The blinking icon linked to a program screen that listed the details of the connection with the agent. It was coming from inside the firewall and had user access inside. It couldn’t give her much of a channel past that black security node, but it was a channel.
Now she had access to the systems behind it. Now she had a chance.
With a smile of pleasure that the mere video game she’d been playing could never match, Majestic began to warm up programs. The first step was to give herself permanent access through that black-wall security. Then she’d move on to other things, like digging for the information this strange conspiracy wanted to conceal—and she therefore wanted to know.
Chapter 28
Saturday morning saw Michael arriving in Charles’s lair with a carrying tray full of large, steaming-hot cups of coffee. It had become something of a daily ritual now, helping him keep up to date with their process. While the scent of the liquid tar Morgen and his fellow sysadmins and cryptographers preferred as coffee bothered Michael’s over-sensitive nose, he had to admit they deserved the coddling right now.
At seven thirty, the entirety of the ten-human and one-dragon team was assembled in the dragon’s cavernous layer, but Michael realized they weren’t running the same program as before. Now they were all…paging through text?
“Michael!” Morgen greeted him, scooping a cup of coffee as the werewolf put the tray down on Charles’s table. “I was about to call you. We broke it.”
“The encryption?!” Michael demanded, fully focusing on the techno-Mage. “When? How?”
“About”—Morgen checked his watch—“twenty-six minutes ago. And as for how, Dorian!”
At the Mage’s bark, a pale-skinned youth with a shaved head and a tiny tattoo of a crucifix over each eyebrow joined them.
“Sir!” Dorian greeted Michael with a snappy salute, only slightly marred by the wince as the cup of coffee in his hand slopped onto his forehead.
“Tell him the key,” Morgen instructed.
Dorian grabbed a book from the worktable behind Morgen and handed it to Michael. The book was small, with very fine pages and a thick cover, and Michael had opened it to the bookmark before realizing it was a Bible. He skimmed down the page, but the words were only somewhat familiar, and he looked up at the others questioningly.
“It’s in Latin,” the shaved and tattooed sys-admin told him. “Isaiah fourteen, verses twelve through twenty.”
Michael blinked at the text in front of him, and then slowly closed the book. “Well done,” he said slowly. “How did you recognize it?”
The tattooed man, who Michael realized was probably in his late thirties, shrugged. “I was in a seminary to be a Catholic Priest once,” he admitted. “I kept up the study, even after they kicked me out for sleeping with a nun.”
“Do you have the English version?” the Commander asked slowly, deciding to ignore the excessive explanation.
Morgen grabbed an open copy of the Bible from his own workstation with a nod and a grin and handed it to Michael. The Mage had been less respectful of the book than his ex-priest co-worker, and the relevant passage stood out in yellow highlighter.
12: How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
13: You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
on the heights of Zaphon;
14: I will ascend to the tops of the clouds,
I will make myself like the Most High.’
15: But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the depths of the Pit.
16: Those who see you will stare at you,
and ponder over you:
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook kingdoms,
17: who made the world like a desert
and overthrew its cities,
who would not let his prisoners go home?’
18: All the kings of the nations lie in glory,
each in his own tomb;
19: but you are cast out, away from your grave,
like loathsome carrion,
clothed with the dead, those pierced by the sword,
who go down to the stones of the Pit,
like a corpse trampled underfoot.
20: You will not be joined with them in burial,
because you have destroyed your land,
you have killed your people.
“The Day Star in question is sometimes translated as Lucifer, or Satan,” Dorian explained as Michael finished reading the passage. “The verse is considered one of the sources of the story of his fall.”
“It seems our Prelate had a bit of a high opinion of himself, even as he knew he was a traitor,” Morgen said quietly.
“It also shows some sense of guilt, I would guess,” Michael replied slowly. “Should help the church interrogate him.”
“Nobody’s interrogating him now,” Morgen said.
“Yes, they are,” Michael said grimly. “They shipped him back to Rome to face trial and interrogation.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Morgen asked. “The Spanish Guardia Civil’s coastal department just announced it last night—Prelate Ambrose and a number of his staff and other priests were killed when their chartered plane went down in the middle of the Atlantic last week.”
A chill ran through the werewolf. He hadn’t heard that. Somehow, he doubted that it was mere accident that had crashed the plane carrying every single one of Monsignor Rodriguez’s prisoners. A surprisingly large part of him was suddenly thankful that the Papal Investigator had missed that flight to meet with Michael.
“Both of ye,” Charles suddenly rumbled. “Come take a look ae this.”
Morgen and Michael crossed to the dragon, who was quickly assembled a montage of communications and documents across his huge screens.
“Ai think we found this just in time,” the dragon said grimly as his claws gently used the mouse to highlight portions of text. “The Black Sun are planning something big—tomorrer. And if I read this right, it sounds like they’re summoning a daemon. A big ‘un.”
Michael’s gaze skimmed across the highlighted portions of the documents, detailing a date, a time, personnel, equipment, supplies and abilities to be present. ONSET knew more about what was necessary to summon a demon than many of the idiots who tried to do so. He knew what those supplies were used for—and the date was tomorrow!
“Where is it?” he demanded, but the dragon shook his head.
“Compile this and send it to Major Warner,” Michael ordered sharply. “Let her know I’m on my way up. And find me where they’re holding this damned ritual!”
#
Warner was waiting when Michael arrived, reading over the file the cryptography squad had sent upstairs, and gestured to one of the plush chairs she kept for official meetings. Michael took the chair and waited, eyeing the flags and painting behind the Major as she finished the document.
“This is bad,” she said quietly after finishing it. “With the supplies and people they’ve gathered, we’re looking at possibly the largest summoning ritual attempted in North America—and its being done by a group with protection as a bona fide religion.”
“That hasn’t stopped us before,” Michael said flatly.
“No,” she agreed. “And it won’t this time, either. But we’ll have to bounce this up to Colonel Ardent for approval. It may even end up with the Committee—possibly the President.”
“Ma’am, we have less than thirty hours before it was scheduled,” Michael reminded her. “We don’t know where it is and we don’t know if they’ll have changed it, knowing that Ambrose was arrested.”
“It may be that knowing about this is why Ambrose died,” Warner told him softly. “They may have counted on everything be
ing aboard that plane. However you got that hard drive, it possibly saved this information from being lost.”
And saved Rodriguez from dying on that plane, Michael reflected.
“Thirty hours is barely enough time to put together a strike force as it is,” he observed. “If we wait until we have the go-ahead, we could be scrambling at the last minute. And we may need authorization to violate civilian computers to find the damn ritual.”
“Agreed,” the Major answered. “Let Dilsner know he’s cleared to do whatever it takes—I’ll have a court order to him within the hour. I want you to get into contact with Major Anderson with the Anti-Paranormals and with OSPI. We don’t have many ONSET teams free right now, so we’ll need mundane personnel to make up the gap.”
“How many teams can I pull?” Michael asked.
“We’re stripped to the bone right now,” Warner said slowly. “I need to keep a reserve here for other emergencies, and most of our active teams are getting dragged down by one brush fire or another. Your team is just back from their week off, correct?”
“They should all be in as of this morning,” he confirmed.
“I don’t think we can free up anything beyond ONSET Nine,” she told him grimly. “On the other hand, it doesn’t look like we should expect any major supernatural resistance, so one ONSET team, with Anti-Paranormals and maybe OSPI security teams supporting you, should be enough.”
“I can’t say I like it,” Michael said, thinking. “But if it’s what I’ve got, I can work with it. We need that go-ahead as soon as possible,” he reminded her.
“Then we both have work to do,” she replied. “You go do your job and I’ll do mine.”
#
Majestic had spent the two days after David had opened the email setting up her access into her target systems very, very carefully. Once she’d done so, she slipped in and starting looking for data. She hit an internal security wall almost instantly—her worm was in a personal computer, after all. That didn’t take long to circumvent, and she was soon in the main system.
The first thing she noticed was a complete paucity of system administrators. Normally, a secure system had dozens of them, many ex-hackers. She found none in this system right off the bat, and that made her go looking.
All of the system admin–level accounts were logged into one area of the network. While that area looked juicy, with some odd computing setups, she made a mental note to avoid it until the admins had separated out more. She had no desire to charge into the lion’s den like that.
Not when there was so much else to look through! The internal security on the system was still pretty tight, but nothing compared to what she’d broken through to get there. Quickly, layer after layer of security opened before her as she dug into the files.
The documents she found lacked context. References to “Omicron”, “OSPI”, “ONSET”, and other items went completely over her head. As she began to read through, Majestic began to build a mental image of the context as she slowly assembled enough information to build herself a fake user on the system.
Once she was done, anything she did would appear to originate from a terminal well inside the facility—and she now knew that she was accessing the computers of a covert facility called the “ONSET Headquarters Campus”.
Using that datum as a search point, she found the Campus’s electronic library, and a whole new world opened before her eyes. Everything she’d suspected and feared after finding those videos was true.
Vampires, werewolves, superhuman police officers, it all hung together in a framework the files in that library neatly provided—especially to someone to whom the classification levels were irrelevant.
It really was the biggest secret of the century, and now Majestic knew it. And because she knew it, she began to understand why it was secret. She might think this was amazing and cool, but even she found some of the information terrifying. The world wouldn’t take knowing all this well at all.
Majestic knew, instinctively, that she was smarter than most of the human race. She also knew she could handle this knowledge better than that same most of the human race.
Now she had that knowledge. She shared the secret the government had tried so hard to hide, and she knew, beyond any doubt, that she would never tell another living soul what she’d found.
Chapter 29
David spent most of his week either holed up in his apartment or exercising like crazy in the Campus’s gyms. Leila Stone had invited him to join her and some other off-duty officers for dinner one night, but he’d pled paperwork and begged off.
Most of the team had returned on Friday night, and Kate had come by, knocking on his door to see if he was there. They’d had a short, quiet conversation, but he’d eased away from his concerns about Angela. Somehow, he didn’t feel that Kate wanted to know.
He knew that there was always a time limit of sorts on how long you waited for someone to call, and that he was rapidly approaching it. However, he still wasn’t comfortable with the thought. Even if things did work out, she was a long way away.
David passed the remainder of his time off in an almost teenage state of pre-relationship anxiety.
#
David entered the ground floor of the dormitory to find the common room occupied only by Akono and Bourque. Bourque had CNN playing on the TV, and Akono was sitting in a corner, creating and releasing various strange visions with his glamors.
He gave both of them a nod and settled on a second couch to watch the news with Bourque. Not much was happening in the world that morning, apparently, but it helped pass the time as other members of the team slowly drifted down.
Kate greeted David with a quiet “Hi, David, how was your trip to Denver?” as she settled onto the opposite side of the couch from him.
“All right,” he answered carefully. “I got some shopping done, picked up some new suits so I can look the part of the Man in Black better.”
Kate giggled. In her skirt and knit sweater, David couldn’t think of anything less like the archetypal Man in Black than Kate Mason, but, like him, that’s exactly what she was.
“You look so out of place in a suit,” she teased him, relaxing slightly, and he rewarded her with a smile as she began to break down his bad mood.
Kate made it easy to forget his worry about Angela and join in the banter of the team as the others gathered around. Soon, only Morgen and Michael were missing, and the team knew they were waiting to hear from Michael what their week’s assignment would be.
Morgen drifted in from outside around nine thirty in the morning, his hair unkempt, his shirt food-stained, generally looking like he’d been awake for days. Kate was the first to express that opinion.
“You look like shit,” she said calmly.
“You try running on caffeine and magic for a week without sleep,” he retorted. “Someone wake me up when Michael gets here; let him know we found it if he hasn’t checked his email by then.”
He ignored further attempts to communicate as he carefully walked up the stairs to his apartment. The rest of the team eyed each other uncertainly. David found himself wondering if the hacker spending his “off” week running without sleep was normal. Everyone else looked just as confused as he did.
“Anyone have the feeling something strange is going on?” David finally asked.
“Yes,” Akono said simply. “The only item usually capable of keeping Morgen awake for a week at a time is a new video game, and he plays those in his apartment.”
Silence slowly enveloped the common room’s occupants. Only the TV newscaster, now reduced to a low volume, made any noise as the team slipped unconsciously into waiting mode.
After about half an hour, the group slowly dispersed to take up activities. No one left the common room, and all of the activities were inconsequential. Bourque knitted. Kate pulled out a pink handheld game console. Ix pulled a book out of thin air that a moment’s inspection revealed to be a “bodice-ripper” romance novel. Akono went back to
practicing his glamors.
David grabbed the TV remote and began channel-surfing. Nothing that was on could hold his mind, and he continued to flip from channel to channel, hoping something would pop up.
Finally, just before noon, the door to the common room swung open and Michael walked in. The werewolf Commander looked grim, and all activity in the room stopped. As David turned the TV off, dead silence descended on the room as every member of ONSET Strike Team Nine turned their gaze on their commanding officer.
“Where’s Morgen?” Michael asked.
“He said to tell you ‘we found it’, then went upstairs to sleep,” Ix volunteered, his romance novel having disappeared back into thin air. “Something about running on magic and caffeine for a week,” the red-skinned demon added.
“Fair enough,” the werewolf grunted. “Someone want to grab him? He’s the one this is revolving on/ As he said, he helped find it.”
Kate nodded and went upstairs to collect her fellow Mage. When they returned, she leaned against the wall by the stairs, and Morgen, rubbing sleep from his eyes, claimed one of the wooden backed chairs in the room.
Michael looked around at all of them and then barked, “Now sit up and pay attention!”
It was, David reflected, an unusually unnecessary order. Every member of the team still had their full focus on Michael O’Brien.
Sure he had their attention, the Commander crossed to the flatscreen TV and booted up the computer tucked away behind it. He slotted a USB flash drive into it, and a few moments later, a black iron star, creepily familiar to David, popped up on the screen.
“Some of you saw this symbol after we took down that Catholic priest, Carderone,” Michael told his people.
David had seen it later, too. Back home in Charlesville, a thought that still gave him the shivers. Both places he’d seen it, it had radiated pure evil.
“Now, the Elfin were also investigating Carderone, and they found this symbol was specifically associated with a group called the Church of the Black Sun,” the Commander continued. “This is odd, as we found it on the personal belongings of a Catholic priest.
ONSET: To Serve and Protect Page 24
