SHIAM Conspiracy- Book 1

by Joseph Heck

  “I do not pretend to understand the meaning any more than you do.”

  “You telling me that Raghnall didn’t say anything to you before he sent you?”

  “Dr. Raghnall is a very wise man and I trust his judgment.” Megan looked straight ahead as she concentrated on her driving. “He did not tell me anything beforehand. What he told us over the comm was the first I heard anything about it. And trust me; I am no happier about it than you.”

  “Yeah, okay...but what the hell does it all mean?”

  “The false man will be taken,” Megan repeated the first line of the fortelling thoughtfully. “Perhaps the SHIAM you said was stolen, but what does the false path symbolize?”

  “You got me.” Zak gazed out the passenger window at a city that was as gloomy and depressed as he was. “And what about the phrase ‘one will rise in a false body’?”

  No answer.

  “The world will be thrice at risk?”

  “What about ‘while evil ripens’?” Megan countered in frustration, glancing over at him. “Look, I do not know what any of it means any more than you do!”

  “Yeah well, I deal in facts, not a bunch of mumbo jumbo.” He felt himself becoming drawn to her again and looked out the passenger window at the skyway as an aversion. He cursed himself for finding her so...damn distracting. “Raghnall is trying to manipulate us for some reason.”

  “If you believe that, then why did you agree to work with me?”

  There was a long pause as he considered her question. The easy answer would be to say that he needed a sorcerer. But was that really the extent of it? Or had he bought into all the doom and gloom and mystical nonsense about the vision? He wasn’t prepared to admit that. Was it the attraction he felt toward this Elf that had prevented him from sending her away? Or was that attraction simply another illusion, much like her current business-like appearance? Before he realized what he intended to say, he suddenly blurted out, “I am not a racist...really, I’m not!”

  The statement seemed to catch Megan by surprise as much as it had Zak. She gave him a puzzling glance and then smiled as she turned her attention back to her driving.

  “We will see,” she said.

  . . .

  “What did you say your name was?” Vennhim cocked his head with exaggerated interest as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Melanthrianis Teranika, but please call me Megan,” she said from the other side of the desk. She gave Zak, who sat next to her, an unfavorable look. He had stumbled over the introductions. Not remembering her name, he had simply referred to her as his paranormal consultant. In truth, he hadn’t paid her name any attention at all when they met. He had been, at first, too preoccupied anticipating her feminine charms and later there had been simply too many surprises being hurled at him for him to even care about her name.

  “Teranika...” Vennhim repeated thoughtfully. “Not the Teranika, as in Duke Michavelli Teranika, member of the Council of Seven Nations?”

  “Yes, he is my father.”

  “Well, now...isn’t that interesting,” Vennhim said, looking over at Zak, a vicious grin slowly spreading across his face.

  The name hit Zak like incoming mortar. What more could go wrong on this day? Now, more than ever, he wanted this Elf girl gone.

  “You know Duke Teranika, don’t you Zak?” Vennhim was obviously enjoying himself. “Didn’t you have some dealings with the Duke...about nineteen years ago, if I remember right?”

  “You know my father?” Megan asked, turning toward Zak in surprise.

  “No, I never had the pleasure.” Zak shook his head emphatically, unable to look at her. He felt distinctly uncomfortable under her questioning gaze. He did manage to look at Vennhim, however, and the glare he gave him was meant as a warning for him to end the game. “Shall we get on with the business at hand?”

  Vennhim’s office was comfortable enough, but not nearly as luxurious or as spacious as Tobias Grimrok’s office. A bank of security monitors spanning the length of one wall provided the head of security with the same viewpoints within the building and around the immediate vicinity outside as the various security monitoring stations. There was nothing in the room that suggested Vennhim had a personal life. No photos on the desk or on the walls and nothing but security logs on the wall-mounted shelves. There wasn’t a single piece of artwork or plant life in the room.

  “You do know that Grimrok is not going to be happy that you brought someone in on this.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Zak said. “The Institute’s people are all bonded. She is subject to the same confidentiality restrictions as I am.”

  “If you say so,” Vennhim shrugged. He then changed the subject. “I’m glad you stopped by. I might have something for you.”

  “I just bet you do.” Zak felt uneasy. Megan had been a distraction ever since she’d stepped into his loft. But now that he realized who she was, that distraction had taken on new dimensions. She had now become even more taboo than when he’d thought of her simply as an Elf. And worse yet, she had suddenly become leverage for Vennhim to use against him.

  He wasn’t about to let Vennhim gain the advantage here. He slumped casually back in the leather chair, his legs outstretched, using his body language to convey his indifference concerning Vennhim’s games. Zak had always been good at bluffing. But he quickly decided that if Vennhim did play his trump card, he would have to hurt the man very badly.

  “I reconnected with some old assets from when I was with the Department.” Vennhim laced his hands behind his head, countering Zak’s projected attitude with one of pronounced cockiness. “These people have indicated that EAST Group was involved with the break-in.”

  “EAST Group,” Zak said flatly, relieved that Vennhim seemed to be taking the conversation in another direction...for the moment, anyway.

  “That’s the word on the street.”

  Zak chose not to let Vennhim know he’d already heard the rumor. “How would EAST Group even know about the SHIAM prototype?”

  “That’s your job to find out. You expect me to have it all wrapped up in a neat little package for you?”

  “That would be nice.” Zak remained partially distracted, unable to take his mind completely off the fact that Megan sat to his left. Or from the knowledge of who she was, now that he knew.

  “Bullshit!” Vennhim said. “You wouldn’t accept it if I did give it to you on a platter.”

  “This was a top secret project according to Grimrok,” Zak pointed out. “Only his metal heads even knew about the project according to what he said. Now, I doubt very much that there are many SHIAM that would be willing to feed top secret information to a group who is dead set on turning them into so much scrap metal. So how did East Group manage to gain knowledge about the project, get the layout of the building and pull off the theft...all without leaving a trace?”

  “Maybe they didn’t,” Vennhim said. “Maybe EAST Group broke in here to see what they could get their hands on and just got lucky.”

  “What, while stumbling around all this security, one of them just accidentally tripped and fell a hundred meters down a secret elevator shaft?” Zak snickered. “Just getting into the building undetected would take some pretty intimate knowledge of the facilities and the security system, not to mention some major resources!”

  Vennhim sneered. “What can I tell you? You said it yourself, there are very few employees other than SHIAM working here. None of those Humans have sufficient access to the premises or to the high security projects to pull this off.”

  “You do.”

  “Frag you!”

  “If the Humans didn’t have access and the SHIAM aren’t about to help an organization hell bent on turning them into high tech scrap, you’re the only logical choice.”

  “What the frag is your problem, Harris!” Vennhim leaned forward in his chair as he shouted, his face twisting into a hostile sneer. “I’m trying to help you with this thing. You always did think you were such a hot-sho
t, better than the rest of us. At least I completed my missions!”

  “Yea, at any cost.”

  “You want to bust my balls over something that happened six years ago, fine. But don’t do it while you’re on the clock!”

  “It’s not what you did that I object to, it’s what you are!” Zak said in an oddly normal tone. He allowed a patronizing smile to form as he deliberately relaxed his body posture in a hope to further aggravate Vennhim with his coolness.

  “What I am is a patriot!” Vennhim’s voice grew even louder as he jumped up from his chair and began pacing. “And what I did is what I had to do. I served my country!”

  He knew he was playing with fire. Vennhim was the kind of guy who wouldn’t think twice about laying out the dirt on him in front of Megan, even if it was classified. Zak could sense her eyes on him as she tried to figure out what the two of them were talking about. The demon of guilt he kept caged within him reared its ugly head. He decided to cut back on the hostility before things moved beyond what he was prepared to deal with at the moment.

  “Forget I said anything.” It was the best Zak could in the way of appeasing Vennhim. He wanted to tell the man that he had served his country with a little too much zeal, but he remained quiet.

  “You really need to put away this thing between us and get with the program!” Vennhim stopped his pacing and glared at Zak for a long moment.

  Zak decided it was time to change the subject. “Do you believe the androids are tamper proof, that they can’t be reprogrammed?”

  “That’s what they tell me.” Vennhim sat back down, apparently willing to set aside their differences for the time being, if Zak was. “They are supposed to be hack proof and impossible to reverse engineer. The way I understand it, they have some sort of redundant fail-safe system and their skeletal structure is impossible to penetrate.”

  “You telling me there’s nothing that can hurt these things?”

  “A head shot with an electro-magnetic weapon would wipe its programming clean if the charge was powerful enough.” Vennhim shrugged. “And a thirty metric ton press might crunch it enough to put an end to it. But to my knowledge, there’s no way to get at the technology that wouldn’t destroy it in the process.”

  “Is it possible that the technology was not the reason it was taken?” Megan spoke up.

  “Very good, Ms. Teranika.” Vennhim’s sarcasm was obvious. “Your train has just arrived at my stop. And we have a lead that supports that premise. If EAST Group is involved, I doubt their intent was to clone the little guy.”

  “EAST Group would not...” Megan broke off what she was going to say.

  “Would not what?” Vennhim asked. “Would not break the law? Would not take property that didn’t belong to them? You do watch the news, don’t you, Ms. Teranika?”

  Zak decided it was time to put a stop to this confrontation. “Ok, put me in touch with your assets so I can verify.”

  “For frag sakes, Zak! You know I can’t do that. If I gave these guys up to you, I’d lose them for future needs.”

  “You expect to have future needs?” Zak asked with a smirk. “What future needs would that be? You’re in the private sector now, aren’t you?”

  “Have it your way,” Vennhim said in disgust as he leaned back heavily into his chair. “Since you aren’t about to accept my help, I don’t know why I should even give you this, but there’s more.”

  “And what’s that?

  “They had help. The Dhoraz were involved.”

  Zak showed no reaction to the news, but there was a pull in his gut at the mention of the Orkensha terrorist group.

  Vennhim sighed his frustration. “You can take the information or leave it, I don’t much care which. Now, since you don’t want my help, you won’t mind excusing me so I can get some work done.”

  12

  Vennhim assigned the SHIAM security guard, Jonas, to escort Zak and Megan during their investigation of the Grimrok building. As they made their way through the corridors Megan decided to become talkative.

  “You already suspected that EAST Group was involved.”

  “Yep, I did.”

  “Do you believe that Orks are also involved?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You do not like that guy, Vennhim, very much.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “What did he do to make you dislike him so?”

  “He was born.”

  “Is he the reason why you left ASID?”

  “Part of it.”

  “What else?”

  Zak stopped and looked at her, but didn’t respond right away. Her Elvish features stood out like blemishes to him, but surprisingly, they did nothing to detract from how beautiful she looked. An unwanted attraction pulled at him again, a desire to become close to her. Simply a pheromone reaction, he told himself. But in spite of trying to convince himself of that, he couldn’t help feel that there was something more going on between them than he wanted to admit. Something he didn’t like at all. The pull he felt toward her was magnetic, almost hypnotically irrational. It made him feel uneasy and he never liked feeling uneasy. Then there was the guilt and the sick feeling in his gut when he thought of who she was...

  No! This was not the time or place for this. He brought himself back to her question and said simply, “I reached a point where there was a limit to what I was willing to do, even for my country.”

  She looked up at him with something that resembled surprise. And something else. Approval, or respect maybe. Whatever it was, he knew it was undeserved. And it only put him in a worse mood. He turned and continued down the corridor in silence.

  . . .

  “This is the gateway that links the Grimrok network to Comm Net,” Jonas explained. “Mr. Grimrok has a passion for vintage automobiles and chose to have the data packets resemble the antiquated automobiles that operated on the internal combustion engines back before the development of anti-gravity vehicles. Those checkpoints at the entrance have been designed to resemble the old border checkpoints that existed between countries at the time of the ground cars. These checkpoints are actually part of the Grimrok network firewall.”

  Since Zak had already inspected the network on his last visit, he assumed that the tour guide monologue Jonas was providing was for Megan’s benefit. He did have to admit, though, the virtual rendering was pretty impressive.

  They stood at the entrance of a huge tunnel on a raised sidewalk looking out over what appeared to be a multi-lane expressway that ran into the tunnel. The network was busy with bumper-to-bumper traffic entering the Grimrok building. Each data packet resembled something you’d find at an antique car show. Most were representative of the makes and models from late 4900 to early 5000, but a few Zak recognized as dating back as far as 4830.

  To their left the highway divided into separate lanes. Small white structures resembling the old border checkpoints Jonas had mentioned were positioned next to each of the lanes. Those virtual vehicles seeking to gain entrance to the Grimrok network were required to stop at one of the checkpoints while a simulated border guard checked the identity and destination of the data packet.

  Occasionally one of the virtual vehicles would be turned away. But the vast majority of them were allowed to pass through, their colorful running lights creating a polychromatic stream as the data packets flowed into the interior of the Grimrok network.

  On the far side of the tunnel a stream of outbound traffic ran counter-flow to the data stream running into the network, each virtual vehicle stopping at a similar checkpoint before it was either turned back or allowed to pass through the gates and onto the public data lanes of Comm Net.

  “The streaming lights are really beautiful!” Megan commented.

  “I designed the light arrays for the vehicles myself,” Jonas said proudly.

  “Good job,” Megan complimented.

  Jonas beamed like a schoolboy and then grew thoughtful. He turned to Megan and said, “You are not like most Elves, Ms.
Teranika.”

  “In what way?”

  “According to comm newscasts I have seen, Elves do not approve of SHIAM,” Jonas said. “But you have shown no indication of disapproval or resentment towards us.”

  “Not all Elves are so closed minded,” Megan said to him. “Give it time. Things will change.”

  Zak rolled his eyes with impatience. “Can we get on with this?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He turned to Megan. “Can you sense anything?”

  “There is something here,” Megan answered. She stood facing the traffic, her eyes now closed as she focused her Elvish senses.

  “What is it?” Zak had to concede to the fact that Megan had an advantage when it came to being able to detect magic. Humans were able to learn sorcery. Some Humans even had a talent for it. But the Elves possessed a natural affinity with the paranormal that went far beyond anything any Human could ever experience. Zak’s Human side seemed to have filtered much of that affinity out of his genetic makeup. Even when he was able to sense what the Elves called Li’Ethreal, the experience seemed much more mundane to him than what the Elves claimed to experience.

  “Well, what is it!” Megan’s lack of response was irritating.

  “I do not know,” she said finally. “It is very weak.”

  “Can’t you pick up anything at all...the type of spell, how it was used, a signature...anything?”

  Megan hesitated before responding. “I am not certain. It is all too fuzzy. The echoes are not clear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You do not sense it.” It was a statement not a question. The surprise in her expression irritated him even more.

  “No.”

  “But you are Elf.”

  “Half Elf.” For the first time in a long time, he felt a trace of embarrassment over his limited Elvish abilities. For some illogical reason a part of him regretted not living up to Megan’s expectations. Then he caught himself. What the frag was he feeling sorry for! He immediately substituted indifference. “What did you mean by, it’s fuzzy?”