Chapter 77: Observed

Special Officer Hawkins had received a notification that he and a small detachment from his outpost, was to be transported to a secure location near Moab City via Hover Ship. From there his team and three other similar teams were to work together and capture the King type soldier, Zac Evans aka 56, somewhere inside of Moab City. Upon arriving, Lieutenant Colonel Ardith Laghari had remained allusive and was not at the facility that the teams were to rendezvous at. Instead, he merely appeared on the facilities main screen like before.

The Lieutenant Colonel's voice sounded strong as he started off the report for the operations plan. "Four teams from the surrounding survey outposts have been assigned to this mission. Special Officer Welling's Unit from southern Grand Junction City zone, Special Officer Hawkins's Unit from Northwest Moab City zone, newly promoted Special Officer Foal's Unit from Northern Farmington City zone and also newly promoted Special Officer Takanowa from Southeastern Provo City zone; you have all been informed of your target. His special abilities, specialized skills, recorded habits and the training he has undergone; I trust you have relayed this to your respected Units?"

"Yes Sir!" The four Special Officers chanted all in unison.

"Good. Orders have already been relayed to your drone pilots and surveillance has already begun over the city." The Lieutenant Colonel continued. "First Lieutenant Zac Evans, Number 56 is his call sign, has been traced to this city for likely two reasons. One is that he was sent here to collect intelligence for the rebel cyborgs. The second is that he was sent here to contact someone on the outside. Such as your observation targets, Special Officer Welling and Hawkins, not all of the cyborgs stayed together. It's possible that they wish to bring them back into the fold."

"I believe it will be the first reason. His listed skills are not suited for negotiations." Special Officer Welling replied. He was a big beefy blond man, your typical image of a military jock. Though his appearance was primitive looking, the fact that he was a Special Officer made it clear there was a brain in his thick skull. "With Moab City being in the neutral zone he would have a better opportunity to utilize his hacking abilities to get into our or our rivals military systems. I see nothing preventing us from removing this threat on site."

"Correct." The Lieutenant Colonel replied. "However, we must restrain ourselves for a brief moment. We need to figure out exactly what his intentions are before acting."

"So, we are going to capture him?" Special Officer Foal asked stepping forward. "Why not eliminate him if he's such a threat that this Strike Unit had to be formed?"

"The answer couldn't be clearer. To find the rest of his allies. Their locations must be known to us." Lieutenant Colonel replied swiftly.

Special Officer Foal gave a nod and stepped back. If he had spoken any further his position was likely at risk, luckily, he recognized the threatening tone of the Lieutenant Colonel. A Special Officer needs to always be finding answers not asking them and this answer was too basic for him not to have already understood. Though he was a bright young soldier, he had much to learn.

"Now one additional point of interest." The Lieutenant Colonel continued ignoring the slight oversight of Foal. "He has created his own robotic companion. Its capabilities are still unknown. He had created it after coming back from cryogenic sleep and its specs are nearly unknown. Though from how it acted during the cyborgs uprising, it appeared to only do surveillance and communication. Stay wary of it just be sure. Now dismissed and good luck locating him."

The image of the Lieutenant Colonel disappeared from on screen and was replaced by an aerial map of Moab City. The four Special Officers promptly left the conference room and headed towards the separate rooms their units were stationed in. Though working together, it was clearly a competition among the Officers. They all had the same thoughts, the one to capture 56 would earn promotion or higher clearance missions. Either reward would put them well on track to climbing the ranks.

Special Officer Hawkins quickly marched into his room and saw that everyone was working away at setting up for the surveillance mission. He had taken over half of his stationed unit and brought them here, while the rest he left under Caswell's command to keep track of Lisa. Her movements had remained stationary in the town and wasn't likely to cause problems for them.

"Who has eyes on the ground right now?" Hawkins barked out.

"I do, Sir." One of the Osprey drone pilots called out raising his hand.

Hawkins came over to stand behind the pilot’s chair and glanced at the screen. The drone was flying high above the city and wasn't zoomed in on any location in particular. So far there wasn’t anywhere to fucus their attention on to conduct the search.

"I need an analyst to pull up any building or company that has a computer system capable of mid-tier to high-tier internet connectivity." Hawkins replied once again to the room.

One soldier on his right started to vigorously type at his desk and momentarily opened a secondary monitor to display a map overlay of the city with the specified targets marked in red. The whole map appeared to have chicken pox due to the number of red dots.

"Good. Now remove any privately owned or operated connections. Focus on public hot spots and businesses that offer computer services." Hawkins said to the man who immediately went back to filtering out the information.

Then turning to another soldier that had just finished his computer set up, Hawkins gave him an order. "Open up on the main screen an image of our target. I want everyone to memorize his face like he's your mother. We need to be able to spot him on first sight."

"Yes Sir." The soldier replied and soon Zac Evans profile image appeared on the overhead screen next to the main screen.

The second soldier spoke up at this point. "Special Officer, I have narrowed down the public areas as ordered."

"Good. Now let's see…" Hawkins said moving to look over the second soldiers’ shoulder.

On the screen there were still a lot of options. Library's, public restaurants, Internet cafés and computer information centers were all over the map.

"Hmm, eliminate the heavily populated areas and computer information centers. He likely won't go near them. It's too easy to be spotted by facial recognition cameras and hacking a large number of them at once would surely be noticed." Hawkins said aloud while thinking. The soldier tapped away and over half of the dots disappeared. Now there were roughly sixty red dots remaining.

"Remove all the restaurants. They mostly have a time limit for customers, and he wouldn't be able to stay long enough to collect much. Plus, all the curious eyes watching him there won't make it any easier." Hawkins said and again more red dots disappeared. Now there were thirty or less. "Remove library's next. They require genetic identification from implanted Chips and it's too much effort to get around their firewalls."

The soldier nodded and entered the commands. Twelve dots remained.

"Put this on the side screen." Hawkins said and turned to address the rest of the drone pilots. "Here are twelve locations I want monitored by Blue Jay drones, 24/7. If you spot the target or even a look-a-like, call it out and track him."

"Yes Sir." The room sounded out as the men chanted together.

…

A day later, 56 had been spotted. Hawkins guess had been right and spotted him entering Zhou's Internet Café. Though he was the one to spot him, the Lieutenant Colonel ordered Special Officer Takanowa's forces to engage the target. The city councilmen had given them permission to enter the city only by foot or vehicles, no air support was allowed or heavy robotic presence. So, it took under two hours for the capture unit to form up and reach the AO (Area of Operation) at the café.

Hawkins wanted to voice his displeasure over the command, but he had gone through a similar experience before. Newly promoted officers would be sent in after a target to get their men practical experience and test the new officer’s skills in action. Takanowa was no exception.

Takanowa had ordered his men to surround the building and then formulate a pincher attack on the café building with plain clothed troops. Straight forward approach, nothing to fancy. If the target tried to flee the area spotters and surveillance drones were ready to find and follow him. With any luck they would catch 56 still inside.

The operation proceeded very well at the start. Everything happening inside was being viewed by miniature body cameras deployed on all the soldiers. The twelve men sent inside quickly took control of everyone in the café and no one resisted. Corralling everyone together, the soldiers checked everyone's facial identities and discovered that 56 was gone!

"How's that possible." Hawkins mumbled as he watched the live videos carefully.

"Check the building thoroughly again!" Takanowa called out on the communication (comm's) channel. So loudly in fact, his voice could be heard coming from the next room over from Hawkins's. "Use thermal vision on Fly drones to check the walls, floor and ceiling. He couldn't have just vanished!"

"It's possible that he's still in the building." Hawkins thought to himself. "But he has that surveillance robot with him."

Then speaking to his drone operators Hawkins said, "Roll back your footage five minutes before the men entered the building. Look for anyone leaving the building from any side."

The drone pilots quickly did as they were told. Those soldiers not working at the moment observed over the pilot’s shoulders to assist. Moments went by as Hawkins kept watching the live feeds coming from the soldiers. Yet nothing was coming up, it was becoming more apparent he 56 was already gone.

"Sir, a man left from the main entrance seconds after the soldiers moved in. Though images are fuzzy a flying robot was seen just nearly off screen joining up with the man." One of the Blue Jay drone pilots called out.

Hawkins rushed over to confirm the situation. There was indeed a man leaving the building nearly the same time as the soldiers entered. If they had seen him go by them, those soldiers are fools for letting him leave. The footage of the flying robot alone was convincing enough for Hawkins.

"Good eye soldier. That's him." Hawkins said patting the pilot’s shoulder. Then standing up he called out to everyone else in the room. "Send the drones in the direction he was traveling based off this footage. Check every intersection and branch out from there. Find any signs of him and report them instantly!"

He then opened up the communications to the rest of the Special Officers and Lieutenant Colonel. "We have a possible spot on our target escaping minutes before now. My drones are following up now. Sending footage for additional conformation."

"How did he get out?" Takanowa shouted back over the comm’s being the first to respond.

"Happened just as your men entered from the front entrance. Might need to check on the body camera footage for follow up. They better not have let him just walk by them." Hawkins replied smugly.

"I concur with the footage of the flying robot." Special Officer Welling then spoke on the comm's. "Sending my drones to the area north of the expected target."

"Sending mine to the south, now." Special Officer Foal also replied.

"Good to hear it. He won't get far." Hawkins replied and then turned back to watch the live feed of his soldiers live drone footage. Breaking into a smile Hawkins thought to himself. "So, the hunt begins again! I just love my job."