DIE HARD 2032
A hack crossover by Sean Hayden.
    An actinic flare lit the night sky in the city of MegaTokyo.
    The explosion rocked a super skyscraper built to withstand
earthquakes that registered eight on the Richter scale.
    In the resulting chaos around the street hundreds of windows
had shattered and rained razor death at the speed of sound.
    One man stood atop the Quincy building and smiled.
    New York, New Years Eve 1989.
    John McClain looked out of the window of the DC-10 flying to
Tokyo. His wife had gotten a job working for a new company,
Bradley Inc. and they had flown her out for several business
presentations on New Years day. True to Japanese logic, the best
time to propose something would be on the dawn of a new decade,
one which would also see the completion of the world's largest
skyscraper and also the world's only skyscraper that was said to
be fortified against even the great Canto earthquake.
    He had flown to Tokyo on his wife's insistence that he share
New Year's eve with her since she wasn't home for Christmas. He
had conceded, and besides. Bradley was paying for everything, an
all expense paid vacation in Japan in the finest hotels. It would
be nice to relax.
    "Good morning ladies and gentlemen," a cultured voice said
across the intercom. "this is Captain St. Clair, on behalf of TWA
International, I'd like to welcome you to Japan. We hope you've
had a pleasant flight and that you'll choose to fly again with
us. The weather is a balmy 82 degrees fahrenheit and there is a
slight chance of rain this afternoon."
    McClain looked over his shoulder and saw a gargantuan
skyscraper being built. He guessed the base of it was at least
four blocks.
    "That's the Sumotori Building," a cultured gray haired
Japanese said. "A new company in Japan is building it to be their
headquarters."
    "Jesus Christ." McClain said simply.
    "No, but it helps if you want to knock it down."
    "What?"
    "I mean that building, every support is designed to take
about 7.8 sustained shocks on the Richter scale. When it's
finished the building will create a sort of negative harmonic
canceling out any shockwaves. It's supposed to take about 8.9,
but I think it will take 9."
    "Holy Shit," McClain said. "That's pretty fucking
impressive."
    "Yes I know, I designed it. I'm sorry," the gray haired man
said. "I haven't introduced myself. I'm Doctor Tanaka.
    "John McClain."
    "Are you an architect?"
    "No, I'm a cop."
                                ***
    "We need the interlock code. The supports could stand up to a
nuclear blast, you saw what twenty pounds of C-13 did to it."
    A phone rang in the darkness, police lights flashed thirty
stories below in futility.
    "No, it was not successful. We believe the vault was designed
with a nuclear blast in mind. The interlock code is a twenty
kilobyte key. There is no known way to crack such a key. If we
had the inventor. It could be done. Yes. Yes, I understand. This
is a contingency we planned on. Yes, sir."
    "Mason hung up the phone. "Get the accelerator ready. We're
going to get Dr. Tanaka."
    "What about the possibility of altering the timeline."
    "Great leaders change history to suit their needs. So shall
I."
                               ***
     Nene Romanova, computer hacker extraordinaire, worked at her
desk furiously. She had thousands of reports to file and here she
was on New Year's eve. "I can't believe the nerve! Well, the AD
Police never rest, always vigilant."
     Leon sauntered over with an evil grin on his face, the
rubber band fight in the office earlier had gone in his favor
owing to his "automatic" rubber band gun. The Chief put a quick
stop to it when Leon had autofired thirty into the back of the
Chief's bald plate.
     "What are you doing for New Year's eve?" He asked.
     "Like hell I'm going anywhere with that creep," Nene
thought. "I have to give my cat a bath." She said tartly.
     "Oh really? That's too bad, I thought you might want to go
to the New Year's eve party to see the Replicants. Of course you
would never be interested in front row seats, you being so busy."
     "FRONT ROW SEATS?!" Nene shouted, causing all the heads in
the quiet office to turn. "Really?" Nene said in a conspirital
tone. "Pick me up at eight."
     "Well, if you don't want too ... You'll go with me?"
     "Of course dummy! Where'd you get those tickets? They were
sold out two months ago."
     "Trade secret, see you at eight!"
                               ***
     John met his wife with Dr. Tanaka in tow. "Pleased to meet
you," Dr. Tanaka said to Mrs. McClain. She bowed courteously and
he returned the bow. John was already sick of this shit, he
wanted a beer and a place to crash after his plane ride. He had
hit his head twice on a doorjamb and he was in serious need of a
bottle of aspirin. He accompanied his wife through the door to
check into the building's hotel. It was about four in the
afternoon, he figured he could get a nap and a beer in before the
parties started.
                               ***
     A cop sat watching the traffic drive past and sipped his
coffee. A red streak of bike and woman flew past him and he threw
his coffee out of the window when he saw the speed flash in red.
He shot out of the driveway he was in and gave chase to the
motorcycle.
     Priss saw the lights flashing behind her and grinned hugely,
she was hoping to try out her new bike. She gave the cop the
bird, and shifted, walking away from the five-o. The cop didn't
have a chance and her speed was still climbing. She loved it.
                               ***
     Through a monitor Mason watched the accelerator start with a
hiss of supercooled oxygen as it spilled over the parachronic
modulator. Mason thought it looked like a grotesque spider. It
could only be used once, because the components were comprised of
millions of 'nanobots', which would disintegrate in about thirty
minutes because of the planet's gravity. Another would never be
built because it's inventor had died in an, 'unfortunate',
accident. A technician gave Mason the thumbs up. "Begin the
process," was all he said.
     Electricity began to arc across the legs, the static
electricity it was generating alone was enough to short out the
better part of mega-tokyo. In the center of the device, the
'landing zone'. A tiny black dot appeared, it hung in space
amidst the swirling fog and electricity like a black pearl. For
the space of an eternity it seemed as though nothing were
happening. The techs muttered back and forth between themselves
amidst the eerie sight.
     "Roger, the gate is holding and is at point zero zero five
percent. Critical mass for the gate in one minute."
     "Roger, lock-on is at thirty-eight percent."
     "Lock-on in one mike thirty seconds, mark."
     The countdown continued until ten seconds remained.
                               ***
     Dr. Tanaka gave a light knock at the door, Mr. McClain had
left his lighter in the plane seat where it had fallen out of his
pocket. Someone inside grunted, snored and coughed all at the
same time. Not wanting to disturb the sleeper he turned to walk
away as the door opened.
                               ***
     Five ... four ... three ... two ... one, lock-on and
retrieval at 98 percent. Initiating retrieval.
     The pearl suddenly expanded with frightening speed till it
was bulging at the supports. A haze surrounded the globe of
darkness and Mason could see half figures like light through a
prism. Blue sparks flew across the surface of nothingness.
                               ***
     "What?" John answered the door in a pair of sweat pants and
a 'wife-beater' shirt.
     "Mr. McClain, I thought I would return your lighter, you
dropped it on the plane." Dr. Tanaka said politely.
     "Oh, thanks." He said and reached for the lighter. As he did
blue sparks arced to his fingers. "What the hell!"
     Then there was only the void.
                               ***
     Something was wrong with the device. The surface of the void
bubble was beginning to ripple. Blue sparks flashed around the
supports and one suddenly grounded itself to the steel supports
crowding the room. The bubble seemed to burst and exploded to a
blue fireball that exploded from the outside of the building a
ring of fire could be seen that stretched around the building and
lit up the night sky of MegaTokyo. The lights in the observing
room and over the hotel simultaneously blew out scattering sparks
and hot glass over the room. As the lights went out Mason's face
was cut by the glass shrapnel.
                               ***
     "Hey Mr. Smith!"
     "Yes, what is it?"
     "Yes sir, take a look at this. We just had a brownout over
the MegaTokyo grid."
     He looked at the numbers. Something had drawn enough power
in three seconds to keep MegaTokyo lit for a month. Power shunts
all over the city had blown out trying to handle the massive load
and had drawn from other grids to supplement the monster
requirement. "Can you trace that load request?"
     "Yes sir, it came from the Sumotori building."
     "Notify the police and the emergency squad. People may be
hurt there."
                               ***
     John groggily got to his feet and shook his head, Dr. Tanaka
was nowhere around and he seemed to be in the same hallway. It
felt oddly different. Something was wrong and he couldn't place
it. That guy must've had one hell of a taser. He looked at his
hand remembering the lighter. He flicked it open and he thought
he saw a blue spark flash. He wasn't sure and he figured it was
his imagination. He lit it, and the yellow light gave him
something to steady himself with. The hallway was light by red
emergency lights. Maybe the guy hadn't had a taser maybe he
stepped on a wire or something and the old guy had gone for help.
He had seen a security station walking up to his room, he figured
he'd call the desk from there. "God dammit!" He swore explosively
and saw that he had stepped in the glass from the light covers.
He turned around to go in his room and clean it up. He pushed the
door open and hopped his way through the darkness for the
bathroom. He tried the lights and found they too were out.
                               ***
     "Sir, there is an eighty-nine percent probability that he
did land in the building."
     "Good, find him."
                               ***
     Much to Priss' dismay, the cop had in fact caught her. He
was now writing a ticket that made her blush with embarrassment. 
     The night sky was suddenly lit as though a nuclear explosive
had gone off and a crack of rolling thunder blew out windows and
showered the two with glass. Priss immediately thought of the
Orbital lasers but wondered who would use them in downtown
MegaTokyo. 
     The cop's radio crackled to life and he ran over to his
patrol car. Priss always kept an ear open to cop stuff. It
usually turned up some pretty good fights. She could only make
out the occasional word, but she did manage to make out
'Sumotori'. She figured somebody had bombed the place. There was
supposed to be a vault or something in it.
     The cop screamed off to answer his call and she waited
awhile and followed him to the building.
     "Sylia! Did you see that?"
     "Yes, we'll meet near the downtown building on second
street."
     "I'm already there, I'm going to check it out!"
     "Priss, no solo actions."
                               ***
     After he cleaned the cuts on his feet, he looked around his
room and tried to find his clothes. The room was neatly made and
showed no sign that he had turned it into a pigsty. "That shock
must've hit me harder than I thought. Could've swore I went into
my room." He thought. He shrugged and walked out. He was hit with
a mixture of shock and disbelief, 32201. That was his room
number. He looked in to make sure he had come out of the right
room. He walked in, it was a different room. It had changed. 
     "I need a fucking light." There was a beep and he jumped
when the lights turned on. "What the hell was that?" He didn't
know the Japanese were that good with electronics. He wondered
how much that little trick cost. Probably a pretty penny. He
whistled, he was impressed. That still didn't explain why his
stuff was gone, and why the hallways were deserted. He looked at
his watch. 
     "Great." It had stopped so he had no idea how long he had
been out. This trip had gone to boring to being a pain in the
ass. He wondered where his wife was, she hadn't called in a
while. He stumbled over to the phone and noticed it had a tv
screen attached to it. Now he was really dazed, this made no
sense. The clapper 2000 for a light switch and a TV phone.
     He spent a few seconds fiddling around with the phone and
finally got it to call the front desk.
                               ***
     A red light flashed on the console, one of Mason's goons
looked up. "Sir, there's somebody in this building."
     "Answer it."
     "Front desk." The goon said to the picture of a disgruntled
John McClain.
     "Yeah, what the hell is going on with the power and what the
hell happened to my room, I was out for awhile and somebody took
all my stuff."
     "I'm sorry sir, we're experiencing problems with the local
grid. What is your room number and we will send someone up to
check out your room."
     "Fifty-two, two-oh-one."
     "Alright sir, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, someone will
be up to take care of you shortly." The goon grinned when he hung
up the phone.
     
     "Take care of that as well."
     "Sir," one of the techs said, "the Doctor may be nearby to
him."
     "Good."
                               ***
     John waited for awhile and switched on the TV. The local
news came on, and while he couldn't speak Japanese he figured it
was better than nothing. To his great surprise the Newscaster was
speaking English and had an unmistakable American accent.
     "Today in Mega Tokyo ... " 
     "Mega Tokyo?"
     "... riots continued unabated as labor unions protested the
opening of a new construction site crewed only by boomers."
     "Boomers?"
     "And on a happier note, tonight's New Year's eve festivals
will be kicking off with a bang with groups from all over Mega
Tokyo playing at the Tokyo square. The concert has been sold out
since early October and businesses are happy for the extra
commerce in the area. This will be the first New Year's eve since
twenty-fourteen that has gathered a crowd as large as officials
estimate. They estimate between eighty to one hundred thousand
..."
     "This just in, an explosion occurred just minutes ago at the
Sumotori building. Reporters are live on scene ..."
     "... It's mass chaos here, just minutes ago the fiftieth
story of the Sumotori building erupted into a ball of flame
emergency teams were on the scene just minutes before the
explosion took place. It is not known how many people were in the
Sumotori building and all communications with the building are
cut off. Rescue teams are just now advancing towards the front
door ... Oh my god! Someone's shooting!"
     McClain watched as police cars and firetrucks alike were hit
by a lancing beam that torched them causing them to explode like
thermite gascans.
     John turned off the TV. He was in shock and now he was sure
someone was playing a gag on him. No, it was impossible. This was
crap right out of Science Fiction Theater. There was no way he
was going to buy he'd been out for almost twenty-four years. It
just wasn't possible. He got sick of waiting and besides he was
restless. "I need a cigarette."
                               ***
     Two sets of red eyes glowed dully in the darkness like lost
souls bent on evil. The two Bu-12b's were whisper quiet and
walked towards 52201. Wicked claws leaped from their forearms
with an ominous schick in the silence. They attacked the door and
beat it down to matchwood and walked through looking for their
"guest".
     John was walking around the corridor when he saw the two
boomers. 
     "Jesus!" He turned around ran for cover. His first thought
was for his gun, he didn't know if it would be effective but he
didn't care. He needed something or he'd be dead meat soon. He
ran for the security station and found something he did not want
to see. Two guards, each very dead and very headless. 
     "Fuck." He had seen accidents like this before, but he knew
it was no accident. He fished through the guards pockets and
found a handgun he was unfamiliar with a few clips and a pack of
cigarettes.
     The handgun was different from anything he had seen, he
didn't recognize anything. The ammo was cased in plastic and used
some sort of liquid round. He hefted it and grabbed a satchel the
guard was using and stuffed it full of useful items. The
grenades, that's what he guessed they were, made him wonder
exactly what hotel security needed with them. 
     He needed to find a place to hide, catch his breath and try
and call the cops. He grabbed a radio and took off in the
opposite direction.
                               ***
     "Report."
     "The subject was not located."
     "Continue searching."
     "Affirmative."
                               ***
     Somehow John knew that using the elevators would be
dangerous. So would the stairs. He would have to do something
those things wouldn't expect. He took what he figured to be a
grenade and taped it to a rail, with the bootlaces he took from
the guards he rigged a trip wire to pull the pin as soon as they
walked down the stairs after him.  After John was finished he
went a few levels down and well out of the way of the blast. He
lit a cigarette and waited in the corner of a stair well. 
     He heard the stair door open and heard heavy booted feet
walking on concrete. He plugged his ears with his fingers and
squeezed his eyes shut.
     The explosion bowled him back like a toy, he shook his head
and grabbed his gun not knowing what to expect. He heard several
metallic clanks and he advanced carefully up the stairs, with his
gun drawn. Standing on what was left of the stairway was one of
the boomers. Its skin had burned off and it was a hideous parody
of the human form it had mimicked. It snarled at him, the fucking
thing SNARLED at him. For the first time in his life he felt
terror, terror that threatened to overwhelm him. He shook his
head. It opened it's mouth and he saw it's huge fangs, and
something else, it looked like a lens. He said a prayer
internally as he heard a buzzing sound and aimed for the head and
fired.
     For a split second, nothing happened, and then the boomer's
head exploded like a ripe melon. It fell down on its knees and
slumped forward gushing orange nutrient fluid onto the stairs.
     "Yippy-ky-ay, motherfucker." John said and wiped the sweat
from his face. He was breathing hard.
     "We're not in fucking Kansas anymore, Toto."
     What was left of the other one wasn't even worth mentioning
so he didn't bother. He climbed through the debris and went to
the window. The city stretched for miles and he was fifty two
stories off the ground. With a sinking feeling, he realized he
was starting to get a feel for how big this damn thing was and he
wasn't even a quarter of the way up. There was no way he would be
able to get down now. The only way was up. He crawled into an
elevator shaft and started to climb the access ladder.
                               ***
     "Sir, we just lost 3056 and 2012."
     This was puzzling news for Mason, certainly the man on the
screen hadn't been able to defeat two Bu-12b's. He couldn't put
it down to mechanical failure either, two Boomers just don't
suddenly go on the blink like that.
     "Send four up there to investigate."