down on the detonator.

   The entire wall of the office blew out.  Shards of glass and shrapnel hurtled through the air, raining down on the sidewalk below.  The windows and the metal shutters were gone.  In front of us was the expanse of the Lange Lagoon.

   I was relieved that there wasn’t a Payara jet facing us.  I was less relieved that two Heli-Congers where heading for us from across the water, and every type of emergency watercraft imaginable was moving in from all directions. 

   Elvis already had his strange crossbow-like contraption bolted to the floor.  He aimed it out at the lagoon and fired.  Even though I had seen him do it a dozen times, I was amazed he made the shot.  Especially since the metal cabling was attached this time.

   It spooled out rapidly behind the harpoon, which sank neatly into one of the support pilings of the Lange Bridge, a good one-hundred yards out into the lagoon.

   I was the first on the zip-line.  This would be the only time during the mission that I would be on my own and unprotected.  If the alarm hadn’t been tripped, it would have been a simple maneuver.  I just had to sail over the deserted waterway and wait for pickup.  As I watched the dozens, if not hundreds, of hover boats, Stilettos, Vaporettes, and Mascaret vans pass beneath my feet, I knew it was not going to be that simple.  Halfway along, one of the Heli-Congers opened fire.  My mind went back to my training, and I raised my legs until my body was horizontal.  The position allowed my speed to pick up enough so I was a harder target.  The bridge rushed into view, and I tried desperately to keep my grip with my cold, sweaty hands.

   At the last moment, I let go and hit the water, letting myself sink to a safe depth as the bullets bombarded me.  I swam beneath the bridge feeling my way through the support beams.  By the time I surfaced, Fay was almost down.

   She twisted and bucked her body as she slid along the line to avoid the shots.  The copters were weaving back and forth around her.  They just kept enough distance to avoid getting caught on the cable. 

   She entered the lagoon with a splash, and I saw that Chaplin was right behind her.  Elvis was next.  Our getaway boat flew in as if from nowhere, and Elvis didn’t even need to make a water landing.  He dropped right onto the wide aft deck and was there to help Fay and me on board.

   As I pulled myself up the ladder, I noticed that Boris still hadn’t got on the zip-line.  One of the Heli-Congers had moved back to the bank and had him pinned down. 

   Astaire took up his spine-rifle and said “I’ve been waiting a long time to do this.”

   The needles tore through the copter’s armored plating, and it veered away with smoke billowing out of it.  Boris made his exit just as half the boats in the lagoon started heading straight for us, and the other Heli-Conger moved in for a strafing run.

   Boris was almost at us when a stray bullet snapped the cable behind him.  Suddenly the line started to slacken and Boris began to fall.  Astaire slammed down the throttle and reversed the boat towards him. 

   “Grab him,” Elvis screamed over the noise and the confusion.

   The boat reached him just as he hit the water.  I stretched out and latched onto his arm, before he could plunge beneath the surface.  The sudden pull almost threw me overboard.  I instinctively used the ledge of the gunwale to keep myself from pitching forward, and then I fought to stay in the boat as it stopped its backward rush and did an abrupt pivot.  Astaire pushed the throttle forward, as the air around us filled with gunfire from the copter.

   I held onto Boris while the water tried to wrench him away.  Finally with Chaplin’s help, we got him onto the deck. 

   “Man, it’s getting dicey,” Elvis said to me.  “Better get yourself below.”

   I ran to the engine compartment to hide.  The small dark space stared back at me, and I hesitated for a second.  Then I slammed the hatch shut.  Whatever happened, I wasn’t going to die a coward’s death.

   I took up a position on the port side and started firing on an approaching Mascaret van.  My pistol may have been largely ineffectual against its armor, but at least I was out there, shoulder-to-shoulder with the others, as the boat zigzagged trying to escape the onslaught. 

   By some miracle we eventually got away.

   The night was quiet.  We were out in some empty channel and everyone was tired and covered in the grime of the evening's escapade.  The only sign that we had been victorious was the slight smile that was playing on each of our faces. 

   I took in our surroundings for the first time and grew concerned.  We were heading towards Old Studio Town.

   “This isn’t the way to The Fort,” I said.

   “We’re not heading there, son.”

   “Where are we going?”

   “Your one of us now, boy,” Boris said and clapped me on the back. 

    “There’s just one last thing to do,” Fay said.