“Interesting,” Cora replied. She skimmed the text block for anything that wasn’t in Cyrillic, and found only a number. Her eyes widened. “Is that number the price? Half a million credits?”
Giovanna laughed and shook her head. “No, many domestic retailers in Russia never turned over to the International Credit System. They still have until 2090 to make the change. That’s half a million rubles, roughly six thousand credits.”
Cora crossed her arms. “Still, it’s a lot of money.”
“Well, yes,” Giovanna replied. “They’re all built custom for the employee. The material is designed to absorb high-output electrical discharge, so it’s a big investment.”
Cora snapped her finger. “That’s it! She’s going to need to replace or repair those suits now and again, right? I’d be willing to bet there aren’t too many of these Russian electrical suits custom-built for a woman’s dimensions and being shipped to France.”
The Italian’s expression struck her as perplexed, but she walked back to her computer station in case Cora was on to something. “What makes you think she’s in France?”
“All of these hits were in Paris,” Cora replied. “She has to be staking them out locally. It’s the only way she could get the drop on them four times in a row, unless she had advance knowledge. Which I’m also not ruling out.”
Giovanna nodded. “Alright, I’ll start cross-referencing against shipments to France, although I think Gideon will have to hack into the manufacturer to get ordering information.”
“Plate is a little full at the moment,” Gideon’s robotic voice said through the speakers. “Send it to me when you’re ready, I’ll put it on the pile.”
“Sounds like you’re a bunch of busy bees,” Michael said from behind them.
Cora turned around and looked him over. With a shower and a change into military fatigues, he cleaned up well. He did leave the five-o’clock shadow, giving him a rugged look.
“Pull up a chair,” Cora said, her voice droll. “Join the party.”
Michael sat beside her, at the station between Johnny and Giovanna. He cleared his throat and swiped out the holographic keyboard to log in. “Things have developed quickly. I didn’t think we’d be working together so soon.”
Cora leaned back on the desk, propping herself up with her arms behind her. “Me either. I’m still shocked. Julian is...”
“A tad stubborn?”
“I was going to say he’s a bit of a cube, but we’ll go with yours,” she smiled. “It’s more polite.”
Michael laughed, eyes still fixed to the holographic screen. “I can recall not 24 hours ago, it was you that was untrusting, hyper-defensive of your home turf, and keeping me prisoner while I tried to convince you we were on the same side.”
“Caw,” Vincent croaked from his perch on a pipe near the ceiling. He didn’t care for that line of criticism.
Cora looked up at the raven. “What he said. I called ahead, announced my intentions, and showed respect for Julian’s methods. It’s not the same thing as sending you to spy on us. I mean, we’re working together now, theoretically,” she said. Her brow furrowed. “Gideon, how confined is our access here?”
“We’re in a military-grade sandbox,” Gideon replied. “All connections monitored, no access outside the local network except basic NeuralNet search features.”
Cora turned to Michael and pointed at the ceiling. “See? All those strict protocols and we’re still being good boys and girls and following the rules.”
“Well,” Gideon paused, interjecting before Michael could reply. “I did already hack past their firewall to get external NeuralNet access. I needed to get those AI I wrote.”
Michael turned in his seat to face Cora and crossed his arms.
“We’re mostly following the rules,” Cora corrected, putting on her most innocent face. “Like I said.”
Johnny laughed to himself and shook his head. Even Giovanna, normally so collected, tightened her lips to suppress a smile. Michael shook his head, either in disgust or to shake off his own amusement. He got up from the chair and walked back to the doorway.
“Gideon, you have access now, correct?” he asked to the ceiling.
“I do, thank you,” Gideon replied. “It will take me several hours to parse the information and adjust for the Project Phoenix database. You guys should get some rest.”
The mention of rest made Cora yawn. She never slept well on planes, and regenerating from a fight and a bottle of Jack took a lot out of her. She fought back that feeling as fast as it came, though, and replaced Michael at the computer station.
“No rest for the wicked,” she replied, keying in a guest login. “I need to start digging through NeuralNet for information on teleportation magic.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,” Michael said. “I wouldn’t worry about Julian, Miss Blake. He takes a long time to warm up to everyone. I think he likes you, honestly.”
Cora looked over her shoulder. “I’m flattered, but I don’t need him to get all warm and fuzzy about me. We just need to be able to work together to get these jobs done. Crowley for your ninja. That’s all I care about.”
Michael responded with a curt nod. “You two are more alike than you think. Good luck, Miss Blake.”
Once his footfalls fell out of earshot, Giovanna leaned to Cora. “I think you offended him.”
Cora’s face twisted as though she’d grown a second head. “I don’t give even a tiny shit. I meant every word of that. Julian is a cube, Michael is his lackey, and neither one of them seems to be very good at their job, whatever that is. If they can get me to this Professor, I will gladly let them steal all the artifacts Lucius doesn’t want them to have. Break into every museum in the world, for all I care.”
“I’m surprised you’re so cavalier about what they’re doing,” Giovanna replied with a shrug. “Our team went after Lucius based on the fact he was compiling this list at all.”
Cora stopped typing and turned in her seat to face Giovanna. “Truth?”
“Always.”
“We’re way past that now,” Cora replied. “Whether it’s Lucius, Julian, or this ninja, a race has started to amass the most artifacts. I’m not as concerned that the good guys win as much as I want to make sure Lucius does not.”
Giovanna bowed her head, satisfied with the answer. She returned to typing, allowing Cora to gracefully exit the conversation before her emotions came pouring out. Lucius was responsible for the deaths of people she cared about. Richard. Her father. She’d been near-death twice trying to stop him, and she was certain it wouldn’t be the last time. Her body may have regenerated, but she knew he left scars behind in her head. She’d just as soon fill her mind with work then to dwell on her trauma, though. Her mother taught her that lesson quite well, rising up from lawyer to 7th Circuit Court judge in the years following Still River’s death. A busy mind isn’t a grieving mind.
It continued like that for another two hours, Cora staring into holographic images without rest. She found conspiracy theories, lies, damn lies, and fake video. No actual proof of teleportation existed that she could find. If there was a person with such power out there, it would make sense they’d want to keep it to themselves. When Richard recruited Cora into the NSA, she could make her finger light up of her own will. That potential for magic alone, classified as an adept, was enough to make her a hot commodity to the UNS government. Had she said no to Richard, other offers from other agencies would have come in time.
Johnny stepped out of the room to grab them some coffee, but by the time Cora thought to take a sip, it was stone cold. Her mind fogged and became clay. Minutes later, she drifted off in the chair, to the obnoxious whir of machinery all around her.
The Depths
“Cora?”
Gideon’s creepy robot voice stirred open her bleary eyes. Her neck felt sore from the awkward position she’d slept in. Gideon’s body laid limp in the expensive chair across from her. Neither Johnny nor Giova
nna were in the room. She sat up and collected herself.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“1400 hours, local time,” Gideon replied.
Cora grunted. For as tired as her eyes felt, she wondered why she slept at all. “Regeneration does not cover jetlag, apparently. What have you got?”
“The Project Phoenix data is fully parsed into the AI matrix,” he replied with pride. “I already sent for the others, they should be here shortly.”
Cora nodded, then realized Gideon couldn’t see her. “Okay. That’s great.”
“Also, your hunch was right,” he added. “We’re on a submarine. The Royal Navy is pretty hush-hush about it. They’re not about to admit a multi-billion credit weapon went missing, but there was an information dealer on UnderNet talking about it, and I happened to have some intel he needed to trade for.”
“How does a Royal Army Sergeant steal a Navy sub?”
“Looking at his file, Julian came from quite a wealthy family,” Gideon replied. “He has sterling commendations and dozens of photographs of him getting cozy with some very important people. He was well-connected and respected until he turned traitor to the Crown. A few hundred soldiers went AWOL the same day he did.”
“Keep that info in your back pocket. We’ll discuss it later,” Cora replied as she heard footsteps coming down the hall.
The open doorway to the computer room filled fast as Giovanna and Johnny filed in, followed by Michael and Julian. Cora shifted away from her seat and motioned Julian toward it. He raised a hand and remained at the back of the room, politely declining.
“I understand you might have something for us,” he said.
Cora walked to the front of the room and waited for the rest of her team to take their seats. “Did you guys get everything you had to Gideon?”
Johnny nodded and sipped a coffee.
“Alright, everyone’s here,” Gideon’s robotic voice chimed over the speakers. “Let’s get started.”
An image popped up on one of the large monitors. It was a tower from the Parisian skyline at night. The holovid projector expanded it out into three dimensions, but the image was dark and faint. A series of numbers in the corner rolled by, a time index.
“Watch closely or you’ll miss it,” Gideon warned.
Atop the tower, a bolt of lightning struck from a clear sky. Once the bolt dissipated, the ninja stood where it had struck, and walked to the edge of the roof.
“This footage comes courtesy of your second hit, the Musée de la Magie,” he said. “Thanks to Johnny’s insights, we were able to determine approximately where the ninja was inserted. She blasts in at two minutes and twenty-five seconds after you guys hit the place.”
Julian crossed his arms and breathed in through his nose. “Do we know how she’s doing that?”
Cora shook her head. “I’ve been up and down every detail I can find. If she has that level of magical ability, she’s one of a kind.”
“Well, that brings me to my second point,” Gideon replied. Another monitor lit up beside the first. This time, the screen filled with multiple images - the white electrical suit Giovanna found, shipping manifests, and a wild-eyed old man with frizzy white hair. “Giovanna had us looking into a high-resistance utility suit for work on energy farms. Since it is only manufactured in Russia, we checked the shipping records for this company. We were looking for any orders going to Paris, France.”
“Why Paris?” Michael asked.
Cora turned around. “There was no way she was keeping an eye on you guys from another location. All your hits were in Paris, and she beat you every time. She had to be watching either you or the museums. Which means she’s local.”
“Hmm,” Julian said, pulling his mouth to the side. Michael turned around to face him. “It makes sense. She only attacked in Paris. We never had any trouble in London.”
Cora’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, have you guys been able to hit other museums since she started interfering?”
“Yeah, of course,” Michael replied. “London, Madrid...”
Giovanna rubbed her temples and sighed. Johnny and Cora shook their heads at each other. Michael and Julian exchanged glances, perplexed.
“What? What is it, then?” Michael asked.
“That was an important detail you left out,” Cora replied. “That means our theory is right. She’s definitely local and only watching museums in Paris.”
“If that’s the case, then we may have found a benefactor of sorts,” Gideon said. The image of the crazy-looking old man in a suit zoomed in. “The only order I found went to one Remi Caron. After a while digging, I found some security footage of this old guy picking up the package. Except he’s not Remi Caron. Facial recognition matched him as Doctor Vadim Tesla. He was a reasonably well-known Russian physicist that suddenly went off the grid about four years ago.”
“Oh, boy,” Cora sighed. This whole scenario had ‘complicated’ written all over it. “So, what does a Russian physicist and a woman in an ass-kicking ninja suit want with a bunch of French artifacts?”
“That’s still unclear,” Gideon replied. “But this might be an interesting piece of the puzzle - Doctor Tesla’s name actually appears in the Project Phoenix data that was salvaged.”
Michael’s brow furrowed. He turned in his seat and looked to Julian, but received only a curt side-eye in return.
“What?” Cora pointed at the pair. “What does that mean? What aren’t you telling us?”
Julian shook his head. “It isn’t all that, Miss Blake.”
“You two looked like that meant something to you,” Cora persisted, raising her voice.
“Only that if Doctor Tesla appears on the Project Phoenix list, that may mean it’s you all over again,” Julian replied. “We might be on the same side. The Project Phoenix mirror, the one Dante was working on, lists the artifacts Lucius wishes to acquire for his people. The facility you destroyed contained all the people and artifacts he never wanted joined, such as you and I.”
Giovanna raised her hand. “Wait, you mean to say there is a ‘good guy’ Project Phoenix and a ‘bad guy’ Project Phoenix?”
“That’s a bit of an oversimplification,” Michael replied. He cocked his head to the side. “But yes, that is how Dante explained it to us.”
Cora’s head dropped. Even drugged heavily on Trillozine to suppress her magic, she remembered her conversations with Dante. He had explained the artifacts he was sorting for Lucius were from the lowest points in history, and the genealogy research was for some of the darkest minds that ever lived. A chill crept down her spine.
“Gideon, would you be able to be on comms from here? Wherever here is?” she asked.
There was a pause. Julian raised an eyebrow to the question, but waited for the answer.
“Yeah, I could,” Gideon replied. “Either by going around their firewall, or Julian could let me out of the sandbox on his own.”
“Good,” Cora said. “I’m going with Julian’s team. The rest of you will stay here.”
Johnny started up from his seat. “What? Hell no.”
Cora raised her hand and shook her head. “The moment I’m back in the open, Lucius will find me. You know he will. I can’t put you guys in harm’s way. I’m not letting him leverage any of you against me.”
“The risk should be ours to take, patatina,” Giovanna protested.
“It’s not your call,” she replied. “We can revisit the discussion when it comes time to talk about Crowley, but I don’t know how long I’m going to be in the open staking out this ninja. I can’t take that chance, not with you guys.”
Her eyes were set in stone as she glared at Johnny and Giovanna. They huffed, clicked their tongues, looked away, but they didn’t argue. They knew she was right, they had to.
“It’s fine by me,” Gideon’s robotic voice chimed in. “I’m pretty sure everyone in this room is an international fugitive at this point.”
“Okay, then,” she said with a heavy sigh.
“That settles it. We know where the ninja is, or at least where she’s going to be, and we have a pretty good idea who’s backing her. Let’s pack our bags and head to Paris.”
“Pack our bags?” Julian asked as though she’d lost her mind. “You mean pack a lunch? It’s just across the pond.”
Cora nodded. “Right. I knew that. Let’s move this party to Paris and catch a ninja. Then we can talk about that suicide mission I’m so keen on.”
“Lovely,” Julian replied. He turned for the doorway, tapping the comm button embedded behind his ear. His voice projected through every speaker, from the computer room all the way down the hall. “All hands, prepare for a return trip to Paris. We’re going back for some revenge, boys.”
Somewhere in the distance, men cheered. Michael followed Julian out of the room. With them gone, Cora looked to Johnny and Giovanna. None of them shared Julian’s enthusiasm.
“You don’t have to like this,” Cora said, hanging her head.
“Goddamn right I don’t,” Johnny said, getting out of his seat. He paced, like he always did when he was on edge. “You’re worried about us in the open? You’ve got the biggest target on your back of all of us!”
Cora threw up her hands. “Show me anyone here that can infiltrate a high security museum in the dead of night. Anyone besides me.”
Johnny pointed to the door. “You’re betting the house on this guy as your backup?”
Cora crossed her arms. Even if he had a point, it wouldn’t change her mind a single bit. Julian could be trusted, she knew that. His ancestral hatred for Lucius ran much stronger than her own. For all he’d done to her, she knew Lucius better than Julian. She couldn’t bring herself to hate him. She wished he would stop making choices that hurt her, but he went to such lengths to make her understand he didn’t like doing it. Perhaps all her months of avoiding the sight of his face was so she wouldn’t have to accept that reality. Still, Johnny meant well to warn her of both of them, and he was right to be worried.
The Pendragon Codex Page 9
