Freedom TM

theway detonated in a massive explosion, sending brick, wood, glass, and clouds of dust out into the street.
    But through the dust an avatar approached with a confident walk that seemed familiar. It was headed directly for Ross, walking straight through mercenaries and the hull of an intervening ASV like a ghost and emerging from the other side.
    The avatar appeared to be dressed in a tactical operations suit, with a bulletproof helmet and mask as well as body armor. He had twin .45 pistols in combat holsters, but was otherwise unarmed. As the avatar came to the foot of the stairs it turned to Ross and flipped up its faceplate.
    Roy Merritt nodded to him and spoke in his familiar even tone.
“Everything’s going to be okay, sir. I need you to stay calm and tell me where the bad guys are.…”
    ______________
    The Major stood in a command-and-control trailer lined with dozens of LCD screens and control boards. Board operators and drone pilots in headsets sat at each station monitoring every aspect of Operation Prairie Fire from above.
    The Argus R-7 surveillance blimps were barely eighty feet long, but they could loiter over a theater of operations for up to two weeks using the solar cells covering their upper surface. One of the aerospace firms in their group had developed it and had sold hundreds to dictatorships in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
    Flying at sixty thousand feet with no telltale contrail, they were all but invisible to the naked eye, and their sensitive long-range cameras could pinpoint and monitor individuals or entire communities, especially when combined with telecommunications and purchasing records. They weren’t invisible to radar or othersensors, but it was the public they were meant to monitor, not military opponents.
    On the screens before him, the Argus cameras showed FLIR and color imagery of civilians in darknet communities in several Midwestern states. The forms on-screen were fleeing, fighting, hiding—but in all cases losing as the private military contractors squeezed them ever closer to their final stand.
    Standing next to him was the towering South African colonel Andriessen. “Good news from your special unit.”
    The Major nodded. “Yes, but they’ve lost their transport.”
    Short loud beeps and red lights activated on several control boards.
    “And it looks like this will be wrapped up fairly soon as well.”
    The Major nodded as the beeping continued to spread along the flight line. Several flight officers pulled off their headsets and started talking urgently with their tech officers. Some LCD screens nearby were no longer showing stable close-up shots of street fighting, but instead showed whirling blurs, then blackness, then blurred lights again.
    The Major walked over to a nearby flight officer who was struggling with his controls. “What’s going on? Why have we lost video?”
    The officer turned off the alarms and pointed to another screen showing a row of red numbers next to critical measurements. “The temperature readings on our avionics system just red-lined. I think we’ve got a fire onboard.”
    The tech officer leaned in. “Our fire suppression system did activate. So, give us a moment.…”
    The Major looked in both directions down the line of drone pilots. There were red lights flashing on half the boards now.
    The Colonel gave him a concerned look.
    He started walking down the line, seeing more and moreblack screens. Temperature readings and pop-up messages reading
Fire!
    Within a minute virtually all of the control stations were blinking red. The video screens black. What started out as a frenzied chorus of urgent talk had turned into a reading room of technicians flipping through three-ring SOP manuals.
    The Major shouted down to the Colonel, still standing where he’d left him. “What the hell’s going on, Colonel?”
    The Colonel looked at all the blank screens and said nothing.
    “How the fuck can this happen? The Daemon penetrated our encryption somehow and overrode our avionics.” He grabbed a headset sitting on the nearby board and hurled it onto the static-free tile floor with all his might, shattering it into several pieces. “Goddamnit! What is this, fucking amateur hour? I thought we put together the best goddamn electronic countermeasures team possible.”
    The Colonel apparently thought it wise to just listen until he was asked a direct question.
    The entire line of board operators was now looking up at The Major. They were