Whispers in the Code

by Stephanie Flint

  By the time the sun fully rises over the horizon, I’ve narrowed my list to three people. One is from the rebellion and has life-spirit powers. The second is a shapeshifter from the Community, while the third is a man who accidently caught security’s attention while asking too many questions. He’s my guess for the culprit. His files only list his powers and general temperament, but once I connect to the Legion Spore, I track his origins to a security log matching my concerns.

  According to the record, he mumbled about one tale or another during his time in prison. A telepath recorded the man’s thoughts: he told himself the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” and associated himself with the boy. His son disappeared after a Health Scan, and when he alerted security that something must be wrong, they accused him of being delusional. The man was hauled away for having theophrenia—though the plague is little more than a cover up for powers.

  I run my hand through my still-damp hair. After replaying the logs from the minutes before the incident, I conclude that my suggesting it was bedtime resulted in the “bedtime” story. Still, such memories are supposed to be suppressed, no trace of residual personality.

  This is not as simple as Commander Rick thinks.

  I continue struggling through the glitch while the Legion Spore scans the forest for spies until the commander sets up a communication link. “Master Zaytsev?” His voice resounds through the command room. It’s the first time we’ve tried using the Legion Spore’s ability to project sound through a controlled scream power, though it seems localized from somewhere in the hall.

  I close the remaining documents. “I hear you.”

  “Very good. Report, please.”

  I explain the glitch and what I’ve done to fix it. Commander Rick murmurs to himself as he listens. When I’ve finished, the silence stretches out like the tentacles from my nightmare. I shiver. “Are you still there?”

  “Continue as you have,” he says, “and alert me when you have new information.”

  “Yes, sir.” I rest my chin in the palm of my hand and stare across the jungle canopy. The broad green leaves waver and ripple, and I fight back the memory of the OA scout staring through the leaves at that fleshy, flying sea creature.

  “…in your spare time I would like you to conduct research, leaving no trace, while using the Legion Spore as a conduit.”

  I perk up. Research—that’s something I might be able to do from the base, near Val, without having to be in the field. “What do you have in mind?”

  He chuckles. “You ran into a lack of information on the time stones before your position as the Head of Efficiency, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.” The time stones, while they are enchanted artifacts, have mostly been used to ensnare hopeful rebels who are desperate for anything to stop the Camaraderie. Since the stones aren’t particularly powerful on their own, they’re much better as bait than actual weapons. The Camaraderie has its sights on other weapons—destructive forces like the Legion Spore. Until now, they haven’t given the stones’ individual powers much thought, never mind that the last one I ran into unleashed a dragon spirit.

  “I will ensure what information the Camaraderie has is made available to you,” Commander Rick finishes.

  I grin and scoot to the edge of my chair. Maybe I can find the exact locations of the other stones and whether or not the stones could actually work. Dragon spirits are one thing. Controlling time? Improbable, but they must have gotten their name from somewhere. “Want me to look for anything specific?”

  “Anything relevant.” He pauses. “Remind me, have you been briefed on the rebel attack in St. Petersburg?”

  I slowly fall back into my seat. Though I lived on the fringes of the city, Jenna and Lance are from the suburbs. “An attack? What happened?”

  Commander Rick clears his throat. “A few days ago, the Coalition’s arrival in St. Petersburg sparked a grassroots rebellion. They killed a number of security guards before Special Forces could intervene.”

  My breath catches in my throat. The rebels aren’t equipped to fight Special Forces. “The Coalition—”

  “Escaped,” he says flatly.

  My shoulders relax. They’re still alive, then. There’s a chance, though so slim I don’t know why I bother wishing it, that at least one of them might come to their senses and realize that the Community isn’t as bad as they think.

  “What does this have to do with the time stones?” I ask.

  “The Coalition has both the Japanese and Guatemalan stones. At this point, they believe they have an advantage. But once they hear news of the Legion Spore, they may go into hiding.”

  I nod slowly. “If we know where the remaining stones are, we know where the rebels will go next.” That was why I gave Jenna the tablet in the first place. But the tablet only had general information, nothing specific.

  “Smart boy. We’ll leak information about the stones as bait. If we can capture even one of the Coalition’s members, we will finally end their ‘age of heroes.’ ”

  I cringe. None of them would fare well against an interrogation.

  “Of course,” he continues, “you brought a valid point to my attention. Miss Nickleson seems interested in preserving the Community. But when we baited her grandfather with her impending capture, she almost ran. M’boy, you have spent considerable time with Miss Nickleson. Do you truly think she could be persuaded to our cause?”

  I wriggle in my chair. Jenna is stubborn. Last I knew, her ideas of injustice had to do with turning unknowing citizens into beasts. “Maybe,” I say carefully. “Depends on how you plan to persuade her. She’s not immune to telepathy, by any means.” Lady Winters’ attack on her was proof of that. “But she also doesn’t like the rebels’ callous attitude regarding the Community. They want to uproot the society. She wants to make the Community ideals real. She believes in safety, security, efficiency…” I touch the light bulb efficiency charm beside the pendant at my collarbone. “If she were presented an option that allowed her to protect the Community without using beasts, her attitude might change.”

  “I see. Thank you. I will take this into consideration. The more information we have, the better we can track the Coalition’s movements and end their rebellion with logic, regardless of our tactics. In the meantime, I’ve uploaded instructions regarding today’s training regimen.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, but my heart sinks. If he thinks Jenna will accept beastie transformation just because it keeps the Community safe, he’s underestimating her.

  I bite my knuckles as I pace the length of the Legion Spore. Commander Rick wants the locations of the stones and I’m going to find them… whether or not his plan is going to work the way he thinks. The rebels aren’t stupid enough to fall for the bait, especially after their last attempt to find a stone landed them with a double agent and a lot of sore wounds. I pause, staring at the archway at the end of the hall. On the other hand, the commander’s right. If I keep getting distracted by the past, I’m going to have a hard time making my future. Instead of looking to my past with the rebels, I need to focus on the past of the stones. That’s how I’m going to figure out what each time stone does. There are five stones, and their individual artwork and powers are based in different cultures and mythologies. They’re supposed to have something to do with time travel, but that’s another problem entirely. It’s the guardians of the stones that are likely to pummel us if we try to recover them. Whenever a stone is moved from its original position, its guardian is triggered to attack the thief. The thing is, a guardian must be defeated outside its territory or it respawns and continues its attack. The Japanese stone was a dragon, which Val defeated with electricity.

  I mentally open the files Commander Rick sent me. The first one is a document from one of the mercenaries that went on the Guatemalan mission. Like Val, she was an electricity elemental.

  At the time, the temple was empty. Well, about as empty as an occupied temple’s going to be during a
fight. I let Ivy Man (Seriously, can you believe he calls himself that?) take care of drawing the rebels out of the temple, then I blasted the bunch with lightning. I say blasted, but really, it was a static shock compared to what I had to use inside the damned building.

  Anyway, while Ivy Man kept the rebels distracted, I snuck inside. First thing, per the job’s request, I took pictures. Actually, the first thing I did was gut the guy waiting to ambush me. After that, there wasn’t much to see. Not at first. Just a bunch of outdated antiquities that meant a lot to the people who didn’t mind dying when they got in the way, but probably wouldn’t sell for much on the black market.

  Then, in the upper levels, I found a funky looking stone. Thing didn’t look right. I mean… sure, it was decked out in the same art as the rest of the musty place, but it just didn’t fit. Know what I mean? That kind of weird feeling like someone’s trying to make it look like it belongs, but it doesn’t? It’s like that. I’d bet if you got a team of excavators in here—well, if you’d done it before we unleashed the shapeshifting monster of doom and brought down the building—they’d have been oooing and ahhing over all the old stuff. Not this. This probably would have been described it as a knock-off.

  See the picture? Yeah. Doesn’t fit.

  She included a grainy picture of an altar with the time stone sitting on top of it. A stream of light settles across it as if there was a window or door nearby, but the whole image is spotty, taken with a cheap flash on her tablet instead of professional equipment. She was probably only documenting this for the sake of extra pay.

  Still, I pull up a separate image of the time stone, taken after its successful “capture.” It’s tall and cylindrical, except the top, which is rounded like a dome. Four gold bands wrap around its circumference. Two on top, two on bottom. The rest of it is covered in intricate designs styled to match that of the Maya temple. But she’s right. When I look at the original picture she took, it stands out from the rest of the art. So subtle that most people wouldn’t even notice, like it’s a well-made counterfeit.

  I check the pictures I took from when I transcribed the hieroglyphs on the outside of the Maya temple. Even the art of the temple in those pictures seem a bit different from the stone. Except… except for the actual hieroglyphs I transcribed. Odd. I have no idea what’s different about it, only that it feels out of place. Even my newly enhanced intelligence power doesn’t give me an answer.

  I continue reading.

  Normally I’d just ignore something like that. No point in grabbing a useless paperweight that’s not going to fetch more than a few pesos or credits. But, since this mission is obviously worth more than a few Community credits, I went ahead and grabbed the thing. And ooooh, boy. Remember when I thought that thing was a fake?

  Yeah… I’m giving thought to switching my preferred pantheon.

  I took about two steps before every hair on my neck stood on end and a glowing blue jaguar materialized in front of me (Yeah… blue. It was like some kind of hologram from those old sci-fi shows I used to watch. Sucks that you guys wiped them out of the Community). I get the feeling right away that he’s mad. Or she. Not really sure. What’s important is that this freakin’ glowing jaguar appeared in front of me, bared its fangs, and gave this really loud telepathic roar that scared the beejeebees outta me. I wasn’t about to let the stone go, so I turned tail and ran. And ran…

  Do you know how many stairs there were in that temple?

  A lot.

  And the stupid jaguar kept teleporting in front of me. I tried backtracking, but when it showed up again, all angry jowls and sharp teeth, I finally just closed my eyes and ran through it. Ugh. All those stories about getting the shivers when you go through a ghost? True. Totally true.

  After that, it disappeared. Unfortunately, this must have been one of those doppelganger type ghosts, because no sooner did I make it out of the temple when I found not one creepy, ivy-obsessed sociopath, but two.

  And you know what? Turned out that jaguar ghosty can shapeshift… and do it without the blue hologram thing going on. And it can steal powers.

  We spent the better part of ten minutes trying to strangle and zap it while not accidently strangling and zapping each other. Somehow it guided us back to the temple, and let’s just say that through a few unfortunate turn of events, we made the potential excavation site as history as the relics inside. Not much of a temple there anymore. Sorry about that. Hope you weren’t planning on using it as a base.

  We got the stone, though. Well, I did. I certainly don’t mind saying that the plant dude was crushed when all the stones collapsed… true to an old time adventure movie. (Have you thought about bringing back some of those? Make it kind of a warning movie and say that’s what people with theophrenia think they’re going through. I mean, I guess you’d have to make the ending darker, but…

  I give up reading the rest of the document because she spends the next page going over possible alternative endings for a bunch of old movies. They seem vaguely familiar, and I’m pretty sure I watched a few of them while I was staying with the rebels, but they have nothing to do with the stones.

  But the first part of her notes is informative. The other stones are likely to have similar powers. They’ll be guarded by a being based on mythologies from their respective locations, which, based on the information I’ve found, are Egypt, India, and Peru. That, and they’re called Catonian relics. Benjamin mentioned that once, and then quickly corrected himself because I wasn’t supposed to have the clearance to that information. But now that I have access to the Camaraderie’s entire database, I should be able to find something.

  I sit myself on the smooth, ivory floor in the middle of the hall and pull my legs to my knees. “Legion Spore, research Catonian relics. Use the search parameters I set earlier.”

  Yes, Master Zaytsev. Commencing search.

  I give a quick nod. A few minutes later, the Legion Spore pings me with an article that looks promising. Not only does it mention the relic, but another spirit.

  A small cat figurine resembling the Egyptian goddess, Bastet, was discovered to host a malevolent, though childlike, spirit. The spirit possessed a young human child, which infiltrated the Super Bureau and won the affections of several of its agents. However, the spirit soon turned on leading geneticist, Dr. Sanders, and attempted to kill him. Benjamin’s shields proved ineffective in containing the spirit, and after deadly force was necessary to protect innocent civilians, killing the child resulted in a ‘ghostlike’ entity that separated from its host. Considerable damage occurred before the relic hosting the spirit could be located. Determined powers: Life-spirit, telepathy, and reality bending. The artifact was destroyed due to being too hostile to continue observation. No further interruption occurred after the destruction of the artifact. The artifact was determined to be Catonian in origin by Benjamin Calroe.

  Contributing author—Victoria Calroe

  I twist my lips. Victoria and Benjamin Calroe… How much does Benjamin know about the shields being ineffective? If the time stones and the artifact mentioned in the article are the same, then regular shields might not work on them.

  “Do any of the other articles reference Catonian relics?” I ask.

  None that have been confirmed, Master Zaytsev, at least not that also involve spirits.

  I groan as I lie back on the smooth floor. Odd. For all that the walls are leather, the ceiling has an uncanny resemblance to a human lung. “Legion Spore, please search—”

  A disjointed, lilting song sifts through the hall.

  I sit upright. “Legion Spore, are you singing?” Since when does the Legion Spore sing?

  At first the words are too garbled to make sense of, but when I strain to understand the lyrics, I realize the song is in Spanish. Thanks to Val, I recognize “las manos de un monstruo” as “the hands of a monster.”

  “Legion Spore—” I start, but the vessel doesn’t answer. My ears ring as the drifting voic
es peak and reach a fevered pitch.

  I take a deep breath. For the love of the Community…

  It’s another glitch.

  “Legion Spore!” I snap, flattening my hands over my ears to block the noise. At this rate, I’m going to go deaf. I race toward the sound, then stumble and nearly trip over myself at the sight around the corner. Dozens of mouths of various sizes litter the leathery wall. My heart pounds, though I can barely distinguish its sound over the cacophony of off-kilter voices. The command center is a wall of blank screens. I pound my fist on the keyboard. The keys depress with no response. I grit my teeth, mentally searching for the Legion Spore’s intelligence matrix.

  The refrain of the song blares a frenzied, garbled mess that doesn’t even resemble the original melody. More mouths extrude from the walls and floor as the leather dissolves into a lumpy mass of muscle. I back away from a wide pair of lips near my boots. For now, I’m going to stay where the metal grid is.

  The song is too loud; my eardrums hurt. The noise reverberates through my core, like I somehow got dropped in the middle of a symphony with all the speakers turned toward me.

  Maybe I can access the controls from the secondary panel.

  I scramble across the hall, dodging moving lips as the song’s decibel increases. Different mouths sing different verses. They hit a shrill, high note. My eyes water and I drop down the ladder. I fall against the floor, landing off the metal grate and against the fleshy hull.

  The voices stop.

  The hall regains its leather siding.

  My ankle throbs. I grimace, testing my weight on my foot. A spike of pain shoots through my leg. I gasp, quickly favoring my other leg.

  Master Zaytsev, you appear to be wounded. Were you attacked?

  Not unless I can claim being attacked by a really, really bad choir. I wince, rubbing my ears. There’s now a lovely, persistent ringing that sounds something like a distant siren wailing.