by Cameron, TR
After his eight trips around the sun on active duty, he’d gone military intelligence, then CIA. Twenty years out of high school, he had a job he wouldn’t have dreamed of being able to possess back at the start of his career. That’s why I’m not going to let anything fuck it up.
He waved away a volunteer guide that served tourists in the building. He knew where he was going. When he arrived at the conference room, both senators from Nevada were present. Carter Richardson, the Republican, and Stella Borowski, the Democrat.
He looked like his name, tall, thin, blonde, totally country club. She was also tall, but the similarity ended there since she had dark hair, dark eyes, and a sense of seriousness that the other lacked.
He’d been surprised to find these two leading the charge against Sheen and Bates, but they’d found common ground on this particular issue. Maybe because of all the chaos in Magic City lately. They don’t want to see it spill over to Vegas and slay the golden goose. He put a smile on his face to hide his thoughts. “Senators. We ready?”
They nodded, and he set a small device, a little larger than a cell phone, on the large conference table. He whispered the command to activate his comm, then said, “Tash, got me?”
A female voice replied, “Affirmative.”
“Well, come on then. Quit wasting time.” He poked his second-in-command whenever the opportunity presented itself since most of the time, she was flawlessly capable.
A portal opened on the table, and a witch stepped through. She didn’t look like a witch, or at least not the stereotype of one. Shortish spiky blonde hair crowned her head, and black tactical pants, a black t-shirt, and a short sleeve button down on top of it covered her body. Her face held more than a little makeup, applied to make it noticeable. She jumped down, and he smiled at the senators.
Richardson said, fairly calmly, given what he’d just witnessed, “You’re not supposed to be able to portal in here. Anti-magic emitters and whatnot.” His voice was deeper than expected.
Kevin nodded. “We have the technology. That little beauty creates a space where anti-magic emitters are blocked. It also provides a homing beacon.” The witch held up a similar-looking device, and he continued, “Which can be received by that one. They only talk to each other. The signal can’t be tapped under any circumstances or even detected until one of the devices is activated.”
Borowski said, “That seems dangerous.”
“It is. This whole thing is, and that’s why you asked me to be here. Now, make sure those doors are locked, please. I’m going to use another, so we can take a look at the traitors’ base. This one will stay here to provide a way back, and we don’t want anyone stumbling over it.”
Richardson nodded. “I’ll send for my aide to guard the room from outside, with instructions that we’re not to be bothered.”
After a delay for the senators to wrap up things that needed wrapping up, they crossed the distance from Washington, D.C. to Antarctica in a single step. The portal had opened into the hallway outside the armory, and he and Tash escorted the politicians into the equipment-filled space. Richardson said, “Holy cow. Look at all the stuff.”
Kevin laughed. “Yeah. They were well-funded, and they put the funding to good use.”
Borowski shook her head. “They couldn’t have had enough cash for all this stuff.”
He shrugged, although he tended to agree with her. “No evidence exists to prove they were skimming. Apparently, they managed some very effective spending. Plus, of course, they might’ve taken some of the gear dropped by people on the other side.”
Richardson said, “It’s like Christmas for your group, yes? Can you take all this equipment for yourselves?”
Tash nodded, familiar enough with his responses to such questions to answer. “We, too, are perennially underfunded.” Lie. We’re not. But it wouldn’t be good for you two to know that. You might think of reducing our funding, which would never do.
Kevin said, “Getting this gear was the most successful part of the mission.”
The witch snorted. “You mean the only fully successful part.”
“More accurate, less tactful.”
She grinned. “That’s me in a nutshell.”
They reached the tech area, and both senators frowned at the destruction in the space to the right. Richardson said, “Let me guess. Main computers?”
Kevin nodded. “First pitch, right out of the park. They doubled up the damage to them, just to be sure. First, a worm chewed through all the data. Then they physically blew up the servers.
“We only know about the worm because a couple of fragments survived, but they’re useless. In fact, worse than useless because as soon as we started looking at them, the damn worm tried to infiltrate our systems.”
Borowski asked, “Is that normal?”
Kevin shook his head. “No. It’s sophisticated programming. More than we thought they had. Likely imbued with magic.”
Richardson gestured at the rest of the space. “This is the tech area? Gadget making and stuff?”
“Yep. They didn’t clean it out quite as well, but it held no surprises. We already knew they were working on the things left behind in here from reports or surveillance.”
Borowski turned to him and said, “Maybe this is a good time for you to explain how you got so much information on them. This is probably the most secure location we’ll ever have.”
He chuckled. “Actually, for all we know, they could still have surveillance going here, so it may not be all that safe. Still, that might work to our benefit because any signal that leaves this place is something we can track and hopefully use to find them. Anyway, we used a mix of electronic surveillance, human intelligence, and a few clever new spy gadgets that are bleeding edge.” He gestured for them to start walking again and led them out of the room.
“One of our people was here for a tour, all aboveboard and planned, and they deposited a couple of super-miniature devices. They’re only capable of blasting back small amounts of data, and only when conditions are perfect, but it was enough to let us know they weren’t following the rules we’d agreed upon at the beginning.” They took a turn toward the artifact vault.
Richardson asked, “Specifically, where did they misstep? Surely you can share that now.”
When he’d informed the senators about the operation, he’d claimed that all the evidence was under a judge’s seal. That hadn’t been even remotely true, but it was enough to give him reasonable deniability. Plus, he knew people who could be convinced or coerced to support the lie at need. “I’ll show you, just ahead.”
They walked the rest of the way to the vault in silence. Well, more accurately, Kevin and Tash remained quiet. The politicians babbled between themselves, remarking on the strange metal, the odd shapes of the place, and the weird symbols that showed up now and again.
He’d researched the vimana inside and out before committing to the operation, so none of it was new to him. Plus, except for his trip back to Washington to get the senators, he’d been in the facility since they’d taken it, gathering data and checking things out. Going through people’s quarters had initially made him a little uncomfortable until he remembered that they’d turned against the government. After that, he felt fine rooting through their stuff.
They entered the vault, and he gestured at the shelves and safes. “According to their paperwork, they were turning over all the artifacts they found during their missions, save a couple. However, those numbers didn’t seem right. That’s what got us on their track in the first place.”
Richardson asked, “How many?”
“We estimate they kept back half, roughly. We’re fairly confident that in that half were some of the most powerful items.”
Borowski touched one of the transparent boxes stacked on the shelves with a finger as if expecting the falcon-shaped metal and stone object inside it to leap out at her. “How can you be sure?”
“We know they faced certain extremely powerful magical a
rtifacts in the field. We know they won those battles, and we further know they didn’t turn those items over. So, unless they vanished or Sheen abandoned them at the scene, it stands to reason that they kept them. Probably for personal use.”
The senator turned from inspecting the box and asked, “Aren’t those things infectious, somehow?”
Tash laughed. “By infectious, do you mean they crawl inside your flesh, bond with you whether you want them to or not, and do their best to manipulate your mind into doing things that civilized folks generally wouldn’t do? If so, then the answer is yes.”
Richardson shook his head. “Why did we give them that much latitude in the first place?”
Kevin replied, “I couldn’t say. I probably would’ve wound up making the same decision. Sheen had made a name for herself, Bates’s work was exemplary in all respects, and gathering the artifacts was a job that needed doing. Given the remoteness of this location, storing them here was perfectly logical. The only error was not maintaining more oversight.”
Richardson snapped, “So it’s Bates’s fault.”
“It’s all our faults, Senator. We offered trust in a time when trust is too valuable a gift to give. We should’ve had eyes on them constantly, including someone here at the base.”
Borowski asked, “What’s the next step?” The tone of interest, maybe wonder, had left her voice, which was now utterly businesslike.
Tash replied, “We find them and bring them to justice, one way or the other.”
“You know I’m not in favor of shoot on sight operations. Neither of us is.”
Kevin nodded. “As they’ve done nothing overt to attack the government, we’re hoping theft is as far as they were willing to go. So, we’ll give them a chance to surrender whenever we can.”
Richardson observed, “Guess we can’t ask for more than that.”
“Not against these people. Every one of them is too skilled, too powerful. We’ll do what we can to keep the peace, but if it’s them or us, they’re going down.”
Chapter Fifteen
Diana pulled the bedroom curtain slightly aside and looked out the window, shivering as frigid air snuck through the space between the frame and the wall. “When I decided our bolt hole should be on Cape Cod, I’d forgotten how wicked the winters are here.”
Rath, sitting on the bed behind her, laughed. “That’s okay. Max likes the cold.” The dog barked from his position on the floor as if to agree with the troll.
Diana let the curtain fall and turned to her companion. “Well, you’re going to be the one taking him for walks.”
He giggled. “Neighbors might notice. Troll walking a dog. Not something you see every day.”
She sighed. “Yeah, you’re not wrong. Let’s head downstairs.”
The house was small, originally someone’s vacation home, and more recently repurposed as a rental. It had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, and a combination living and dining room. Reserving it for the winter was a reasonably priced solution to needing a spot to lie low.
No paper trail connected her to the location. Lisa’s parents had stayed there once, years before, and Diana had visited, which had put the place on her radar. The arrangement was through a fictitious name and a fictitious company, and she trusted Deacon’s handiwork completely.
They’d spent the hours since arriving lying low, keeping quiet, and watching out the windows to see if any strange activity was happening nearby. None manifested. Not only no suspicious activity but no activity at all. A blanket of snow covered the ground from a storm a couple of days before, and the snowplows apparently didn’t bother to come down this far. She’d have to make up some story about how they got to the place to avoid revealing who they were if questioned. It didn’t worry her. She’d go out when it was dark and use magic to clear a path they might’ve used to get the house.
Now, it was time to get things organized since they might be staying for a while. She went into the kitchen and opened the cupboards, finding them stocked as she’d requested. They held many canned foods, some staples like rice and beans, and some dehydrated milk.
A chest freezer in the mudroom contained an abundance of prepackaged meals, as well as a bunch of pizza squares because her companion was pretty partial to them. Like, obsessed. She threw a couple of dinners in the microwave, then spent the minutes while they cooked further acquainting herself with the kitchen.
When they were ready, she sat down at the table and kicked a chair out for Rath. Max barked from beside her leg, and she frowned down at him. “You wait, mister. There’s food for you, too. You’re as bad as he is.” She gestured with her chin at the figure on the opposite side.
Rath grinned. “Growing troll needs food badly.”
She chuckled. “Maybe you should eat at your smallest size. Then it wouldn’t cost so much to feed you.”
“Doesn’t work that way. When I got bigger, I’d need more. Why are you trying to starve me?”
Diana knew that. They discussed it all before. They were only babbling. It felt good to babble, given what they’d been through. Their world had come crashing down around them, and nothing was the same as it had been only ten hours before. She wasn’t sure of the reasons behind the attack on the vimana, and the Zulu protocol wouldn’t let her contact anyone to find out. But eventually, she would find out, and when she did, trouble was going to pay those responsible a visit.
She checked her watch and saw that they had a little over an hour and forty-five minutes until it would be exactly half a day since she’d invoked scenario Zulu. That was an important time point, and they needed to be ready. Until then, they had no specific requirements. She mentioned the timeframe to Rath, and the troll replied, “We should go for a walk and check out the neighborhood. See who’s around, see what’s nearby. Maybe meet the neighbors.”
It was an appealing idea but not a practical one. “We’re going to need to lie low for a few days. Chances are good that whoever attacked the base will be looking for us, and they pretty well know that you and I are a team. Even if we use illusion to hide, two new people showing up are bound to generate suspicion. Sure, most of it would be friendly community gossip stuff, but you never know. Word could get out. We should wait a bit.”
Rath nodded, looking thoughtful. “That’s pretty thin, worry-wise.”
She laughed. “The thinnest, but we need to be ultra-careful right now. Let’s go down to the basement and grab our gear.”
Diana hadn’t retrieved the equipment she’d transported to the house some months before yet. She’d feared the potential for discovery and surveillance and wanted to be ready to run at an instant’s notice, not trapped in the basement. Now, though, she felt like that probably wasn’t likely, that if it were going to happen, it already would have. She pulled the cord on an old bare bulb in a socket as they walked down the stairs, then did the same again with another when they made it to the bottom.
The basement was freezing, with cold concrete walls radiating the winter chill through the room. A heavy old wardrobe stood in one corner, a mammoth piece of furniture that was easily four hundred pounds empty. It was full of stuff, the collected debris of many years including paint cans, tools, screws and nails, odds and ends. She used her magic to levitate the behemoth, pushed it to the side with muscle power, then set it gently back down a few feet away.
A wooden panel painted to look like the floor covered a small compartment underneath where the wardrobe had been. Diana removed the cover, reached in, and pulled out a duffel bag. Sliding the first across to Rath, she extracted a second.
She replaced the cover and returned to the wardrobe to its original spot in a reverse of the earlier process, ensuring there would be no scrapes or scuffs to suggest anything unusual existed in the basement. She cursed softly and rubbed her hands together. “Okay, upstairs, you two. Damn, it’s cold.”
Max and Rath bounded up the stairs ahead of her, and she carried the duffels, one hanging from her left hand, the other slung on her
back like a backpack. It was entirely unlikely anyone would find them in this place and unlikelier still that an attack would come this quickly even if their enemies had found them. Still, she wasn’t about to compromise both of her hands at the same time if any other option existed.
She closed the door to the basement, sealing the cold inside, and set the duffel bags on chairs next to the dining room table. Rath climbed up on one of the seats, sitting on the back of it precariously so he’d have a good view of the table. He observed, “It’s like my birthday.”
Diana laughed. “Yeah, a birthday filled with used gifts.” She unzipped the bag and started pulling out the troll’s stuff. At the top was an equipment belt with two sheathed batons. “Don’t need these, since you managed to bring your latest ones. Nice job on that.” She set them aside.
The troll nodded. “Got lucky.” The next item was the previous version of his flight gear, a harness with a large rectangular compartment on the back that held the wings. A pair of goggles went with it. She wasn’t sure the glasses Rath had worn during their escape would interface with it since they were newer, so it was fortunate they were included. He asked, “Will the AI still work without the base linkup?”
It was a great question. While the programs were probably independent enough to work in the field without any other connection, they depended on the main computer for updates and such. Because Deacon and Kayleigh constantly upgraded their gear, it was unclear how many steps back this set’s version of Gwen was, compared to the one he’d worked with recently. “I know they can function autonomously, but they might not have full functionality. I’m sure you’ll have all the necessary flight controls, though.”
He nodded, unable to conceal a grin. “Could need to experiment.”
She laughed. “No, you are not jumping off high things here and sailing over the frozen ocean. We’ll keep the wings, and if we can figure out a way for you to test them without being noticed, we will. I consider them a backup plan at the moment.” A small snort escaped her. “That’s all we need, some tabloid running headlines about the flying troll spotted on Cape Cod.”