by JM Guillen
It’s not that you need to dissect my brain, I hope? Delacruz sent the link with a broad, relaxed smile.
Wyatt might have conspiracy theories about the Designates’ motives but not Sofia. Instead Sofia had fire. I found I liked that.
Of course not. The bespectacled woman gave a small smile. But as you can imagine, we might require your services more often than a typical Asset. We are assigning you a private bay at Facility Prime as well, for post-dossier diagnostics.
That seems sensible. Sofia had been quite thrilled. In a world where every Asset could gear any packet, she often felt like just another number. Her odd little quirk had made her quite handy to have on a dossier, and it looked as if the Designates were finally taking note of—
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Ugh. I glanced over at Delacruz, hoping she hadn’t noted my irritation.
I couldn’t imagine I actually needed all this. It didn’t even define her quirk! I paused for a moment, and scanned through the packet for an index.
There. I found a crisp heading titled Dossier I88-1998. That sounded like somewhere to start, for my purposes anyway.
The moment I opened it, the familiar, overbearing, always friendly personality of Demetrius Stone, Facility Liaison greeted me.
I sighed.
This guy again.
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“I’ll be in the Ryuu building for well over a year, I’m certain.” He had met her at an upscale restaurant in Mexico City on a stunning summer afternoon. “I’m allowed to hand pick my team.” He took a long sip of his drink. “With your gifts, I’d be a fool not to ask you, Sofia.”
“That’s true.” She gave him a playful grin over her drink and adjusted her floppy hat.
A ridiculous hat, but she loved it.
“So you’ll do me the service of joining me?”
“I’ll consider it.” She waved one hand, playfully dismissive. “Continue wooing me.”
“Oh, Sofia.” Stone’s baritone purred, a sound I couldn’t have replicated on a dare.
It was sexy, suave.
I wanted to strangle him.
“We are going to have so muc—”
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Nope. I had enough of Stone in the real world.
Um. Sofia looked to me, the yellow shine on her forehead warbling with strange and uncanny light. She adjusted the Crown augment that assisted with the Gatekeeper, and from the back of her head, a soft blue shine joined the yellow.
Yeah?
I need to step away, for just a moment. Make sure we’re still clear.
I’ll be here. I shook my head. Doing homework.
I got your back, gringo. Study up, there’s a lot in there.
Will comply.
I accessed a report titled DESIGNATE ARCHIVE: SOFIA DELACRUZ.
This could be promising, I thought.
The words Designate Ramirez immediately flashed across my field of vision. The remainder of the report, however, had been an audio file. Skipping the obvious preliminaries, I fast-forwarded a bit and increased the play rate.
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—found that 99.875% of Assets could not gear the Gatekeeper and the Wraith at once. The configuration created cascading synch errors between the two packets and neural burn resulted.
Gatekeeper requires certain processes to run continually in the background, but upon ignition, the Wraith interrupts those processes, leaving the Asset with an overflow error. In 65% of cases, those errors resulted in excessive production of norepinephrine by the A5 nucleus with the corresponding mental difficulties.
If Asset 217’s capability to equip these two packets can be replicated, then the Facility will possess the means to send Assets into hostile territory, unseen, and then create a conduit for reinforcements with little to no danger.
Until then, Asset 217 is one of the greatest weapons we possess. When equipping these two packets, she shows no cascading errors and maintains A5 production within normal parameters, making her the perfect Asset for stealth incursion.
Designate Jackson and I have made an intense study of the Asset’s holotecture and axial nodes, making use of over thirty different RM scans. To date, we have not been able to rep—
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I stopped the playback, my mind racing with the possibilities.
Every Asset knew about ‘the unseen gate’ problem. A Gatekeeper could only access locations that they themselves had previously accessed or within their visual range, with the distance limitation being different for every Asset. That made incursions tricky, as an Asset might have a difficult time slipping into hostile locations.
Wyatt liked to bitch about that to no end.
The Wraith and its invisibility presented the perfect answer to the problem, but it didn’t play nice with Gatekeeper. If Delacruz could gear both of those packets, then Delacruz became “the perfect Asset for stealth incursion,” just as Designate Ramirez said.
Of course Stone would want her.
Working closely with Delacruz, he would have been able to place spikes all through the Ryuu building, making further incursions and rapid extractions possible. Together, they could have moved through areas of the building that no other Asset could penetrate, and the intel they sent back to the Facility—
I almost leapt out of my skin at the bark of gunfire. Not close, but the sound gave me pause.
I needed to hurry this along. I looked back at the index heading titled Dossier I88-1998.
Maybe I just needed to skip ahead a bit, get past all the early parts.
Crown command: Increase playback 4.0
COMPLIANCE.
I let the data whirl by, until I saw the Designate.
That was a good start, I thought.
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— morning, Delacruz.
Designate Johansson, a fair-skinned, kindly seeming man with cool blue eyes, rode beside her in a black Facility sedan.
I felt her remembered nervousness.
This will be your last task regarding Dossier I88-1998. It requires the vector coordinates that only you possess.
I see. Her bitter disappointment felt like iron in my stomach. Stone had told her that things were coming to an end, but she hadn’t thought it would be this soon.
Liaison Stone is in possession of several key pieces of technology. They are quite volatile, and we need to extract him as soon as possible.
Understood. She glanced at the Designate, whose eyes never quite met hers. Which vector will I be extracting him from? She had active locations all over the building, so the extraction should be simple.
Seven-alpha four. The Designate looked her squarely in the eye. He’s below the Seal.
Her surprise came suddenly, like a flock of birds bursting into flight. How had Stone bypassed the Seal without her?
She chuckled. He always surprised her.
Due to the incredible volatility of Stone’s package, he will be extracted to a Facility location not typically used by Assets.
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I found no reaction in Sofia’s mind regarding “Stone’s incredibly volatile package” no matter how hard I looked. Maybe it hadn’t been included in the patch. That made more sense, I decided. Who could pass on that joke?
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Where is this location?
It is codenamed The Spire. Johansson paused. It is of the utmost importance that you never speak of this location nor imply its existence.
Chills ran down my spine at the Designates stern proclamation.
Of course, Designate.
In an out of the way warehouse somewhere near the inner District of Mexico City they stopped. Often hidden, it was simpler to create conduits in out of the way places.
Delacruz stepped toward a door that looked as if it went nowhere. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
We have arrived.
Then she realized that the Designate intended to accom
pany her through the conduit.
I felt her frown as clearly as if it were my own. Typically, the Designates simply apprised us of our missions and then left us to it. Having a chaperone felt a little uncomfortable.
Ms. Delacruz didn’t receive the full tour of The Spire. Instead, with a violent, violet burst, the conduit opened somewhere deep in the bowels of the structure.
So dark. Sofia couldn’t help but wonder if the place had ever seen the light.
You may need to make some vector alterations. Designate Johansson’s voice felt like melted wax in her mind. This location was chosen for a very specific purpose. The Spire is an emanation point for Hyper-Rationality.
She trolled through the settings of her Crown augment, trying to determine if she had preset parameters for this dossier. I don’t have any specifications for Hyper-Rationality.
You will discover that Rationality is quite firmly anchored in this building. It is an emanation point for several key Facility frequencies. This location has been selected in the hopes that the Hyper-Rationality might counteract the dangerous materials that Stone is transporting.
I can’t exactly make perfect vector alterations on the fly. She glanced at Designate Johansson, and I felt her prickly irritability. If I don’t have the specifications in the gatekeeper, how am I supposed to modulate my apertures?
It is unknown what effect Stone’s package might have upon your aperture.
The Designate somehow linked this with a straight face.
That is why I am present. It is possible that the Hyper-Rationality Matrices will require adjustment during this process. The Designate paused a moment, as if uncertain what to say. However, when he continued, his words seemed certain, as cool and professional as ever. Simply target the appropriate vector and watch the readings on your packet interface. If there are difficulties with the emanations, I shall modulate them appropriately.
Will comply.
On the Designate’s mark, she ignited the fissure.
Scarlet song filled the air as it opened. There, on the other side, she could make out Stone, dead beat. He held a case and had a second figure in tow.
Who is that? She linked him, playful and teasing. Did you pick up a lady frie—?
With a darkling brilliance that shattered its way into her Crown, the aperture shifted, boiling over with colors that hurt both our minds.
Delacruz screamed, frantically attempting to modulate the Gatekeeper’s settings but quickly lost control.
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The visual was abruptly swallowed in horrifying, sibilant blackness.
40
No sooner had that portion of the file ended than Delacruz linked me, Hey there, Mike. You aren’t dead, right?
How could I be dead? I smiled through the link. I had some kind of Gatekeeper/Wraith superweapon promise me she had my back.
Ok, here’s the play. She ignored the jibe. I sent you an image of a bunker. That’s where we are now. There’s only light security onsite because they never expected that we could hit them.
About that. I peered down where a trace or two of my sick remained on the floor. The guard that I bravely puked on seemed to think I might have taught some locals how to shoot guns and beat perimeter defenses. I paused. Know anything about that?
Yes. And you will too when you finish the packet. Let me update you so that can happen.
Will comply. I rolled my eyes at her through the link.
I told you earlier we had about twenty minutes; current countdown is right at nine.
I glanced at the packet I perused. I think I’ll be done by then. What happens in nine minutes?
Well… I felt her grin, fierce and feral. Sadhana keeps weapon stores at this transportation hub. These ladies may understand how guns work, but they’re short on supply.
Gotcha.
This isn’t the only storage depot, but there’s a gap in the perimeter patrol. If we leave in nine, we’ll hit it.
I assume you’ll share more of your brilliant plan then?
You’ll get a lot of it in the packet. Delacruz sounded a bit irritated. That’s why I patched it to you—I can’t update you every five minutes.
Fine. I’ll finish up.
Good boy. Her smile dawned like sunlight in my mind. See you soon.
So far, the packet had mostly been a different perspective on things I already knew. Although, I supposed that no one knew what had happened at the end there, not really. I suspected that her phaneric node had overloaded, and she had been unable to record sensory input.
But what had triggered the backlash? Stone had implied that it might have been Subject X, but…
“Did he though?” I frowned. Hadn’t I actually suggested that and Stone simply agreed?
Did Stone want me to believe it was Subject X?
Designate Johansson seemed to have a healthy respect for whatever Stone was bringing back in that case of his. But Stone hadn’t described the canisters as ‘volatile’ when talking to us.
If they were volatile, however, and they hadn’t reacted well to the conduit or Hyper-Rationality or even the Ad’uun woman creating a conduit of her own somehow…
“Conjecture.” I shook my head. I didn’t even know if it mattered.
Skipping over titles like Biological Observances and Possible History of the Ad’uun, I looked to the timeline and found the closest entry after the event of November fifteen…
Topiatic Locality: Ar’Ghosa.
That sounded about right.
“No skipping,” I muttered as I cracked my knuckles. “Let’s get this done.”
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I felt the ground beneath her and smelled the moldy, musty fragrance of the bizarre plant life as Sofia awoke beneath one of the treacherous, alien willow trees.
Black eyes bore into her own as a woman she had never met screamed nonsense into Sofia’s face.
I felt her startled recoil.
“[I will shoot you in the eye, bitch!]” Sofia shouted in Spanish, frantically backing away while waving the gatekeeper wildly. She struggled to figure out what the hell had happened, why she felt so catastrophically dizzy, and where—
“[ŴƎƝ Ɣ nj èƧƝƟDŽ!]” The bald woman shouted louder and louder, but Sofia’s Crown could make no sense of her tongue. “[ǮǤdz ƝƟDŽ €Ɍ ɎȦ Ɂʮʔ!]”
The woman had absolutely no hair, only some kind of growth that pulsed and sang with a yellow light on her forehead, a twin to the growth currently on Sofia’s brow.
Fascinating though that might be, Sofia found herself focused on the woman’s rage as she launched herself at Delacruz, her fists raised.
Sofia blocked it easily, but the woman simply howled, “[Ɍɧ ɎɔƪƢⱷὢ!]”
Whoever baldy might be, she just didn’t seem to know when to stop. Sofia blocked another swing, and growled at her, “If you don’t want to play nice, then I don’t have to play nice.”
Without moving a single muscle, Sofia used her Crown augment and ignited an aperture approximately a hundred meters behind the screaming woman, and four meters in the air. Then she triggered a second one beneath baldy’s unsuspecting feet.
As the screeching woman tumbled feet over forehead, Sofia engaged the Wraith. Instantly, the cool shadows of invisibility settled over her. She got to her feet and ran into an irrationally twisted landscape of nightmares and horror.
Behind her, the muted cries of “[ύƟDŽƩƢƼǟǷ!]” slowly faded into the distance.
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Long hours in the darkened jungle followed then, most of which she’d fortunately condensed. Delacruz had seen far more of this place than I had and treated me to a rapid series of brief memories, like cards being fanned as a card sharp shuffled his deck:
Birds with beaks as long as my katana, great black wings, and an array of eyes that hung from their faces by dangling strands flew overhead.
The unclean water gave off noxious fumes as it boiled with salt and sulfur. Visceral fear knotte
d Sofia’s stomach as she worried she would find nothing to drink.
Once, she came upon a great field filled with billions of tiny flowers wrapped in thorn-like nettles as long as her pinky. Nightmarish monstrosities like alien jellyfish floated in the air as long, barbed tendrils dangled beneath them.
Shrines had been scattered throughout the warped jungle, small temples crafted from stone and fragrant wood. Universally, corpses had been left there, bound hand and foot to gigantic rocks. The postures left no doubt they’d been alive and left to die.
Many pyramids studded the jungle cavern, not just the one. Delacruz had studied history at UACM and had developed a theory: the constructions’ origins were definitely Mesoamerican. While researching these—
41
Everything around me burst with a sudden, rumbling blast. I felt it in my bones before I heard it. The walls shook, and I fell to the floor.
“That seems bad.” I muttered as I stood.
A second thunderous explosion rocked the bunker with the tearing of metal accompanied by cries of pain far closer than I thought they should be.
Delacruz? I forgot all about the packet. Tell me we’re still good.
Only silence greeted my query.
“Dammit!”
I drew my disruptor and crept around the corner, peering down the dim hallway.
It sprouted off into a T approximately fifteen meters ahead. Detritus lay all across the left branch, and one large steel beam had broken through from above to block the way. Clouds of dust billowed in the hall, though it had started to settle.
I triggered my optics along with the Adept. I felt a little naked only having one packet, but I supposed it had to do.
With my weapon in front of me, I inched down the hallway.
Advancing. I had no way of knowing if Delacruz could hear me or not, but if so, I needed to keep her updated. I cannot hear you. I assume you are either unconscious or tech adrift. I will update you as I can.
