by S. E. Weir
He nodded as he processed her reasoning. “You’re sure you are all right with just letting her run wild here? She’s already the top student and could probably give more than half the agents here a run for their money.”
Masha chuckled and shook her head. “Stars, Shaw, you don’t even know the half of it, but maybe someday you will. It’s not my place to say. But I can tell you this. She’s only been actively training in combat for sixteen months.”
Shaw gaped at her in surprise. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I am. She’s only showed us a glimpse of her skills since she’s been here.” Her grin held an anticipatory edge. “Imagine what she will be able to do in five years. A decade.”
He thought about that eventuality and shuddered.
All he could visualize was a ghost moving unseen until she came face to face with her intended target. His thoughts flickered to capture her face and merged the two images.
In his mind, she became a dark angel.
Chapter Ten
Gaitune-67, Spy Corps Headquarters and Base, Phina’s Room
After dinner, Phina decided to follow her plan to spend the evening making a start on her electronic investigation into the traitor. She looked around her small room that contained only a bed, cabinet, and trunk and decided to sit on her bed, leaning against the wall.
Ignoring the stale smell of previous disuse in the room, she settled in to work. Phina didn’t expect to get direct interference to her insertion into the network. She paused to stare at her screen. It could only be one of two things.
She quickly sourced the commands she found, her fingers flying across her tablet. She caught a brief glimpse before her tablet completely shut down.
After taking a moment to decide how to respond, she decided on the direct approach.
“Hello, digital entity for the Spy Corps base. My name, as you likely already know, is Phina. One of my best friends is the AI ADAM. I apologize for the intrusion into your system. I wasn’t informed of your presence.”
She waited several minutes before finally hearing a feminine voice. “Hello, Seraphina Waters, designated Phina. I have contacted ADAM, and he has informed me of your clearance level. May I inquire as to your objective in accessing this system?”
Phina grinned in relief at getting a response. “Of course. Before I answer, do you have a name?”
“I am designated the Spy Corps Headquarters’ Digital Entity.”
“What!” She grabbed the bedding in surprise. “You can’t be serious? They haven’t even given you a name yet?”
“My function is to run the base with minimal interaction. Any issues are sent to the alpha agent to be addressed. A designation is not necessary for my function.”
Phina pushed down her frustration. “Are you happy with that?”
“I apologize for the confusion, Trainee Agent Waters. Happiness has no bearing on my function.”
“Right.” She paused and reminded herself that she was used to ADAM and Stark. “Right. EI not AI, Phina.”
“That is correct.”
“No, I meant…” Phina sighed, then shook her head. “Never mind. But I’m giving you a name, even if it’s only what I call you.”
“That would be acceptable.”
Phina thought for a bit, then put the words into abbreviations, grinning when she saw the obvious answer. “How about Shade? It’s using your current designation but also alludes to your covert presence within the spy organization.”
“I have no objections if you wish to refer to me by this designation.”
“Great! So, what I attempted to access were the mission, vacation, and transportation rosters.”
“Your purpose for the request?” Shade asked. Phina began to wonder if the EI ever broke her more rigid mannerisms.
“Your clearance level?” Phina could see Link chastising her for not taking proper precautions.
“Top-level, Alpha One priority,” Shade replied. “I create many of the classified files the alpha agent requires.”
Phina activated her implant. Stark? Could you check with ADAM as to whether Shade has a high enough clearance to be told the details about our mission?
Who is Shade? Stark asked.
The EI of the Spy Corps base.
Oh. Yes, that stuffy chick is trustworthy. She’s so boring you’ll be drooling in your sleep within five nanoseconds.
Stark! She couldn’t believe his attitude.
What?
That was rude. I hope you don’t talk to her like that.
Why wouldn’t I? I’m not shy about expressing myself.
Phina sighed and shook her head. Yes, I’ve noticed. Thanks, Stark. Could you be a little nicer to her? Please?
I suppose. I’ll think about it, he responded reluctantly.
That’s all I can ask. Thank you for answering, Stark.
That’s why I’m here.
Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate you, she pointed out.
Right. Feel free to continue.
Phina chuckled and shook her head. Thank you, Stark.
She finally responded to Shade. “I’m sorry for the delay. I was checking with a source. To answer your question, I’m searching for a spy.”
Shade replied in her semi-monotonous tone, “The base has many spies in residence. Do you have further information to refine your search parameters?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, the one I’m searching for is a traitor. We’ve received reports that someone within Spy Corps has been feeding sensitive information to others who have no love for the Empire at best and are actively working against us at worst.”
Several long seconds passed. Phina shifted so her back wasn’t to the wall, moving her tablet as she found a more comfortable position.
Shade responded, “I find this assertion illogical. I monitor the facility daily, oversee every outgoing and internal communication, and track every item that comes onto this base.”
Rather than argue with the EI, Phina rolled with it. “Perfect! Then you will be able to give me exactly the datasets that I need.”
“Which would be the mission, vacation, and transportation rosters.”
Phina smiled, nodding in approval. Stark may find her boring and stuffy, but Shade seemed to be an EI after her own heart. “Correct. I want to see who logs the highest rates of travel on and off the base, as well as who might have been gone on any occasion that hasn’t pertained to a mission.”
“I am compiling this information for you.”
“Thank you, Shade.”
Hearing a knock, she got up to open her bedroom door. Having sensed her, Phina was unsurprised to see Gina and knew why she had come—not that she could act on that knowledge.
“Hey, Gina.” She leaned against the doorframe. “Did you need something?”
The woman only a year older than her smiled brightly and nervously smoothed down the slim blue tank she wore. The style and size showed off a bit too much cleavage for Phina’s taste. “Hi, Phina. I was wondering if you wanted to go to the lounge and hang out? Or we can go check the movie room and see if someone started one yet.”
Phina muscled past her desire to exercise her hacker talents before going to bed and decided to see if she could begin her mental surface scans.
“The main lounge or ours?” she asked, referring to the smaller room where the trainees hung out.
Uncertainty flickered across Gina’s face. “I kind of want to hang out in our lounge. I like more intimate settings to get to know people. I mean, watching all the hot agents is fun, too,” she added quickly. “I just like closer groups better.”
Phina smiled reassuringly, knowing the other woman was attempting to find some way to relate to her. “Perfect. I much prefer smaller groups, too. Lots of people can be overwhelming.”
The relief on Gina’s face caused a tug on Phina’s heart. Fudging crumbs. She was going to acquire another unexpected friend before this mission was over; she could just see it.
After a chang
e of clothes and a whispered request to Shade to connect to her implant, Phina and Gina made their way to the lounge at the back of their wing.
They sat down in the super-comfortable lounge chairs, where Phina curled up and turned herself toward Gina to more easily converse. Their conversation was somewhat stilted before Phina brought up Alina. Gina wanted to know more about her and their friendship. Her new friend became more animated as time went on, causing her company to become more appealing.
“No way!” Gina screeched to the annoyance of the guys across the room. “Phina with a BF named Alina and now Gina? Girl, you know this means we’re going to be amazing friends.”
Phina laughed and shared some of her favorite Alina-isms, which made them both giggle.
“What the hell is so funny over there?” one of the guys called across the room angrily. “You laughing about beating us all in the assessment yesterday, bitch?”
Forcing herself to remain calm and casual, Phina tilted her head toward them, feigning boredom. “Your insecurities have no bearing on my actions, Cade, though I’ll thank you for the compliment.”
Mental monitoring of Gina, Cade, and the other onlookers scattered around the room, allowed Phina to gauge everyone’s reactions as well as read surface thoughts that might benefit her mission. She turned back toward her new friend, dismissing the intruding male. She hoped he would just sit back down but given his mental state, she didn’t count on it.
“Hey!”
Phina sighed when the asshole barreled over to get in her face. Blayk and Jasper weren’t too far behind him. The other humans stayed seated as if to distance themselves. Nodin, Balehn, and Savas remained at a table in the corner, with warring expressions of concern and disgust at Cade’s behavior. Jahlek sat in another corner by himself with his tablet. Phina noted Felan was the only trainee not presently accounted for.
Phina was so preoccupied with that curious fact that she almost missed Cade’s obnoxious rejoinder. “I wasn’t complimenting you, you dumb bitch.”
She maintained a pleasant yet challenging demeanor. “I’m sorry to hear that you failed basic Etherian History and don’t know the story of the Queen’s Bitches. It’s quite inspiring. Perhaps you should look it up?”
The man was superficially attractive, but his sneer ruined that completely. “What the fuck?”
“Are you purposefully trying to be funny?” Jasper demanded.
“I assure you,” Phina drawled politely with a smile. “I find ignorant assholishness tedious and not entertaining.”
With her enhanced hearing, Phina could hear Nodin, Balehn, and Savas snickering. Gina gaped at her, having a hard time believing Phina’s attitude. It was quite simple. She maintained outward politeness while gently prodding the trainees for specific responses by insulting their intelligence.
On second thought, it wasn’t that simple at all.
She had been politely pointing out their resemblance to assholes. There. That was simple enough.
Preoccupied with her musing, Phina almost missed Cade’s response. Her training and reflexes allowed her to catch his fist before he could connect, completely stopping his momentum.
She ignored the gasps in the room as she turned to face the idiot head-on.
Blayk stared at her with intense interest that made her uncomfortable when she heard what passed through his head, while Jasper appeared startled. Phina ignored them, focusing on the jackass standing in front of her emulating a fish.
“You wanted my attention? Well, now you have it. What. Do. You. Want?” Phina dug deep for patience.
Cade finally got his brain cells to respond. He tried to tug his hand away, but she held him in an iron grip. “What the hell! I was asking if you were laughing at us after beating us yesterday. Let me go, you stupid bitch!”
Phina sighed and caught Cade’s other arm as he attempted to push her off him. “No, I wasn’t laughing at any of you. No, I don’t think I beat any of you in particular or as a whole. If you think that, perhaps you missed the whole point of the exercise since it wasn’t a competition.”
She caught surprised glances from several people as well as their surface thoughts. Hmm. Jealously would be a future concern. “I merely thanked you for the compliment, considering ‘Bitch’ is a title of respect within the Empire. However, if I was a bitch in the traditional usage, it was in response to you being an asshole.”
Phina let go of Cade with a push.
He caught himself after a few steps but continued to stare at her, along with the others in the room.
Internally, Phina hit herself on the head. This was why she had kept to herself and Alina for so many years. She had such a hard time adapting her behavior to other people. She realized that she had made friends without even trying over the last couple of years, so maybe she was just pushing this persona too hard? Or trying too hard to be what she thought they wanted in a friend or comrade?
She wasn’t hoping to make friends with people here, but she didn’t need to piss people off half the time without meaning to do so. Or more than half the time, she thought as she glanced around the room.
Phina decided to make one more attempt, feeling deflated. She needed to complete her mission, but she didn’t want to step all over these trainees, either. There was something hinky going on with Blayk, and Cade was a jealous asshole, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to get along rather than maintain that inner wall that didn’t let people in.
She shrugged as she glanced around the room. “Look, I have my reasons for being here, as I’m certain all of you do. It’s not up to me to judge where you are at, only you and our trainers. I’m not going to go out of my way to give any of you a hard time, but if anyone gets in my face, I’m not going to sit there and take it. Please do me the courtesy of either leaving me alone or being professional, and I’ll do the same for you.”
She focused her intense gaze on Cade. “Deal?”
Perhaps the man would be smart enough to take it. Somehow, she had her doubts.
Gaitune-67, Spy Corps Headquarters and Base, Greyson Wells’ Office
Link had spent the last two days catching up on work, wading through requests, notifications from the base’s EI, and written reports by both Jack and Masha, as well as some of the mission leaders and trainers. Just before he finished at the end of the day, he received the reports from the assessments, so he scanned those too.
He had just finished when he heard a chime notifying him of a visitor.
“The pitch is too high. Please lower it a couple of notes for next time,” Link ordered the EI as he closed the document.
“Order confirmed,” the feminine voice acknowledged.
“Send them in.”
He wasn’t really surprised to see Jack in the doorway looking like the GQ model he always did. He waved his beta inside and lifted his tablet.
“Just finished reading through these assessments. Want a drink?” He gestured to the bottle of whiskey on his desk.
The other man shook his head as he sat in the chair across the desk and gave Link a wry smile. “Not just yet. Business first.”
Nodding, Link placed his tablet on the desk. “Any further thoughts you didn’t write down?”
Jack’s gaze turned inward with the smallest tug on his lips. “Nothing official, but damn, your girl is something else. Did you see the feeds from the assessments?”
“Nah.” Link shook his head with a sly grin. “I knew she would be fine. She’s a natural, Jack. The best I’ve ever seen.”
His second gave a low whistle and gestured toward Link’s tablet. “You should see it sometime. Greyson, she walked through that room like she could see. I watched her through the thermal image glasses. She ducked, so Shaw’s dart missed her, but she dropped Masha with it. Then she climbed up the rope to crawl along the pipe grid attached to the ceiling.”
Jack shook his head in amazement. “Well, you have the reports. Let me just sum them all up. Jahlek almost succeeded due to his speed and reflexes bu
t failed to grab the disk instead of the folder. Felan came close to completion, but he had too much bulk to move as quietly as he needed to with the approach he used, so he got caught. Blayk didn’t do too badly either, but his arrogance got him caught halfway to the desk. Ian, Nodin, and Savas all did a decent job, though none were very creative in their execution, and Savas got close enough to touch the desk before they took him down. Kabaka showed shrewdness in how he avoided the dart by crouching and did a decent job of paying attention to his surroundings, but he focused so much on tracking Shaw that Masha got him. Gina almost got caught right away but managed to move just enough that the dart missed her. She didn’t come close, but she shows promise with being small and quiet. Jasper isn’t bad, but he gets distracted too easily. Cade, Ian, and Balehn are barely passable, and I think Greg should be sent home since he got darted.”
“I agree about Greg,” Link responded mildly as he studied his friend. “I don’t see much talent there. He barely squeaked by basic training.”
“But that’s just what I’ve been saying, Greyson,” Jack pointed out. “Phina didn’t have basic training, so I didn’t think she would have the skills that she does. How many years have you been training her?” His second asked curiously.
Link debated how much to share. “She trained on her own since she was twelve. I stepped in when she turned eighteen and have trained her on and off since then. Maxim and Todd have as well with combat, but most of what you see is just her.” He spread his hands. “We just helped hone her natural skills.”
Jack made a noise of disbelief. “You’re not just saying that to be modest for once in your life, are you?”
Link leaned back in his chair and shook his head, at his most serious. “Absolutely not. She’s Chris and Zoe’s daughter. It’s in her genes, Jack. After her parents died, she decided on her own that she wanted to become a spy like all the stories Chris made up for her.”
