Ross nodded. “Come here.” He brought Merritt up to a broad table covered in piles of large color maps. A nearby large-format color printer was spitting out a new one. “These are level maps we found on the Net. This one’s a custom level for Over the Rhine. That one over there is a castle blueprint from The Gate. Daemon Factions create these as bases of operations and training. The most interesting ones are encrypted—although Natalie’s crypto people can get us in pretty quickly. We’ve found some maps that match the floor plans of real-world structures and huge ones that model real-world city streets. Our teams discover a map and reconnoiter it—by force, if necessary. We try to determine the map’s purpose, and lastly we try to infiltrate Faction ranks.”
Merritt examined the floor plan with an expert tactical eye. “Any luck?”
“Not yet. It’s got us seriously frustrated. We’re always on the lookout for the Daemon’s AI recruiting avatars—Heinrich Boerner in OTR is the main one.” Ross pulled a color screen-capture off a nearby bulletin board. “Here’s a mug shot.”
Merritt looked at the picture. It showed Heinrich Boerner in mid-lecture, a long cigarette filter clenched in one corner of his mouth. Some joker on the Task Force had added the word “Wanted” in large red letters over it. “You’re hunting for a cartoon Nazi.”
“Don’t laugh. The real ones can die.”
Merritt tossed the picture onto the pile. “So who’s starting all these Factions?”
“The disaffected, the dispossessed, the displaced, the disgruntled. Worldwide.”
“That’s a few people.” Merritt soaked up the scene. Watching it, he realized for the first time that the world had really changed—that a line was being drawn in society and which side of the line you stood on would determine your future. He realized more than ever that technological prowess had become a survival skill. “It’s getting bad, isn’t it?”
“That might be about to change, Roy. Thanks to what you’ve brought us. C’mon, they’re waiting for us in the lab.” Ross brought Merritt across the floor, through all the shouting.
“Goddamned sharking smacktard, die!”
“Fireball his ass!”
“Cover me!”
“Friggin’ munchkin!”
Presently they reached a steel blast door flanked by two more armed guards in Korr Security uniforms. A red line painted on the concrete floor formed a semicircle at a fifteen-foot radius around the door. The words Danger—Level 2 Security Zone were stenciled on the floor just beyond the line and on signs along the wall. As they approached, the guards there leveled their HK UMPs.
Merritt snapped alert. “What’s this?”
“It’s the R&D lab.”
The lead guard motioned for the two of them to come forward. “Voice identification, please.”
Ross spoke into a microphone hanging by a long cable from the ceiling. “Ross, Jon Frederick.”
A female computer voice responded, “Voice pattern confirmed.”
There was a loud click, then a flashing red light spun into action, and the massive blast door started to open slowly outward. Merritt was amazed at its thickness—it was easily a foot of solid steel with a beveled edge.
“Hell of a door. Was NORAD having a sale?”
“This place wasn’t designed for us. Back in the sixties this was an indoor cannon testing range for the U.S. Navy.”
“How’d you guys wind up here?”
“Korr Military Solutions owns the building. They have several forty-nine-million-dollar contracts with the Defense Department to operate Daemon Task Force facilities worldwide.”
“Forty-nine million. An odd number.”
“Fifty million triggers congressional oversight.”
The massive door was open now, leading into a brightly lit anteroom guarded by yet another massive blast door. To the right was an interior guardroom manned by several more heavily armed Korr guards.
Ross and Merritt stepped inside. The first blast door boomed shut behind them.
One of the guards gestured to a hole set into the wall nearby. Ross stuck his arm into the hole. A brilliant light glared from within.
Merritt pointed at the device. “What now?”
“Biometric scanner. It scans the pattern of veins in my forearm.”
“If there’s an anal probe ahead, I’m leaving now.”
The second massive door clicked, then started moving inward. “Watch the door, please, sirs.”
They entered a brightly lit, narrow room that was easily a couple hundred feet long. Halfway down the room’s length was a cluster of workbenches and electronics equipment. Steel shelving several rows deep lined the approach to it.
Ross motioned for Merritt to follow. They passed another set of armed guards inside the wide doorway, and then Ross set a brisk pace down the center aisle.
They passed row after row of metal shelving piled high with shattered, twisted, burnt, melted, bullet-ridden, or bloodstained equipment of all types—belts, helmets, circuit boards, odd-looking multibarreled pistols and shotguns, bundles of wiring, parabolic satellite dishes, sensors, and on it went. All of them were tagged with bar codes. It looked like an evidence room.
“Captured Daemon equipment?”
Ross nodded. “You guys bring it in, and this is where the techs reverse-engineer it to find out how to defeat it. But you just brought us our greatest find yet, Roy.”
They finally reached a scientists’ work area and stepped onto a raised dais of nonstatic tile. Several men in lab coats were gathered around something, making adjustments and holding small wrenches. Their bodies completely blocked what they were working on. Dr. Natalie Philips stood, arms crossed, observing the scientists’ work. A burly man in a sports jacket stood next to her. Merritt didn’t recognize him.
The ice chest and black case Merritt had flown in with stood open on the workbenches nearby.
Philips and the man looked up as Ross and Merritt arrived. Philips nodded. “Agent Merritt, I’m glad things went well in Brazil.”
“Anything to help this scavenger hunt of yours, Doctor.” They shook hands.
“Well, it might pay off big today.” Philips gestured to the man. “Agent Merritt, this is our DOD liaison. For security reasons his identity is classified. We simply call him The Major.”
Merritt raised an eyebrow, then extended his hand. “Major.”
The Major shook Merritt’s hand in an iron grip. “You’re something of a celebrity among Daemon operatives, I hear.”
Merritt shrugged. “That’s what they tell me.”
“Good to see you’re fully recovered, Mr. Merritt.”
Merritt reflexively stroked the burn scars on his neck.
Philips pointed to the nearby knot of scientists. “This is our research team on loan from DARPA. Identities also classified.”
“These introductions aren’t very useful.”
One of the scientists looked up from the huddle. He was an older Asian man. “The rig is ready, Dr. Philips.”
Philips nodded toward a nearby stool. “Have a seat, Agent Merritt. I think you’ll find this interesting.”
The scientists scattered, revealing what they had been working on—and what Merritt had brought all this way: a pair of sports sunglasses with yellow-tinted lenses and thick, metallic frames had been bolted into an armature in the center of the lab area. Wires and cables ran from inside the frames over to the lab bench. Set between the posts of the glasses was a clear glass cylinder in which floated a disembodied human eye, like some macabre olive in a jar. The severed nerve endings were alligator-clipped in place to position the eye staring straight forward through the right lens of the sports glasses.
Philips gestured to the rig. “That’s the right eye, Jon?”
Ross nodded. “I double-checked.”
She examined the rig closely. “The sniper’s bullet doesn’t appear to have damaged the blood vessels.” She checked her watch. “Eighteen hours, sixteen minutes since his death. The clock is running. We
need to get this test started.”
Merritt was still staring back at the eye. “What sort of test?”
She turned to him. “We believe these glasses serve as a heads-up display for Daemon operatives, Agent Merritt.” She leaned in and pointed to a spot on the frame of the glasses. “A fiber-optic projector displays an image onto the inside of the glass lenses.” She pointed to a dot elsewhere on the frame. “This is a retinal scanner. The Daemon knows who’s wearing these HUD glasses, and this is a heart pulse monitor—over which we have placed an artificial pulse generator. We intend to fool the Daemon into thinking its operative is still alive and calm. If it hasn’t already invalidated his account, we hope to gain access to the Daemon’s darknet.”
Merritt nodded slowly. “So, that was the big hurry. You’re hoping to steal this guy’s identity.”
Ross stepped up to examine the rig as well. “We’re hoping for more than that.”
The Chinese scientist approached Philips while holding a thick, pouchlike belt made of stretchable black fabric. The belt had an ornate lion’s-head belt buckle. He offered it to her. “This one’s powered by some sort of fuel cell. We have nothing like it in the equipment collection. The Daemon is rapidly increasing the quality of its manufacturing process.”
Merritt pointed at the belt. “What’s it do?”
Philips took it. “It’s a wearable computer. The brains of those eyeglasses. Uses a satellite or radio uplink to the Net and connects to these glasses wirelessly with 192-bit military-grade encryption. The encryption key appears to reseed every few minutes. Hard as hell to crack.”
“What’s with the lion’s-head buckle?”
The Chinese scientist nodded. “Blued titanium with diamond eyes. Very expensive—possibly indicating high rank. Daemon equipment often has stylistic fetishes. These are no doubt intended to imbue them with perceived mystical qualities.”
Philips grimaced. “Another one of Sobol’s psychological hacks.” She closely examined the sports glasses in the rig. “These look way beyond the capabilities of a portable fab lab. Grown-crystal optics…possibly laser-etched circuitry. Can we identify the factory?”
Another scientist weighed in. “Probably South Korean manufacture. Highest quality.”
“How long until we can get this test started, gentlemen?”
The scientists at the lab benches were making last-minute calibrations to hundreds of knobs and dials on rack-mounted monitoring equipment. One of them turned to Philips. “It will be a few minutes yet, Doctor.”
Ross approached her and pointed to the HUD glasses. “You think this runs off the FOM?”
Philips reacted to Merritt’s quizzical expression. “Jon means the Faction Operations Module, Agent Merritt. It’s how the Daemon coordinates the activities of the humans who work for it. That’s how it infiltrated corporate networks, that’s how it identifies new threats, and that’s how it distributes funds and privileges to its members. Basically, it’s the key to its power. The FOM is a distributed mesh network consisting of tens of thousands of nodes. Each node has a unique encryption key at any given moment. If we can clone these glasses, we might have an opening we can exploit to infiltrate the Daemon’s operations. Possibly to shut it down.”
Merritt nodded. “I’m all for that.”
The Major frowned at Philips. “If the Daemon knows we’re penetrating its defenses, it might lash out and start destroying companies.”
“If we’re careful, it will never know, Major.” She reacted to his grim expression. “Look, Daemon operatives coordinate their activities somehow, and so far we’ve been unable to find even a single e-mail or IM message between them. We’re missing something, and both Jon and I believe that that something is sitting right in front of us. Unless we conduct this test, we’ll have no chance at all of stopping the Daemon.”
“What exactly does this test entail, Doctor?”
Philips pointed at the captured glasses. “We plan on powering up these glasses so we can see what a Daemon operative sees while working on the Daemon’s darknet.”
The Major still looked doubtful. He pointed at the wires and cables running from the glasses and back toward the lab benches. “And this?”
The Chinese scientist stepped in. “Sound and video outputs. We’ll record the images projected onto the heads-up display of the glasses for later analysis. We’ll also project the images onto these monitors, here.”
“Nothing’s hooked into our computer network?”
Philips crossed her arms impatiently. “Major, it’s hooked to a DV camera. A camera whose embedded OS has been cleared of serial numbers. Please give us more credit than that. Now, unless the DOD has any objections, I’d like to conduct this test before the Daemon decides that this operative is KIA.”
The Major took one last look around. He nodded grimly. “Okay, Doctor. Proceed.”
Philips turned to the scientists. “Let’s do it, gentlemen.”
They tripped several switches. “Activating computer fuel cell.”
“The glasses have electrical power.”
Numerous television monitors mounted above the workbench filled with information. The scientists looked pleased. “Good. The computer belt has established a secure link to a nearby WiMax transmitter. Let’s get a fix on its location.”
Another scientist called out, “An encrypted link has been established between the glasses and the computer belt.”
“Retinal scanning in progress. Stand by….”
Philips took a deep breath. “Cross your fingers, people.”
They all stared at the glasses, but nothing obvious was happening. They waited.
The lead scientist smiled and turned toward them. “We’re receiving data. I believe we just fooled the Daemon.”
A cheer went up and high fives were exchanged at the lab benches. The Major was impassive, as always.
Philips, Ross, Merritt, and The Major moved to join the scientists crowding around video monitors. The screens displayed images being beamed onto the lenses of the HUD glasses. The Major squinted. “What are we looking at?”
Philips answered. “It’s a graphical user interface of some type—local time, GPS coordinates, power level, shield…Shield, that’s interesting….”
Ross pointed at the screen. “It looks like one of Sobol’s game interfaces. A menu of options. Like a first-person shooter.”
The Major scowled. “But what’s this tell us?”
Ross read through the visible menus. “There’s no obvious way to navigate the UI. How do they work it?”
The lead scientist nodded. “The glasses have a built-in bone-conduction microphone. Could it be voice-activated?”
“We don’t have a voice pattern for this Daemon operative.”
Philips pointed at a small blue square glowing near the right side of the screen. “What’s this?” Barely legible text appeared just above the box, reading: AAW-9393G28. It was connected to the box by a glowing line.
Ross concentrated on the screen. “I’d say it’s a call-out. Looks like there’s an object still active in our captured equipment collection.”
“You mean like the name call-outs hovering over characters in Sobol’s online games?”
“One way to find out…” Ross approached the armature holding the HUD glasses.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to turn these glasses. If that glowing box moves on-screen as I move the glasses, then we know the glasses are showing us a virtual Daemon object that’s bolted to an external coordinate system—most likely the GPS grid.”
Merritt looked from Philips to Ross. “Why would it create virtual objects on the GPS grid?”
Ross called over from the rig as he turned it. “In Sobol’s online games, players and significant objects in the 3-D environment are denoted by virtual call-outs—pop-up menus that hover in space, providing information. I believe Sobol created the same system using the GPS grid.” He turned to Philips. “How’s that?”
The group looked stunned. “Oh my God…”
“What is it?” Ross moved over to the monitor.
The tiny glowing box paled in significance. Hovering eerily in virtual space beyond the real walls of the lab was a towering red call-out box ringed with a dozen mysterious and dangerous-looking symbols—skulls, X’s, and crosses. Beneath that was a line reading 40—Sorcerer. At the top of the call-out was a rolling row of letters, like tumblers cycling endlessly next to the word Stormbringer.
“What the hell is that, Jon?”
Ross studied the video feed. “That’s the call-out of a fortieth-level sorcerer—we’ve been infiltrated.”
The Major leaned in toward the screen. “Where is he?”
“In this building…” Ross moved side to side to get some parallax on the call-out. “He’s in the gaming pit.” Ross turned to The Major. “Call security—NOW!”
The Major shouted to a nearby guard. “Notify Secom that we have a highly dangerous intruder in the gaming pit. Activate silent lockdown.”
The guard reached for his radio, but The Major put his hand over it and pointed to the nearby phone. “Use a landline, you idiot!”
The guard nodded. “Sorry, Major.”
Ross pointed at the screen. “We’ve got half the talent on the task force in that room.”
Philips turned on The Major. “Just how the hell did he get in here, Major?”
“Let’s worry about that once we have the mole in custody. I’ll tell you this much: Britlin is going to have hell to pay.”
“Britlin. Who is Britlin?”
“The company that clears task force candidates.”
Philips looked at him like he was insane. “The government outsourced our background checks?”
“Britlin has worked with the intelligence sector for thirty years, Doctor. This is standard operating procedure.”
“What about the current situation seems standard to you?”
Merritt started loosening his tie. “We need to take him out before he can react. Let me go in there with a can of mace.”
The Major shook his head. “Negative, Agent Merritt. We have people on site.”
“No offense, Major, but I do this for a living.”
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