Project Phoenix

by D. C. Fergerson

  “We need to eat,” Giovanna said. She motioned a circle with her hand. “Go on, I’m listening.”

  “The meeting with Lucius was to inform me to give him the data in 24 hours or he turns me over to NSA,” she said. “He knew about Giovanna, but he didn’t know where I went. That made him angry, I could tell.”

  “What did he miss?” Gideon asked.

  Cora sighed. She took a deep breath for what was sure to be a long story. “With everything that happened in the warehouse, this is now the timeline as I’m aware of it. Three years ago, Doctor Rory Toller turned informant on Tetriarch and reached out to the NSA. He also reached out to Children of Earth. He told both sides about all of the museum donations buying Lucius access all over the world. He was tagging certain items to be tracked wherever they were in the world. Collecting all of this information and sorting it was called Project Ashes.”

  “And we have no idea what Project Ashes is,” Johnny said.

  Gideon raised a finger. “That’s not entirely true. A number of the AI residing in that file are sorting the museum records. What I can’t determine is the sorting criteria. It’s factoring against over six hundred characteristics through literally millions of items, and the list grows every time another museum is added.”

  Giovanna came to the table with a wooden serving tray. On it, a silver kettle steamed away alongside six instant ramen cups.

  “No complaints, it’s what we have,” she said. She set it down and crossed her arms. “I don’t cook.”

  Cora shrugged. “Good enough for me.”

  “My favorite, actually,” Gideon said. “We have soy flavor?”

  Everyone reached for a cup and continued the conversation as they prepared to eat their first meal in quite some time.

  “Those guys at the warehouse described the project as ‘a new arms race’ involving magical items lost to history,” Cora said. “That might factor into the sorting criteria. Giovanna, have you ever seen or heard of a magical item?”

  Giovanna shook her head. “No. Nothing of the sort, actually. Keep in mind, though, the Illuminati have only been trickling out historical records of the previous Awakening for about a decade now. There’s so much we don’t know.”

  Johnny waved off the notion in disgust. “Yeah, telling us only what they want us to know, and when they want us to know it.”

  “Not to defend the Illuminati’s actions,” Gideon replied, raising his arms in mock surrender, “but had it not been for those small bursts of information in the beginning, there would have been worldwide riots. I mean, people waking up one morning two feet shorter? Pointed ears? Suddenly able to cast magic? We’re lucky humanity survived it.”

  Johnny grumbled and waved him off. “I don’t buy that for a second. And out of your mouth, of all people. You deal in information, don’t you?”

  “That’s a tough case, though,” Gideon fidgeted in his chair. “I mean, not to sound arrogant, but not everyone is intelligent enough to take world-shaking revelations. The truth can be scary if it goes against our perception of the world.”

  Giovanna nodded in agreement. “He’s right, Johnny. Remember when Lucius revealed himself? If he didn’t warn us about the rest of his brood before they woke up, we’d have all thought they were taking over.”

  Cora poured hot water into her cup and let it soak into her noodles. Gideon and Cora were too young to know what The Awakening was like, but Johnny and Giovanna certainly were not. It made her wonder about her father, and what transitioning from an American with some Native in his DNA to a full-blooded shaman must have been like. She imagined it jarring, but filling him with new purpose. As she understood it, he had become such a revered elder amongst the Sioux that he was tasked with aiding to broker the cease-fire that ended the Second Civil War. For all she knew about it, it may have been what got him killed.

  Cora stirred her cup. “Children of Earth were told to come here by Toller. Why not just give them the data outright?”

  “We were doing the dirty work,” Giovanna replied. “Children of Earth don’t have the connections, assets, or financing to pull off what we did in the past year. So they sat back and let us do it for them.”

  “I don’t get it,” Johnny said, shaking his head. “Toller puts you on a wild goose chase to find this data after a year, and he’s the one that can unlock it? Why didn’t he just give it to you guys to begin with?”

  “The encryption was locked to senior-level members of Tetriarch,” Giovanna replied. “When Richard and I met with him, he was just as anxious to find out what Project Ashes was as we were.”

  “But Children of Earth already knew about the magical items ahead of us,” Cora replied, raising a finger. It felt like the answer was on the tip of her tongue. She shook it off. “There’s something to his role in this we’re not getting. He gave Children of Earth more information than he gave us.”

  “That reminds me,” Gideon replied, swiping through holographic screens on his rig. He located one and spun it to face the rest of the table. A grid of official-looking documents and legal paperwork filled the screen. “Eichmann Industrial is a front. It only existed to funnel money to Children of Earth. The name on all the paperwork? Well, another front, but the short version is that it led back to Rory Toller. So that story checks out.”

  Johnny sat back in his chair and sighed. “So this Toller guy funds Children of Earth, they come here and buy a small army. He thinks they’ll do a snatch and grab during the transfer from Richard to the NSA.”

  “Right,” Cora nodded. She blew the steam off her noodle cup and sipped the broth. “But Vulkan knew they were in over their head on that one. The NSA would catch them in the act, and the UN would revoke their PMC charter to operate. So they wanted to stage it like a robbery and kill the only tie to the data that could expose them.”

  Silence followed. Richard and twenty-two other people died to cover for Vulkan Group’s shortcomings. Thanks to Giovanna and Cora surviving, their whole plan was all for naught. Cora shivered at the sheer stupidity that took her mentor from her.

  “If we were to take the file, the rig, the photos, and point the NSA at that warehouse where you left those bodies, it’s over,” Gideon said. “We have a mountain of evidence that clears you with them.”

  Cora shook her head. “I know, but Lucius was so confident. He said the UNS would throw me in a hole sooner than disrupt German relations. He said that, knowing that we targeted him.”

  “Does he have the leverage for that?” Johnny asked, turning to Giovanna.

  Giovanna shrugged and sipped from her cup. She mulled it over, saying, “No offense to you all, but the UNS is basically a third-world country with nukes, at this point. It couldn’t survive its own culture war after The Awakening. The only reason they don’t reunite the place by force is that they can’t. Sure, they do clandestine hits around the world here and there, show their strength and assert their place at the UN table, but if they crossed the Demilitarized Zone or the Mason-Dixon line, they’d be wiped back to the Stone Age by their own former citizens.”

  Cora threw up her hands in defeat. “So, there it is. If I go to the agency and clear my name, then the UNS throws me under the bus to save face with Lucius. I give the data back to Lucius, the UNS is blind to this arms race he’s starting.”

  “It’d be helpful if we knew what Lucius’ endgame was,” Johnny said, glaring at Gideon.

  “It’s been eight hours, man,” Gideon replied. “This data took Tetriarch’s best years to collect and create AI to sort. Teams of dozens. What do you expect out of me? If I had a week, maybe.”

  “I’ve got...” Cora checked her wrist computer. “Twenty-one hours and fifteen minutes. It’s not your fault, Gideon. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  Johnny turned in his seat and faced Cora. He folded his hands across his knees, a sure sign he was about to get serious.

  “You sound like you’re already giving up,” he said. He shook his head. “Hell no. Not on my wat
ch. I can hide you.”

  “In less than thirty years, Lucius became the most powerful and influential being on the planet. He’s not even human, Johnny,” Cora replied. “I can’t spend my life always looking over my shoulder. If he wants me, he will find me.”

  Johnny turned to Giovanna, his face desperate. “Gia, she’s wrong, right? I mean, there has to be another play.”

  Giovanna raised a finger. “You need Director Thompson.”

  Johnny and Cora stared at her, confused. Neither one of them recognized the name. Gideon started typing into his rig.

  “His official title is Diplomatic Services, but he’s the Director of Operations for NSA in Berlin,” Giovanna explained. “The handler taking the data off Richard would have made it to him, eventually. If the UNS had already put a plan in place higher-up to hit these Project Ashes satellite facilities, then he would be the point-man with the President’s ear.”

  Gideon read off his screen. “Rick Thompson, Navy, retired. Wow, his jacket reads like a joke with no punchline. He was in the Pacific campaign against the Native Americans during the Second Civil War. When the USS Constellation was sunk, he was redeployed to the Gulf of Mexico, just in time for the Florida Uprising in 2064. Received his own command and took control of the USS Fletcher in 2065. He promptly lost that ship in the Battle of Charleston, where he was one of sixteen survivors. The guy has a history of following every bad order he’s been given.”

  Cora raised an eyebrow to Giovanna. “How would he help at all?”

  “If you can show him the data and explain the compromise Lucius has over you, he sways the President into going ahead with the strike,” Giovanna said. “It’s a longshot. He’s holed up in the UNS Embassy. You’d be arrested on sight at the front door and the decision would be made what to do with you before you had a chance to speak to a single person.”

  Johnny shook his head in disbelief. “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting she breaks into the American Embassy to confront the Director of Operations in his own office? That’s suicide.”

  The idea was bold, but also insane. Cora couldn’t possibly prepare for such a feat with the time they had left. Like it or not, Johnny was right. It was suicide to try.

  “We spent weeks planning those museum hits,” Cora said, incredulous. “They don’t have a tenth of the security the UNS Embassy would have.”

  Giovanna gave a flippant wave. “Most of that security is inside. One guard at the door, three on patrol. It’s still the weekend, so they’ll be closed to anything but emergencies.”

  Cora couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She made it sound simple. She turned to Johnny and Gideon. Gideon typed away furiously, throwing screens aside. Johnny looked as surprised and confused as she was.

  “Just a little bit of government security?” Johnny mocked. “Why the hell are you so calm about this?”

  Giovanna sat up and leaned forward on the table, her eyes deadly serious. “You think Cora is in a mess? The project that made me who I am is barred by the UN Machine Ethics Code, and about six places in the Cybernetics Accords. Italy wouldn’t just disavow me if I’m turned in, the UNS would put me in a lab somewhere no one could ever find and experiment on me for the rest of my short life, Johnny! We make this play, or we give in to the dragon. That’s all we have, I promise you.”

  Giovanna stared right into Johnny’s eyes, but neither one wavered. Tension filled the room.

  “Awkward,” Gideon said, his face still buried in his screens. “It’s like mom and dad are fighting at the dinner table. I think I have a solution, though you’re not going to like hearing it, Johnny.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Johnny said, eyes still fixed on the fiery Italian.

  Gideon used both hands to slide his screens toward the dining room wall. With a push, they projected from his rig onto the wall. Cora’s eyes tried to focus on all the pictures he put up, but everything blurred. Her focus was gone, and her brain felt like clay. She rubbed her temples and tried to get back in the briefing.

  “Giovanna might be right,” Gideon said, standing up and walking to the wall behind Giovanna. He stood beside an overhead map of Berlin. “The building itself sits in the Embassy Square on Pariser Platz. There are British, French, and Native American Union embassies surrounding it. Any single one of them would make for a good start point. Get to the roof, and move to the adjacent UNS Embassy. Come in from the top. There are drones there, but I could handle those.”

  “Handle?” Cora said, pulling her head up. “You’re an agent now?”

  Gideon took a breath and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not an agent. But I’m built like one. You’re not going to get another guy like me in the time you have left. My rig is second to none in Synaptic Latency. If I think it, my rig does it. I have two SynTech eyes, a wet drive, and, to speed up motor function, I had a CNS bridge installed in my spine.”

  Cora held up her hands and shook her head. “I have no idea what half of that meant.”

  Johnny leaned into Cora and pulled her dagger from the sheath on her hip. He pulled his hand up and snapped it at Gideon, throwing the blade with everything he had across the short distance of the table. Before Cora could realize what he had done, Gideon was pitched to the side, his arm extended. He held Cora’s dagger by the blade with two fingers, stopping it inches from where it should have been buried into his chest. Gideon stood erect, stepped forward, and offered Cora her knife back.

  “Creepy,” she said. “So, you just elected to have them carve you up and replace you piece by piece?”

  “Arms, legs, hips,” Gideon replied. He smiled with pride. “I’m an enthusiast.”

  “I thought the term was masochist,” Cora said with a raise of her brow. Her clouded mind flooded with pictures of arms and legs and spines exposed and covered in insect-like machines. It made her stomach turn.

  Gideon continued. “Look, I know you need me. You know you need me. I also want to be as far away as possible, so you’ll find me in my van down here,” he said, pausing to point at the map. “The memorial one block south, a nice public area where I can be close enough to help, but far enough you’ll need to jog to the rendezvous.”

  “Okay, so I come in from above,” Cora said, gears turning in her head. “The interior is still going to have security.”

  “They’ll be busy,” Giovanna replied. “Johnny is going to shoot me.”

  “I’m what?” Johnny shouted. “What dumb idea are you coming up with?”

  “You’re going to take a wounding shot on me just as I reach the embassy front door,” Giovanna said. She raised a preemptive hand to silence Johnny’s response. “There’s a medical facility on the second basement floor. I know because I’ve been there. They’ll do an ID scan, realize I’m a UNS citizen, and bring me inside. Gideon is on the drones, so no one will be able to get a track on the sniper. You move to the rendezvous. There’s limited security, and this guard is going to call an all-hands emergency. Cora slides in, makes the meeting.”

  “How the hell are you getting out of there?” Cora replied.

  “I can be anyone,” she said. She patted Cora’s hand like she was dumb for asking. “I’ll beat you to the rendezvous, patatina. Count on it.”

  Cora blew out a breath and stared at Gideon’s empty chair. They were all shooting from the hip. Winging it with the stakes this high was dangerous, foolish, and possibly deadly. Most of all, it may not work. If this director didn’t believe her or if Lucius had already gotten to him, he could call for security. He could have her arrested right there. She couldn’t be sure if the exhaustion had finally started rotting her brain, as she was still entertaining the plan. Giving the data to Lucius would mean Richard died for nothing.

  “Look, this could work,” Gideon said. “I can come up with the scenario, it’d only take me a few hours to do some analysis and put things in place. We go at night, when the foot traffic is lowest. I can devote the rest of the time between then and now crunching that data and see if I can turn out
something.”

  Cora sighed. “That’s giving up a lot of hours. What do we do until then?”

  “Sleep,” Giovanna said. “For the love of God, sleep, Cora. You need to be at your best.”

  Cora shook her head. Sleep sounded impossible, even as her body begged for it. Putting this much stock into Giovanna’s plan and waiting that long on Gideon pushed this into make-or-break. If they failed, giving Lucius the data back was the only thing keeping her from life in prison.

  Johnny groaned, running his fingers through his slicked black hair. “I gave up this black ops shit a long time ago. I liked being a cleaner, you know? Good way to spend my golden years.”

  Cora put her hand on Johnny’s and patted him. “You don’t have to do this, Johnny. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Johnny said. He adjusted his seat, giving Cora his full attention. “Let me tell you a story real quick. Richard and I were doing a job on the back end of the war, down in New Orleans. This drug cartel was running guns to the Confederacy. We got pinned down at this plantation. Place was built like a fortress, just walls of guns. Richard calls for evac, but it’s too hot to land a chopper. So I set up my rifle, trying to take out the anti-aircraft operators. They come down on my position fast, like they were waiting for me. Richard comes out of nowhere, drawing their fire. That man took bullets for me that day.”

  Cora opened her mouth, awed. “Wow. He never told me that story.”

  “Richard didn’t like to tell any story that made him sound like the hero that he was,” Johnny replied with a bittersweet smile. “He was my brother after that. He was family. Knowing how much he cared about you, that makes you like a goddaughter to me.”

  Cora cocked her head, tears welling in her tired eyes. She reached from her seat and hugged him.

  “So, let’s cut the nonsense,” Johnny replied, hugging her back. “You need me, I’m there. All I have to do is wing Gia and go back to the van, right?”