“—and be that as it may, I think it means something when we’re called to meet at a specific time, so no, you really shouldn’t take ‘just five more minutes.’” It was a familiar argument that Rhodez never seemed to get tired of making. Though, it was new for him to be making it to Joshua.
“It’s not like I wasn’t going to come, but I was in the middle of something important,” Joshua groused in reply, as if they weren’t having their argument in the middle of the Director’s office.
Bates watched them expectantly, waiting for them to wrap it up, and Alisha offered her an apologetic smile that bordered on sheepish.
Before a new round of the argument could begin, Cleavon whistled, as sharp and sudden as a dog whistle. Both Joshua and Rhodez fell quiet and glanced around, belatedly realizing where their argument was taking place.
Both of them snapped to attention.
As if nothing had happened, Bates launched into an explanation of why she had summoned them.
“You’ve all heard about the signals from the outer system,” she stated plainly. “I’m assuming I don’t need to fill any of you in on that.” She took the silence after that as confirmation and carried on. “However, there’s a bit more to it than that.”
Joshua cocked his head to one side. “Anything we need to worry about?”
“Well, whether or not you need to worry is a bit up in the air still,” Bates replied. “That’s what you’re here for. There’s some evidence that the satellites have been hijacked, or that they’re still being hijacked. So we need someone to figure out if these signals are real and that there is actually something in the outer system, or if the signals are dummies.”
“What good would a dummy signal even do?” Alisha wondered, slightly distant as her thoughts were already trotting about five steps ahead. “If someone wanted to take advantage, wouldn’t that be easier if they weren’t putting us all on high alert first?”
“The call might be coming from inside the house, though, in that case,” Joshua suggested, shrugging one shoulder.
Bates held her hands up, cutting them off before they could go off on a speculative tangent. “That is what you’re going to be figuring out. I’m assuming none of you have any complaints about that.”
She got a series of heads shaking in reply.
“Good.” She nodded once. “Your job will be twofold, though,” she added, and she couldn’t quite restrain the smallest smile as their focus on her intensified. If they noticed, none of them drew attention to it.
“You’ll be verifying that the signals are genuine and that whatever is being detected in the outer system is actually there, of course. On top of that, those satellites have more intel than their technicians are fully capable of pulling.” She leveled a meaningful look at them. “We are not limited in those same ways, so if there’s anything of value hidden in the satellite data, we’ll be able to get it far ahead of schedule. So the second half of your job is to root out anything useful. Especially anything that seems like it might shed some light on the current situation.”
Already, she could see the gears in Cleavon’s head starting to spin, turning over the possibilities of what they might find hidden in the satellites’ data.
“Any questions?” Bates asked. “Or are you all clear on what you need to do?”
The four of them shared glances before Joshua looked at Bates again and nodded his head once. “Crystal clear,” he assured her, linking his hands together behind his back. “We’ll get started as soon as we can.”
“Good.” Bates nodded once in satisfaction before she paused a moment just to make sure no one had anything to say. The office remained silent.
“All right, that’s it.” With a loose motion, she gestured them toward the door. “You’re free to go. Now go get ready. I don’t want any accidents.”
Almost as one, the four of them turned toward the door.
Joshua clapped Cleavon on the shoulder as they filed out of the room once again. “Sounds like it’s your time to shine, big guy.”
Bates could hear Cleavon assure the rest of them, “I’ll be in and out before you know it.”
Special Task Force Offices, Undisclosed location, Estaria
“I can’t get in.”
Cleavon stared at his holoconsole, mouth twisted to one side and his eyebrows drawn together in irritation.
“Performance anxiety?” Joshua wondered slyly. He leaned one forearm on Cleavon’s shoulder, and his tone was deceptively casual as he remarked, “You know, I’m pretty sure you can get a prescription for that.”
Cleavon turned his head just enough to scowl at him. As if no one else had spoken, he pitched his voice slightly louder as he said, “There’s a firewall. Which I guess I was expecting, given the target, but either way, I can’t get past it.”
Alisha ruffled his hair with one hand and then hopped out of reach as he tried to bat her away. “Aw, it’s okay,” she cooed playfully. “We’ve all been there, and the first time is always the trickiest.”
“I will shoot you all,” Cleavon deadpanned, staring resolutely at his holoconsole. “Don’t test me.”
“But you just admitted you’re firing blanks,” Rhodez reminded him helpfully. He hopped back a step when Cleavon tried elbowing him in the sternum. “Hey, come on now, violence isn’t going to fix your problem.”
With a groan, Cleavon slumped forward in his seat, leaning halfway through his holoconsole and forcing Joshua to step back as He dropped his face into his hands. “I will find places to hide all of your bodies,” he threatened, though it didn’t sound particularly threatening when he sounded so sullen. “No one will ever be able to find you.”
“I’m pretty sure the goal is generally to do it behind closed doors, yeah,” Alisha replied, tapping her lower lip thoughtfully with the tip of one finger. “Unless you’re into that sort of thing, I guess.”
“No one will ever pin it on me,” Cleavon continued seamlessly. “I’ll just live my life like normal, I’ll be innocent, and you’ll all go down as unsolved mysteries. It will be tragic, but I’m sure the conspiracy books will sell like hotcakes.”
Joshua patted his shoulder sympathetically. “It’s okay. We won’t tell anyone.”
“Even if someone does realize I did it,” Cleavon carried on in a world-weary tone that implied that he was clearly the most tortured, “there isn’t a court in the world that will find me guilty. I’ll get a medal for it. I’ll be rewarded for taking such menaces out of the world.”
“You sound like you’ve been practicing this speech,” Alisha accused, her eyes narrowing in feigned suspicion. “Do you spend a lot of time planning to kill us in our sleep or something?”
“A man needs to usher in pleasant dreams somehow,” he protested, straightening back up and leaning back in his seat. “Don’t judge.”
Finally, he closed his holoconsole.
“This is a No Judgment Zone,” Alisha assured him, patting his shoulder again.
Rhodez cleared his throat and finally said, “Getting back on track, though, what does this mean for us?”
Cleavon shrugged one shoulder. “Like I said, I can’t get into the system from here. I’ll need to be on-site so I can insert a dongle directly into one of the servers.”
Joshua coughed behind one hand to ineffectually mask a laugh, but his voice was more or less stable when he asked, “And from there you’ll be able to do everything you need?”
Cleavon paused for a moment to think it over before he nodded once, decisively. “It shouldn’t take long,” he mused carefully. “Get in, plug it in, copy all of the data, and get out. I can sort through all of the data after we’re at a safe distance.”
“Getting in isn’t exactly going to be a walk in the park,” Rhodez pointed out, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. “‘Oh, hi, we’re from an organization you probably haven’t heard of and we need to make a dubiously legal copy of your probably classified data.’”
He snorted out an incredulous laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to go over flawlessly.”
“Well, with a performance like that,” Joshua returned, “then you’ve just signed yourself up to talk us out of any trouble we might walk into.”
For a moment Rhodez looked borderline offended before resignation took its place. “Probably for the best,” he claimed.
Then it was Joshua’s turn to look as if he couldn’t quite decide whether or not he was offended.
Slowly, Alisha asked, “Before you two go planning this entire caper, are we sure there isn’t another way to do this? I don’t want to go charging into something this big if there’s a better way.”
Cleavon gestured expansively to where his holoconsole had been until a few moments ago. “Like I said, I can’t get in just with remote access. I need to be there if I’m actually going to get anything.”
Joshua hip checked her lightly and slung an arm companionably around her shoulders. “Relax. We’ll be fine,” he assured her. “It’ll be just like our training, and we’ve gone through all of that a million times each by now. Hell, I’m pretty sure we could make it through every course blindfolded and wearing earplugs.”
“But that was all paintball, blunt weapons, and VR,” Alisha reminded him skeptically. “That’s not the same thing as actually breaking in; it’s real this time.”
“We’ll need to do it either way,” Rhodez pointed out. “Whether it’s now or at some point down the line. We’ll be fine, so let’s just get ready to do this.”
Part of Alisha wanted to protest just a bit more, just to get them to see if there was any other option. But in the end, she just sighed and conceded, “I guess it’s better to start here than in an active firefight or something like that.”
“We’ll be fine,” Joshua assured her once again. “We know what we’re doing, and we’re all going to be there. It’s not like we’re going in alone and clueless.”
Resolve hardening, Alisha nodded in agreement. “Right. Guess I’m just a bit nervous.”
“Performance anxiety?” Cleavon wondered dryly, and he ducked before she had a chance to swat the back of his head.
Before an actual scuffle could break out, Rhodez cleared his throat to interrupt them. “One of us is going to need to brief Director Bates on what we’re doing, so we should probably at least come up with a loose game plan,” he reminded them. “Once we have that out of the way, I’ll take care of the actual briefing and the rest of you can get everything ready for the op. Just remember that if you hide anything weird in my stuff, I know where all of you sleep.”
With some rolling eyes and agreements that seemed slightly less than genuine, the four of them clustered together to put together the bones of a plan.
Bates’s Office, Special Task Force Offices, Undisclosed location, Estaria
Bates looked away from the files in front of her when she heard a knock on her office door. “Enter,” she called simply, closing any files that other people weren’t supposed to see. Her eyebrows rose in quiet curiosity when her door slid open and Rhodez stepped into her office.
“I presume you have an update on the situation,” she observed, leaning her elbows on her desk and perching her chin on the backs of her folded hands.
He nodded once and came to a halt in front of her desk, his hands linked together behind his back as he stood at ease. “A few complications, actually,” he specified. “There’s a firewall and Cleavon can’t get past it, or at least not with the equipment available to us here. So— “
“So you need to go there in person so he can have direct access to the servers,” Bates cut in, smiling slightly when Rhodez seemed flustered at the interruption. “Was I close?” she wondered wryly.
“Ah—“ He cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am. That’s right. The other three are already getting everything we’ll need ready. I’m here to brief you on our plan.”
Bates gestured expectantly with one hand to encourage him, as if to silently say “the floor is yours.”
Rhodez paused for a second to gather his thoughts before he launched into it. “Alisha and Joshua will go inside so they can plug Cleavon’s dongle into the server. As far as I’m aware, he’s already giving them a detailed rundown of exactly what that entails as we speak so they don’t plug it into the wrong place. Cleavon will be staying in the truck so he can start working as soon as the dongle is plugged in. I’ll be in the truck with Cleavon while Alisha and Joshua are inside, to make sure he’s not on his own if things go south and trouble finds the truck. With any luck, we’ll be in and out before anyone even realizes we’re there.”
He lapsed into silence, waiting for a verdict on whether or not the plan was approved.
Bates was quiet for a moment as she chewed over everything he said. A bit vague, but a workable enough plan for what they needed to do. If only there were just a few more of them to pull it off.
Finally, she decided, “You’ll be bringing Hans with you, as well.”
Rhodez paused, mouth open around what was likely a canned agreement only to come up short at the unexpected addition. “Alright?” he offered after a moment, confusion making it so the statement sounded more like a question. “If you think that’s the best course of action,” he continued, steadier that time.
“Just so you have some backup on hand,” she clarified. “I have full faith in the team, but I would rather not leave anything up to chance.”
“Of course, ma’am,” he hurried to reply, words rushing out as if she would assume he had taken offense if he stayed quiet for half a moment too long. “I’ll let the others know.”
He didn’t ask to leave, but it seemed clear that he had nothing else to say. Bates nodded toward the door. “Dismissed.”
Rhodez turned on his heel and left, the sound of his boots retreating down the walkway and then the stairs, growing muffled once the door slid closed behind him.
Chapter 7
Department of Cyber Communications, Spire, Estaria
“Everything is being handled as it should be.”
Andrew rolled his eyes as he heard the familiar spiel coming from another room, and he regretted instantly leaving the door open. He’d had the words memorized after the first dozen repetitions.
By that point, he could hear them in his sleep.
Right on cue, another “expert” on the matter chimed in, just to parrot back what all of them had said before in slightly longer, more impressive words. It always boiled down to the same thing: ‘If he hasn’t denied a threat, then we must assume there is one.’ As if it had simply never occurred to any of them to just not count their chickens before they hatched.
He narrowly kept himself from slamming his hands down on his workstation, instead curling his fingers around the edge of his desk until the urge passed. He pushed his chair back and got to his feet, heading out of his office. It was all getting ridiculous.
He didn’t bother to knock on the door to Jennifer’s office. He just keyed in his entry code and stepped inside, ignoring the way she whipped around to scowl at him, ripping her attention away from the screen on the wall. “Hey!” she snapped, planting her hands on her hips. “I don’t go barging into your office.”
“Considering your magnum opus is driving me to distraction, I think we’re even,” he groused, leaning a shoulder in the open doorway. “I mean, I knew you tweaked the broadcasting algorithms, but I would have stepped in if I had known you planned on murdering the poor things.”
Jennifer tossed herself down into her chair, slumping back. “Have you always been this dramatic?” she sulked. “I feel like it’s a recent development, but I’m not quite willing to commit to that yet.”
“Not like you were willing to commit to that clip,” he drawled. “Seriously, do you have any idea how sick I am of hearing it?” He pushed away from the doorway and stepped the rest of the way into the room, finally letting the door slide closed. “I mean, we have, what, an average o
f four million stories in a twenty-four-hour cycle? So why have I been hearing so much of the same thing?”
“It’s important news,” Jennifer protested petulantly, sinking down in her chair with her arms crossed.
Andrew snorted and rolled his eyes. “Look,” he remarked. “I am here to help you keep your job as much as I am for any other reason. Our higher-ups are starting to ask questions. It hasn’t slipped anyone’s notice that we’re all seeing the same damn story every twenty minutes.”
“But what does that have to do with my job?” she snapped, drumming her fingers on her arms.
“Oh, don’t play stupid.” He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose between two fingers for a moment. “Look, it isn’t exactly subtle that the broadcasting algorithms have been messed with. Like, way beyond their recommended levels. Whatever you did is beyond what even the scheduling department does for disaster coverage. At some point—soon, probably—they’re going to stop just asking questions and actually go snooping, and they’re going to trace your alterations right back to your office.”
“I think I can handle getting a scolding,” she scoffed. “It’s not like I’m some delicate flower or whatever.”
Andrew quirked one eyebrow. “If I thought you were just going to get a warning, I wouldn’t bother trying to talk to you. I would just leave you to it,” he stated blandly. “But this goes beyond just a warning at this point.”
“Oh, come on, Andy,” she groaned, unfolding her arms so she could drop her face down into her hands, muffling her voice as she added, “It’s not like I’ve done anything that bad.”
“Not that bad—“ Andrew sputtered for a moment. “Jennifer, just think for a minute! About something other than whatever you’re trying to achieve here. This isn’t just a breach of office rules. This is verging on a violation of the mass communication protocols. Hell, you might have crossed that line already, I’m not sure.”
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