by Cameron, TR
A grin twitched at the edges of her mouth. “So you say. I’m not sure I believe it.”
One side of his lips quirked. “Again, it is wisdom not to trust blindly.”
She laughed. “Talking with you is like stretching out my brain and tying it in random knots.”
“That would be something to see, indeed.” His dry delivery, signaling humor, changed to a more serious one. “So. Tell me about the situation that vexes you so.”
The preparations completed, he handed her a cup and lifted his. Together, they inhaled the scents of the complex green tea, then sipped in silence, savoring the experience. When the ritual had done its work of calming her mind, she set the cup down carefully on the tray.
“My team and I are on the run from an opponent with more resources. He’s claimed our base and is enlisting the public against us. We’ve gone from being in a superior position to an inferior one with the revelation of this new enemy.”
He nodded. “Do you expect an open confrontation? Or will the game of fox and hare continue?”
“The latter, most likely.” As she said the words, that knowledge clicked into place in a way it hadn’t before. She’d been thinking down old paths, which were unproductive in their new reality. This isn’t one of our usual straight-up fights. I need to quit treating it like it is.
Fury was silent while she marshaled her thoughts. When she looked up, he advised, “The wisest course is to prepare the field of battle, whatever it may be, to your best advantage and allow your enemy to know you are doing so. Then, when they believe they have a clear picture of your intentions, attack where your foe least expects it.”
Diana considered the sword’s words. They wouldn’t expect us to go after the Serrano guy in Washington. That would come as a big shock indeed. Out loud, she asked, “So, cut the head off the snake?”
He shrugged, which was usually a signal she’d said something he disagreed with. “Most leaders expect that the fight will come to them. That might not be the least predictable course, although they would certainly expect it less than a direct conflict between armies.”
“You’ve given me a lot to think about.” Whatever her brain might’ve decided to say next vanished as her magical sixth sense warned her of hostile magic. She snapped back out of the virtual space and into her physical one, hurling herself off the bed with one hand and raising Fury to strike with the other.
A portal finished opening in the back corner of the bedroom, and through it, she saw something she didn’t expect—Bryant, with an unfamiliar room behind him. He took a step into the bedroom, and Diana moved forward into his embrace. She rested her head on his chest and scolded, “You’re an idiot. You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.”
He rubbed his cheek against her hair. “I know. I couldn’t handle being apart right now.”
“I’m glad you came.”
He drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. The portal shrank to nothingness behind him as he released the magic. “Me too.”
After a few minutes of simply standing together, they headed out into the main room. Max almost wagged his body in a full circle, led by his tail, in his excitement to see Bryant. Her boyfriend sat on the floor and accepted the dog’s enthusiastic licks while Rath laughed and laughed. When everyone had settled down, Diana said, “I feel aimless. I have no idea where to go or what to do because we don’t have any information.”
The troll paused his game, which was flipping one of his knives in the air and catching it by the blade with his fingertips. “I think this is all too big for only us. Even now that Bryant’s here.”
Diana frowned. “Zulu’s conditions for gathering in person haven’t been met. Our next virtual get-together is a couple of days away.”
Bryant spoke softly and calmly. “Maybe it’s time to improvise.”
Rath crowed, “Bryant votes to improvise. I vote to improvise. Max votes to improvise. You know what that means? It’s time to improvise.”
Diana couldn’t help laughing. She shook her head and pointed at Rath. “You are trouble.” She moved the finger to Bryant. “You, doubly so.” Finally, she pointed at the dog. “You too, disloyal mutt. Remember, I was your friend before you ever met these guys.”
The Borzoi came over and climbed into her lap, dropping his weight on her with a thump and sticking his head back against her chest, his tongue trying to reach far enough to lick her face.
Diana laughed along with the others, running her fingers through his fur. “Okay. To hell with continuing Zulu. It’s time we started thinking differently.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Deacon cruised through the magical dark web, reveling in the freedom he felt in that particular virtual place. For him, it looked a lot like something from the second Tron film, a landscape of wireframe objects, pulsing connections, and an overwhelming sense that one was swimming in a maelstrom of data begging for him to tap into it.
Of course, randomly trying to access any of the things around him could result in all sorts of bad outcomes. This was where the most virulent viruses, the most wicked weapons, and the most hazardous programs lived. He was in his element, but doubtless, most of the other infomancers with him in the space felt the same. They probably all think they’re the best, too, like I do. Occupational hazard, I guess.
As he flew through the virtual realm, bright lights scattered out of his path, bots and programs from other users unwilling to risk offending him. He frowned as his instincts warned him that some of them seemed not to be randomly fleeing but were deliberately moving in a common direction. He waved to summon a spell, which in the real world activated programs on his computer system and put them to work.
Walls materialized to capture one of the glowing dots, trapping it in a cube. He moved seamlessly through the transparent wall and grabbed the bot, pulling it apart with his bare hands. Glitter exploded out of it, bright red and sparkling, to form a web address. Alongside it was a single word, “Jewel.” He muttered, “Holy hell,” in both the virtual and physical worlds.
His reflexive response to being poked was to call up programs to bounce his signal across the world, a more aggressive series of hops than the standard paths he used that only went through twenty-seven. The new routing would increase his lag, but he didn’t anticipate a fight ahead. Hopefully.
When his rerouting was complete, he marshaled his offensive and defensive programs, had his system send a text message to Kayleigh explaining what was going on, and before he could think better of it, he sent himself to the address the bot had held. The sensation of fast movement filled the next several seconds, which in virtual space was a notably long interval.
He landed in a featureless white room. Taking a step forward resulted in no change, and he suspected the walls, if walls there were, would move away from him as he advanced, so he never reached them.
He wasn’t trapped since he could always log out if simply trying to command himself to a new location failed. Still, he’d come here by invitation, so he didn’t feel the need to leave quite yet. An avatar shimmered into being, one he recognized as someone he knew, even though they’d never met in person. “Demetrius?”
The other man nodded. His virtual representation was a cartoon Rastafarian, complete with the hat. “Yeah. Ruby is using me to do her crap work, as usual.” They laughed together.
Deacon said, “What’s up?”
“She wants to meet with Diana. Says it’s important.”
“What about?”
Demetrius chuckled, and his avatar lifted its arms and dropped them helplessly. “Please. Like she tells me anything. It probably has something to do with the fact that your team’s names and pictures are plastered all over the Internet.”
Deacon scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, we’re not exactly low-profile at the moment, true.”
“So, can you set up a meet?”
“If the boss agrees, sure. Give me a place to contact you.”
* * *
A familiar
sense of excitement surged inside Kayleigh for the first time since they’d left the base. She wasn’t a believer in fate or anything. Still, when Ruby’s request coincided with a message from Diana calling for an unscheduled get-together, it seemed too perfect to be completely coincidental. The sudden and entirely unexpected “on the right path” vibe that filled her made her almost giddy with anticipation.
She and Deacon repeated the process of readying the meeting room. Then she launched it. The team assembled within a minute. A couple of minutes later, she was able to set aside her worry about their safety. Everyone had reported being in a stable location, safe and sound.
Diana changed the subject, announcing, “We’re officially abandoning scenario Zulu. It kept us safe when bad things happened, which is what it was supposed to do. Now that we all have our sea legs, so to speak, it’s time we started thinking forward, rather than thinking backward.”
Hank grumbled, “That’s a lot of thinking, boss. I’m not sure Cara’s up to it.”
Everyone laughed, and the target of his insult replied, “Screw you, meathead.”
Kayleigh reluctantly abandoned the entertaining crosstalk and created a channel with only Diana. “We have a guest at the door. Your friend from Magic City would like to chat with us. Okay with you?”
Diana asked, “You have all the security issues locked down?”
Deacon gave her a disgusted look over the table, and Kayleigh answered dryly, “Deacon says yes, everything’s fine, thank you for asking.”
Diana chuckled. “I’m sure those were his exact words. Yeah, let her in.”
Ruby’s greeting set off a couple of minutes of chatter, people asking how she was, what was going on, followed by their guest returning the same questions to them.
Finally, once that wrapped up, Ruby said, “I thought you might need a temporary base of operations. It just so happens I have a lovely underground bunker. It’ll be a bit of a tight fit, depending on how much stuff you have since the builder constructed it in a time when living space expectations were a little less optimistic than they are now. You’re welcome to every inch of it, as long as you don’t mind sharing with us.”
Kayleigh was surprised to find more hope surging through her, something she wouldn’t have thought possible at the start of the meeting. Time seemed to freeze while she and the others waited for Diana’s answer, which would drastically affect at least their near-term futures. Finally, the boss said, “That’s an amazing offer. We’ll owe you big. We accept, and thank you.” Cheers greeted her words, followed by laughter as everyone realized they all shared the same feelings.
Ruby sounded entirely pleased. “Don’t worry. I’ll come up with a reasonable payback system. I think each member of your team should act as my servant on a rotating basis.” More laughter mixed with friendly insults drowned out her words.
Diana said, “Okay, folks. Play time’s over. Let’s figure out the best way to make this happen.”
A half-hour later, the meeting ended, and Kayleigh circled the table to hug Deacon from behind. She rested her chin on his shoulder. “Thank the universe for that. I can’t wait.”
He reached up to hold her arms. “Me neither.”
She sniffed a little. “This has been hard.”
His voice held a note of suspicion as he confirmed, “Yeah, it has.”
She delivered the killing blow with a wide grin. “Being stuck with you, I mean. Damn, it’ll be awesome to be around normal people again.”
He made a sound between a sigh and a choked laugh. “Bite me, Kitana. You suck.”
Kayleigh spun away with a laugh. “We’d better get packing. Things will move fast from here.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Figuring out spots where Diana could meet her people, then portal them to Ruby in a safe location, who then portaled them to the bunker, had been a logistical challenge. Adding in the amount of gear they had to move, which in some cases was plentiful, made it an even bigger hassle. Hank had whined about having to leave his van behind as soon as they’d joined her, but Cara had rolled her eyes dramatically and told him to shut up. Diana figured a story was involved, probably an entertaining one, but it wasn’t the right moment to find out.
The bunker was something out of the fifties. Ruby explained it had been a rich person’s idea of a bomb shelter and that a friend had essentially rented it out to her and her team for as long as they needed to use it. Amid the hustle and bustle of getting things into the place and finding an arrangement that would suit their needs while minimally impacting their hosts, Diana asked Ruby, “So, what’s it like, being in charge of an entire group of magicals?”
The other woman gave a small laugh. “Every step of the way along the path to becoming Mirra of the Mist Elves, I thought, ‘This is crazy. I can’t do this.’ Now I have confirmation that I was right.”
Diana laughed, and Idryll, Ruby’s magical companion, adopted a long-suffering expression. “She’s not really this humble. It’s an act. She’s a tyrant, I tell you. Take it from someone who has to spend far, far too much time with her.”
At Diana’s side, Rath giggled. “That sounds familiar.”
She replied, “Shut it. Go play with Max. Leave me alone. Forever.” The troll scampered off, his laughter unabated.
Ruby turned to her companion. “See? That’s how this relationship is supposed to work. You go away now.”
The shapeshifter, with her striking orange, gold, and black hair that matched her tiger-form colorings, stared disdainfully at Ruby for a second, then wandered off without replying. The other woman sighed. “I’ll pay for that, eventually. Probably with something involving claws. That’s not important right now. Anything I can do for you at the moment?”
Diana shook her head. “You’ve set us up perfectly, thanks.”
Ruby nodded. “Okay. I have a couple of errands to run, but I’ll be back in a while.” She crossed into what she called the receiving room, a small chamber that had been their exclusive portal in, and now portal out, point. Wonder if it’s the only place that it works or something. That thought sparked another, then another, and the faint glimmer of an idea started to build in her mind.
She turned and scanned the crowd, spotting Deacon and Kayleigh setting up computer equipment through the open doorway to the small storeroom. She walked over and tapped them on the shoulders. “Come with me.” She led them into Ruby’s workshop, cautioning, “Touch nothing. Close the door.”
They complied, and Deacon asked, “What’s up, boss?”
Diana stared at them both for a second, but they returned blank looks. Which proves they know why I’ve called them in here, “Time to tell the truth.”
Kayleigh replied quickly, “About what?” That was all the confirmation Diana needed to be positive the tech was hiding a secret. They’d lived and worked together for long enough that some things were almost guaranteed. Like the fact that these two couldn’t follow a set of orders if their lives depended on it. Literally.
She shook her head. “I know you didn’t kill everything back at the base. You wouldn’t have. Not in your nature. Even with Clean Slate activated, I bet you had to do something that broke the rules. Now spill. What was it?”
The pair looked at one another and exchanged sighs. Deacon sounded slightly embarrassed as he said, “I have a couple of bots around. Small ones but high-functioning. I always considered it a backup to the backup plan. They look exactly like the skin of the vimana, so there’s no way anyone will notice they’re different from any other part of the walls’ designs. Believe me. I threw every scan I had at them. When they’re inert, they’re undetectable.”
“What about when they’re not?”
He shrugged. “A little electrical spillage, plus someone might see them moving. They’re small enough that most motion detectors won’t, though.”
She shook her head. “Not what I’m asking. What can they do?”
“Little bots for little things. They have a cutting blade, a com
puter interface, and the ability to use an appendage to press buttons. That’s about it.”
Diana nodded. “Okay, that’s part of the picture. What’s the rest of it, Kayleigh?”
The tech put her hands on her hips. “You immediately assume I’m involved. Why, because we’re dating?”
She shook her head. “No, because you’re you. Not the time for games. Tell me.”
Kayleigh smiled. “Well, to make the bots work, you have to be able to communicate with them. So, I took out the part of Zulu and Clean Slate where the secondary communication system gets fragged.”
“Is it working?”
“It should be, but I truly haven’t had an opportunity to check. Since we’re trying to keep our presence hidden, I didn’t think it was a good idea, anyway.”
“Makes sense. Is there a way you can verify it without giving us away?”
The tech nodded. “The system uploads its status to the base computer systems daily, but when it can’t reach them, it uses a satellite once a week as a secondary report. That procedure is essentially there for situations like this, to confirm it’s operational and in contact. All we have to do is log in to the satellite’s communication buffer and see if it checked in.”
Positive energy was building inside Diana, a welcome feeling given how little of it she’d felt since leaving the base. “Well, hell. Go check, woman.”
After getting a better understanding from Deacon about what his bots could do, and after Kayleigh had verified the backup comm system was still operational, Diana walked to the center of the main room and clapped sharply. “Okay, people, listen up. I have a plan. It’s something our enemies definitely won’t see coming.”
Conversations died as everyone turned to face her. Cara said, “Don’t keep us waiting, Boss.”
She smiled. Certainty about the path ahead filled her. “We’re going to break back into our base, grab intel, snag some artifacts, and maybe even get some of the gear we left behind.”
