by Cage, Zion
Let this be the room. Let me not get caught.
She slid the key she had taken through the slot. The red light turned green, and she pushed the door open. It was empty. Relieved, she entered and pulled out her phone from her pocket.
While she had served as the Chief of Staff, Ray of Hope had used her access to infuse the White House computers with a virus they had developed. The virus, Wormhole, was special as no existing antivirus could detect it. It behaved like the normal system software. Ultimately, it replicated all the content of the host computer on another prespecified computer. The problem was that uploading it to the CPU was complicated and usually took about twenty minutes.
May I not be caught.
She hoped the Ray of Hope was arrogant enough not to have created and installed an antivirus for Wormhole on their computer.
She found a small laptop computer connected to the large CPU; then, she began to work.
“Mikolas, use the main computer to stabilize the signals!” Harris said to the young man standing by him. Mikolas nodded and headed for the supercomputer room. He got to the door; then he put his hand in his pocket to get his card. He frowned. It wasn’t there. It had to have fallen somewhere. He turned to look for it.
Vivien noticed the shadow beneath the door. Someone wanted to come in. The upload was 69% complete. She bit her lips in anticipation. There were still at least eight minutes to go. She didn’t have the luxury of time.
Please hurry up!
Mikolas walked back to the operating room where he had come from. He’d searched for his card everywhere but hadn’t found it. He didn’t understand what was happening.
“Status report, Miko,” Harris said without turning to him.
“I’m sorry, sir. I think I lost my card somewhere around here,” Mikolas began.
“There’s no time for that, boy.” Pointing to another agent, he said, “Peter, go with Miko and open the door for him. Don’t lose your card too.”
Mikolas followed Peter to the door.
They opened it and went into the room.
It was empty as usual. They went to the small laptop and began to navigate it. It worked normally. Mikolas took notes of what he needed. Together with Peter, he left the room.
Vivien came out from the small space between the furthest wall and the CPU. She sighed in relief. She waited for a minute before she went to the door and opened it.
No one was on the corridor. She shut the door and left for her room. When she got to the restroom, she dropped the card on the ground so that Mikolas would find it whenever he came that way again.
The Ray of Hope was as arrogant as she hoped it would be. Mission accomplished.
17th November 2021
9:00 am
Old Port, Portland, Maine.
USA.
Selene, the blonde-haired young lady, searched the uncompleted building with her teammate. No one else was in it, though they had found blood in one of the sections. She wondered if the High Priestess had been killed in a fight. Who would have been that strong?
So far, they had been unable to find a cause of death. The High Priestess had to have been buried already to hide all evidence.
The guy by her spotted something on the ground and bent to pick it up. It was a small and cylindrical metal.
“Whatever is that?” she said as she joined him to look at it. It seemed to have blood on it. She took the object from him and used her tablet to take a photo of it. She sent the photo to the Ray of Hope with a text.
We were unable to find her body. We did find this, though, and it’s bloody. I don’t know what it means. What’s the next step?
“Let’s go, Andrei. They’ll tell us what to do soon. In the meantime, let’s get to our delivery point,” she said to the guy. They had four children captives waiting for them in the corridor.
They had barely gotten out of the house when another notification came from the organization. It had been labeled urgent with a red caution sign. The picture of the High Priestess was attached to the notification. Selene and Andrei read from their devices.
All units are hereby instructed to be on the lookout for Vivien Romanov Dmitri, who has been found guilty of treason, and are to kill on sight. I repeat for emphasis: kill on sight
17th November 2021
9:09 am
Ray of Hope HQ, Staten Island, Richmond County, New York.
USA.
Someone knocked on Adrik’s door, and he called for the person to come in. It was Mikolas.
“Any reply? He asked.
Mikolas nodded, holding out his tablet for Adrik to see.
“They said they didn’t see a body, but they found this,” he said as he scrolled to the picture. Adrik looked at the picture of a small cylindrical metallic object. He knew what it was but didn’t understand why it was outside a body.
Suddenly, the realization hit him, and his blood froze over.
He didn’t want to believe it, but there was no other explanation.
Vivien had removed her tracker.
She had gone rogue.
But how?
Another realization hit him.
“Call Harris for me,” he ordered Mikolas, and the young man hurried out of the office. In a couple of minutes, Mikolas was back with Harris.
“Yes, Adrik. Good morning,” Harris said.
“You said Vivien was here on the thirteenth, right?” Adrik asked.
“Yes. Is there a problem?” Harris asked, frowning.
“Get me the video footage for the period she was here. I want to see everywhere she was, everything she did. I even want to see her sleeping.”
Harris found that very funny though he didn’t let it show on his face. Adrik didn’t seem like one to get obsessed over another person, especially when he was busy with work. For some reason, though, he seemed to be gripped with Vivien today, which was all the weirder since he had always acted as though he didn’t care.
“We don’t have any footage for the period she was here. We were preparing for your meeting with the buyers, and so the software for the cameras was down for an upgrade.”
“Did you, by any chance, tell her that?”
Harris thought about it. His memory of that day was a bit vague, but he could remember speaking to her about cameras.
“I think so, though I’m not sure.”
Adrik groaned.
Suzanne had betrayed them.
His mind tried to wrap itself around the possibility of what was happening. Why would she do it? How had she gotten so far without his knowledge?
She had been trained by many experts, including himself…
He had made her the machine she was.
And Harris had just made her mission easier for her.
He pulled out his gun and shot Harris through the head. Then, looking at Mikolas, he said,
“Get this message out to all the agents in the country: they are to find Vivien Romanov Dmitri and kill her immediately!”
Fear filled Mikolas so much that he didn’t know when he nodded his head to Adrik’s order.
18th November 2021
7:02 pm
East Orange Street, Hoopeston, Illinois.
USA.
Morgan sat on a bench and waited. After waking up to see Daan's corpse, he had buried him, and had walked back to the delivery point in Illinois. It had taken him two days to get there. The hardest part for him was having to walk alone and make all the decisions himself.
Without his mini tab, it had been almost impossible to find the delivery point in Illinois. He had been lucky to find some fellow reapers who had led him there. The only reason he had been recognized at the delivery point was the tracker in him. He needed to report the death of Daan. He knew the people who had been responsible for it, he knew the direction they were headed, but he needed backup to exact revenge on them.
A couple of minutes later, a blonde man walked out of the office opposite where he had been seated.
“Come in, Morgan. T
he officer will see you now,” the man said and led the way into the office. Morgan knew the man’s name was Trevor. He’d been one of the agents that had brought Morgan to the delivery point.
Morgan murmured about the excessive bureaucracy at the organization before going in. He saw an older man seated behind a grand desk in the office. He greeted the man in Russian.
“Welcome, Morgan. I heard what you’ve been through,” the man said in Russian too. “Tell me, what happened to your device?”
“It was stolen by the people who killed Daan. They took both our devices,” he said.
The man nodded slowly.
“We received instructions from the headquarters yesterday concerning Daan’s device. Somehow, the person managed to turn it on. We’ve been unable to find this person. Do you have any idea where they are?”
Morgan nodded.
“Of course, sir. That’s why I’m here: to give you that information. I want revenge on them for their actions against my brother. I just need backing to find them. I’ll snuff them out immediately.”
The man laughed.
“We’ll send you out, Morgan, but it’s not because we want you to have revenge. Sure, you can do that if you want; however, the most important thing for us is to retrieve those devices. We don’t want any loose ends. You need to get this done immediately,” he said. “Trevor will go with you. He’s an expert at tracking.”
Morgan nodded.
“Yes, sir, I won’t disappoint you,” he said.
“Good. See it as a compensation for all you have lost,” the elderly man said.
When Morgan turned to look at Trevor, Trevor was smiling. The blonde man seemed to be bloodthirsty, which was very good.
Chapter Four
The mission was so easy…
21st November 2021
04:32 pm
North Orchard, Chicago, Illinois.
USA.
Okay, this is where Daan was detected dead, Suzanne thought.
She was in the woods near Lincoln park. She stood before some logs of wood, stacked together and partly covered by snow. She was sure there was ash underneath. As she approached it, she looked around carefully. She hoped that there was no Ray of Hope agent still looking for clues around there.
That was most likely the place where Daan had kept his captives. She began to look around for clues, bending over and digging in the snow and dirt with her hands. After digging for a long time, she still hadn’t found anything useful. She stood straight and sighed.
That was when she noticed a trail from the side of the logs of wood. The days of mild snowing, coupled with her digging had almost wiped it off. Her eyes followed the trail. It disappeared at some points and emerged again at other points. Finally her eyes landed on a heap of earth in the distance. She went to it and dug into it. It turned out to be a shallow grave and she gasped when she saw Daan's face. His eyes were closed and he looked peaceful in death.
Soon, Daan. Soon, I’ll be like you, she thought as she trailed her fingers over his eye brows.
She covered him back with earth and stood up. She had to search elsewhere for clues. There was no time to waste.
She went back in the direction she had come, still wary of any agent. Just as she neared a tree close to the fireplace, she spotted a rope in the soil. It had been cut in half.
A thought flashed through her mind.
That’s it!
She pulled out her device.
22nd November 2021
11:03 am
Fairlane Woods, Dearborn, Michigan.
USA.
Morgan trudged through the woods behind Trevor. Trevor had led him through a path via the woods, saying that it would get them to the migrants faster. After watching Daan die from a snake bite, he wasn’t too eager to talk walks in the woods anymore.
Things were changing rapidly. He wondered if the mission would still end successfully. On the seventeenth, an order had come from the headquarters, asking every agent to keep their eyes peeled for the High Priestess and kill her for treason. A nice reward had been placed on her head. He wondered why she would rebel when she had been at the heart of it all.
She had brought them all to the US to ruin them. Daan had been a fool to trust her…
Daan used to be fanatic about Vivien though she was obviously beyond his reach. Morgan hadn’t been close to her since she had seemed aloof, but it still didn’t make sense why she would go rogue. And now, she had to be killed. The next day, another message had come from the headquarters for the agents around Chicago to find Daan's device. It had become a matter of urgency. He remembered the blackout on the first two days after the EMP.
Too many cracks are forming in the wall. It’ll be better to jump ship…
“I’d have thought that we’d get there sooner,” he called out to Trevor finally. Trevor turned and looked at him.
“Were you always like this with Daan?” he asked.
“Shut up,” Morgan said as he walked past him. Trevor shook his head and continued. The edges of the woods were now visible.
“You’ve got to relax. We went through a shorter route. If what you said was correct and they actually headed east, we shouldn’t be too far from them,” Trevor said as they got to the last line of trees. He stepped out first and smiled as he looked ahead.
“Well, come on out, Morgan. Come look at this,” he said as Morgan stepped out too.
Morgan looked ahead to see a large group of migrants in the distance. Exhilaration filled him as he imagined himself killing Xander and his sisters. He was just a matter of minutes away from it.
Trevor put a palm on his shoulder.
“We’ve got to be discreet, bro. We don’t want them to see us coming, do we?” he said.
22nd November 2021
11:40 am
Dearborn, Michigan.
USA.
Suzanne drove her motorcycle towards the group of migrants in the distance. The past days had been very fruitful, though slow-paced for her. Her wound had mandated her to move slowly, only a couple of hours a day. The day after she left Maine, she had met a young lady, Aaliyah. She pitied the girl. Her grandmother had died yesterday from the migration; however, the same day, Aaliyah had texted her, saying she wanted to be part of the plan. Vivien had gotten into a small brawl with the girl at a pharmacist store in Vermont when she had gone to get more bandage and disinfectant for her wound. She had also seen the girl bravely fight off three agents of the organization who had abducted some children. The girl was smart and strong. Vivien had been sure she would be very useful in helping her accomplish a task, and so she had asked the girl to join her.
On the eighteenth, she had also intercepted two messages from the Headquarters. The first was of a soldier who was purported to have some knowledge of the organization’s activity. His name was Stephen Wallace. They had been trying to find and kill him for a while. They had finally spotted him in Ohio and had instructed some agents to assassinate him. She had gotten there first. It turned out the guy didn’t know as much as she’d thought. However, he’d also proven useful to her. He was going to help her with another phase of her plan. She had been so slow in her journey. She was just lucky that he hadn’t been killed before she found him. The second was a repeat message, giving orders for Daan’s tablet to be found. That was the reason she was on the road now.
She was on her way to find the last piece of the puzzle. He was somewhere among the migrants she could now see. She just hoped she wasn’t too late to find him. The organization had no clues about the person with Daan’s device. The agents who had been assigned to the issue were probably worn out from their search. Her advantage was the motorcycle that allowed her to cover much distance in less time. The main issue, however, was how to identify her target. Neither his name nor his face had been displayed. She had come up with a trial solution by checking Daan’s correspondence with the organization before he died. He had sent pictures of three children to the organization for vetting. The images had
been shared with another agent, Morgan. The children were never delivered to the organization. If she could find them, she’d get a step closer to finding the device.
She doubted any agents were still reaping children. Except for the ones on special missions, the agents were all at the various delivery stations, awaiting transport back to Russia. She was relieved by that. It meant that she expected no confrontations on her recruiting mission.
The migrants had begun to look back at the sound of her motorcycle. She was sure none of them had been expecting that. She stopped the bike, though she was still a bit far from them. Her abdomen had healed considerably. She was fit enough to jog. She ran and joined the migrants. They all stared at her in surprise. Suzanne laughed inwardly,
One would think they’d never seen a lady on a motorcycle before.
She kept walking as she looked at the faces of every child. Time passed, and she hadn’t found the ones she was looking for yet. Soon it was time for them to rest. People began to settle down on the roadside. She knew the authorities in the group would soon accost her, and she needed to leave before that happened. The kids were probably among another migrant group.
Just as she was about to turn, she found two girls running around.
“You’re it, Grayson,” the dark-skinned one said as she ran away from the light-skinned one.
She ran to the girls. People were staring at her, but she didn’t mind. She just wanted to complete her mission.
“Hey, girls,” she said as she stood in their way.
The girls became suspicious the moment they didn’t recognize her from their group.
“Who are you?” the fair one asked as both girls stepped back. Suzanne smiled at her. Their reaction showed that they had been abducted.
“Is there a problem?” a voice came from behind. Suzanne turned to see a young man with a black backpack.
“No. They’re your sisters?” she asked. The girls went to the young man.
“Yes,” he said, looking at her suspiciously.
“They are beautiful,” she said, offering him her hand. “I am Suzanne.”