by Megan Derr
Dixie laughed, and laughed harder when Greg glared at him. "How like a kitten to pounce when you want cuddles." Greg's glare darkened, but Dixie cut off the pending death threats by bending to kiss him, fingers sliding along Greg's right cheek to cradle it gently.
Drawing back after a couple of minutes, he pressed the scarf and broach into Greg's hands. "These are for you. I kept pulling away 'cause I didn't want to leave folk hurting the way the G.O.D. left me and Mama hurting after they killed Daddy. But I'm already attached—to Matt, Byron, and especially you. I shoulda come right out and admitted it a long time ago. I'm sorry."
Greg stared at him, a frown cutting deep lines into his face, eyes pinched with confusion and worry. "Why do you keep talking like you're dying?"
"Dying? Naw, I'm alive and kicking."
"Stop being a smartass!" Greg snarled, thumping Dixie's chest, a surprising amount of strength behind his bony little fist. "What aren't you telling—?" He broke off, tears slipping down his cheeks as realization filled his face. "You son of a bitch! I did not do all of this so you could get yourself killed! Fuck you!" He dropped the scarf and broach and threw every stone of his bodyweight behind the fist that connected with Dixie's jaw.
It was enough to send Dixie stumbling back a couple of steps, and damned if it wouldn't leave a good bruise. "You hit good, kitten."
"Don't call me that, you motherfucking son of a goddamn fucking bitch!" Greg snarled and punched him again, driving Dixie back until he collided with the railing and damn near toppled over it. He grabbed hold of Greg, trying to steady both of them, but all it got him was a chest pummeling.
He was damned lucky Greg didn't have claws.
Letting go of Greg's arms, he cupped his head and bent to kiss him hard. He got bitten for his troubles, but the hitting stopped.
Greg was crying harder when Dixie drew back. "How could you not say something? How could you let me do all this? I thought you were going to break into a stupid database or something and steal some information."
"Mason System is a bit more than a 'database', honey, and I ain't necessarily going to die. Just probably."
"You're a fucking asshole," Greg replied, drawing back and returning to his bed, pulling on a zip-up hoodie. He rifled through his bag and pulled out a small pack of tissues. "Why is this going to kill you?" he asked eventually.
"Because I got away from them once and there's no way they're going to let that happen a second. Not only did I fuck the place up on my way out, I'm the only one with the master keys and I took one of their best weapons with me. Me and the G.O.D. been waiting a long time for this reckoning. We always knew I'd crawl back into the system eventually—it's only been a matter of when. That day has finally come, and they'll do their damnedest to make certain I never leave it again. So my chances aren't good, but don't think I'm not gonna fight like hell to keep kicking."
Greg sniffled. "We shouldn't be doing this at all. Suicide missions are stupid."
Dixie sighed softly, pushed away from the railing to draw close to Greg again, snagging his wrist and dragging him in when Greg tried to dodge away. "We're going up against the most powerful organization in the world because somebody's got to do something before it's too fucking late for all of us. This sort of fight always has, and always will, incur tragedy. But I'm going down fighting, darling. I was so busy avoiding attachments that might get left behind…" He touched Greg's cheek, traced that fine cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. "I forget they give you damned good reason to come back."
"You'd damn well better, so I can kick your ass for real, you stupid, stubborn spaghetti western." He jerked Dixie down and kissed him hard, nails biting into Dixie's scalp through his short-cropped hair. Dixie wanted to throw him down on the bed and fuck him till neither of them could move.
But there was work to be done, and he didn't much care for an audience. He drew back slowly, enjoying that sweet, eager mouth for as long as possible. Rubbed his thumb over Greg's wet, kiss-swollen lips before finally withdrawing. "Come on, pussycat. Work before play."
"Don't get dead," Greg snapped and gave him a shove before fleeing the loft.
Dixie swallowed and went to his bed to retrieve the Mason Chip. He slid down the ladder and walked over to the work station, letting out a deep breath as he handed the chip, still in its case, over to Byron. "Let's get this party started, shall we?"
"Dixie…" Byron reached out to lightly grasp his arm, then said something Dixie didn't understand and rushed in close to hug him tightly. "Don't be stupider than absolutely necessary." He stepped back, clutching the chip close. "I've done a couple of things that should hopefully help. We'll be here the whole time."
"Never doubted it," Dixie said. He looked around, but wasn't really surprised that Greg wasn't around. "Where did pintsize go?"
Byron's smile was sad and fleeting. "To be sad and pissed off on the back porch. Sit down. Let's get this over with so you can get to work on your apology."
Dixie settled down in the long, leather seat that was even nicer than the one in Byron's apartment. All the nervousness and fear he'd been pushing away since the moment they'd realized they had a chance at a Mason Chip finally broke free and flooded through him. He tried to ignore it, focused on his breathing as Byron and Leland strapped him down, hooked up all the medical equipment, and went through a final run of tests.
Leland frowned as he looked over Dixie and the setup. "This is a VR sort of thing, isn't it? Don't you need a mask or something?"
"Nope," Dixie said. "All my hardware is internal. Same with anyone given a Mason Chip. So long as I have equipment to maintain my body, I could stay here damn near indefinitely. When I left, they was just beginning to mutter about making it so people could live in the Mason System, their brains stored there, essentially, until it could all be downloaded to a new body."
"That sounds terrifying," Leland said. "The G.O.D. has done some horrifying, heartbreaking things, but that scares me more than all of them combined."
Dixie nodded in agreement. "S'why I decided it was high time to risk everything and get the hell out of there."
"We are ready steady," Byron said, drawing up to Dixie's side. "Any last smartass comments, digital cowboy? Let me guess: all their base are going to belong to you."
"Shut the hell up," Dixie said with a grin. "I wouldn't mind a kiss for luck, but not from your ugly ass."
Byron grinned back. "Yeah, you apparently prefer your boy toys to have claws and look vaguely jailbaity."
"I don't look like jailbait!" Greg said and gave Byron a shove as he joined them. He looked Dixie over, scowl fading into a long frown. "I'm fucking serious about not dying, asshole."
Dixie jerked his chin to urge him close, unable to move himself because of all the buckles and straps. Greg's mouth was warm and soft, and by far the best memory he could have taken with him. "Don't get beat up while I'm gone, pintsize. And don't burn the place down while I'm gone, neither."
Greg lightly thumped his chest. "Shut up." He pressed another quick kiss to Dixie's mouth, then drew back, sniffling as he huddled by the nearby bank of monitors.
Byron took his place and held up two cases. The silvery Mason Chip gleamed in one, a shimmery blue-black chip in the other. "It's not battle-tested, but this should have plenty of defenses and a few nasty little toys to help you once they come down on you. It'll go in first, and then the Mason. After that, it's all on you, Turncoat. Make them hate that name with every fiber of their being."
"I will," Dixie said.
He grunted as the first chip went in, tingling and zinging through him as the contents were uploaded to his system, adding all sorts of bells and whistles. He gave a soft huff of approval.
"Here we go," Byron said and held Dixie's hand tightly as the Mason Chip slid home.
*~*~*
Everybody saw the Mason System a bit different on solo trips into it. His daddy has been fond of using a recreation of the old library he spent countless hours in as a boy. Like any young
boy, Dixie had changed the interface damn near every week, each new creation louder and flashier and more ridiculous than the one before.
Toward the end, he'd settled into an historic post office where his mother had liked to go and had taken him along as a boy. Hundreds of PO Boxes became infinite under the Mason System, containing all the information he could ever need, though the more interesting the information the harder it was to open. There were tables in the middle where he could work to shuffle through the mess, and the service counters provided access to high level security that manifested as mail clerks.
The generic interface was a recreation of the G.O.D. central headquarters in New York City, and whenever two or more people were using the system together, that interface snapped into place.
But Dixie still held the master keys despite the G.O.D.'s best efforts, which meant everything would look the way he wanted no matter what they did.
Security guards were positioned at either end of the long building, still and disinterested. The system had not yet pinged that he wasn't supposed to be there. He ran through his software quickly, including the new bells and whistles from Byron, and pulled up a masking program that would make people think he was House for a little while.
It wouldn't last; the system was too smart for that, but it would buy him a little time.
Going to one of the windows in the middle of the hall, he struck the bell three times, waited a beat and rang it twice more, and after one last pause, rang it two more times. A clerk phased into place, dressed in an old-fashioned postal uniform, gold and green butterflies pinned to his lapels. "Good afternoon, sir," the security system greeted.
"I'm picking up a package," Dixie said. "Under the name Tabby Monarch."
"Do you have a package slip?"
Dixie reached into the inner pocket of the leather jacket he was wearing, slid a shimmery blue slip of paper across the counter. The clerk touched it and the butterfly pins turned blue and silver. "One moment please, sir." He faded out as smoothly as he'd faded in, and after a moment a small, glowing yellow box painted with silver butterflies appeared on the counter. It was about the size of Dixie's palm, thin enough to slip into the inner pocket.
Tucking it away, he went to one of the tables in the middle of the room. Pulling out several pieces of paper that resembled mailing slips but were in fact search requests, he filled them out and dropped them into a slot in the middle of the table.
A couple of minutes later, several mailboxes lit up bright blue. One lit up bright red. Damn.
He went to the nearest of the blue ones and quickly cracked it open. Removing the packet of papers stuffed inside, he pulled out the yellow box and opened it. Inside were fifty little glowing yellow balls—like day-glo marbles. He pulled one out and set it in the mailbox, closed it, and moved on to the next.
By the time he was done, he'd set wipe programs for his friends and everyone else he knew that the G.O.D. had a file on. Even if he failed to destroy the whole damn system like he wanted, that information would be gone in a matter of hours. And no one would notice until too late.
A lot of the information could be replaced, but much of it was unique to the G.O.D. and the lack of it would slow down manhunts in the future. Ideally, anyway.
That little task accomplished, he glanced at the box glowing red. Ariadne, and the lockdown on her information was, of course, the highest security the Dogs could provide. Security his daddy had helped design. Which meant Dixie could crack it, but not without finally bringing the Dogs down on him.
First thing was first. Going up to another service window, he rang the bell in a five-one-three pattern. When the clerk appeared, he said, "I'm here to pick up two packages."
"Do you have a package slip?"
Reaching into his jacket, Dixie slid a glowing yellow slip across the counter. The clerk touched it, flashed yellow, orange, yellow and then returned to normal. The butterflies on his lapels turned blue. "I'm sorry, I'll have to get a supervisor."
Dixie relaxed slightly and nodded. So far so good. The clerk vanished, one level of security gone. Another one appeared, dressed in a slightly different uniform, no lapel pins but a green nametag with Supervisor in gold print. "Howdy."
"I'm sorry, sir, but your packing slip is invalid."
"Apologies, must have given you the wrong one." Dixie pulled out a second slip, this one a shimmery purple with red writing. He slid it across the counter. The supervisor touched it, and the purple and red raced up his arm to cover him. He flashed several times, then vanished completely.
Two small black boxes appeared on the counter. One was about five-by-five-by-five, the other a little smaller. Dixie slipped the smaller one into his pocket and carried the larger one to the table he'd been at earlier. Reaching into the right-hand pocket of his jeans, he pulled out a key ring. Selecting a tiny silver key, he ran his fingers over the top of the box. A small keyhole appeared and Dixie quickly unlocked the box. Tucking the keys away again, he pulled down the sides of the box to reveal the contents: Four tiny horses, white, red, black, and a sickly, pale gray-green. "Release Four Horsemen. Permission granted by: Dixon Mountebank. Passcode: Drunk butterflies can't resist playful kittens."
A soft, tinkling chime filled the air and the four little horses vanished.
Dixie closed his eyes, fighting back the relief that the Mason System would soon be no more, and the agony that he was destroying the last bit of his father that remained. But needs must when the devil drives, as Daddy had always said.
That task complete, he finally headed for the red mailbox. Instead of a P.O. Box number, there was Specimen 12A-X001. They'd had to create a whole new designation for Ariadne, though not a new department—12 had always been Biological Research – Nonhuman Species. But X001 meant she was the first in a whole new category. At least they didn't have more aliens. One was bad enough.
Taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly, Dixie called up defense systems to have ready and then got to work. It took him two minutes and four different tries to finally crack the box, and the moment the door swung open, alarms went off and the statue-like security guards sprang into vivid, violent life.
Bullets came at him, but were deflected in sprays of rainbow light. He opened the box and pulled out a thick roll of papers, dropped in a marble and slammed the box shut, and did a duck and roll toward one of the tables as more bullets came flying at him, and the number of pounding feet increased.
He pulled out a small, blue-glowing square, rose to his feet, and slammed it on the table. The table flickered, flashed, went out entirely for a few heart-stopping seconds as the guards drew close enough to engage directly, then finally reappeared in glimmering blue. Dixie shoved the papers through the slot in the middle, then turned and touched his right thigh.
A gun appeared at his touch and he drew it, started firing at the guards, taking out three of them before the rest fell upon him. He screamed as they tasered him, beat him, and one of them even managed to stab him. Dixie reached for his arsenal, got a hand into one of the pockets of his jacket, and pulled out three small orbs.
He managed to twist free enough to kick one of the guards in the face, then slammed the orbs on the floor as he rolled forward to get out of their immediate path. The pepper bombs still stung, but all he got was the dregs, not the full throttle assault that put out the rest of the guards. Pulling out a small yellow tab, he slapped it on his wrist. Yellow light covered him, burst bright, then settled into a soft shimmer, negating the effects of the pepper bombs and restoring the shields the guards had destroyed.
The alarms were still blaring and he could hear more guards coming, so there was no time to waste. He pulled out another patch, this one green, to heal some of the damage the guards had done. Thankfully the guards were too low-level and therefore not remotely powerful enough to take down the most powerful user in the system. But they could slow him down, and that was enough to get him dead.
He bolted for the back exit, digging in another pocket for
the special key to open it—and reeled back at the last minute as it swung open, touching his left thigh to draw one of the guns hidden there. His blood went ice cold and boiling hot by turns as he took in the figure who slunk through the door like a snake from its hole.
He'd been wearing a mask the day he'd shot Dixie's father, but Dixie had known all the same. He'd always been terrified of the bastard. Pale as a ghost, damn near as skinny as a skeleton, and he always had a ghoulish smile on his face. He was the kind of person the G.O.D. should be fighting against, and instead, he was part of the inner circle, one of the most powerful men in the organization: Harold Mark, alias Hades, Chief Information Officer of the G.O.D.
His super ability was one of the rarest, most terrifying, and least understood: he could bring the dead 'back to life' though only for a brief time, and in what basically amounted to a zombie state. It didn't come to much, in the end, but it could be some damned scary stuff. Dixie had expected him to do it to Daddy, to be that much more malicious, but for once Hades had been content with the killing.
He was often considered a hero because his ability meant he could bring dying mothers back long enough to deliver a baby, or coax out a crucial bit of information from a victim. The window to do it was limited to within four hours of death, but that was usually enough to make a difference.
And nobody knew how twisted and cruel and plain old fucking evil the bastard could be.
By day, Harold Mark looked like a skeleton in Generic Businessman getup. Within the Mason System, he was a skeleton, dressed in a fancy black suit, his eye sockets glowing with purple flames, and a hood draped over his skull. All in all, it should have looked stupid, but the man was terrifying enough even his dumb getup was scary.
