“In other words,” Mark said, his tone shifting immediately. “You’re going to take someone with you and let them ask questions while you do your thing.”
“Pretty much. It’s the easiest way to do it.” Gus shrugged. “Other than that… I got nothing.”
“Kay,” Mark said, shaking his head and looking down at his desk again. “I fucked up.”
“Yeah. You did,” Gus said. “Doesn’t make you evil, though. Just stupid. And thankfully for you, this is mostly fixable.
“I mean… you probably can’t save your marriage, but it sounds like neither of you want to. You just have to make sure Megan doesn’t get screwed up because of it.”
“I know,” Mark said. “I had a very long and serious talk with her. As an adult.”
“That’s good,” Gus said. “Glad to hear it. She alright?”
“Kinda? Not really,” Mark said. “She doesn’t understand, but she knows it’s not her fault. Knows it has nothing to do with her at all. Better than it could be, I guess.”
“Yeah. Pretty much the best you could hope for, for now. Alright. Well, I’m going to get going,” Gus said, standing up. He felt pretty awkward about all of this but was doing his best. “You wanna come over for dinner this weekend? Mel seems hell-bent on doing a barbecue and having the entire department over.
“Oh, and Janelle officially contracted with Mel. She’s our Blue.”
Mark laughed softly and shook his head. Then he leaned sideways into his chair with a sigh.
“Yeah, I’ll come over for dinner. Mind if I bring Fin?” he asked.
“Don’t mind at all. As long as she doesn’t care that we know you’re making her sing on your desk,” Gus said.
Mark grimaced at that and closed his eyes tightly.
“Not gonna lie, I’m not super thrilled you saw that,” Mark said.
“I mean, her toes were curled up and everything, so clearly—”
“Oh, fuck off. Fuck you,” Mark said.
“I mean, I guess?” Gus said with a chuckle. “But then you’d be ruining your relationship with Fin. And by the way, wow. Her moans were pretty damn musical.”
“I’m so going to—” Mark stopped talking, then started to laugh. “They really are. Fuck off, go to work.”
***
Clearing his throat, Gus turned to look at his passenger and back-seat passenger.
Serafina and Indali stared back at him.
No one had said anything the entire drive over. The two women seemed perfectly content to not speak or have anything said. They were much more similar to one another than normal people, he imagined.
“You two have any questions or concerns?” Gus asked.
“No,” Serafina said.
“Not at all,” Indali added.
“Okay,” Gus said. “I… okay.”
“Don’t fret, Gustavus,” Indali said, giving him a small smile. “I believe we understand your needs of us quite well. Just because we’re not talkative doesn’t mean we’re not going to do what you need us to. Don’t worry. We’re both much older than you and know how to handle ourselves. I’m sure I can take care of your needs.”
Fucking teasing me again.
Serafina nodded at that, but she didn’t actually say anything. She just stared at Gus with her large glowing eyes.
“Truly. Don’t worry, my bearer. It’ll be handled well,” Indali said, the thought practically forced into Gus’s mind. He never left Indali’s mind anymore. They were more or less joined. If one pushed a thought at the other, they got it.
It was like talking.
“Really?” Gus asked. He hadn’t really wanted to take these two with him. But everyone else was working on something. That and Mel had asked him to take Serafina with him.
“Yes, really,” Indali said.
“If you’re wrong, we’re not going to the shooting range today,” Gus said. He’d developed a fondness for shooting as of late and had been trying to stop by the shooting range in the basement for at least thirty minutes a day.
“If I’m right, you’re loading me with the blue-box rounds today. I loaded those a while back,” Indali said. “They’re going to feel great when you fire me off.”
Gus looked back at his steering wheel and, not for the first time, deeply considered what the hell was wrong with Indali.
There was no mistaking that she got off in an almost sexual way from his handling of her. To Gus it felt like he was slowly sinking deeper and deeper into quicksand.
“It’s normal,” Serafina said, her voice calm and clipped. “You’re her carrier. Shall we go?”
Frowning, Gus looked at her.
“What? I’m aware of what you are,” Serafina said. “I know what she is. It’s obvious you two have formed a bond. It’s normal for her to act the way she does with you.”
“I… didn’t say anything, though,” Gus said, staring at the woman. He wondered if she was a mind reader.
“No, but your hand moved toward her handle. Your breathing rate went up slightly. Your heartbeat sped up as well. Her changes were quite similar,” Serafina said. “She made a comment that stimulated you, and it also stimulated her.
“I would assume she is your weapon, and you two are quite close. Now, shall we go?”
I’m fucked.
Opening his door, Gus got out quickly.
Only to find Indali staring at him with a smile, her eyebrows raised.
“It excited you? I excite you? Maybe I misjudged all of this,” Indali said.
“Shut up or I’m going to make underloaded rounds and only use those for a month,” Gus said.
Indali didn’t respond. But he got the impression that what he’d said hadn’t affected her in any way. In fact, he already knew what was going to happen next.
Indali was going to go talk to Melody about contracting.
Shutting his door with a bit more force than was necessary, Gus stomped off toward the Test and Trial building.
Three hours later, after an endless number of questions aimed at anyone they could talk to, Gus felt like they were spinning their wheels.
No one knew anything of value to them and had nothing to offer them that would help.
As far as Test and Trial went, they were innocent and blameless.
So far, at least.
Standing outside by himself, Gus pulled up his phone and typed in Michael’s number. Gus was fairly certain Michael was their IT correspondent, so this call wouldn’t be improper.
Even if he wasn’t in the Fed, Gus wouldn’t care. Michael was who he needed to talk to right now.
While hunting through the minds of everyone he spoke to, the single problem he kept coming back to was that no one knew anything of the programming.
No one knew about the program Test and Trial used to help do quality checks. Didn’t know how it worked, how it operated, or how it interfaced with other systems.
That was a pretty big gap to Gus, and he wasn’t about to let it go dormant.
“Gustavus,” Michael said after he picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, Michael,” Gus said. “How are ya?”
“Fine,” Michael said. “Imaging a laptop. Someone decided to not listen to me and tried to download non-approved programs. My security suite kicked in and bricked the device.”
“That… doesn’t surprise me at all,” Gus said. The fact that Michael had his own security suite installed seemed about right for the man.
“Nor me. No one listens to me when I tell them not to do something. I’m glad you get it,” Michael said. “Most people just don’t understand when I tell them it’s for their own good.”
“Mm. So, I need someone to look into something for me, Michael,” Gus said. “But I’m not sure who to talk to or who to tap in.”
“Okay,” Michael said. That was probably about all Gus was going to get until he explained more of the problem. It was just how Michael was.
“I’m digging into a company that I think isn’t above board,” G
us said, looking around. No one was nearby.
Serafina and Indali were in what looked like a deep discussion off to the side. Sitting on a bench and in a bubble of their own devising.
“Everyone I talk to doesn’t know a damn thing about the software,” Gus said.
“Course not. You’re probably meeting with all the talking heads,” Michael said with some disdain. “People who don’t know a damn thing except what the programmer fills out in a ‘bullet format’ for them to parrot off to customers.”
“Right, uh… yeah,” Gus said, not sure how to respond to that. “But yeah, so that’s where I’m at. If I got the software, is there any way I could get someone to look it over and tell me what they think?”
“Sure,” Michael said. “I’m actually rather bored otherwise. Mark approved everything I wanted to buy, so my job is pretty easy now. Just have them install it in your laptop. I’ll disable the security brick-out so I can get a look at it. It’ll be gated off so it can’t reach out, but I’ll be able to look in.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks, Michael,” Gus said. He’d actually hoped for something like this. Hoped for it and had planned on it.
Pulling a thumb drive out of his pocket, Gus went over to the trunk of his car.
“I asked the sales rep to put an installer for their software on my thumb drive so I could take it back and look it over,” Gus said. “Pretty sure he took it as a possible sale and jumped at the chance.”
“I’m sure,” Michael said. “I get countless requests from software companies to use their software.”
Sounds like Michael is a bit higher up than I thought he was. He sounds more like the head of IT rather than someone working in IT.
Gus opened the trunk, then pulled over his laptop bag, which he rarely used, and opened it.
He pulled out his laptop, then set it down and tapped the power button. It powered up rather quickly.
“Do you need me to connect to a network or anything?” Gus asked.
“No,” Michael said. “The laptop will tie into your cell phone and use its connection. It’s secure and automatically set up to do so.”
Huh. Alright.
That’s actually kinda neat.
Gus pushed the thumb drive into place, then navigated down to the drive selector and picked it. There was only one file on it.
After double tapping the pad with the mouse pointer on the icon, Gus waited.
“Huh,” Michael said on the other end. “Doesn’t seem to be hitting the normal authorization limitations.”
“Are you… watching it or something?” Gus asked.
“I mean, I’m watching the processes it’s attempting to utilize and activate,” Michael said. “It seems like a fairly standard program.”
“Okay… does that mean… I’ve got nothing? Because if this doesn’t give me a direction, I’m kinda going to be looking at a blank wall here,” Gus said.
“I didn’t say that. All I’m saying so far is the installation looks pretty mundane,” Michael said. “And besides, this isn’t where you’d drop in something. It’d be too obvious and the first thing any good security system would prevent.
“No… that’d come later, after it’s installed and you start agreeing to prompts and setting changes.”
“Uh… okay,” Gus said. He wasn’t computer illiterate, but he wasn’t savvy either.
“Just leave it running and drop it by the tech-bar when you come back to the office,” Michael said. “I’ll keep an eye on it. It’ll give me something interesting to do and a chance to test out my security. I mean, I personally think it’s better than anything they had before, but… there’s really no telling since it no longer exists.”
Gus blinked at that, frowning.
A whole lot of information had been lost with the bombings. It was predominantly the Fed and the PID affected by it, but it was bad.
And there was something much worse there, too.
If someone had been messing around with the databases, or downloading them, before the bombs went off and no one noticed, there was the very real potential of a data breach.
“Uh, Michael?” Gus asked.
“What is it?”
“There’s no way to tell if the data was breached or stolen before the bombing, is there?” Gus said. It wasn’t really a question, as he was fairly certain of the answer.
Except Michael didn’t say anything.
In fact, he was deathly quiet.
Gus heard a slow and soft exhalation.
“No,” Michael said. “But there were a number of connections I refused from external sources when I got hired on. I just blocked them and figured I’d get the right programs back online one at a time before getting the connections back in place.
“I never went back to compare the refused connections to the ones I eventually let in.”
“I think maybe you should do that,” Gus said, staring at his laptop as it continued to load.
Then a screen popped up asking him if it could install.
Reaching out, Gus tapped the agreement key.
Several seconds later, a form popped up that had been prefilled. It had the old Fed address listed, a rep name, and a license number.
“Well, that answers that,” Gus murmured.
“Yes,” Michael said. “We already contracted with them at some point, on some level. And they already had access to the system.
“Though… I’m a little concerned about how it auto-populated that, since I have it completely locked out of any outside system. Very concerned.
“Head back and drop this off with me. I’ll make it my number one priority.”
“Right, thanks Michael. I’ll just close it up for now so you can handle it,” Gus said. “See ya later.”
“Bye.”
Gus hung up and then closed the laptop.
Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair. Things weren’t working out for him, and it felt like everything was getting worse all the time.
He picked up the laptop and stuffed it back into his laptop bag, then closed the trunk.
Dropping his phone in his pocket, Gus began walking over to where Serafina and Indali were still chatting.
Both women turned at his approach and considered him quietly.
“Michael, our IT guy, is going to look at it when we get back,” Gus said. “He couldn’t tell anything about it from the outset. But, uh… but it looks like maybe it’s a foregone conclusion. Somehow their little installer filled out a form with Fed information for the old building, without being given it.
“Yes,” Serafina said. “That would indicate a living entity in the program, or that it collected data you weren’t aware existed on the laptop.”
“Living… entity?” Gus asked.
“Indeed. There are new Para surfacing every day.” Serafina’s glowing eyes bored right through Gus. “While old nightmare Para come back into the light of the world, new life emerges at the same time.
“There are Para out there that are far more part of this modern world than even humans can be. Para that travel through computers, data, and the internet as if they were little more than highways, roads, and tunnels.”
Oh.
That explains a few things.
You’re not a creature of knowledge.
You’re exactly what you’re describing. A new Para from an older species. A creature of knowledge become… become a creature of the internet?
“You sound pretty interesting,” Gus said, not breaking the stare-down he was sharing with Serafina. “I’d love to learn more later.”
Serafina smiled at him after he stopped talking, revealing bright white teeth in a pretty mouth. Even the corners of her eyes crinkled up slightly.
“I’m flattered at your interest, Mr. Boogieman,” she said. “Provide me with the USB drive and I’ll take a look at the programming myself.
“The IT analyst can work on the laptop.”
Gus raised his eyebrows at that. He wanted to know how she’d gotten to th
e Boogieman thing.
Needed to know, in fact.
“Before you ask, it was a guess,” Serafina said. “I read your file. A large number of Elven clans had been looking into it, so I broke into several Elven society databases to see where it matched. Then I checked into your family and everything around and about you.
“The only thing that fit was Boogieman. Don’t worry, though. I covered my trail, and I made it much harder for anyone else to do what I did in the future.”
Hmph. Don’t much care for that.
“Right, let’s get going,” Gus said, turning around.
“Time to go shooting,” Indali said with some excitement. “Those blue-box rounds are really going to make my barrel sing and heat up my cylinder.”
Chapter 28 - Cooked
As he stepped away from the counter in the tech-bar, Gus felt his phone start to vibrate. It was a very unique buzzing sensation, and he knew exactly who it was before he even looked.
“I’ll catch up with you,” Gus said to Indali. Serafina had already gone off to the department by herself to work on the thumb drive he had given her.
“Okay. That’ll give me some time to cool off,” Indali said. She looked calm and quite normal now. But he’d also put as many rounds through her as he could in his thirty-minute break. He’d fired significantly more this time than he had previously, the time between his trigger pulls very quick. He’d even gone so far as trying to speed-load and fire off as many as he could.
He knew for a fact that Indali needed a few minutes to herself. Or so he surmised given that she’d started to practically moan inside her mind halfway through.
Even as the Construct walked off, Gus pulled out his phone and held it up to his ear.
“Hey Mom,” he said.
“Hi dear,” his mom said on the line. “I just wanted to touch base with you real quick about tonight.”
“Tonight?” Gus asked, not really sure what she was talking about.
“Oh… oh, that’s… drat.” His mom sounded rather annoyed. “I suppose I’ve gone and gotten Mel in trouble then. The other day when we were talking, she invited your father, your sister, and I over for dinner tonight.
Swing Shift: Book 2 Page 30