Helix, Episode 3

by Nathan M. Farrugia

  They sat at the table and Aviary shot Nasira a grin.

  ‘You have friends?’ Aviary asked.

  Nasira bristled. ‘I got ... people I know.’

  ‘Yeah, she knows the owners,’ Jay said. ‘We ate here this one time and we didn’t shoot anyone, so that was good.’

  Nasira passed the menu over to Damien. He seemed intent on hiding his terrible Spanish, so he just nodded in agreement. The chef took their order—Aviary made sure to add mezcal—then left them alone in the alcove.

  Damien turned to Aviary. ‘How many exits?’

  She stared at him. ‘Two.’

  ‘How many people sitting out there?’

  Aviary turned.

  ‘Without looking,’ he said.

  She sighed and counted with her fingers. ‘A couple in the front left, awkward. Family with two kids on the right. Weird man with glasses reading the menu and drinking water.’ She paused. ‘Two girls, one dude on the right.’

  Damien smiled. ‘Wrong. Two men, only one woman.’

  She sighed. ‘He looked girly.’

  Nasira tied her crimped hair into a tight bun, wincing when she used both arms.

  ‘How’s the wound?’ Aviary asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Damien said. ‘We still need to find a doctor to clean and dress it.’

  ‘We eat first,’ Nasira said. ‘And drink.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ Damien asked.

  ‘A drink is always a good idea,’ Nasira said.

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Jay said.

  ‘I can find a black market doctor,’ Aviary offered. ‘In Mexico City, if you want.’

  ‘How?’ Jay asked.

  ‘This new thing called the internet.’

  He glared at her. ‘I know what an internet is.’

  ‘Seriously though, you can do that?’ Damien asked. ‘Just find someone on the black market?’

  ‘Yeah, on the list by that Craig dude,’ Jay said.

  ‘Craig’s List?’ Aviary glanced between them. ‘Did they keep you in caves during your training?’

  ‘No,’ Damien said. ‘We had bunk beds.’

  ‘Top or bottom?’ she asked, then regretted it immediately. ‘You know what, I’d rather not know.’ Instead, she pulled her laptop from her ruck and perched it on the floral plastic tabletop.

  ‘I liked it better when the black market was in the real world,’ Jay said. ‘They were always in bars. And bars always had alcohol.’

  ‘So, you have a problem,’ she said. ‘With your mojo.’ Nasira had filled her in while Jay took a shift snoring in the back seat.

  Jay cleared his throat. ‘Nothing wrong with my mojo.’

  ‘That’s libido,’ Nasira said. ‘Aviary’s talking about your pseudogenes.’

  ‘Oh,’ Jay said. ‘Gotcha. Yeah, so I need your help.’

  ‘Finding the headquarters of the people who kidnapped you, I know,’ she said. ‘But I think you’re better off finding their research center. That’s where you’ll find your answers.’

  Jay shrugged. ‘Sounds good. But we don’t know where that is.’

  Aviary sighed. ‘They do teach you Google Maps in Operative School, right?’

  Everyone stared blankly at her.

  She shook her head. ‘What’s it even like there? Hogwarts for soldiers?’

  Damien looked disgusted. ‘It’s nothing like a strip club.’

  Aviary planted her face in her hands. ‘OK, how about you tell me everything you know about these people?’

  ‘That ain’t much,’ Nasira said.

  ‘Hey, I’m staying positive here,’ Jay said.

  A waitress approached, dropped off glasses and a bottle of mezcal. Nasira went to pour, but gritted her teeth in pain. Aviary took the bottle and poured for everyone.

  ‘We have a name,’ Damien said. ‘They’re called Intron.’

  He and Jay looked at Aviary expectantly.

  ‘Have you looked them up?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re public, but nothing on their research center, not even their headquarters are listed,’ Nasira said.

  ‘Plus, we need to find out what they’re doing with my abilities,’ Jay said. ‘That’s ... that’s the most important part.’

  Aviary drank her mezcal in one hit. This was going to be a long night. She opened her laptop and pinched a nearby wireless connection.

  A different waiter arrived with plates of food. Jay scooped up something wrapped in soft tortilla and started munching.

  ‘All I know is they’re in Rio,’ Jay said between mouthfuls. ‘Somewhere.’

  Nasira sighed. ‘That should narrow it down.’

  Aviary scooped up a taco. It was simple, just a slice of beef in a tortilla. She spooned on one of the salsas and added some chilies, then got to work. ‘Give me a moment while I do something awesome.’ Her phone buzzed. She quickly shoved the taco into her mouth and picked up. ‘Message from Sophia.’

  Nasira noticed. ‘She need us?’

  ‘Nah, just asked me to ID someone,’ Aviary said. ‘Some Russian dude from Berlin.’

  ‘She doing alright?’ Nasira asked.

  Aviary raised an eyebrow. ‘Why don’t you ask her yourself?’

  Nasira shrugged. ‘She’s not one for small talk. Even on an encrypted network.’

  ‘Bingo,’ Aviary said. ‘Found him, that was easy.’

  ‘Anything on these guys we’re trying to find?’ Jay asked.

  ‘Give her a chance, Jay,’ Nasira said. ‘They’ll be tough to find.’

  ‘I’ll find them,’ Aviary said.

  Jay raised something wrapped in a tortilla. ‘I have a good feeling about this,’ he said, taking a bite. ‘This is really good. Nopales y queso. Cheese on ... what’s nopales?’

  ‘Cactus,’ Aviary said.

  Jay eyed the tortilla uncertainly.

  Damien leaned over to read her screen.

  ‘Can you not? That’s really annoying,’ Aviary said.

  ‘Evgeny Sporyshev,’ Damien said. ‘Russian diplomat, agricultural attaché.’

  ‘You know him?’ Aviary said. ‘That’s the guy Sophia asked about.’

  ‘Nope.’ Damien pulled her laptop closer. ‘But you know what agricultural attaché means, right?’

  ‘I’m guessing ... he doesn’t grow corn?’

  Damien shook his head. ‘Do you still have access to the Fifth Column—’

  Aviary didn’t wait for him to finish. She pulled her laptop back and opened a file.

  ‘They’re not gonna track us here, I hope,’ Nasira said.

  ‘Nope.’ Aviary petted her laptop. ‘Now that I finally have the encryption keys for the Fifth Column database, I can do it all on here. Do you know how long it’s taken—’

  ‘Fifth Column database?’ Nasira asked.

  ‘Oh right, yeah,’ Aviary said, gesturing to the files she stole from Hal’s tablet. ‘I’ve kind of been stealing the Fifth Column’s database from their Department of Research. I call it the Mad Scientist Wing.’

  No one laughed.

  Aviary sighed. ‘That joke is literally funny to everyone in the world except you guys. Anyway, I have records from all their divisions: cyber, microsystems, defense and—most importantly—their Tactical Tech Division.’ She wiggled an eyebrow.

  ‘I don’t even know what that means.’ Jay turned to Nasira. ‘Am I meant to know what it means?’

  ‘High-risk, high-payoff, advanced military research,’ Aviary said. ‘You name it, they’re working it. Hybrid air-ground vehicles, quadruped combat units, cognitive threat warning systems, soft exoskeletons—they’re still years behind the Chinese by the way—oh, and Special Projects is where you came from. Project GATE.’

  Nasira shook her head. ‘Why the hell you messing with that? It’s dangerous shit.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Aviary said. ‘And it’s going to help us sooooo much. Let me just run a search on this Russian diplomat and we’ll see what comes up.’

  She typed in his name and ran a sear
ch, which instantly pulled a match on her database. ‘Well that explains his incomplete LinkedIn profile. All top secret, baby.’

  Damien took one glance. ‘He’s Fifth Column.’

  ‘Was,’ Aviary said. ‘Last entry in 2001.’

  ‘So he ... quit? Retired?’ Jay asked.

  Aviary skimmed his record. ‘Doesn’t say anything. But guess who gave the order to collect him. Our old friend Hal from Las Vegas.’

  ‘Huh,’ Damien said. ‘What was this guy into?’

  ‘He was working under the Fifth Column’s Department of Research. Microsystems Technology Division. Nothing crazy though. No mind control or super soldiers. Just lasers, electronics, photonics, signals,’ Aviary said. ‘He did a bit of time in Project GATE, while you guys were getting your Hogwarts training.’

  Nasira leaned forward. ‘So why did Hal grab this guy? Is he cleaning house?’

  ‘He was working on something for Project GATE called TERMORD,’ Aviary said.

  Damien looked nervous. Across the table, Jay and Nasira stiffened.

  ‘Uh, I take it that’s bad,’ Aviary said.

  Damien nodded slowly. ‘Could be.’

  ‘Super soldier bad? Mind control bad?’ Aviary asked. ‘Where on the scale of bad are we talking here?’

  ‘Sophia found this guy in Berlin?’ Nasira asked. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  Damien poured more mezcal, but didn’t drink. ‘TERMORD usually stands for termination order.’

  ‘They’re going to kill him?’ Aviary asked.

  ‘Not him,’ Damien said. ‘And it’s not like when you just assassinate someone. This sounds like a different kind of termination.’

  ‘It sounds like a kill switch,’ Nasira said. ‘A kill switch for operatives.’

  Chapter Six

  Vilnius, Lithuania

  ‘Neopsyche, designation Alcyone,’ Sophia said.

  She took a seat opposite Ieva in the living room and put her pistol down on the table, beside her phone.

  ‘Hmm.’ Ieva leaned forward in her chair and absently touched the scab on her split lip. A strand of ash gray hair lingered over one eye. She blew it aside and thought for a moment. ‘That’s the false personality.’

  Sophia nodded. ‘Very good. How many neopsyches are there?’

  Ieva wrinkled her nose, then smiled. ‘Trick question. Only one neopsyche, the one the Fifth Column installs into their minds with all those parapsyches.’

  ‘Which is what they did to us,’ Sophia said. ‘But what else is there?’

  ‘Archeopsyche!’ Ieva said quickly. ‘That’s the real personality.’

  She’s learning fast, Sophia thought. Maybe Ieva can deprogram an operative by herself one day. And one day soon.

  ‘If the operative isn’t blinking when you first encounter them, what does that tell you?’ Sophia asked.

  ‘Um, they’re in one of the parapsyches,’ Ieva said. ‘Intense focus. I can’t remember ... wait! Ares parapsyche.’

  ‘Good. But that’s just a hint. You need to confirm which parapsyche is enabled. What do you do?’

  ‘You access the listing.’

  ‘OK. So how do you do that?’

  ‘I know this one,’ Ieva said. ‘Um, you just request the parapsyche listing. Simple.’

  ‘And what happens if the listing is restricted?’ Sophia asked. ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I go direct. Start debugging.’

  Sophia shook her head. ‘You missed a step.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ieva thought for a moment. ‘I need the parapsyche that gives me the debugging mode. The … um … I can’t think of it without my notes.’ She reached for her phone but Sophia put her hand over it.

  ‘No notes,’ Sophia said. ‘I want you to remember.’

  Ieva shook her head. ‘I can’t. I’m not good at this.’

  On the table, both phones buzzed. Sophia checked hers: their perimeter cameras had picked up Czarina returning to the mansion, bags on each arm.

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ Sophia said, putting her phone down. ‘You need to execute the code architecture parapsyche if you want to start debugging. It’s called Calaeno. I just remember C for code, it’s easier that way. Then you can start debugging.’

  ‘Shouldn’t I take the operative somewhere else first?’

  ‘Yes, but not here,’ Sophia said. ‘You disable their tracking device first, so the Fifth Column can’t follow them to this mansion.’

  ‘Right, of course,’ Ieva said.

  The front door opened downstairs and Czarina’s sneakers creaked across the floorboards.

  ‘Tomato soup.’ Ieva sniffed the air. ‘Sausages, fried potato. Cheese and garlic sauce.’

  Ieva’s innate ability was hyperosmia, a heightened sense of smell.

  ‘Oh, bacon and sour cream!’ Ieva added. Her brow furrowed, a thought occurring. ‘Sophia, what if the parapsyche is unknown and they—’

  ‘Try to kill themselves?’ Sophia asked.

  Ieva nodded. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. That’s what went wrong in Berlin,’ Sophia said. ‘Once you’re in, there isn’t much room for playing around. You need to execute a command or they can become unstable. Worst case scenario, put them in slave mode until you get back to me and we do the rest together.’

  Czarina appeared at the top of the stairs, a bag of takeout in the crook of her arm. She was still wearing her ruby leather jacket, even though Sophia had tried to convince her to wear something less conspicuous. At least her bruised jaw—reduced to a blotch of purple on brown skin—was healing up.

  ‘Seriously,’ Czarina said. ‘You guys know how hard it is to find Lithuanian food that isn’t ninety-nine percent potato? One more week here and I’m gonna turn into an actual potato.’

  ‘With red lipstick,’ Ieva said.

  ‘Shut up and eat.’ Czarina dumped the bags of food on the table, then shrugged her rucksack to the floor.

  Ieva disappeared into the kitchen, returning with plates and glasses.

  ‘All civilized, huh?’ Czarina opened the containers of food. ‘You know, why can’t we have an operative diet that is just carbs? Would be so much easier.’

  Ieva set out the plates and glasses. Almost as an afterthought, she held up a credit card. ‘You forgot this.’

  Czarina grunted, already shoveling food into her mouth. Ieva disappeared into the kitchen again to retrieve some bottled water. She opened it, but Czarina waved her off.

  ‘You pick-pocketed again,’ Sophia said.

  Czarina shrugged. ‘I forgot the card, OK? Relax.’

  The card was one of Aviary’s little inventions, which helped them steal money from automatic teller machines.

  ‘You don’t need to steal unless you have no choice,’ Sophia said.

  ‘I had no choice,’ Czarina said, food falling from her mouth. ‘I forgot the card. And I had to get rations.’

  Sophia noticed the bottle of Polish vodka. ‘What sort of ration is that?’

  ‘The good kind.’ Czarina cracked open the bottle and took a swig, freezing with it still on her lips as their phones lit up again.

  Sophia collected her phone. This time it wasn’t a camera sensor.

  ‘Active!’ Ieva shouted excitedly. ‘Active! Active!’

  Sophia pressed her thumb against her phone’s fingerprint scanner and accessed the restricted content. A map came up, showing an operative in Kraków, Poland. She was on the move, and instead of gray—the color denoting a dormant agent—the dot was yellow.

  ‘Stand by.’ Sophia grabbed her pistol. ‘Pack up your food, we’ll take it with us.’

  Czarina grimaced. ‘Aw, come on.’

  Ieva tapped on the yellow dot to read the operative’s status. ‘Not going green until tomorrow morning. See the twelve-hour timer ticking down? That means standby for another twelve hours.’

  ‘It will take us ten to get there,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Eight if I drive,’ Czarina mumbled, cr
amming a final few bites into her mouth.

  ‘Alright,’ Sophia said. ‘Eat fast.’

  They finished their meal and took their rucks. When they reached the front gates, Ieva re-activated the motion sensors they’d rigged inside the mansion.

  ‘We’ll need wheels,’ Sophia said.

  ‘I got us a fresh set,’ Czarina said. ‘I’ll take first shift.’

  She walked them to her latest steal—a white 90s Fiat sedan. Sophia took the passenger seat while Czarina started the engine.

  ‘You know, if we get there early,’ Czarina said, ‘we could just grab the operative before they go live. Hit them while they’re in their pajamas watching cartoons.’

  ‘One, I’m pretty sure they don’t have pajamas,’ Sophia said.

  ‘I have pajamas,’ Ieva said.

  ‘Two, if we start grabbing them while they’re on standby, the Fifth Column will catch on pretty quick,’ Sophia said. ‘We do it my way for a reason: we stay under the radar and they never suspect we have access to their satellites. If they find out, they’ll lock us out and we’re back to square one.’

  ‘And this is better how?’ Czarina said. ‘The Fifth Column will still suspect us.’

  ‘Not if the operatives are active and in mid-operation. Disappearing on a high-risk operation could be down to any number of things. But “stolen by rogue operatives” is going to be pretty low on their list. And we need to keep it that way.’

  ‘They’ll eventually catch on,’ Czarina said.

  ‘And that’s why we need as many operatives on our side as possible, before that happens,’ Sophia said. ‘Because when it does, they’re our army. And it will be us against all the other operatives.’

  ‘Um, so that’s over a hundred operatives, according to this map,’ Ieva said.

  Sophia focused on the road ahead. ‘Then we have some recruiting to do.’

  Chapter Seven

  Tallinn, Estonia

  Olesya took a breath and stepped into the alley.

  No operative.

  The alley ended where two buildings merged. Olesya’s boots crunched over snow as she reached the dead end. The operative’s footsteps ended here.