by Russ Linton
Hound crowded closer, squinting as if he could see something Eric hadn't. The grumpy vet's technological learning had stopped about the time his bushy brow thickened enough to act as a barrier for any more cranial penetration. Only things he could fix were manly things requiring grease, sweat and wrestling with parts...no homo.
"What's that tellin' ya?" Hound jabbed at a blinking red triangle on the holo-globe.
"Last known location,” Eric replied. “East of where Aurora dropped them."
"She burn out their comms?"
Eric bit back a sigh. He'd answered this question thirty-seven times. Thirty-seven. Definitely thirty-seven. "We shielded our tactical gear, something which would have been nice for this entire room." He'd made that request maybe four million times.
More pointy fingers. "What's that?"
"Give me some space, and I'll work this out, okay?"
Hound grumped and walked away, his hands clasped behind his back. Ember and Danger hovered nearby as well—lil' D being all broody about fucking up earlier and her looking super, super fine even while rocking a mummy leg. He could maybe offer to help change her bandages later. You know, try and get some alone time and work on his ERA. Whatever it was about her, maybe that mohawk, or how she was as confident as fuck, he really wanted to, well, that was never going to happen but...
"Hon," Ember said, a hand pointing at the screens. "Finding our team?"
"Oh, yeah." Eric turned toward the comcen, his face heating. "Umm, if you guys would go find shit to burn and sniff, I could concentrate better."
As soon as he'd mentioned he'd lost the link, they'd been all over him, asking questions, demanding results, assuming whatever had disrupted communications worked like their powers. On or off switches you could toggle for results. Always the same with these guys.
"Call me," said Hound, headed for the exit. "I'll go round up 'rora. Make sure she's ready to space us wherever the hell we need to be."
"You know what the boss said." Mentioning Crimson got Hound's attention. "We're not to make this an Augment incursion into a destabilized region."
Hound clicked his tongue against his teeth. "I know what was said. He said, 'Hound, the base is in your hands until I get back.'" He sighted Eric down his finger, made the same annoying click, and started to leave.
"Copy that!" Eric flicked the boatswain whistle. Hound's stride stuttered, twitching his head like he was shaking pool water from his ear. He fucking hated that. Ember and Danger followed their grumbling acting base commander out. She spared Eric a raised eyebrow which he was sure he did a decent job of ignoring.
Finally, a little peace. Those guys were too damn intense. Of course, he wanted to find Crimson and Spencer. He'd been the one to drag his best friend into all this after he'd gone off to college and tried to have a boring-ass, normal life.
Spencer couldn't really want that though. They'd both suffered through suburbia mundanus. He'd done his buddy a solid. Sure, the lucky bastard had grown up in an Augment household, but it had been hidden from him most of his life.
Besides, they needed to tell Spence about his mom too.
Poor lady, trapped inside another lady. A young woman really, with those petal lips and sexy eyes. He opened Charlotte's file and clicked through the pages. Eighteen as of February third earlier this year, if the memo from the Foundation for a Brighter Hope could be believed. A photo hovered in the top corner of a cute little scrunched infant, her skin smooth and whole and black downy hairs on her head.
Deeper into the file and you could watch that infant face go shell-shocked as she aged and her surroundings changed. White lab coats lurked in the background with surgical implements and syringes. Then came pics of her insides. Fucking horror show.
Eric skipped to the photos of her he'd taken on Whispering Pine's array. Cyrus insisted. For documentation.
With her eyes closed and her mouth frozen in a sleepy half-circle, she'd almost regained the peace from the baby pic. The worst parts of her scarred scalp were covered by the umbrella he'd taken to her. Hello Kitty. That was cool, right? Older chicks still dig Hello Kitty?
It was good she'd come down from the roof, really. Weather was a constant challenge. He'd done his best to keep her clothed, warm, continued to check the bandages and feeding tube just like Cyrus showed him every time he went to inspect the array. Even when the array didn't need inspecting.
He left flowers once. The space was so mecha, what with only the mesh floor and plated tubes and wires. Wind blew the flower pot off the ledge into a shattered heap.
Too many memories.
The first day with her at Whispering Pines had been whacked. They'd just arrived from Killcreek, and the only landing site not obstructed by trees or lampposts was on the roof where an unmarked helipad had been. Crimson wanted a report on the situation, A.S.A.P. and left him and Cyrus to figure out what Charlotte was doing while he ran Spence to the infirmary.
All Eric knew then was that he was exhausted and scared shitless. But how do you tell a guy who just airlifted several tons of steel across three states that you want a breather? Dude's power is off the charts. Doing what he asked wasn't optional.
He'd half-expected Charlotte to go all tentacle porn on them with those hoses and shit plugged into her head. Cyrus being there had really helped. Just standing within ten feet of the Augment lowered his blood pressure...totally had to be part of his power package. AOE stress relief.
"We can't detach her from the systems," Cyrus had said after they'd spent the better part of an hour checking vitals and trying to understand the top-secret shit lampreyed onto her brain. "Might be the only thing keeping her alive."
Keeping her alive and so much more.
Turned out while plugged in, she'd extended her power set and gone from a psychic Augment to a mecha Augment. Like that dumbass Gadgeteer dude but on the white star level. A-freaking-mazing. She seemed to be doing it to cloak the whole lot of them. Keeping her family safe even though the planned reunion had turned into a Jerry Springer Ragnarök.
For that entire trip back from Killcreek, all Eric had been able to do was stare open-mouthed at the Augments on the platform. Every single one he'd been hunting the past two years was there alongside a handful of unfamiliar ones. As they crossed the country on their cloaked UFO, they'd kept silent or been left drained and helpless by Charlotte's body snatcher routine. When he and Cyrus came down to see to the injured, they started expressing their thanks.
Augments, thanking him.
Maybe that's what was wrong. Spence had slept through the direct aftermath. He'd missed those badasses singing their praises. By the time he woke up, a few of the Augments had already cleared out and an awkward tension had crept in. That's what fucked all this up for him.
Well, that and seeing Charlotte on the array.
Dude saw her up there and went whiter than a fast break layup. Whatever Spence experienced in her head space hadn't been good. Then he left before really understanding the miraculous powers she'd manifested. Beyond the weirdness of Aurora or the unmeasurable power of Crimson, they were watching an Augment evolve real time. That's why Spence didn't get it.
Of course, now she was his mom. Or something. And Charlotte...well...
There'd been that glitch earlier. The voice that ratted out Time Slip. Wasn't part of anything Eric knew about the systems. Spence hadn't seemed to notice and all his diagnostics hadn't been able to isolate the quirks. Nothing certain.
Eric made sure he was alone and whispered into the comms, "Are you there?"
He sighed. Enough weepy bullshit. He pulled the telescoping keyboard stand toward his chair and cracked his knuckles, letting the digital feed consume him amid a doppler pulse of synth beats which sent his legs rocking.
Time for the mighty 3n1g|/|4 to get busy, Eric thought.
Last known location 32.436650 longitude, 14.787431 latitude, coast outside Misrata. Knock, knock Blue Gap super-secret base. Who's there? Private. Private who? Privateer, matey, thanks
for the satellite. Satellite, this is your captain speaking. Buckle up bitches there could be turbulence, terrorists, angry Augments. You know the drill. World News, state news, dictator news, terrorist tweets, got ya covered. Sporadic gun battles. Beheadings...sick fucks. I've seen worse. Science officer, search pattern delta. Be on the lookout for any, and I do mean any overt mention of Augments. Aye, Aye Captain! Route all cell traffic through the Misrata towers to here, can't let anything slip by. Slip. Time Slip. No new information. Probably the freakiness of her power let her escape. Who's ready to have a few minutes stolen? Aw, snap! Miners are pulling ten petahertz each. Fifteen dollars and thirty-seven cents a minute—take that Burrrrger Shaaaack. Salarium cryptocurrency at one thousand five hundred and seventy-three U.S.D. and a steady upward trend. Happy day, happy day. There's no stoppin' the mine boss grinding for coins like a Harrow Edge dungeon run. Leeeeeroy Jenk...what's this? Another hack out there claiming to be Sayrafi? I know who he is. Let me show you. Please, if the glorious founder wanted to be revealed he'd have done it when he unleashed the power of DIGITAL WEALTH. Everybody is getting on board, spreading like a virus. Organic you could say. Following the same movements as a biological... Whole planet. Global...global traffic analysis and, that's odd. Those aren't all miners, too many, contributions too low. Yes, a virus, Eric. One with a heartbeat, pulsing an inner life right under the skin. Where did she go? Her, Cyrus, Crimson Mask, no overt mentions in the news feeds. And Spencer. We have to find him, too. Increased cell traffic in Sirte...need a fix on that. Fixed up...in the infirmary. Aurora is finally out of her Faraday Hospice. Tell me more about her cage, Eric. Right, no clue what caused that. Shorted her out, like the comms with the Away Team are, only she didn't do it this time. Shorted. Short... No way! Accessing Augment database. Could he do that? Really do that?
Screens streamed with the digital flood. Audio feeds from dozens of sources overlapped in a chaotic rush. Eric pushed his glasses up and stared at the Augment dossier open in front of him.
Shortwave. This guy was another tough one to classify. He'd finally decided on dark energy because it didn't seem to matter. A black circle. An outdated guy with an outdated power set and one who could easily be missed among the earth-shatterers and hell-bringers. Exactly like the other members of the small team who delayed the best of the best in Crimea. A smug smile, comrade must know more than anyone else.
He could do it, Eric. He did. Disrupt Aurora. Founded Salarium.
"Wait. What?"
A cursor blinked in a chat window Eric didn't remember opening. An anonymous user of his own custom, encrypted interface, dead to the outside world unless he activated it.
"Nope, motherfucker. Not on my watch." Furious clacking, route tracing tools opened. Eric gaped as the address flashed on the screen.
127.0.0.1 Localhost
"You've...come back to me."
Another line of text skittered in the window. Call me Chroma. You helped me, Eric. Never left me alone in my nest. Let me help you.
Chapter 17
ERIC STOOD IN FRONT of the assembled team as he'd seen CM do so many times before. After undertaking a grueling daily exercise regimen suggested by the man himself, a dude who could eat a car and not gain a pound, Eric finally felt confident enough to lace his hands behind his back and not look like a marshmallow in a t-shirt. For the first time in weeks, he missed his old attempt at an official uniform. That would've been dope for this occasion. The thing fit like an old lady's tits now, though.
"Team..." He stopped and stared at the floor. "Wait a minute."
"You got somethin' or not?" Hound sounded perturbed.
"We need a name."
The three Augments exchanged glances. "What do ya have for us? GPS coordinates?" asked Hound.
"I mean our team. It doesn't have a name."
Danger remained slouched against the wall, and he twisted his lip. Ember's face screwed into emoticon status and Eric could just make out the carrot-colon-slash. * >:/ * He'd just led an impromptu tutorial on those for their newest, never-to-be-introduced member.
Blood flooded Hound's cheeks as he muttered under his breath. "Son, you got info about our troops or not?"
"Oh yeah." He spared Hound a glance before beginning to pace the same line between tiles. Hard to keep your train of thought in this place. Everyone always making demands. "What do you guys think of the Fellowship?" He stopped to gauge the reaction. Blank stares. "Too commercialized now, I guess. And we might get a cease and desist from his estate. I hear they're..." He twirled a finger near his ear.
"Not the only ones," said Ember.
Eric ignored her. "Giants. Spencer would dig that."
"Son, you've two seconds before I put my boot up yer ass. Where. Is. Our. Team."
Too damn intense. "I don't know yet." Wherever they were, they were with the Crimson Mask, toughest Augment in the known world. They were safe. Besides, he, the glorious 3n1g|/|4, had their newb working on that. Hound stomped forward, his steel-toed combat boots landing on the tile with hollow thumps. "But I figured everything else out!"
"What do ya mean, everything?" Hound pressed close, nose twitching and nearly touching Eric's.
"The BBG. The Mastermind. Everything." He edged away slowly and slid into the Captain's chair. Maybe he'd save his leadership skills for next briefing. Eric's Marauders...that could work. Crimson Mask was too unwieldy. He grabbed the keyboard tray. "Strap in. Tour's about to begin."
He'd prepped the screens and even mapped a little interface wizardry to a handful of buttons on his mouse. It's the little things. None of these guys would appreciate the genius, but hey, he tried. Organizing all this data made him the nerve center of...the Whispering Pines Brigade...naw, sounded like a Senior Olympics entry.
"Here goes."
By the time he was done, they'd all moved in tight, staring at the holoscreen in awe. He hoped he didn't have to do it again because he just realized he hadn't mapped a button to reload it. He'd have to exit to the command line and reinitialize—
"Is this right?" asked Ember.
"That's why you pay me the big bucks. Or not. You want a statistical probability on how right?" A bluff. He hadn't actually prepared one. His source seemed solid.
Danger stayed quiet. It was perhaps his most underrated super power. Hound shook his head in a gradual rhythm which got faster until words tumbled out. "Well, we don't pay you shit and I ain't buyin' any of this. Not even if it's cold, hard cash. Nothin' doin' with this funny money nonsense."
"It's all right there." Eric motioned to the screen which held the final piece of his presentation. He'd thrown together a custom GUI specifically for the occasion and fed it into the holographic projector. A three-dimensional bubble map of sorts which, the more he stared and escaped the trance of the monitors, did start to appear a little out there.
He'd alloted five minutes to explain cryptocurrency. Evidently this was not nearly enough to pierce the eyebrow wax or whatever Hound used on those deflector shields for the aged and grumpy. And absolutely nobody in the room could appreciate the fact he'd positively identified the mysterious guy behind Salarium. Fuck all, this was epic. Augment power-scale epic. Maybe he would put his own entry in the database. White star havin' code smashin' White Hat. That was it!
"White Hats!" he blurted.
Hound squeezed an eye nearly shut and growled. Ember shook her head. Only when Danger raised an eyebrow did he see the problem. "Could be awkward."
"For argument's sake, why don't you give me a probability on this, Eric." Ember put a hand on his back and warmth trickled down his spine.
He let out a quivery moan. "I'd say mid-nineties. Definitely, mid-nineties."
Hound swatted at the bubble map, and the image wavered. "Not a damn chance this here's right."
"It fits with what we know," said Ember. "Even what little we got out of Destructo. An anonymous contact paid him in digital currency."
"And Shortwave's this Sayrafi character?" asked Hound. "He started al
l this phony money in the first place?"
"Oh my god, yes!" Eric slid his hands behind his head and squeezed hard, feeling the sting of a few days’ worth of stubble scratching his forearms. "That's the most amazing part. Cyrus must have enlisted him for tech support when he concocted this plan."
"Shortwave and Cyrus, eh?" Hound's argument had died down but his skepticism remained clear. "How'd you get all this?"
"Uh—sources, and stuff." Eric fumbled his reply not expecting Hound to start asking for technical details. He never did. Ever. The veteran drew close, inhaling a long draw through his AKA certified nostrils.
"Even if you’re half right, we need to find them." Thankfully Danger interrupted the awkwardness. Everyone always had to listen to that guy to know when to clench their sphincters and prepare for the impending doom.
"I know, I know. Only Spencer can appreciate the beauty of this."
"Forget that," said Danger. "Your friend's in a war zone. Cyrus, the guy they went looking for, ain't on the assist and Vulkan's probably already got the jump on Crimson."
Eric spun the chair, tired of Danger's negative attitude and wanting distance from Hound. He started to argue then felt the penetrating sweep of their early warning system and he let the spin make the full revolution, front and center. Danger couldn't know about their latest recruit, could he? Hound continued to test the air, suspiciously.
No way Danger knew. She wasn't a threat to him, right? The Fellowship's danger detector was just being a Boromir level bitch.
The guy had messed up once? Big deal. Time Slip had circumvented his senses. Stands to reason she could do that. He always suspected Danger's power worked on some bizarre premonition tied to uncertainty principles and theories of relativity and some such. But they all had their bad days. Hell, Eric remembered nearly shooting Spencer when he first came back. Totally could have been Chameleon, presumed dead October twenty-first, nineteen seventy-nine, doubling as a known Soviet double agent. Double-double cluster fuck. It happened to all of them. Everyone except Crimson Mask. He had to surrender to be stopped. Spencer would be just fine.