Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets

by Jeffrey Cook

  “It's a stretch, but maybe. We can check. So how're we going to get Beth's attention without waking her parents up?”

  “We just go around back. It's Friday night. She'll have snuck out of bed to get on the computer by now.”

  “You're sure?”

  “Completely. I've babysat a few times on Friday nights after Scott got old enough to be dragged along to events full of snobby rich people his parents thought he should know. That's always where I found her.”

  Moving around the house and looking through the back window into Scott's main computer room revealed the light off, but the tell-tale glow of the computer screen. Miko tapped on the window, until a small face peeked through it. A few moments of silent gestures got the idea across, and Beth went to the back door and unlocked it. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “Shhh,” Miko replied. “We need to get to Scott's game accounts, can you get us logged in?”

  “Sure, but why?”

  “Top secret, Munchkin. But if you do, I'll loan you my vid player for the whole weekend, and set it up with any series you want.”

  “Leverage?” Beth asked. “Not just cartoons?”

  “You don't want to watch cartoons?” Mina interjected.

  “Cartoons are for little kids ... and Miko,” Beth responded, going with her theme of being too old for all sorts of things, while quickly catching herself before Miko could object. “Besides, Eliot is on Leverage. Pow, pow!” she added, punching the air.

  Mina was lost, but not surprised that Miko grinned. “Okay, Leverage. All the seasons.” She held up the vid player, starting to work with it. “I'm throwing in A-Team too, which is mostly the same, with more Eliot ... except they call that guy B.A. ... and I think it a couple years earlier.” A pause in her plugging in chips from her collection. “But only after you get us in.”

  “Sure!” Beth said, then hushed her voice, glancing towards the hallway. With no sign of stirring, she ran to the computer room followed by Mina and Miko. Logging out of her game and into Scott's took only a few moments. As soon as they were in, Miko took the computer chair, getting quick lessons from Beth on how to navigate around between Scott's various characters and accounts, and determining which were his and which were Beth's. As soon as she felt they had enough, she handed the vid player over to Beth, who quietly headed into the next room, the Szach kids' main TV room, with its own entertainment system and big screen, so they could watch their shows or play video games while their parents used the main living room.

  Miko logged into the first character, found nothing there, and moved on. By the third, they had found an apparent main character, or at least one who got a lot of in-game mail. They started going through it, looking for anything out of the ordinary. By the dates on the unread mail, they could be fairly certain Scott hadn't logged into that character. They left much of it unread if it seemed to have recognizable game-related titles so they had some kind of evidence chain, while looking through anything that stood out.

  “Still nothing,” Miko responded after a few. “But at least now we can be pretty certain he hasn't logged in.”

  “Not til we check all of his characters,” Mina reminded her. “I'd like to just leave it at that, but I need to be thorough on this. While we're on the computer, when we finish this, we should take a look at the security film too. I could play it on something smaller, but you traded away your vid player, and this screen will let us see more detail,” she added.

  “Good idea,” Miko agreed. “We'll do that next. I don't think we're going to find much as far as work stuff here, but we'll keep checking.”

  They went through the rest of the characters on the account, confirming all of the dates as best they could. Near as they could tell, only Beth's had been logged in at all recently. Not all of the others could be confirmed for certain, but enough could to leave a definite pattern. Nothing regarding work commentary, but much as Miko tended towards optimism, Mina hadn't expected anything to be there. Scott was too paranoid about his own security, and while some of the people online wouldn't know who he was in real life, enough would that any information leaks could get back to him. At best, she figured he'd probably vented about his boss being a jerk a few times in whatever chat they were using. While she was sure Beth knew some of Scott's friends online, she didn't want to start bringing anyone else in on any part of the investigation, witting or not.

  She, and probably Miko, were in enough trouble already, and while she hadn't had much choice on Miko getting involved, she otherwise wanted to at least try to be responsible about this after the trouble she'd already gotten into over the two previous incidents. If her boss was somehow involved in some sort of problems, or was trying to make the case go away, that was one thing, but she had nothing but suspicions so far.

  After they went through the characters, with Mina taking notes on character names and last confirmed log-in dates, as well as records of previous game activity, as much as they were able to determine that with their limited experience with the game systems, they logged out and put the security vid chip into the computer.

  The first thing that really surprised Mina was that the intruder had apparently just walked in from the street. He seemed to have some idea of where the cameras were, and kept his face hidden. Mina couldn't determine anything more about him from the vid that she hadn't already known, but suspected that people had seen him on the street. Presumably that meant the police would have determined his identity, which also meant she might be able to get some information from Agent Park or Hall soon enough.

  Agent Park, at least, she still felt like she could trust. She'd need his kind of resources to get much further, but felt he would at least believe her about the account. Following that trail of thought, she felt her first spark of optimism that maybe things could be worked out. She'd taken his advice, and followed her gut. She had made some mistakes, sure, but she was pretty sure that the cop would also want the evidence in the case, and could follow up on some of it ... and maybe give her some tips on dealing with the Director. Maybe he'd even be willing to go with her to speak to the Director, as she was pretty sure that this was going to be another of those situations that merited an in-person briefing. She wasn't looking forward to it, but if they were able to clear Scott, and make some real progress in finding both him and his kidnappers, then she figured that whatever happened to her would ultimately be worth it.

  As they were getting to the part of the vid near Mina's apartment, the man had pulled on the ski mask fully. She was able to see bits of the fight through a hallway security camera past the open door. With a little bit of manipulation of the vid, she was able to get a few good looks at the violent exchanges between Miko and the other man.

  As she messed with the camera angles, the girls heard a squeak from the doorway. “That's so cool!” Beth exclaimed. “That icon really looks like Miko ... I knew they were getting better at customizations in some of the new games, but hadn't seen anything like that. Can I make a character?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Games?” Mina started, then looked to Miko, and quickly nodded. “Oh yeah, video game.”

  “We can't really tell anyone we have this,” Miko quickly added. “It’s a beta test, which is why we needed Scott's system. Our computers wouldn't play it right. No room for any other characters now, since it’s just a beta,” she replied apologetically.

  “That's okay. How do you play? What's it going to be called? And are they going to improve the ninja's A.I. before release? Because, I mean, he's fast, but that's a pretty terrible intelligence. Some of my old little-kid games were better.”

  “What do you mean?” Mina asked. “And how long have you been watching?”

  “Maybe a minute or so,” Beth admitted. “I'm sorry. I had to see what was so top secret.”

  “Okay, okay, but you can't tell anyone or ... or I'm going to replace all of your Leverage and A-Team with Rugrats for the weekend,” Miko threatened.

  Beth quickly grew w
ide-eyed and nodded. “Okay, I won't tell anyone.”

  “Okay, but what's wrong with the A.I.?” Mina repeated, getting back to that, suddenly curious.

  “Rewind it, I'll show you. Geez, you'd think they'd pick beta testers with more gaming experience. I mean, I guess the camera angles and stuff might make it hard anyway, and he's really fast ... but if the slower, stronger bad guys are this bad, it'll get too easy for real gamers.”

  As soon as the girls rewound the vid, Beth started pointing out bits of movement. “See, like that. He keeps just getting back into the same position. Every punch and kick is the same angle.” she explained. Slow motion going back and forth through the vid confirmed it. Every move did seem very simplistic, in this light, quick and impossible to deal with though it had seemed before.

  “See?” Beth said, proud that she was contributing something. “They totally need to start over. If your reflexes were better, or you ever played video games, you'd have figured this all out already.”

  Miko briefly looked insulted, but Mina laid a firm hand on her friend's shoulder before she was able to say anything. “Yeah, that's it. We're just not on a Szach level at video games,” Mina agreed quickly. “You're really helping out, but ...”

  “But you didn't sign the non-disclosure agreement, so we can't let you keep watching this,” Miko jumped in. “We'll write down your comments and stuff. Thanks, Munchkin.”

  “When it comes out, you'll have to tell me. I want to try it, so I can fight ninjas too,” Beth insisted, as she was heading back out the door. This time the girls closed it.

  There were a few quiet seconds of looking from one to the other, then Miko started watching the video in slow motion, assessing her movements and his responses. “She's right. This isn't a very good martial arts chip ... it's like he's reacting really fast, but doesn't know very many moves.”

  “Which is why you were kind of doing okay there for a while.”

  “But you weren't, and I saw you moving, Mina. You're faster than I am. Let me check something.”

  Mina nodded, and Miko stood up, moving to the center of the room. Miko went through half a dozen sparring moves, and Mina easily countered every one, with Miko seeming to be in slow motion, just like the first fight she'd been in.

  “Your chip is way better than his. Or ... way more sophisticated than his,” Miko finally concluded.

  “But he was still destroying me. I wasn't even close,” Mina said.

  “Which probably means that what his chip was really designed for was just dealing with someone with your chip,” Miko reasoned.

  “A simpler chip ... some of the same information ... but not nearly as complex. So ... someone who knew about how my chip worked could program in just a few days, maybe?”

  “Yeah, that's what I'm thinking,” Miko agreed. “And you remember the classes. Really simple, information-light chips have a lower chance of rejection. There's not as much to conflict with, as long as it's sort of suited.”

  “That would still take some time, though,” Mina reasoned. “Which means that pretty much since the kidnapping, someone has been working on an anti-Inquisition chip. They knew they'd have to deal with us, or figured it out pretty quickly. The programmers probably wouldn't have even thought about it.”

  “So it's someone who had to deal with the Inquisition before,” Miko responded.

  “Yeah,” Mina agreed. “Or maybe someone who already knew something about it.”

  “Your boss?” Miko asked.

  “Not convinced.” Mina replied, with a sigh. “But it's sounding just a tiny bit less crazy now, maybe.”

  * * * *

  The girls had left the Szachs' house, reminding Beth before they left that she was once again sworn to secrecy on threat of never getting to watch anything but little baby stuff again. They had only gotten a few blocks when Mina got a call. “The Director,” she explained, on seeing the number. “So, uhm ... stay quiet, I guess?”

  Miko nodded, making a zipped lips sign and pulling into a parking lot near a closed grocery to keep car noise out of the conversation. Mina answered the phone. “Yes, Ma'am?”

  “Miss Cortez, are you safe?” was the first question, to her surprise.

  “Yes, Ma'am. I left the apartment, but I'm safe for now. Trying to figure out where to go next. Should I report in, or ... go to a safe house?” she asked, while tasting aluminum, her chip helping to suggest the safehouse route.

  “Absolutely not. Turn off all means of locating you; don't just use our scrambler. I don't want to know where you are, but avoid the safehouses,” the Director answered, much to Mina's surprise.

  “Ma'am? Avoid the safe houses?”

  “You heard me. All of the agents in town have been targeted by someone that knew exactly where they'd be. Agents Park and Hall were found killed three hours ago, after not calling in. I found out about the break in at your apartment while dealing with that. I learned that you'd left the scene, and hoped you'd be able to keep yourself safe until I was able to get to a different location and find a non-Inquisition encryption code to call you from.”

  While Mina was sure that most of the explanation had some important information in it, she was only half listening from the point she heard about the deaths. “Wait, Ma'am ... Agents ... Park and Hall?”

  “Yes, Miss Cortez. Both of them were ambushed after getting a call from a location near them. Someone knew their route, their timing, and the sort of things they'd go in alone on without calling for backup, because it had cues their chips would read as Inquisition business.”

  “Do we know who?”

  “We don't know anything at this point. There was a trace being run at the police station on that license plate you got, but Agent Park was never able to relay the information.”

  “Wait ... so you ... were running the license plate?” Mina asked, a lot of conflicting information coming between her own brain, her chip, and what the Director was telling her.

  “Of course. It was an important lead, improperly gotten or not,” the Director assured her, her tone leaving Mina unable to entirely doubt her sincerity.

  “I thought ...”

  “That you were in trouble? Yes. You were, and eventually, are. And we will deal with that at an appropriate time. I don't send mixed messages. That I didn't ignore what information you got on their operatives does not change the fact that you put yourself in a great deal of danger and disobeyed a direct order. This is not encouraged, and may even have something to do with whoever this is upping the timetable on these attacks. We won't know until we find them.”

  Mina felt her initial response catch in her throat. Could it really be her fault that the other agents had been killed? She stumbled a few moments trying to find a suitable response before the Director cut off the attempts.

  “Whatever you do, do not follow any of your chipped programming regarding going to ground. We have to assume that our entire network is compromised. I'm following some of my own leads and looking into possibly getting some outside help, but I'm having to avoid my typical channels. I also have only limited time to do it, because with my cover identity, I can't disappear for very long. On the other hand, working at the FBI's offices also gives me a certain amount of safety and cover that other agents aren't always afforded.

  Gee, thanks, Mina thought. What she actually said was, “That makes sense. When can I expect to hear from you again, and what do I do in the mean time?”

  “I'll call once we get an entirely different encryption put in on my end so I can be sure no one is listening. Until then, do not call me; do not come to the office, and keep your head down. If you happen across anything useful, note it, but try to keep your distance.”

  “I understand, Ma'am,” Mina said. With that confirmed, the Director hung up. While Mina would have liked to get in a lot more questions, because relevant information, she felt, might help combat some of her rising panic-mixed-with-grief, she had to assume, from how abrupt the hanging up was, that it came before there
was too much risk of someone else gaining something useful from the conversation, if they were listening in or trying to trace it.

  “So, that was your boss, huh?” Miko asked.

  Mina nodded, tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat still, trying as she was to dispel it.

  Miko leaned over to give Mina a hug. “I'm sorry. You were close?”

  Mina took a deep breath before nodding. “Agent Park was a really nice guy. He was training me, and my last day with him was stupid and awkward. It was supposed to be better after, and now there's no after. And I didn't know Hall very well ... well, okay, I'd only known either of them since being chipped ... but I saw Agent Park almost every morning. I only saw Agent Hall the once, but ... he was really hot,” she finally managed, shoulders shaking a little again with the absurdity of that explanation right now.

  Miko hugged her again, then nodded. “Okay, so I know this is a bad time, but sooner or later, someone is going to notice a car in an empty parking lot. We need to go somewhere. There's enough room that we can sleep in the car, I guess ... or we can talk, or whatever you need. Just not here.”

  Mina nodded, trying to get back in her usual more analytical mind. Without the police records and trace, she had nothing to go on, and much as she was sure it was what the Director wanted, she couldn't bring herself to do absolutely nothing while Scott's kidnappers and her mentor's killers were still out there. She would just need to find a way to do something a little more quietly.

  “All right, so we need more information.”

  “Didn't she just tell you to lay low? Help is coming or something?”