“It’s in a human’s nature to want to believe their world is orderly. Neat. That everything will work out,” Indali said. “Even I want everything to work out. Just last year I was a federal-level convict, no one to bear me, barely making ends meet, and without any prospects in my life.
“Now I’m on the fast track to join the Fed, I have a spotless record, I’ve passed all my PID qualifications that I took simply for the sake of having them, I have more than enough money to be saving some now, and I have a Bearer who cares for me.”
“It isn’t going to work out though, is it?” Gus said, staring down at all the people below him. After everything he’d seen of the council, what their plans were, and how far they went to get things done, he doubted very much they’d attack during the debate.
No. They’ll put a bomb in her car, or her hotel. Maybe hit her damn car with a missile strike from an attack helicopter they bought from a military base.
That’d be something they’d do, I bet.
Attack at the debate, though? That’s just stupid.
“I think it will work out. At least… for us,” Indali said. “In fact, I suggested to Mel that perhaps we should consider moving off this plane. After hearing that her family isn’t from this one, the question becomes why do we remain here? I’m sure there’s another plane out there that would be just as interesting to live on. I find my reasoning for joining the Fed has become entirely moot.”
Huh… that’s… not a terrible idea.
Just pack everyone up and head out.
“Oh, and thank you for pulling me apart last night,” Indali said. “I really appreciate you taking my grips off and cleaning my insides out.”
Gus laughed and shook his head, looking up at the sky above them.
“Okay, let’s just get this out in the open. I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me or you’re just saying this shit and mean nothing by it,” Gus said. “Do you have any idea how sexually provocative half the shit you say is?”
“Yes. I do. What about it?” Indali asked.
“I… wait, what? What do you mean, what about it?” Gus asked.
“Is there a problem? I like the way you handle me. It pleases me. I love your caress and when you pull my trigger,” Indali said, her tone becoming something else altogether. “You’re my Bearer. I wish you’d take me to bed.”
“See? That right there. That’s a great example. Do you mean you want me to take your material body to bed or have sex with you?” Gus said. “Because I swear, I can’t tell what you mean and—”
“Sex with me, and take my material body to bed at the same time, but only after pulling every screw out of me and leaving me completely disassembled on your desk and taking my projection to bed. After that, you can put me back together and take me to bed. I want to sleep next to you, and in your hand. Maybe under your pillow,” Indali said. “You’re my Bearer.”
“Yeah… okay. Yeah. I get that. But what is that? Is that some sort of fated mystical mumbo-jumbo or what?” Gus asked, ignoring the sex and bed part entirely.
“No. It’s just… we fit,” Indali said. “I’ve had others shoot me, and you’ve held other weapons before, but you and I fit. You’re my Bearer. I’m your weapon.”
“You’re an idiot,” Gus said suddenly.
Indali laughed at him, her voice echoing beautifully between their minds.
“I’m of limited intelligence, I admit. I’m not Serafina. But we both know how we feel about one another,” Indali said. “I listen to your thoughts as often as you listen to mine now.”
Thinking about that, Gus realized that Indali did sometimes respond to the thoughts Gus was having. He’d probably taken to projecting them at her, since they were almost always linked mentally.
“Will you clean my barrel tonight? I want you to really stuff something in there and fill me up. Then grind it all around and pull out when you’re done,” Indali said.
“You’re so fucking dumb. You’re worse than Mel,” Gus said.
“Do it,” Indali said, laughing. “Do what I’m telling you because I’m your weapon.”
“Fine. Fine. I’ll clean out your barrel. You’re so damn pushy,” Gus grumbled.
There was a soft vibration in Gus’s pocket.
Huh?
Reaching down, he pulled out his phone and looked at the screen.
It was Serafina.
Tapping the accept button, Gus lifted the phone up to his ear.
“Hey Sera, what’s up?” Gus asked.
“I… Sera?” Serafina said. “Oh. I’ve been given a nickname. Like Mel, Ness, and Trish. Good. Good! Yes, this is Sera.”
Gus rolled his eyes but grinned at that.
“Yeah. What’s up, Sera?” he said again.
“I cracked that T2 program,” Serafina said. “I had to put more of myself into it than I wanted, but I was able to finally figure it out.”
“Oh,” Gus said. He’d entirely forgotten about the T2 program he’d sent over to Michael. The last he’d had anything to do with it was giving Serafina the thumb drive. “Alright. Anything interesting?”
“Somewhat,” Serafina said. “It’s definitely a guided backdoor hack. It allows remote access into anything it’s bolted onto through an admin function. It takes a while to get to that point. Several updates and upgrades. Each one moving it closer and closer to its goal. Probably why it never triggered anything for anyone. Right up until it was beyond the point where it could be monitored correctly anymore.”
“In other words… it’s literally a Trojan horse virus,” Gus said.
“More than that. It’s more like a computer recreation of HIV. Each time it gets updated or upgraded, it gets deeper and deeper,” Serafina said. “There’s no way to get it out once it gets in. You’d have to delete the entire system.”
“Delightful,” Gus said, shifting his weight around. “What exactly does that mean for us?”
“Nothing, except that I can tell you right now this is far worse than we thought,” Serafina said.
“Err… why?” Gus asked, his brows coming down.
“I’m currently surfing through every client that has this backdoor software,” Serafina said. Now that Gus put a thought to it, Serafina sounded a little odd. As if she wasn’t entirely paying attention to the conversation. “I can literally go through every computer, system, or server that has this installed. On top of that, quite a number of the infected drives have been stored on a cloud owned by whoever did this.”
“Right… in other words… in other words, we’re so far behind because they’re already well aware of everything that’s happening, almost as it happens,” Gus said. “And on top of that… they probably have all the data we lost in the bombings.”
“That’s right. Almost every single branch of the military is infected,” Serafina said. “As is a good portion of the government. It seems it was approved by some committee to oversee campaign merchandise. It replicated its way upward from there.”
“That’s… that’s just great,” Gus said, sighing. He hung his head and closed his eyes. From what he was hearing, it literally sounded like a really bad data purge was coming. A whole lot of systems were going to need to be scrapped and reset. “Any chance of them noticing you in there? You’re not risking yourself, are you?”
“Notice me? No. Risking myself, a little. I have more of myself in the system than I want right now, but I wouldn’t die if I were cut off, if that’s what you’re asking,” Serafina said.
“I mean… kinda? We’ll have to talk more about what exactly you are, Sera, because that’s a question I’d like answered,” Gus said. “For now, maybe you should just pull out. No reason for you to be looking around unless there’s something you’re looking for.”
“Well, that’s the weird part. At first I wasn’t looking for anything,” Serafina said. “Then I found a few solitary computers that were clearly infected. Which felt odd.”
“Computers,” Gus said, feeling very nervous about that. “
As in… singular users?”
“That’s right,” Serafina said. “One is your laptop. Though the IT department has locked it down, and there’s nothing on it. I think it’s likely they’ll discover the extent of the program, but it’ll take some time.”
“That’s good at least,” Gus said with a huff.
“There are other computers here, though. A few of them seem odd to me,” Serafina said. “One seems to be Patrick’s.”
“Patrick. Shooter Patrick?” Gus asked.
“Yes. His computer was infected. Though it appears only half of his drive was pulled into the cloud. Perhaps he stopped letting his computer connect to the internet. That would be my guess, since it looks like there were several attempts to clean the infection,” Serafina said. “But if he simply stopped getting on the net, that would have solved the problem. It would need an active connection to update, after all.”
That… doesn’t make sense at all. Why would they infect their own agent’s computer?
Gus’s mind slowly came to a grinding stop. There wasn’t a single thought moving around in his head.
“So I started following how that infection started. You can kind of track it back, since each infection is unique,” Serafina was saying. Even as Gus began to feel absolutely sick to his stomach. “It was initiated by someone loading it via USB drive. About a month ago and clearly without his permission.”
Licking his lips, Gus couldn’t bring himself to say anything. His mind was chewing at an idea he didn’t want to consider, but it was slowly coming to the surface regardless.
“Tracking it back a few times, it seems the individual responsible for infecting the computer infected a number of others as well,” Serafina said, her tone dull and without much inflection. “Most notably, the convenience store employees, the SA coven leader you saved, Dunyasha, and a number of people I don’t recognize.”
“In… in other words,” Gus said, unable to stop himself. “It looks more like… like Patrick wasn’t actually working with the council. He was someone they were watching.”
“That’s my belief,” Serafina said. “Given what they pulled from his computer, he had a number of small bits of evidence that gave him a bit of a ‘crack-pot’ status when he began posting his theories. Theories that there were others in charge of everything. This… council… as you call it.”
And that means if he wasn’t working for the council, the council was actively trying to stop him.
The woman I chased down wasn’t trying to do work at that home. She was trying to close up loose ends. That’s why she ripped out part of the computer. It was probably the hard drive, and they wanted to see what was on it.
And prevent us from seeing it.
“With that in mind, I hacked the congresswoman’s computer,” Serafina said.
“You did what!?” Gus asked.
“I hacked Sarah Newbin’s computer,” she repeated. “Her security was quite good, but I’m afraid it wasn’t up to the task of keeping me out.”
“And when did you do this?” Gus asked.
“A minute before I called you,” she said. “And I called you because I believe we have this backwards. Sarah Newbin was purchased by the council. Patrick was attempting to have her removed because he believed she’d be announcing to the world that the Para world lives.
“The man he killed in that home was revealed to have been a Humanity First agent that had infiltrated the church. The church believes the human world would not do very well in an all-out war with the Para world. That it would be irrevocably damaged and there would be no turning back. We had it all backwards.”
“That was all… all on Newbin’s computer?” Gus asked.
“It was information shared with her by email correspondence via her handler,” Serafina said. “There’s no name listed, and the email address goes to more private networks and proxy sites than I want to risk putting myself through.”
“Okay,” Gus said. He’d had the same thought himself. Just minus all the details.
The gist of it was that Sarah Newbin worked for the council, but she also controlled the Fed for the most part.
I’m on the wrong side.
We’re all on the wrong side.
The church is attempting to stop the worlds colliding, Newbin is working for the council, and the Fed is… the Fed is being used.
Closing his eyes, Gus put his face in one hand, holding the phone to his ear with the other.
“Are you there, Gus?” Serafina asked on the other end of the line.
“Yep. Yep, I’m here, Sera. I just… don’t know what to do,” he said.
“I’m currently in the process of covering my tracks and deleting all logs made of my movements,” Serafina said. “In five minutes, I’ll be clear of it and no one will know I was here. After that I’m going to go back to the house and sleep in my room.”
She was explaining herself exactly as he expected she would.
It was no wonder she and Indali got along so well.
“Right, okay,” Gus said. “See ya.”
Gus tapped the disconnect button and pushed his phone into his pocket.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Indali said. “It’s… it’s all backwards. Backwards and wrong. We can’t even stop it, can we?”
“If we could stop it, I don’t really know how. Mark is in too deep. So’s Fin,” Gus said. “Their power is given to them by the person they’d have to go against. Which means they’d simply be removed the moment they opened their mouths.”
“And after this… it’s very unlikely that Newbin will have any concerns,” Indali said. “I imagine the council will step up her security after tonight. I doubt the church will be able to kill her.”
“And this is the last public debate; she’ll be going underground for the most part after this. As they buy up votes and districts, and campaign madly,” Gus said, a strange and ugly thought popping into his mind. “Which means if we’re going to kill her, we need to kill her tonight.”
“I… yes. If we’re going to kill her, it must be tonight,” Indali said. “And we can’t tell anyone, and we have to do it without being caught.”
“Yeah,” Gus said. Turning around, he looked toward the roof he’d been guarding. There were at least twenty people up here with him, all working to the same goal he’d been working to a few minutes ago. “So let’s get started.”
Fading into his Boogieman self, Gus slid out of view and vanished into the dark of the night.
No one noticed he was missing.
Chapter 35 - The Finale
Taking in a shuddering breath, Gus began to move forward. Smoothly, with as little sound as he could make, he made his way ever inward.
His goal was simple, his plan nonexistent, and he had only his abilities and Indali as available resources.
It was very likely he’d fuck this up. Fuck it up and end up on a one-way trip to prison.
And that’s if they don’t figure out what I am and kill me outright. Which could very well happen if I’m caught.
Throw me into a trunk and drive the car off a bridge into a lake.
Ghosting by several Paras that looked to be on loan from the military, Gus kept moving. He needed to get off the roof, get inside, and get into a position where he could fire on Newbin.
He’d also only get one chance at this. And maybe a chance to get away.
If he was lucky.
“I’ll disguise the round. Overcharge it so it becomes misshapen,” Indali said. “Just remember to extract the casing and replace it. If you have to toss it, toss it very far. Far enough that it wouldn’t be found quickly or easily. The street might do well, since it’s likely a car would flatten or destroy it.”
Good… good point.
“I’ll make sure to take care of it,” Gus said.
When he reached the rooftop exit door, he simply opened it enough to slip inside. There were no cameras up here, and enough noise to disguise the door opening.
If anyone saw
it, that was a problem he’d have to deal with at another time.
There simply wasn’t any time to wait. The debate had been ongoing for a little while now. If Gus hesitated at all, he might lose this chance.
And he was damned-near positive this really would be the only chance to make this happen before she went into hiding.
Serafina was right, of course. The council wouldn’t risk Newbin after this. It was likely they hadn’t even wanted to involve the Fed with the security on this one.
But knowing Fin, she’d probably pushed a bit as a way to gain political favor, and Newbin had no way to refuse. It would have looked weird if she had.
Walking down the stairs, Gus was forced to constantly refocus his thoughts. They kept wanting to run away in different directions. If everything went down in the worst possible way, his mother, sister, and father would be exposed.
Reaching to his collar, he pushed his earpiece back into place. His microphone was muted physically, by his own choice. He’d said nothing into it all night, and that had been expected of him.
Once he got it back into place, he heard nothing at all. No one was talking.
“You know, getting into position and pulling the trigger will actually be the easiest part of this,” Gus said. “I’m more afraid of them having some interesting hunters waiting in the wings. Just in case something does happen.”
“Hunters like you?” Indali asked.
“Hunters like me,” Gus said, then stuffed his fear down. Stuffed it down deep. Where even sunlight wouldn’t find it.
What he couldn’t shake off, he bled off into horror-magic that did nothing but drain fear away and feed it into the building and its inhabitants.
Everywhere and all around him in a large expanse.
A Boogieman could find him by his fear, if he wasn’t careful. His pushing it into the very surroundings would make it that much harder for them to find Gus. To trail him out of the broadcast stage.
And we need to do all we can to throw them off.
“I’ll not miss,” Indali said.
When he reached the ground floor, Gus moved to the door and pushed it open gently.
Swing Shift: Book 2 Page 37
