by Michael Todd
“Mr. Anderson,” one man said with a quick nod to both visitors. “Mr. Savage. We were informed that you two might make an appearance. Dr. Geoffrey Chance is scheduled to meet you if you’ll follow me?”
Anderson stepped in behind the man and Savage brought up the rear of their little convoy. The guard led them deeper into the facility without conversation. The lack of windows and the sheer number of fluorescent lightbulbs gave the whole place a sense of timelessness. No matter the hour of day or night, this place would always have the same lighting. Well, unless one of the bulbs needed replacing.
“I need to point out the potential problems of having a conversation with someone called Dr. Chance,” Savage whispered as they were guided through the expansive building.
“What’s wrong with that?” the ex-colonel asked and kept his voice pitched low as well.
“Come on. I know a supervillain’s name when I hear one.” He grinned. “Seriously, if we walk in on him with a cat on his lap and he has an eye disfigurement, I’ll call MI6. Just saying.”
“Supervillain, huh?” His boss looked like he was actually considering the concept. “What kind of powers would Dr. Chance have? He would have to have picked his own name, right? Kind of like…I don’t know, Savage?”
“Asshole. Well, I think Dr. Chance would—and this is merely my thought—have power over the elements of chance in the universe. Or be able to predict them or something. I don’t know, what do you think?”
“Maybe, but that seems less like a supervillain and more someone the superhero would have to get help from.” The other man shrugged. “A man who would be able to predict the chances of anything. Someone who makes money betting on sports, perhaps. He made his fortune originally by betting, but he decided there was more money to be had in being a bookie and handling other people’s bets instead, becoming a small-time crime lord that’s marginally below our hero’s radar. Maybe at some point, he becomes a bit of an anti-hero?”
“I like it. How would he get his powers, though?”
“It doesn’t need to be powers,” Anderson replied and chuckled like a kid. “He could merely have a very keen intellect. Which is why he’s below our hero’s radar since he deals with actual supervillains.”
“You should trademark that shit.” They stopped in front of an office with thin walls. He doubted that the man inside would have listened in on their conversation, but it was always better to keep people in the dark when you had a discussion on the hypothetical supervillain uses for their surname. It seemed like a good rule of thumb if you’d never met the person before.
As it turned out, Dr. Chance didn’t look anything like a supervillain, Savage thought as they stepped into the man’s office. It was one of the few rooms that actually had a window. As the operative peered out into the Houston marshlands a good twenty miles away from any other sign of civilization, he wondered why they would even bother. They honestly might as well put in one of those new Vision windows that gave you a live view of virtually any famous location on earth. There was a monthly fee, of course, but it had to be better than looking out into mushy nothingness with a couple of small buildings in the distance.
Fuck, everything was so far away in Texas.
“Mr. Anderson, thank you so much for taking the time to inspect our little facility here,” Chance said with a broad smile as he moved quickly from behind his desk. At an average height with a lean, trim build and a hint of a tasteful goatee that offset only a trace of baldness, the man didn’t look at all like your average researcher.
Savage realized that their host had reached over to shake his hand and took it quickly as he plastered a smile on his face. “Savage. Jeremiah Savage.”
“Jeremiah Savage. I like it.” Chance nodded brusquely and leaned back against his desk.
“Well, thanks. I made it myself.”
“Right.” Chance chuckled and glanced briefly from one man to the other. Anderson sat on one of the visitor chairs in front of the desk, but the operative remained on his feet.
“So, how can I help you gentlemen?” the researcher asked. “Your visit was announced, but nothing was said about what or why. We’re in the process of initiating all the research again. Some has been set back considerably thanks to the traveling arrangements—not many Petri dishes survive a trip in a plane, you know—but we should be back on track with the previous estimates in about three or four months.”
“Well, I know the board will be very happy to hear that.” The ex-colonel nodded approvingly. “I’ll make sure to give them a note about your performance. But despite appearances, we aren’t here to do any scheduled analytics. We’ll leave that to the professionals in a couple of weeks.”
From the sudden stir in Chance’s eyebrows, this was news to the man.
“We do have to maintain appearances, of course, since what we actually wanted to talk to you about are…” He paused and considered the most diplomatic way to describe it. “Well, you don’t need to know the details—plausible deniability and all that—but thanks to the efforts of our contractor Mr. Savage here, we were able to locate company property in the hands of very non-company people. Here is an example.”
Anderson removed something from his coat pocket and handed it to Chance. It was small—about the size of a modern phone, although a little bulkier—with exposed wiring and no screen. Anja had called it a capacitor, apparently used to store electric power to be distributed as needed.
It was a simple yet integral part of virtually any piece of modern technology, but there was something about it that she had gone on about and even called someone named Amanda to weigh in on it. They’d talked for the duration of the three-hour flight from Vegas to Houston. It was special, apparently, a piece of bleeding-edge tech that was very expensive in the modern market.
Chance retrieved a pair of glasses from his desk and took it from Anderson’s hand before he leaned in to inspect it—not the wiring, which was where Savage’s eyes usually went, but the back.
“Yeah, you can see here,” Chance said and proffered it to Anderson. “There’s the Pegasus watermark hidden in the circuitry. It’s hard to find unless you know what to look for. There’s a number as well, probably from the patent, so I’ll need to check that, but at first glance, it’s definitely one of ours. And, if I’m not mistaken, it hasn’t reached the open market yet. If you found that in the hands of someone who wasn’t authorized by Pegasus, it would be grounds for serious corporate espionage lawsuits.”
The ex-colonel nodded. “Well, we’ll keep a lid on it for now since we’re still gathering information, but that would be the endgame, yes. However, since there’s a lot we still need to get going, we’d like to see if anyone in this facility would be willing to continue the work we have going into these and other pieces that were…let’s say misappropriated. I understand this might step on the toes of your current research here, but the board would really appreciate you putting this merch at the top of your priority list. They’re afraid someone might have reverse-engineered it, and we don’t want to be caught on the back foot if anything like it reaches the market before we have the chance to bring it out.”
“Right, of course.” The researcher nodded quickly. “We have a couple of teams here that are waiting for their equipment to be transferred from the Oregon facility. I can have them work on it until they’re ready to go. That way, it will eat as little company time as possible. If I had to place a guess, this would be one of our capacitors for the new suits we’ve been building, right?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Anderson replied honestly.
“Give me a sec…” The man circled his desk and typed rapidly into his computer before he turned the screen for his visitors to see. “Yeah, that’s a part of the creatively named Mark 17 suits that will roll out in a couple of years. We haven’t done much in the way of weapons and armor testing here, but we do have the licensing for it. They don’t really mind weapons testing here in Houston, for obvious reasons, so it shouldn’t be a probl
em.”
Savage wasn’t sure what the obvious reasons were, but he assumed it was because Texas weapons testing laws were considerably laxer than most other states. He didn’t even know if that was true, of course, but it was a reasonable assumption. Chance could have meant something else entirely.
“Okay, do you have anything else you’d want us to continue research on?”
“Oh, yeah.” Anderson grinned. “There’s a bag of it in the trunk of my car. And we also have electronic data we need to transfer to one of our specialists in Philly.”
“We have IT personnel here who could probably handle it—” Chance began.
“And I’m sure they’re fantastically equipped and prepared to handle it too,” the ex-colonel cut in. “Even so, I think it would be best to pass it through Philly first to make sure there isn’t anything hiding in the code or something.”
“Of course. I’ll send Dr. Myers with you to your car to collect what you have, and she can set you up in our server room too. It has the fastest connection in the building and should give you a lag-free connection to Philly.”
“We appreciate your help here, Dr. Chance.” Anderson pushed out of his seat and shook the man’s hand firmly. “And I will mention your efficiency and work ethic to the board at the next meeting. Keep it up.”
Savage followed his boss out of the room as Chance called for someone named Myers to meet them outside where their car was parked.
“Is there anything hiding in the code?” Anja asked through their earpieces. The operative grinned and turned to face Anderson. He clearly had no intention to come to his boss’ defense.
“Well, it’s not like I know any of the real jargon,” the man muttered under his breath. “Only what I’ve seen in flicks. I only hope Chance doesn’t know anything about the lingo either.”
“It’s safer to assume he does,” she pointed out. “His PhD is in electrical engineering, though. That was how he was able to identify the watermark in the piece so quickly.”
“I’d say he looked for it almost immediately,” Savage said.
“So, what do you think?” Anderson raised a brow in query. “Supervillain or nah?”
“Honestly, he looks more like a gym bro than your average researcher. Then again, my preconceptions and stereotypes of researchers have consistently been blown out of the water over the past few months I’ve worked for you, so I don’t know what to think. He could be a supervillain for all I know.”
His boss chuckled. “Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think he looks like a supervillain either.”
“We should keep our eye on him anyway,” Savage said cautiously. “Look into whether he owns any white cats and maybe ask his neighbors if he’s prone to cackling evilly in his spare time. Stuff like that.”
“I’ll allow it.” Anderson paused, his train of thought interrupted by a young woman in a lab coat who walked purposefully toward them.
“Mr. Anderson, Mr. Savage?” she asked.
“You must be Dr. Myers.” The ex-colonel extended his hand for her to shake.
“Dr. Angela Myers,” she confirmed and returned the handshake firmly. “Dr. Chance told me you need to document transferred materials. I’m here to help.”
“Fantastic.” The three of them headed to where their car was parked. It was in the shade, thankfully, since everything there would be inevitably baked by the sun. They were told that an underground parking garage was in construction, which meant the employees still needed to leave their cars parked in the blazing sun for eight hours a day or more, and that had to suck.
Savage helped to carry most of the equipment still in the duffel bag Anderson had used while at the facility in Vegas. They took it into one of the labs, where Myers brought in a couple of other specialists. Most of what they discussed sailed above both Savage and Anderson’s collective heads. Despite their ignorance, they gathered that most of what they’d recovered were components for some of the bleeding-edge suits developed for use on the battlefield, not the Zoo. There were shock-absorbing panels, weapon reloading networks, and dozens more, apparently all from the same suit.
“Well, as much as we would love to keep talking shop with you amazing people…” Anderson spoke finally to divert their attention and kept his tone as light as possible. “Chance said you had a server room we could use to communicate with specialists off-site?”
“Oh, right.” Myers laughed as she jogged to the door and held it open for them. “I’m sorry about our distraction. We don’t usually have the chance to actually study any of the weapons Pegasus develops. Of course, we’ll probably need insights from the people who actually developed the tech we’ll look at, but we’ll have fun with it all the same.”
“You know what they say,” the ex-colonel said as they moved out of the lab and into the hallway again. “Someone who loves their job doesn’t work a day in their lives.”
“Who said that?” Savage asked and narrowed his eyes.
“Hell if I know.” The quip drew a smirk from the other man.
“Anyway…” Myers guided them into a room similar to the one Savage had taken the hard drives from. There were considerably more to see and thankfully, he didn’t need to steal any of them.
“Do you need me for anything else?” she asked with a quick glance at Savage. “I could show you how to operate the mainframe.”
“I think we have it from here, Dr. Myers.” Anderson smiled equably. “You can rejoin your comrades in the lab if you’d like.”
“Of course.” She made her way out slowly and closed the door.
“Was she checking Savage out?” Anja asked once they were alone.
“I think she was,” the ex-colonel agreed. “Savage, do you have the hard drives?”
“Wait, what?” Savage asked. “Why would she check me out?”
“Well, I assume it’s because of your manly manliness,” the hacker responded tartly.
“No, what makes you think she would?” He retrieved the drives from the briefcase he’d lugged about for most of the day.
“Operate the mainframe?” Anja asked. “Are you fucking kidding me? I think she only wanted to spend some time with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Mysterious.”
“I’m not…dark,” he retorted as he connected the devices into the servers.
“You have dark hair. Does that count?” Anderson asked.
“Yes.” The Russian chuckled throatily. “Anyway, plug those babies in and…we have liftoff.”
“Are you already connected to the mainframe?” Savage asked.
“Jer, please. I’ve been plugged in since the two of you walked into the building,” she answered snappily. “Nothing interesting came through, so I had to keep myself occupied with your brilliant conversation skills. I do—oh, hello. What’s this?”
“Is there something interesting in the drives?” The ex-colonel’s expression brightened.
“I’m still downloading that. It should take a couple of minutes, even with the fiber optics you guys have installed. No, I received a notification from that facility’s connection to the Internet. Most of the computers are offline and away from external connections, but there are a couple spread around the building with Internet access. Anyway, someone sent a message through a concealed chat room using the same VPN connection as our dearly departed Edward Smith.”
“Who?” Savage made a face as he tried to recall why it sounded familiar.
“The name they used to steal our equipment, remember?” his boss reminded him.
“Oh, right. The chop shop.” Savage grunted irritably. “Why would someone use that name? I thought it was already burned?”
“Maybe someone didn’t get the memo,” Anja suggested. “It’s definitely coming from one of the computers in the facility. The setup is slick, actually. The brute force encryption tells me the person who put it in place has a brain for this stuff, but whoever is using it doesn’t. I intercepted it, though. Should I keep it from going through?”
“What does it say?”
Anderson asked.
“Uh…let me see. One sec.” The hacker went silent for a few minutes before she spoke again. “It’s only ‘nine-one-one. Can you meet in an hour?’ And it has the address of a bar about thirty miles from where you are now.”
The ex-colonel took a moment to think and rapped the table in front of him lightly with his knuckles before he spoke. “Let it through. See if you can’t trace where it goes.”
“I don’t think I can,” she warned.
“Either way, we can go to the bar and intercept the meeting.” He rubbed the stubble that peppered his chin. “See if we can’t find our mole and his handler in one fell swoop.”
“Or her handler,” Savage said with a firm nod. “Our enemies are probably equal opportunity employers, after all.”
“That’s downright decent of them,” his boss replied. “Hypothetically, of course. Okay, Anja, let the message through. We’ll stick around until you’ve finished downloading all the data and then head over to get our drink on.”
“Roger that, boss man,” she confirmed brightly.
Chapter Twenty-One
“I’ll need a beer and a scotch and soda, please,” Savage said and moved closer to the bar. He had suggested they stick to non-alcoholic beverages for their time there, considering they were technically working, but since everyone in the bar was drinking, they had to fit in. Anderson waited at their booth, both to hold the fort down and to keep an eye on the door.
“Of course, honey, whatever you need,” the tall, leggy, mid-twenties bartender said with a smile and winked as she pulled a beer from the fridge behind her.
He’d spent considerable time in bars like these. They were the only ones that stayed open near the bases where he’d been stationed, stateside or no. While he wasn’t proud of what he’d done in those establishments, he wasn’t ashamed of his actions either. He’d had a lot of steam that he’d needed to work out during that period of his life.