Red Awakening (Red Zone 2)

“Keiko Sato isn’t innocent,” Friday said. “She runs CommTECH’s publicity machine, which means she must know there are problems with their latest tech.”

Mace wasn’t so sure about that. CommTECH’s CEO was pretty good about keeping things to herself. Otherwise, half the world would know she was screwing them for power and profit. He didn’t see why her press secretary should be any different.

He shook his head. So many things had changed while he and the team had been asleep…or whatever you want to call passing out for a century.

After years of big business influencing governments from behind the scenes, they decided to get rid of the middleman. Now, instead of elected officials, CommTECH, the most successful company to emerge from the chaos, ruled the former U.S. and Canada. The Northern Territory, it was called, a nation of people obsessed with getting the latest tech implanted in their bodies.

Mace didn’t understand those people at all.

He’d heard the arguments for implants at the start of the Technology War, a hundred years earlier. Imagine a world where you can send an email or a text with nothing more than a thought? Restock your fridge with a blink of your eye? You’ll never miss out on the latest news because it will be streamed straight into your head!

Yeah, it’d sounded like hell to him then, and it still did. And just like then, he was fighting for a cause he didn’t support. Then, it had been the U.S. government and their desire to see everyone implanted. Now, it was his team wanting to make sure that the fools who implanted the tech were safe when they did it.

“I miss being an American,” Mace grumbled as he held up his hand to the scanner at the entrance to the nightclub.

“What is he talking about now?” Friday said to Striker.

“Just go with the flow, bébé, just go with the flow,” Striker advised.

The datachip hidden in the sleeve of Mace’s suit was his ticket into the nightclub. Thankfully, the machine wouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t under his skin where it should have been.

Unlike everyone else in the Northern Territory, no one on Red Team had tech implanted in their bodies. Which meant they couldn’t communicate with the computers around them with just a thought, couldn’t read the data on everyone in the building on a contact lens inserted in their eye, and couldn’t wave their hand to enter buildings or pay for things.

But for this mission, Mace had datachips stashed in his clothing in order to fool people into thinking he had implants. A lack of tech would have set off all sorts of alarm bells, which would make going undercover pretty damn hard.

The green light flashed, allowing Mace into the building, uploading his cover story to the nightclub’s database as he passed through the door. The club now knew him to be an entrepreneur in town for the night and out for some fun. They also knew his marital status, his drink preference, and any criminal history he might have. Which he didn’t, because the Red Team tech guy knew how to build a cover.

“The target’s on the fourth floor,” Striker said in his ear, reminding Mace that they’d already hacked into the club’s information system, which meant they could keep track of everyone inside.

“Copy that,” he muttered before following the gently sloping ramp that wound around the central atrium up into the heart of the building.

According to the nightclub’s promo, its design was based on the Guggenheim Museum in New York. People could stand on the ramp, lean over the railing, and watch everything happening on the floors beneath them. It was nirvana for voyeurs and exhibitionists alike.

“This would make the perfect sex club,” he said.

“Mace!” Friday reprimanded, making him swallow a grin.

Lights flashed in the darkness, mirroring the rhythm of the beat. On the walls, a never-ending cycle of images played—photos taken by people in the club, shown in real time as they appeared on the web, interspersed with footage of the long-dead artists whose music played throughout the building. Mace shook his head at the sight of a holographic Elvis gyrating in midair. Above him, in the apex of the atrium, silver fireworks detonated, and a shower of sparkles floated down to the ground floor, fading to nothing before they hit the dancers. The place was bursting with bored, plastic people, looking to lose themselves in the latest high or riskiest assignation.

He was an alien among them.

As he prowled up the ramp leading to the floors above, a path cleared for him. As it usually did. At six and a half feet tall, with a face that’d seen battle, he found most people swallowed hard and got out of his way.

With a casual wave of his hand, he dismissed any servers brave enough to approach him. Each one was dressed head to toe in their standard, fiber-optic-infused white uniforms, with ever-changing messages flashing over body parts, enticing patrons to try new drinks or take advantage of special offers. They were walking billboards for the club, background noise in a place packed with wealthy businesspeople and celebrities.

The crowd thrummed. Bodies rubbed against each other in time to the eighties synthetic pop that permeated one of the floors he passed through. The noise, passing as music, reminded Mace he was glad he’d been born late enough to miss the eighties the first time around.

As he hit the fourth floor, Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” began to play, and a transparent image of the singer danced above the crowd.

“I love this song,” a woman beside him squealed.

“I don’t understand why you like this old music,” her friend complained but let herself get dragged onto the dance floor.

“This place makes me feel ancient,” he said to his team leader.

“We are ancient, mon ami,” Striker said.

“You aren’t old,” Friday said. “You’re just…displaced.”