“Of course I do. Just saying, family pet and shit.”
“And we do have family traditions. They are just alternative traditions, such as summer bounty hunting and family ass-kicking of the guys at the agency.” Shay snickered. “Those are far more interesting traditions anyway, and we can continue that shit as long as the damned aliens stay out of your way.” She eyed him. “I know you’ve been worrying more about your little Alliance visitor than you’ve been willing to admit.”
“I sometimes worry about the Alliance,” James admitted, “but I also figure that if they had the balls to make another move right away, they probably would have done it by now. If they try anything, they’ll regret it. They know that, so it’s just gonna be a bunch of us snarling at one another.”
“I’m with Tyler. Betting against you, no matter what the challenge, is a good way to get humiliated. You’ve already beaten aliens, three-headed dragons, necromancers, and zombie hordes. What’s one more alien?”
“Yeah. When you say it like that, it makes sense.” James nodded at the laptop. “Are you working on shit for your classes?”
Shay shook her head and turned the laptop to show him the screen. James narrowed his eyes, but from what he could tell, it was a picture of a woman skydiving in her wedding dress with a huge smile on her face.
What the fuck? I don’t care if I can survive with Whispy, I’m not jumping out of a fucking plane for our wedding. The last thing I want to do is fly on my wedding day.
James waited for Shay to explain. It might not be as bad as he thought. For example, she could be the only one jumping out of the plane.
“Just exploring different wedding possibilities,” Shay explained. “Including more…active options. I’ve narrowed down a lot of the unimportant crap like the non-barbeque food, bridesmaid’s dresses, and basic nonsense, but I still don’t have a general idea about the venue or how I’m going to make it epic but not fucking annoy all our guests at the same time. I don’t want to go crazy with magic, either, because who knows how that might go wrong? At least, that’s my current thought. I could be persuaded otherwise.”
“No. You’ve got good instincts. Making shit too complicated leads to…” James blinked. “Wait. Guests?”
Shay laughed. “Most people have at least a couple of people at their weddings. Did you really think I’d have to spend all this time planning if it was just going to be a couple of witnesses in front of a judge? I’m planning the wedding, not the honeymoon.”
James offered his finest, most nuanced grunt in response.
Now that Shay mentioned guests, it made perfect sense, but James had been fixated for so long on first the proposal and then Shay being responsible for the rest that he had let the reality that weddings tended to involve guests slip out of his mind. His image of the affair had previously involved a pile of Jessie Rae’s with Father McCartney, Shay, and Alison.
Shit. I was thinking about that barbeque just because I wanted some barbeque, and Mike was even asking me about guests and shit. It was so fucking obvious. Of course, the wedding’s gonna be huge.
Shay nodded. “The way I see it, we’ll need to invite everyone from the agency, several of the people from my department, Peyton and his girlfriend, Heather, my girls and whatever wastes of meat they are currently dating, and Lily and most of her friends. Maria’s my Maid of Honor, so that means Tyler’s got to come. Is that okay?”
“I don’t give a shit. Tyler’s smart enough to behave at my wedding.”
“I agree.” Shay sneered. “I’m not inviting my parents. Shit, I don’t even know if they’re still alive. Pieces of crap. Surprised they haven’t come sniffing around. They were always good at finding someone to leech off.”
“I want to invite the people from my church,” James explained. “Not just Father McCartney. The people at the orphanage. I’ll let Father McCartney figure out if the kids should come. It might be boring for them.”
“Okay. Have anyone else in mind?”
“Some people from the pitmaster community asked for an invitation once they heard I was engaged.” James rubbed his chin. “Also Mack, Weber, and some other people from the LAPD and the Vegas PD. And the Professor. Mike and Michael and their families, of course.”
Shay shrugged. “That’ll be easy since Jessie Rae’s will already be catering the barbeque portion of the food.”
James grunted. “Senator Johnston. He said he wanted to come.”
Shay laughed.
“What’s so funny? You don’t think we should invite him? I figure it’s an easy way not to piss him off. I don’t know about all this political shit, but he did basically threaten to start a nuclear war with aliens to have my back. I’ve got to give him a little respect for that.”
“No, I don’t have a problem inviting him.” Shay smiled. “It’s just that this is turning into a pretty big list of people, and that’s really funny when you think about it.”
“Why?”
“I was thinking that it wouldn’t, because both of us spent most of our lives staying away from people. Neither of us went to college or worked the kind of jobs where we might have made work friends until recently, but in the end, we’re going to need a big venue.”
James shrugged. “Not like money’s a problem. We can rent an island if we need it.”
“You’re right about that.” Shay turned the laptop back toward her. “This is going to sound lame as shit, but I’m excited, and I’ve never given a fuck about weddings my entire life. Curse you, James Brownstone, for making me care about this kind of thing.” She snorted. “I’m getting fucking soft.”
James grinned. “Yeah, I’m kind of excited myself, especially since I don’t have to do all the hard work.”
“Keep it up, and I’ll make you responsible for the seating charts.”
Normal life, huh? Normal marriage. Kind of? Fuck the Alliance. If they want me, they can come and get me, and I’ll kick their asses all the way back to their home planets.
James chuckled. “Maybe I should invite Sentry 8224 and tell him his wedding present will determine whether I summon the Vanguard to Earth.”
Shay burst out laughing. “That would be too perfect.”
Professor Smite-Williams gulped down some hearty beer as his gaze passed over a man sitting in the corner. That particular customer had been nursing a drink for an hour, and otherwise playing with his phone. The button-up shirt and khakis made the fit young man look like a businessman waiting for a date, but his calm and detached demeanor suggested he wasn’t waiting for anyone.
Calm wasn’t the same as carefree. Every few minutes, the man’s gaze swept the room carefully and methodically. The Professor had only detected the pattern because he’d already been suspicious.
Who are you, lad, and what are you doing here?
When the customer had entered the Leanan Sidhe, he had been almost too relaxed and focused. Nothing about him felt right for a typical customer at the Irish pub. His movements were practiced and too obvious if one knew what to look for, as was his obvious choice of sitting in a booth with a full view of the main pub floor but with no windows at his back. The man’s paranoia reminded the Professor of Miz Carson when they had first met.
Now, who might you be, lad? It’s been a long time since anyone’s come sniffing around here. Are you here for James? That doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t drink here all that often anymore. He spends all of his time with his lovely bride-to-be, which brings us back to my question of who you are and why you’ve decided to visit my nice little place.
Time for a little test.
When a waitress came over to give him a new beer, the Professor smiled up at her. “The nice handsome lad in the corner of the room.” He nodded toward the suspicious customer. “Give him my favorite Irish Stout and tell him I’d love to talk to him if he has time.”
The waitress smiled. “Of course, Professor.” She set his new glass down and headed back to the bar. It was a small matter of getting the drink before h
eading toward the suspicious man.
Before the waitress arrived, the man stood and hurried toward the door, managing a few furtive glances at the Professor as he did.
“Well now, lad, that wasn’t telling at all, was it?” the Professor muttered. “You might as well have been wearing a sign saying, ‘I’m up to no good.’” He shook his head in disgust. He wasn’t all that great at hiding and he could have done a better job, but that didn’t reveal why the man had been there.
The Professor’s phone chimed to let him know he had a text, and he pulled it out of his pocket. With a tap, the Professor started reading the message. His mouth turned down in a frown.
Oh, well, this is interesting. It might explain why I had a visitor, but I’m going to need a little help.
6
Peyton hummed under his breath as he tapped on his keyboard. Even if Shay wasn’t taking jobs nearly as often since starting full-time at the university, it didn’t hurt for him to keep an eye on all the tomb raider-related forums on the dark web. If she didn’t want the job, they could offer it to Lily and he could provide her support, but even the Gray Elf had cut back.
Come on. More money for everyone, right?
It turned out that living homeless in the tunnels had made the girl largely uninterested in the constant accumulation of huge piles of money, especially after a string of highly successful raids. She’d dropped to a raid every other month and now spent as much time helping Harry and his friends with his info broker business as raiding.
“No one’s greedy anymore,” the hacker mumbled. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad one. I thought they were both into tomb raids for the challenge as much as the money. I also don’t know what it’s like to be broke and living in tunnels and having to steal food, so maybe I’m too bougie to understand.” He groaned. “And now I’m talking to myself. Sign of genius or insanity?”
He looked around for his cat, but the animal wasn’t there to offer his evaluation.
Shay’s shift from tomb raider to professor had started Peyton thinking about his future as well. With the threat of his brother long since handled, a staged comeback from his faked death wasn’t out of the question. As convenient as living off the radar had been in some ways, he yearned to not worry so much about looking over his shoulder. If a former professional killer could get married and get a regular job, there was no reason why he couldn’t. It’d help his relationship be less awkward, too.
I wonder what Amber would say if she knew the truth about my past? She’s a smart woman. She might already know I’ve got a few more secrets than I’ve let on. She’s helping work on tech to contact aliens, among other things.
Would she really freak about something like me being a fake dead man? I look great for a dead guy. She’d probably be impressed that I pulled it off, even if I had Shay’s help. It’s hard to not exist in this day and age.
Peyton chuckled. No one amused him more than he did. He didn’t care what Shay said—he was hilarious. Not LA-comedy-club hilarious, but still damned funny, and anyone with proper taste understood that.
What would I do if I came out of hiding? I could keep helping Lily and Shay when they needed me, but maybe some sort of business? I’d be great at cybersecurity. Working for Shay has pushed me to skill levels I never thought I’d reach. I could have corporate assholes handing me millions to defend them against whatever weak-ass script kiddie or foreign hacker is trying to break into their system.
That would be a nice, respectable business, and it wouldn’t worry Amber if she found out about it. Hmmm. Maybe I could somehow help her with the computer end of her research. It’s not like I don’t have all sorts of practical experience working on unusual datasets, and I’m damned smart, if I do say so myself.
Handsome, smart, and King of Pizza. I’m a great catch. Not that Amber isn’t a great catch, too.
An alarm window popped up on one of his screens, and Peyton’s heart rate kicked up. Had he let himself get too complacent?
“What now?” He groaned. “It better not be some parkour asshole on top the warehouse again. Is there an equivalent for scarecrows we could put up? Holographic scareteens?”
Peyton clicked his mouse and entered a few commands. When additional notes appeared, he let out a sigh of relief and chuckled.
Intrusion Alert into System Silver #2932.
“Oh, just one of the honeypots.” Peyton rolled his eyes. “Probably just some college kid who thinks he’s the shit and found the mother lode. Well, sorry, Derek or Lance or whatever your name is, you’re in Peytonland now. Fake Peytonland, anyway.” He clucked his tongue. “Let’s see what you’ve got going. What did I put in 2932 again? I haven’t messed with that one in a long time. I know I reorganized some of those files a few months back.”
He had set up dozens of honeypot servers during his time with Shay, each populated with interesting enough if fake files, with just enough information to mislead intruders and allow him a potential way to verify an intruder’s identity. They were all thoroughly isolated from the main server city and purposely had weaker defenses. Sometimes the best way to know who to look out for was to let them in the front door.
A few clicks brought up the contents of Silver #2932.
“Okay, this is a little less funny.” Peyton narrowed his eyes.
The server hosted various fake alien files he’d spent weeks generating when he had been bored the previous summer. The files presented a thorough if completely fictional and fanciful account of how the US government was suppressing tentacled aliens based out of Cydonia on Mars with the help of the fictional government projects Carter and Burroughs.
Peyton was proud of the level of detail he’d put into the fake files. In a time before Oriceran they might have made a nice science fiction conspiracy story, but gates opening to a world of magic killed a lot of appetite for tales of hidden aliens. Everyone now assumed that anything alien was just a long-lost Oriceran.
Shay had been right when she and Peyton had first discovered the truth. Humanity always wanted the easy paradigm to guide their thoughts, so they’d let the truth about Oriceran provide them with that framework.
Elves were real, space aliens were not. Simple as that. Except it wasn’t.
The timing’s bothering me. That Nine System Alliance guy pops over to Brownstone’s place the other day, and now someone’s probing around systems I control looking for alien stuff? If there’s one thing working for Shay has taught me, it’s that there’s no such thing as a coincidence. If there’s smoke, get a bunch of wizards to drown the whole area with a water spell.
Peyton’s eyes widened as he looked over the log. The intruder wasn’t just looking around for alien files but was explicitly searching for files related to Aletheia, Project Ragnarök, and Project Nephilim. This wasn’t some random college kid, but someone who might have a good idea of Shay’s knowledge of alien activities, which pointed strongly to the government.
Damn it! I’m not surprised, but I’m still annoyed. This is what I get for complaining the other day about how bored I was.
Peyton gritted his teeth as he initiated a trace. This little encounter had gone from being an amusing diversion to a potential prelude to attack. The intruder’s active search suggested they didn’t expect they would have time to just mass-copy the files and search later, which in turn indicated they already had a good estimate of Peyton’s skill level. An enemy who knew enough to show him respect was probably good enough to be annoying.
“Oh, no, you don’t, you assholes.” Peyton took a deep breath. “You don’t realize you’ve stumbled into a fake server, which means it’s still my advantage. You’re in my kingdom now, et cetera, et cetera.”
He’d need to think of cool taunts later. It wasn’t important that they couldn’t hear him. It was important that he amused himself.
“Time for me to deliver some counter-pain, but first, let’s figure out who you are.”
Peyton sighed, disappointed that no one was ther
e to witness his glorious virtual counter-attack. Even his cat was away from the office, sleeping somewhere in the shadowy corners of Warehouse Two, needy in a way only a cat could be.
“I really need a few people sitting around me so I can stop talking to myself. Or at least so we can engage in banter. Okay, let’s do this crap.”
The hacker took deep breaths as his trace continued through various proxy servers. Whoever he was dealing with was damned good, and it was taking all his skill to not end up at a dead-end.
Surprised they stumbled into the honeypot. Everything else I’m seeing suggests they’re better than that.
“Almost there. Almost there… I’ve got you, you sonofabitch. Ha! Boo-yah.”
Peyton groaned. It was a Department of Defense server.
The intrusion abruptly ended.
Peyton sighed and leaned back in his chair, his hands on his head. “Didn’t like me knocking on your door, so you ran?” He shook his head. “Time to call the boss.”
Shay leaned against the wall of the office, her arms crossed, displeasure on her face. “Why would the DoD be sniffing around me? That doesn’t make a lot of sense, considering the long list of people I’ve pissed off. If anything, the DoD seems to like James and me, especially because of the Council shit.”
“I don’t think it’s the DoD,” Peyton replied. “I think it’s whoever used to pay Durand’s paychecks using DoD computers as a shield, even if it’s not a true proxy.” Peyton shrugged. “But they still wanted to get in fast and grab specific crap from me. They knew exactly what to look for. If this had been an intrusion into something other than one of my honeypots, they probably could have grabbed the good stuff and run in the time it took me to trace the hack back to them.”
“You’re saying they were that good?”
“The way they detected my counter-hack and ran in an instant proves they were. I hate to say it, but I think we got lucky this time that they happened to hit the wrong server. Between their skill level and what they were looking for, there is no way these were internet randos like Derek and Lance.”
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