Behind the Bitmask

by Jessica Kagan

  And now, there was a car on the road in front of us! It looked like an old jalopy, but I still had a brief urge to hijack it. The road networks in the Chippewa Mountains were spotty and mostly optimized for foot traffic, though, so the urge quickly subsided.

  “Charlotte, was that…a car?” Haxabalatnar asked me. My jaw dropped.

  “I mean, I’ve seen pictures of them on the internet before, but I’ve never actually seen one in real life. Are they really as inefficient and polluting as people say they are?” he continued.

  “If you can teleport at will, the answer would probably be yes,” Azure quipped. “Wish I could teleport.”

  “If you have a decent mass transit system and walkable pathways where you live, then you don’t need a car,” I added. “I also wish I could teleport.”

  Hax shrugged at our commentary. I think he, too, wished that he had the power of teleportation.

  “Wait, wait, Azure... I thought you actually could teleport?” I asked. “You know, the way you visited me that one time.” Not sure why I didn’t think of that earlier.

  “Not at will, if that’s what you mean. We had a teleporter at my headquarters. It was one way only, and it soaked up a lot of energy, but it was handy for getting my people where they needed to be back in the day,” explained Azure. “When Sigmar invaded, we preemptively destroyed it. He’s going to press pretty much all of hell into service before he finds anyone who can make him a new one.”

  The next interesting thing we saw on our journey was a sign claiming that we were a mile out from Las Médulas. It was green with white text; where have I seen that before?

  “I’ve heard titans haven’t been able to control this town in at least two decades,” Azure informed us. Even if that was true, we were still in Sigmar’s territory, so I had my doubts its independence would last.

  “Do you know anything else about it?” I asked her.

  “Nope, not a thing. This would be a good place to get more information on this mining operation you keep mentioning, though.”

  Even though I’d lived in Agnus’s very human-oriented city for a while, Las Médulas threw me for a loop. The outskirts of town were full of quaint stone and wood houses – nice, if a little old fashioned. Definitely not the sort of architecture you see in Minnesota, but it has its charms. Even the grass was green here. If I didn’t know I was in hell, I would not be able to figure it out from my immediate surroundings. Then I saw a giant snake-like chthon riding a lawnmower, shattering the illusion. It was hard to tell over the roar of the engine, but I think it was whistling some sort of jaunty tune. It then stopped the engine and waved at us.

  “Buenas noches! Cómo está usted?” it shouted, in some incomprehensible Latinate language I didn’t understand. I looked back at Azure and Haxabalatnar. They shrugged; they didn’t comprehend it, either.

  “Speak English? Welcome to Las Médulas! You new around these parts?” it continued. I tried not to audibly sigh in relief.

  “Seems about right,” I responded. “Is there a motel around these parts we can stay at?”

  “Uh...yeah. Take a right on Frunze Street, then a left on Tukhachevsky Avenue, and then another left on Shaposhnikov Street. There’s a Red Roof Inn. They’re cheap.”

  Who named these streets? We thanked the chthon for his time, and followed his directions. He was right about the Red Roof’s price, and we soon checked into an extended stay suite. The amenities were...acceptable, although I was really hoping they’d have internet access better than mere 56k dialup. It was kind of a moot point – the only way to access it was to use the provided desktop computer, and that thing was so locked down that we’d be unable to summon a mere cantrip, much less any significant magic. Azure shivered as we crossed our room’s threshold.

  “Those fuckers! They’re suppressing magic in here. I can feel it!” she said to me. I made a mental note that people could do this. It could cause us problems in the future.

  “Good thing we’ve been practicing non-magical forms of combat, right?” I responded. Azure shrugged. I set up an internet connection with the instructions provided by the motel, and opened up my webmail provider. Turns out Edgar had somehow signed me up for some sort of old people newsletter full of mildly funny anecdotes in all caps wrapped in forwarding tags. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this and decided to simply hope that he was aware of the consequences of forwarding this sort of correspondence.

  Haxabalatnar took a long, hard look at the beds. I’m not sure what he was looking for – they looked well kept enough for my tastes.

  “You and Azure aren’t going to be...doing anything other than sleeping while we’re here, are you?” he asked.

  “Well, we might be taking some meals here,” I said. I had a pretty good idea of what he really wanted to know, but I’m told that saying it straight out is not considered ladylike. “Also, I’ll need to check my emails and perhaps make some phone calls, and we both need to update Agnus on our progress-”

  “Got it. I’m going to buy some sleeping earplugs from a local store once we’re settled.” Short of sleeping in the bathroom, that seemed like a wise choice for someone who didn’t actively want a threesome. With all sources of sexual tension alleviated, we turned our inn suite into a temporary base of operations. Agnus had told someone to dig up contacts for the local mining syndicate and had forwarded them to my account, which was helpful. However, these looked like especially official details – a corporate email domain and a 1-800 phone number. Pretty audacious of this “illegal” mining operation to have anything in the way of a public presence... But on the other hand, I still wasn’t clear why they were illegal in the first place. I had to figure out immediately, so I dug into some research.

  It turns out that back in the day, Hyperion attempted to exert complete control over all the economic activity in her realm. When she wasn’t overseeing semiconductor fabrication, she was writing increasingly byzantine regulations for any independent economic actors who set up shop. Unfortunately for her, the operators of Las Médulas’ mines didn’t give a shit and sent the documents back unread. She sent in a few chthons to bust skulls and enforce order, but they never returned. Hyperion quickly lost interest after that because the alternatives were besieging the mountains herself or looking for another mine to source raw materials from. Some time later, we killed her.

  Sigmar, in all his godforsaken wisdom, decided to officially retain Hyperion’s laws (I suspected due to laziness), but to my understanding, he was taking metals under the table in return for cash and supplies. By virtue of having to put up with Sigmar alone, I would say the miners were in a bad spot, but having the threat of selective enforcement of the law dangling over your head(s) can’t be pleasant, either.

  Even if the miners had complicated problems to deal with, I didn’t think they would give us much leverage. Agnus had prepared a large bribe chest for us, but if enough of the locals considered themselves principled and above corruption, it could turn out to be an empty gesture. The first stage of our mission, though, was easy enough – it is not exactly hard to meet a miner in a town whose economy is based on mining. After talking to a few underpaid pickax operators and loosening our pockets a bit, we zeroed in on an executive who seemed to have some contacts with the Amdahl cultists.

  “Ulysses Castellano Ux’aad, senior manager in the rare earth metals division. If you like jazz music, I’ve got a CD out for $9.95. I play alto saxophone,” he introduced himself, once we set up the meeting. Ulysses had a luxuriously furnished, if admittedly compact office, full of fine wood (ebony and mahogany) furnishings. The plasticine G4 iMac on the desk kind of detracted from the effect, though.

  *Do we buy the CD? It might enamor him to us,* I telepathically asked Azure. She nodded slightly.

  “I’ve got an older brother who likes jazz and who is always trying to get me into the stuff,” I lied. I am an only child and indifferent to j
azz, but with Azure’s blessing, I would gladly make this sort of trivial purchase in order to acquire favor with the locals. In return for my hard-earned money, Ulysses passed me a compact jewel case emblazoned with a jazz band in front of a rustic French chateau.

  “That’s not far from Saint-Tropez,” he explained. “You get to go all sorts of cool places on vacation when you’ve done as much for the local mining industry as I have.” I’m not sure if he meant to do this, but he vaguely gestured in the direction of a globe he had on his desk. It had about twenty flags sticking out of it – these were presumably his vacation destinations. Clearly, Ulysses was rich and well traveled.

  “To be honest, we didn’t come here just to talk French jazz,” I said, once he’d stopped blathering. “We’d like to ask some questions relating to your business in Las Médulas.”

  “Ask away,” he nonchalantly responded.

  “You’re involved with rare earth metals. What resources can a buyer specifically expect from the Chippewas?” I asked.

  “Lanthanum and neodymium are your best bets around here. They have all sorts of high tech uses. My computer’s probably got a decent chunk of them, but don’t break it! The thing was pretty expensive.”

  If it’s an Apple computer, it’s bound to be expensive. I decided not to inform Ulysses that his computing habits were likely aiding Sigmar’s conquests. After all, if Sigmar hadn’t come knocking and was in fact distracted from the matter of Las Médulas, then he had to be doing something right. At least, that’s how I thought he’d respond. If Azure had peered into his mind, she wasn’t sharing anything.

  “If I had to guess, I’d imagine you sell a lot to electronics manufacturers,” I continued.

  “Traditionally, we’ve sold mostly to customers on Earth. I can’t tell you exactly who’s purchasing our products. I sat in on one of the auctions once – heard some English, Russian, Chinese, a few words of...I think it was Italian? I don’t know, I’m not exactly a linguistics expert!” said Ulysses.

  “We don’t care about that,” I told him. Haxabalatnar looked disappointed for a second, and Ulysses was probably a bit taken aback with my bluntness, as well. I decided to cut straight to the point, since the exec was beginning to grate on me.

  “You’re also selling to a bunch of cultists holed up near Mount Amdahl. We need maps, machinery, manpower, anything we can get from you in order to kill them and take their stuff. What’s the price?”

  Azure didn’t quite stifle a gasp, and I had a flash of avarice, where I would’ve expected unease or at least annoyance.

  “You want to tussle with those hombres with my blessing? That’s a very risky proposition...although for the right price, I could help you quite a bit,” he finally said, in a tone of voice rather colder and more calculating than his initial burst of salespeak.

  “What did you have in mind?” I responded. I didn’t want to spend too much money on Ulysses, but realistically, he was going to gouge us for every penny he could get. Vacations to the French Riviera don’t come cheap.

  “Don’t get the wrong idea. I am very much in favor of you succeeding! Despite our business contracts, those cultists have been launching ever more ambitious raids on our facilities. I am only concerned that you would fail and invite further retribution on Las Médulas without a great deal of support,” he explained, lapsing straight into salespeak again. You probably don’t get this high in the managerial hierarchy without selling something, even if it’s yourself. At this point, I almost considered straight up asking for a quote again, but Azure looked at me, and I had the vague sense that interrupting Ulysses’ planned speech would just make him mad. Azure shrugged a little at this. In short, I didn’t have much choice.

  “A hundred thousand US dollars ought to cover our expenses nicely,” Ulysses suddenly self-interrupted.

  *Sorry, Charlotte. This guy’s mental defenses are unimaginably strong. I’m not even sure he realizes it!* Azure transmitted to me, and maybe Haxabalatnar, as well. It was hard to tell whether he was blanching at the price, the speech, or Ulysses’ hypothesis, but none of them were particularly encouraging. $100,000 was the entirety of our bribe budget, and I didn’t think that Agnus wanted us to blow it all on one lead. I quickly decided to stall for time.

  “How long do we have to consider your offer?” I asked Ulysses.

  “Well...people are beginning to talk about the strange foreigners who didn’t immediately start working in the mines, and I can imagine that would arouse the attention of Amdahl’s fanatics in normal times,” he responded.

  “And, that translates to-” I began, before he interrupted me.

  “Funny true story – the local law enforcement found a couple of chthons murdered in their cabin, and the cultists have been super agitated since they found out they were performing rituals for the cult. Forty eight hours, by the way. That’s how long I think you have until they try to kidnap you and see what you know. That’s the cultists kidnapping you. Not necessarily the police.”

  Were we suspects in a murder? Had that forsaken soul tried to warn us about the cultists instead of about Sigmar?

  “Also, could you tell your girlfriend to stop prying at my mind? It’s really annoying, and it’s not going to work.”

  Azure was blushing beet red. I’ve never seen her that color before!

  “I... I... That’s never happened before!” she blurted.

  “Yeah, well, I lived in Caracas for a few years. Learned a valuable lesson there – expect people to throw everything they have against you. Las Médulas is an oasis of peace and prosperity by comparison. I’d tell you more about my coming of age, but you need that time to prepare for the inevitable cultist retribution.”

  Okay, he talks tough when he wants to. Still doesn’t explain the resistance to telepathy.

  “I’m giving you a good deal, ladies. You need only take it,” Ulysses added. “Plenty of guns, for starters-”

  “What kind of guns?” Haxabalatnar interjected. Ulysses seemed like he was going to lash out due to the interruption for a second, but he decided against it.

  “I can get you some really nice sub-machine guns, for starters. Lots of Belgian munitions in this corner of hell. Ever fire a P90?” Hax nodded. Clearly, he respected this level of heat.

  “I’ll also give you some timeshares to spend on our mining equipment, complete with our operators to work the machines. I suspect you might want to tunnel down into the Amdahl compound. That’d be a good way to get around the fortifications,” continued Ulysses. This sounded fanciful and oddly specific, but if he was suggesting it, he probably knew something we didn’t.

  “Why would we want to do something like that?” I asked.

  “If you find a vein of something valuable along the way, I’ll give you a cut of the profits,” responded Ulysses without missing a beat, but even a non-telepath such as myself would find that hard to believe.

  “That’s your reason? Are you trying to have a joke at our expense?”

  “I can assure you that I will follow through with this part of the deal and will write this requirement into the contract that I expect you’ll be signing. After all, you can’t exactly drill into Mount Amdahl unless you know which mountain it is, right?”

  So on one hand, I felt like Ulysses has us by the ovaries (and/or Haxabalatnar’s currently unknown level of testicular fortitude), but on the other hand, someone with this much leverage surely doesn’t sell his services for a mere hundred thousand dollars. Another idea occurred to me.

  “We know you think the Amdahl cultists are on to us, but what happens to you if we turn down your offer?”

  Utter silence. I think I just crossed a line.

  “You know what?” Ulysses said. “I don’t want to find out! You’ve probably seen the cultists weaving their dark magic in your travels. I don’t know a lot about what they actually do or want, but it’s probably not good. I
f we can’t work something out, I’ll have to find someone who will accept it, and that’d be a huge pain.” He paused for a moment to drum his fingers against his desk.

  “Now, if three strangers were to be used as magical fuel because they couldn’t work out a deal with the locals, that might convince me to seek out other security contractors...”

  He probably shouldn’t have said that last bit.

  “Azure, could you make a note to investigate these other security contractors Ulysses just had the kindness to tell us about? We might have to convince them to leave the industry,” I said in what I imagined to be a sweet voice. She nodded. And just like that, Ulysses broke.

  “Okay, fine! I’ll give you a ten percent discount on the whole package!”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  “Don’t toy with me. Eighty thousand.”

  “Seventy five thousand, and not a dollar more.” I glared at Ulysses. He gulped, nervously.

  “You know what? Fine. Seventy five thousand, and I’m probably going to get yelled at or demoted by the C-Suite.”

  I hesitated for a moment, but I decided after a while that this was probably the best deal we could get. “It’s settled. I’ll wire you over the money as quickly as I can, and we’ll get started.”

  I still didn’t know how Agnus was going to feel about us spending the majority of his stipend on a single target, but it seemed like the best shot. We had him connect to a video conference in the hopes that he could coordinate with Ulysses to our mutual benefit.

  “Hey, under the table, are you involved in...uh...ferrous metals? I really want to get some extra iron in my diet,” he said as we hammered out the specifics of our contract. Agnus then fished a rusty nail out of his pocket and started picking at his teeth with it. I was beginning to wish I’d just made this a normal phone call; though part of me suspected that he was just toothpicking for show.

  “We extract iron when we find it. We’ll drop you a line when we find some,” Ulysses responded, as if this happened all the time.