An Executive Replaced
Chapter 2 — “A way in”
Noe Gradd had walked into her lavish bedroom. She sighed as sent the last command line. Now she had to scroll through the requisitions list and find someone with adequate qualifications that needed very little sleep and was a 100% loyal. Someone not in love with her! The last one was the hardest part, a longstanding problem that just had come up again unexpectedly. Many truly good candidates. It had to be a woman not attracted to women. She adjusted the search. Then she scrolled through the faces. It needed to be someone with a burly face or scars or anything like that. Someone that would make her look even more beautiful than her till-next-shift bodyguard had managed to do. There, she found someone! A woman with a face like scarred bulldog. Mean, huge chin, muscular, tanned and with a nice scar across the right half. Background-checks were ok, so off the request went! It would take only a few minutes until approval by SecHQ.
Another quick browse towards the messages. Her three secretaries worked in shifts, so Cerall had sent her the latest stock market news already. A quick glance at the curves. Everything in the green, investment strategy still valid. Next week would be the time for new acquisitions. She loved that time. Now she needed to get some sleep. Her skin needed that. A bit of muscle relaxation and stretching first, no excuses, she silently said to herself. When she opened up the curtain via a neural command to watch the night sky while stretching, the stars glimmered brightly. How beautiful—maybe all those satellites she had placed up there would prove useful someday. Suddenly she recognized something. A star that was out of position. She closed her eyes as her torso turned towards the floorboards in a daring spine stretch. After she had rotated her arms a bit, Miss Gradd turned around.
She was sure there had been something! A glittering of some sort, like a fallen star, where none could have ever been, right in front of the balcony’s railing, on the floor. She saw it again. There was something. A metallic shimmering, a small object. What was it? Maybe a defect of some sort, a broken wire? She took a break from her exercise to go take a look. As she saw through the polished, clear and missile-proof glass-door, she identified a small metal object lying there on the balcony’s floor. It looked like a sharply bent wire, roughly forming two ovals, a small one and a larger one. Such things had been used somewhere in the distant past, but she just could not come up with its name or its exact purpose. It had been something archaic, totally unnecessary, that much she remembered. The executive needed to examine it. Her curiosity had been sparked. How did it get there? The wind could not have blown it in, the laser grid would have vaporized it. Maybe it fell from a hoverplane or a drone from above. Possibly through a dead angle in the defense. That would be important.
As she started to let the door slide open, Noe Gradd reconsidered. Could it be potentially dangerous? The words of Lieutenant Cira Marks rung in her ear. “If you see ANYTHING suspicious: Call. Me. Immediately!” The sliding door stopped, roughly thirty to forty centimeters wide open. Her next neural command closed again. Even if that woman had disappointed her terribly, that was no reason to get carried away and act sloppy. She looked at the balcony. Nothing to see. A quiet and peaceful night. Just that strange metal wire. Maybe she was just jumpy and it was part of a cleaning drone, but she could not shake a bad feeling about it. Miss Gradd turned around towards the door. Cira should at least have a look. And she’d need to hurr…
THERE! THE MOONLIGHT RIGHT OF HER SHADOW HAD DARKENED! The security training kicked in! With a swift elbow-thrust, she attacked the place where she had seen the shadow! It connected! With a hefty thump something hit the floor next to her. As she spun around, Noe saw a huge spot of kaleidoscopic flickering appear out of thin air as an optical stealth field ceased to function. It unveiled a woman, shorter than herself, in a nano-stealth combat suit. Enveloped in adaptive nanoweave from head to toe, she had slipped into the room within the few moments, the glass wall had been slid back! Noe opened her mouth to call for help, but the assassin already had pulled a small, cylindrical device from her belt: An audio-inhibitor! The executive screamed, but only dampened noise with the volume of a whisper reached her ears. With a quick jump, the assailant was back on her feet and almost ready to jump at her!
In a hurry, the CEO ran towards the door. Cira would be bursting into the room any second now! It was only two meters! In panic, she sent a neural distress call and gave the command to open the door. One step. It would open and she would be saved! Two steps. She got ready to duck under a railrifle blast and bent her knees. Three steps! She had nearly reached it, but the door did not open! Then the intruder tackled her from behind and grabbed her legs! She fell and hit the floor. That scenario was practiced—Noe spun around, fixated her opponent and delivered a swift, precise kick. It hit the shoulder blade and staggered the attacker. Another one towards the wrist and the grip on her leg loosened! Hastily she got up and made the final two steps to the door, pulling at the doors edge to get it open, hammering the emergency release button, pushing her connector-chip onto it in a frenzy!
It would not open! How?! She screamed, but barely any sound seemed to leave her throat. She banged the door, but it’s surface was hard as composite mesh-concrete! From the corner of the eye she then saw that the intruder had gotten up and pulled a metallic-grey, spherical object from a transport bag. It was slightly bigger than a clenched fist. Noe’s eyes widened, as the thing sprung open! She banged the door! Cira! Cira had to help her! What had happened? She needed to flee! She needed to leave the room! She… and then then the device activated. It was a big red ball from inside the thing that the assailant had thrown on the ground between them! In split-seconds, the red orb unraveled into elastic polymer-whips, frayed out into bands, sprouting meter-wide through the room. With another silent scream she crouched to dodge the weapons appendages, but to no avail. As soon as one of the many elastomer-bands touched her clothing, the others homed in on her. Like a capture-drone’s apprehension extension it wrapped itself around her thigh. In panic, she grabbed onto it, tried to pull it off, shaking, trying to keep the others away. But like a blossom closing, the straps came down on her from all angles.
They wrapped around her arms first. She shook and struggled, trying to get them off, but meanwhile, her legs got caught up too. Again and again she ripped the ties from her limbs like an insect trying to escape a spider’s silk as it was getting webbed in. Noe was not ready to give up! She pulled several bands together and ripped them from her torso, drawing those that wrapped around her arms with them. To her despair, she noticed a pull as the bands enveloping her legs were in place and snapped tight, pulling them together. Wildly waving with her arms, she tried to rip her legs apart, but it was too late. She lost balance and fell backwards onto the floor, her torso and head leaning on the door. A thud must have gotten to be heard on the other side. Then she saw into the eyes of the attacker. The woman stood there, arms crossed, waiting. The nanomesh-mask she wore hid her facial expression but that posture alone spoke of a sardonic grin.
Noe Gradd snarled! No, she would not be giving up! With the scorn of a furious competitor she struggled on, ripped the bands off that tried to engulf her arms, pulled at those that had taken her legs, tried to get up. It was an absolute display of determinism and for a few seconds, it seemed like she would manage to get the bands off! Some were ripped apart from their core, meaning less attacks. As she started to win the upper hand, the assailant stepped in to intervene. With two steps she stood over her, clipped the audio-inhibitor on the outside of her belt and made ready to aid the terrible contraption. The executive saw her chance! With a straight punch, she aimed for the attacker’s face and with the other arm, she grabbed after the small-device rending her mute! But with a fluent move, her opponent moved backwards. Both the head and the device got out of reach by a narrow length! With all the force she used for that attack, she lost balance again and the woman in nanoweave grabbed both her wrists. Momentarily she struggled and squirmed to get free! It took her a few seconds to rip her arms out of the assassin’s grip, but those very seconds would have been direly needed!
The polymer bands restructured themselves and formed bonds around her chest and both upper arms. Then they pulled tight! The woman’s rich, beautiful chest got squeezed, and her upper arms were locked in place like her legs already were. Now she had only the lower arms left. Those could no longer rip the bands off each other and were wrapped quickly. Then, with force, they were pulled down to her hips and tied there. After roughly 20 seconds, Noe Gradd was completely immobilized. Her limbs locked in place, her mouth covered. She breathed heavily through her nose as the woman above her knelt before her to grab her shoulders and pull her over to the bed. She struggled and writhed to somehow get free, but it was to no use. Her upper body was placed against the bed as the woman sat on her thighs and grabbed her shoulders. The wide-eyed captive breathed heavily as she saw up to her captor. Said woman pushed the tactical nanoglasses up and pulled the nanomesh from her face.
First, down from the eyes over the chin, then up over the head. The elastic material snapped around her neck and looked like an odd, small-sized hood. The woman’s hair was silver-grey with streaks of black. Her face was average. One would not recognize her in a crowd. No special features, nothing worth of putting on a frontpage, no scars, no adaptations. She could have been her secretary if not for that smug grin on her lips. Again, Noe writhed and tried to shake her off, to get free, stared at the door. Cira! Cira had to come! She needed help! She needed her! The woman in the silver bodysuit tilted her upper body and her head a bit, so that she was in the way of Miss Gradd’s line of sight. She shook her head silently and put her finger in front of her lips. Then, still holding Noe’s shoulder and legs in place, she reached to the back of her head fingering something there. First, it looked like she’d be scratching herself. Then, to her horror, the CEO saw her pull out a flat, wide cable of white color.
No! That was a transmitter cable for the brain-computer-interface! She used those now and then to sync her neural interface data with the corporate databanks for appointments and business figures! Her eyes widened! That one wanted to break into her! That was no abduction, she was after her memory! Noe Gradd struggled and tore at her bonds, pushed against her captor! No! That could not happen! Terrifying things did happen to victims of such intrusions! Erased memory parts, fragmented personality, emotional malfunctions! No! Then she felt the hand with the cable, which ran next to her face to the back of her head. She searched for her port! Oh, please no! After a few moments, she had found it and removed the false skin covering it by cleanly peeling it off with her suit’s reinforced fingernails. Then Noe struggled more, tried to make that terrible woman miss her port, but to no avail. The hand anchored around her neck and after a tiny bit of fiddling, the cable clicked in.
A small polycarbonic clamp, a cheap, tiny thing, held the cable in place. Her eyes widened as she desperately tried to shake it off! But it did not help! That tiny thing of the likes her company produced to no relevant cost would not let her free herself! Then, with significant dread, she felt the light pressure. Something was happening. Noe Gradd looked at her captor. The woman’s mimic froze in a state of mental focus, her eyes closed exactly by half. Some sort of transmission begun! That was her last chance! If she could break the clamp, the transition would fail and her assailant would get incapacitated by the backlash! She had gotten a security briefing about that! Like never before, she struggled against the tight, elastic bonds, wrapped around her body! She managed to lower her torso a few centimeters and tried to break the cable off. When the pressure rose slowly, she noticed that behind her, there was only the soft mattress that she had ordered to be produced for herself! It did not offer enough resistance to break the cable off! Then she tried to wind out of the assailant’s grip and rip the cable off somehow, maybe bringing enough distance between the ports. She started hearing a distant sound. It was a sort of electronic chirping, mixed with static noise.
It was getting closer! She pushed one of the hands on her shoulders off and moved herself to the right until she fell on her side. Wrapped up like that, her movement was restricted, but she slowly tried to wriggle out of the chokehold on her thighs, trying to get more distance. That did not work either! The cable just gave in and revealed more cable! Time was running out and the noise was getting closer! She squirmed and tried to lay on her back so she could use the floor to break the cable off! That seemed to work. There was resistance. Her abdominal muscles needed to work against the bonds, hold and gravity but she managed to lift her upper body up to slam it down on the ground. She needed to damage the cable somehow! It withstood the shock. Again, with more precision she tried! She heard a fine crack while the noise was coming near. It was incredibly close now. One more try! She rose up once more and fell back. It was not her port that hit the ground, it was the lower back. Her muscles had ceased to function.