by TR Cameron
Diana nodded. “Then let’s hit the one in the back as we go by.” Ruby imagined the truck surging forward, but surely that was only in her mind, as the agent was doubtless already pushing the vehicle for all it was worth. Ruby grabbed the EMP from her belt, then rolled down the passenger side window. Behind her, Morrigan said, “You know I have better aim than you do.”
Ruby snorted. “Hardly.”
Idryll countered, “I’ve gone on several patrols with her. It’s true. She does. I mean, you’re average at best, and she’s way above average. Almost as good as I am.”
Rath giggled and brushed the knives in his vest that he’d retrieved while they worked on blasting the door down. “I can go for the tires.”
Ruby sighed and handed the EMP back over her shoulder. “Fine, Barb,” she emphasized the call sign as she rolled up her window, “but don’t miss. We only have one.”
Morrigan took it and breathed, “My precious,” making everyone on the comms laugh.
Croft’s voice broke in to announce that they’d captured the runners and were returning with them to the facility. Diana said, “Make a quick survey of the place and take whatever seems important, in addition to any artifacts they left behind.”
Ruby asked, “Why the rush?” She’d figured they would go back and spend some time gathering intelligence.
Diana nodded forward and to the left. “Drone at eleven o’clock, forty degrees up. Not one of ours, I’m guessing.”
Glam confirmed, “Nope. I’m bringing the other two toward you, but they won’t be in range for another four or five minutes.”
Ruby growled, “Damn Paranormal Defense Agency. I’m so tired of those bastards.”
Idryll laughed. “Probably not as tired of them as they are of you, though.”
“Fair point.” The conversation died as they pulled even with the second truck. Morrigan primed the EMP grenade, waited the perfect amount of time, then lobbed it at the other vehicle. Diana swerved off the road, and their progress became a series of bumps and jolts. A loud crump sounded as the projectile detonated, and the enemy SUV immediately fell back.
“Bloody hell,” Diana snarled. “If they have artifacts in there, they’ll be gone with them before we can get there to clean them up.”
Rath replied, “On it,” and his window whisked down. As he started climbing out, headed for the roof, Idryll followed.
Ruby said, “Be careful.”
The shapeshifter laughed. “When am I not?”
Ruby opened her window and stuck her head around, and a moment later saw Rath airborne, his mechanical wings extended as he flew back toward the enemy car. Idryll hit the ground running from her leap, her impressive speed carrying her in the direction of the disabled vehicle.
The ride had smoothed out once Diana rejoined the road, and Ruby climbed onto the roof. Morrigan joined her a moment later. A conveniently placed cargo rack on the top had room for her to shove her boots under it, and she wedged herself in place. Her sister did the same beside her, then hit the button to extend her bow and put an arrow to it. Ruby asked, “Razor?”
Her sister nodded. “Don’t think I can risk any of the others.”
“Okay. If it doesn’t work, I’ll hit the thing with the force blast, see if I can break the windows, and force them off the road. I doubt I have the power to knock the car over, but I’ll give it a good try.”
Diana laughed. “You two are crazy. Perfect to work with us.”
Glam said, “Hey, I resemble that remark.”
The agents’ leader groaned. “Really? You’re the brightest bulb on the team, and that’s the best line you could come up with? Try harder.”
Morrigan's arrow flew true and slammed into the back tire. The car slewed immediately, then tumbled forward along the pavement. Diana hit the brakes to avoid crashing into it, and with a sudden wrench, Ruby was involuntarily airborne. She twisted in midair and sent a fireball at the PDA drone that had closed to watch the conclusion of the chase. She cushioned her landing with a full-body force cocoon a moment before she struck the ground.
Diana sounded amused. “That wasn’t nice. No wonder the PDA doesn’t like you.
Ruby groaned as she finally stopped rolling, fought down nausea, and let her hands fall to the sides as she stared up into the night. Not sure if those stars are really there or if they’re spinning around my head cartoon style. She coughed and replied, “He sends drones after me, and I knock them out of the sky. It’s a thing we have.”
Rath’s voice chimed in, “A sign of true love if ever there was one.” The rest of the agents echoed his gleeful laughter. Ruby shook her head, realized it hurt, and closed her eyes, checking out of the situation until someone came to get her.
Chapter Five
Paul Andrews resisted the urge to throw the computer tablet he gripped with white fingers across the room. Despite his outward appearance as a polished professional, complete with a three-piece suit and pocket watch today, he was as furious as he could remember being in the recent past. He forced his voice to remain calm and relaxed the death grip on the tablet, setting it carefully on the table in front of him and clasping his hands behind his back. No one would notice that they clenched into fists as long as he didn’t turn around. “So, what you’re saying is that we had no information on this major event within our jurisdiction ahead of time, and aside from a single drone, no coverage of it?”
The chamber could be mistaken for a business conference room since that’s what it had been in a previous life. They had taken the top floor of an office building in one of the city’s industrial parks as theirs. The people seated around him might’ve been junior executives in their suits, ties, and formal blouses according to preference. They weren’t. Instead, they were the sharp tip of the spear that defended Northern Nevada from rogue magicals. Heaven knows we have plenty of those here.
His second-in-command Charlotte Krenn nodded, braver than the rest. “That’s exactly right, boss. It happened a long way outside the city, and we don’t have the sort of surveillance network in place out there as we do here in town.”
Her calm, rational tone cut through some of his anger. “So, early information said this looked like a government operation. Do we have any new data?” The event had transpired the previous night, and he’d enjoyed a good night’s sleep while his people researched it. Another team member, a man with a five o’clock shadow from his nocturnal work session, replied, “Nothing useful. Black outfits, nothing obvious to tell us who they were. We’re enhancing the footage where we can, but as soon as the drone got close enough to see anything clearly, the fireball took it out.”
Paul shook his head. “Why aren’t those things hardened against magic attacks?”
The chief technical person of his operation, not coincidentally the youngest agent as well, replied, “They are. The blast was sufficiently powerful to break through. Even though our models are bigger than the norm, they’re not exactly armor-plated. It’s a balancing act between range, armament, and defensive strength.”
Andrews cut him off with a raised hand, getting the sense that the man could happily talk for an hour on the subject. “I understand. So, what we need is more of them, then. Surveillance report.”
A woman at the far end of the table with short spiky black hair and a muscular physique that strained the seams of her clothes replied, “We have the Strip locked down. We’re into the cameras there and have regular drone patrols going. The casinos won’t give us access to their feeds, of course.” Her derisive tone set off additional grumbles around the room. She continued, “We’ve rented two apartments south of the Strip and nothing north. We tasked the drones that fly over the main drag to loop through the area between it and the mountains in that direction afterward. The rentals have surveillance outposts and drone installations on the roofs.”
He nodded. “When we finish here, let’s drop in on them. No warnings,” he cautioned. Random inspections were a standard part of his leadership toolkit. “So, wh
at’s the limiting factor keeping us from knowing everything there is to know?”
She gave a slight shrug. “Equipment, naturally. We only have so many resources to pull in, and headquarters has been reluctant to give us more.” Andrews scowled. Despite taking on the situation in Ely while continuing to maintain an appropriate presence in Reno, he hadn’t received much in the way of additional material support from the higher-ups. They say they reward initiative, but when you actually take some of it, turns out that’s just talk. He set that thought aside for later consideration.
“Okay. I get our limitations. Time to start thinking about how to overcome them. Charlotte and Imera, you’re with me. The rest of you, from now until five o’clock, your only job is to figure out ways to get an edge on the chaos in this city, starting with the costumed freaks that keep showing up. I don’t know if these mysterious strangers from last night are in league with them or what, but we can’t rule it out.” He saw flickers of concern on several faces and knew they considered his preoccupation with the magicals who were allegedly defending Magic City overblown. That’s because you didn’t have one in your bedroom, detonating your furniture and trying to cut you to shreds with it. “Let’s get it done, people.”
From the back seat of one of the unremarkable black SUVs the PDA used, Imera, the one with the spiky hair, asked, “Do you think the locals were involved?”
He shrugged and grunted as he played the surveillance video from the drone on his phone, then snarled in frustration when the feed went away in a blossom of orange fire. “I feel it. I think they’re way more tapped in than they seem. I mean, it’s a great disguise, right? You appear to be an outsider, but you have connections. Like the unnamed government agency. Like the sheriff’s office.” The last words came out as a snarl. While they’d received nothing but cooperation from the Ely Police Department, Sheriff Alejo and her people were a different story entirely. They hadn’t stepped up to join the fight, and while they didn’t appear interested in derailing his efforts, either, he couldn’t shake the feeling they were acting against him in some manner. Okay, if you keep it up, you are going to get paranoid. Knock it off.
The SUV parallel parked itself in front of the apartment building containing their outpost, Charlotte content to let the autonomous function take over for that operation. Pretty soon, no one’s going to know how to drive a stick, and no one will be able to park worth a damn. Computers are great and all, but they’re not the solution to everything. A hint of an idea blossomed deep in his brain at that thought but wouldn’t rise to the surface immediately. Like my father always said, ideas always come out when they’re ready, as long as you listen.
He delayed exiting while his agents got out of the car and checked the area, the standard protocol now so often repeated that it had become unconscious. He liked being in charge, enjoyed the status and small benefits that came with it. Nevada was one more stepping stone, and he expected he’d move up to a bigger location in a couple of years. Less, maybe, if I can put Magic City to rights. Which I will.
They took the stairs rather than the elevator, climbing the four stories to the top floor. The buildings they’d chosen both rose higher than those around, giving the drones a less obvious launch point than they would have on a lower structure. The door read the tags in their ID bracelets and opened for them. Inside, the apartment was smallish, with a combination kitchen and dining room, a living room, a single bathroom, and a couple of bedrooms. Three agents lived there, ensuring round-the-clock coverage of the drones’ efforts. The other rental space was identical.
They’d pushed furniture that came with the place to the sides, and a wraparound desk holding computer monitors and interface devices sat in a semi-circle with an expensive ergonomic chair in the center. The tech who’d been sitting in it had risen in alarm at their entrance, then remained standing as he approached.
“Agent Crenshaw, how are things?” Paul had checked the roster of people assigned to the apartments on the way over.
The man stammered, “Very good, Director. Our drones are patrolling at just about maximum efficiency, although one is down for repairs outside its usual cycle.” A bedroom in each apartment had been converted into a workshop to service the aerial vehicles.
Andrews nodded. “How can we do this better?”
“Pardon me?”
He chuckled at the look of surprise on the other man’s face. “You’re closest to this operation. How would you make it more efficient, more effective, or ideally both?”
The man shrugged. “More drones. We have the capacity with our AI bots to run an almost unlimited number. We might need some additional server power to review the take, but that’s consumer stuff, not hard to come by.”
“What if we were in a situation where we didn’t have a lot of resources to commit?”
The man signaled for him to walk around the desk and sat in his chair to tap on some controls. “Frankly, what we’re using right now is overkill. They’re basically fighter drones detailed to normal surveillance. While I’m not saying we should get rid of any of them, we could supplement with prosumer models, tweaked a bit to ensure encrypted communication. Wright and I have been playing with one to judge how well it works.”
He hit a button and gestured at the monitor, which showed a docking station on the roof. The image changed as the drone rose and flew toward the Strip. “As you can see, compared to our full function drones, the video feed isn’t quite as crisp, and it doesn’t move quite as fast. Still, with the affordable price point, we could easily get half again as much surveillance as we’re currently running for the cost of one full-fledged fighter drone.”
Andrews watched the feed for a moment and decided that the idea had merit. “Very good. Make it happen. Good job.” He clapped the man on the shoulder and headed for the door. In the stairwell on the way down, the idea that had sparked earlier surfaced, brought to life by the man’s suggestion of additional drones. “Once we get these new drones in play, continue unbroken twenty-four-seven coverage of the Strip, add in the headquarters of the local security companies and the sheriff’s office right away, and all the magical shops as our fleet expands. In the meantime, we’ll use human intelligence to cover what we don’t have the drones for.”
Charlotte replied calmly, “We don’t have the personnel for that, boss.”
He laughed. “That issue is now your problem. Get more. I’d start by pulling them in from the Academy and maybe consider reaching out to the Staties for personnel. Call it an internship, pay them a decent wage, play on their loyalty, offer to babysit their pets, whatever you have to do. We’re going to lock this damn city down so tight that the instant those vigilantes move, we’ll have them dead to rights.”
Chapter Six
The motorcycle purred beneath her as Ruby gunned it a little to stay in position in the convoy. It wasn’t her wonderful ARCH 1, which some truly evil people with no appreciation for style or aesthetics had destroyed, but a Triumph Roadster she’d borrowed in the meantime. The machine was almost the opposite of her beloved bike: big, heavy, and menacing. It suited her current mood well. She’d spent several hours meditating to lock up the artifact in her arm before joining the Desert Ghosts for their weekly supply run. It felt great to be out and about, the Mist Elf disguise that wasn’t quite her granting a sense of anonymity. She didn’t have her sword with her, but she’d concealed her gun in a shoulder holster under her light leather jacket, and a dagger rode at her waist. She was hypervigilant for trouble, but none seemed to be in the offing on this sunny day afternoon.
Prex, the dwarven leader of the club, spoke into the radio that only the two of them shared. “Enjoying yourself?”
Ruby replied, “Totally.” It was always fantastic to see what businesses and individuals were willing to donate for the good of their community. All of it wound up at the abbey on the hill, and she presumed from there it was distributed to folks in need or stored against future requirements. She didn’t trust many people, but bot
h the head of the Desert Ghosts and the abbey’s Abbot numbered among them. A PDA drone zoomed by overhead, and she flipped it off.
The dwarf laughed. “Not a fan, huh?”
“Definitely not. Those guys are jerks. So, what do you know?” Information-sharing was an established part of their relationship, and he understood she would often be able to share less than he would. He seemed fine with the uneven arrangement. “There’s a lot of buzz on the street about a Drow dude. He’s apparently fighting back against human overreach.”
Ruby forced her face to stay neutral. She’d met the Dark Elf, and they didn’t see eye to eye on any number of issues, “human overreach” prominent among them. She replied, “How do you feel about that?”
Prex laughed again. “I can tell from your tone you’re not a believer. I’m not really, either, but I do think there’s been a disproportionate amount of ownership taken by humans in what is fundamentally a magical city. Hell, it’s right there in the name.”
Ruby admired the man’s ability to discuss touchy subjects without losing his sense of humor. She’d never seen him angry but imagined it would probably be a frightful sight, based on nothing beyond a gut feeling. “I get that there are some humans who aren’t being properly respectful of others. That may be related to species, or it might just be people being scumbags. I think you could say that of some magicals, too. It seems to me he’s painting with a little too broad a brush.”