Ciphers

by Matt Rogers

  The atmosphere bristled.

  She said, ‘Follow me.’

  Then she walked up the short flight of concrete steps to the tenement building’s lobby and opened the door.

  She ushered them into the dark.

  24

  Slater had no idea what to expect.

  They crossed a rundown lobby, then went four floors up a chipped and cracked staircase in pitch darkness. He figured the building was uninhabited. Maybe cordoned off by the city for health and safety reasons, and then delayed back to market so the government could use it discreetly. They reached the fourth floor and came to a door with frosted glass at head height. By then, their eyes had adjusted to the dark.

  Violetta reached out and knocked once.

  The door flew open, and a gun barrel protruded from the shadows. It came inches away from touching her forehead. She was too close to get out of the way, but she didn’t try to.

  The voice on the other end of the firearm breathed out. ‘Good. You’re back.’

  She turned and ushered Slater and King through the doorway. ‘After you, gentlemen.’

  Very professional.

  Her demeanour entirely different.

  Slater figured she was overcompensating to try and mask the fact that she and King were in a relationship.

  Professional conflict of interest, and all that.

  Slater went first, and found a middle-aged guy behind the gun barrel, with two guys behind him in turn. The three-man cohort seemed restless and thrown-off yet professional all at once. They wore navy blue suits with white shirts open at the collar. They were all Caucasian, and all of them had short hair, only a little longer than military buzzcuts. Like they’d got out of the army several years ago but never lost the habit. They were built bigger than the average serviceman, with extra muscle sculpted out of additional downtime. They were all hard and mean under the surface, but their auras were accommodating enough. They still eyed Slater as he stepped in all the same. Subtle machismo. None of the three stepped aside to let him through, meaning he’d have to weave his way around them like he was in a maze.

  He figured they were federal agents with egos.

  He stopped dead in his tracks and stared right back at them.

  King stepped through the doorway and did the same.

  The guy with his firearm in his hand said, ‘Are you the infamous duo?’

  ‘Depends,’ Slater said. ‘Define “infamous.”’

  ‘The ones she hasn’t been able to shut up about for the past few hours. Are you even military?’

  Violetta said, ‘Cool it,’ from the landing.

  Slater understood intimidation, and posturing, and peacocking. He could read the three of them like a book. They seemed fairly important, so they probably were feds, but they were disgruntled at having been called out to safeguard a place like this. Which meant they had probably been told very little.

  So they didn’t understand Violetta’s importance, or what this temporary HQ even constituted, because it was well above their pay grade. And, as feds, there wasn’t much above their pay grade in terms of counter-intelligence. So the world of black operations was a foreign one to them, which made them a last resort for Violetta. She must have known they were close by and leveraged her power to call them in as bodyguards.

  They weren’t used to being bodyguards.

  And they wouldn’t understand why King and Slater were even necessary.

  So Slater put all that together and said, ‘We might be the infamous duo. But you don’t need to know anything about that. You weren’t hired for that.’

  They bristled.

  Slater said, ‘You’re here to guard this door.’

  More bristling.

  King said, ‘We wouldn’t want to distract you from such an important task.’

  Cold silence.

  Slater slapped the lead man on the shoulder and said, ‘Best of luck with it, boys. You’ve trained your whole lives for this.’

  Then he went through the maze, working his way around them to get past, but he brushed them aside with just enough subdued aggression to let them know he wasn’t a pushover. The third guy was both the biggest and the angriest, and he saw what was coming after Slater touched his two co-workers en route. So the guy stepped forward fast, trying to add a little oomph to the impact when their shoulders inevitably clashed.

  But Slater changed direction in a split second and worked his way past the other side, missing the third guy entirely, which made him look like an idiot for having such a strong reaction.

  He stood there, aware that he’d been humiliated but unsure exactly how.

  King didn’t meet any of the same resistance on the way down the corridor.

  Slater turned at the end of the hallway and watched Violetta thread her way through the procession. On the way past, she stared at each of the feds in turn and rolled her eyes. Like, Really, gentlemen?

  Slater masked a smirk.

  ‘Where to?’ he said to Violetta, which was another subtle dig at the feds.

  Where are we going that they’re not allowed?

  Violetta pointed to a nondescript door at the very end of the hallway. It matched the rest of the building’s interior. In poor condition, with sturdy foundations. Everything was chipped and cracked and faded and worn, but if you locked a door in this place, it would hold. Perfect for discreet operations.

  Slater stepped up and knocked. There was a pause, and then the thunk-thunk-thunk of three bolts sliding across one by one, and then the door inched open a crack.

  It was too dark inside for Slater to see anything.

  He said, ‘We’re with her.’

  He figured they’d get the message — whoever they were.

  They did.

  The door closed again, a chain came off, and then it opened just wide enough for Slater to squeeze his broad frame through. Keeping the inside of the room out of sight of the feds. Another precaution they’d be none too happy with. Slater stepped inside, turned to let King through, and then Violetta squeezed in last.

  An Asian man wearing a T-shirt tucked into slacks closed the door behind them. Slater admired the back of the door — the bolts he’d heard turning were enormous. Shiny and thick and made of steel. The entire door frame was reinforced with some sort of impenetrable concrete that most definitely hadn’t been there to start with. It was an impressive contraption, and it’d take a dump truck with a battering ram fixed to the front to get through.

  Which meant what lay behind the door was important.

  Slater turned to admire one of the first black-ops HQs he’d seen in the flesh.

  25

  Rico was already back to his usual, fun-loving self.

  The strange thing was, he didn’t much care about being shot at. Something about a potential heart attack was just viscerally terrifying, no matter how reckless you were. He’d felt his body collapsing from the inside, the primary organ simply ceasing to work. And then it was all back to normal, and relief flooded over him. Besides, there was still enough coke in his system to subdue the panic unless he was outright traumatised.

  And he wasn’t.

  The pleasant haze settled back over him, and he almost didn’t care that a gaunt wide-eyed guy had snuck up on him in the process.

  He got to his feet, and the man who’d introduced himself as Samuel did the same.

  Rico said, ‘Hey. I’m Rico.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ the guy said, and gave a sinister smile.

  Rico still wasn’t sure if he was dreaming.

  He said, ‘What are you doing here?’

  Samuel held up one hand, turning it to the faint moonlight. He had something in it.

  A gun, Rico realised.

  A 9mm Glock, by the looks of it.

  Rico said, ‘Where’d you get that?’

  ‘It’s mine,’ Samuel said.

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Have you seen two men?’

  ‘I’ve seen a lot of men,’ Rico said. ‘You
know how many people there are on the streets right now?’

  ‘I’m looking for Jason King and Will Slater.’

  ‘No idea who you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ Samuel said, tutting to himself. His brow furrowed, and a frown appeared on his face. ‘That’s unfortunate.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Rico said again.

  ‘Just having a good time,’ Samuel said. ‘It’s fun with the lights out.’

  ‘It is,’ Rico said.

  But the tendrils of sobriety were creeping into his consciousness. He didn’t like that one bit. It made his current situation all the more harrowing. His skin salty, his heart racing, his mind hazy. Alone in the middle of Manhattan, without his usual safety net. No guards, no security. Probably in deep shit with his father. Standing opposite a lunatic who looked like something out of a horror movie, making strange conversation. He didn’t want to think about any of that. He wanted to dull it.

  He said, ‘Samuel, you got any drink on you?’

  Samuel smiled and extracted a flask from the pocket of his jeans. He opened it and took a long swig. At least two or three shots worth, if it was straight spirits.

  He didn’t blink once.

  He said, ‘It’s whiskey. You want some?’

  Rico said, ‘Yes.’

  He reached out and took the flask from Samuel, then put it to his lips and sucked down a giant mouthful. It was warm and he tasted caramel and vanilla. Maker’s Mark, probably. He’d drunk himself into a stupor more times than he could count using every form of alcohol under the sun. He could pinpoint a brand when the taste seemed familiar. It was second nature by this point.

  The effect hit him in seconds, although that probably meant it was placebo. Drink, and your brain convinces you you’re drunk well before the stuff actually hits your system. But he didn’t care what was real and what wasn’t. It felt real to him, and he settled back into the same groggy stupor. The consequences of his actions receded from the forefront of his mind.

  Good, he thought.

  This is all still a dream.

  Samuel said, ‘I’m no longer needed.’

  Rico said, ‘What?’

  ‘I was part of something. Now it’s over. Now I don’t have anything to do. I figured I might go kill somebody.’

  This has to be a dream.

  ‘Who?’ Rico said.

  Samuel shrugged. ‘I thought I’d come here first, but I didn’t find who I was looking for.’

  ‘Jason King and… who was it that you said before?’

  ‘Will Slater.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Enemies.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t like them. They took everything from me.’

  ‘What do they do?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’re just bad people.’

  ‘Did they hurt you?’

  ‘In a roundabout way.’

  ‘Do you know how to find them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know what they look like?’

  ‘No. I know they’re big guys. That’s it. It’s frustrating. I shot at a big guy before. Someone at the end of an alleyway. I just … wanted to shoot at someone. Anyone.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘Someone. Anyone,’ Samuel repeated. ‘All I saw was that he was big. I could only see his silhouette. I thought it might be God delivering one of them to me. But I couldn’t hit him. I tried to shoot him a few times, but then I couldn’t see him anymore. So I ran away.’

  Rico didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. The whole spiel was bizarre.

  He stayed quiet and waited for Samuel to speak again.

  ‘So, anyway, I’m pissed off,’ Samuel said, ‘and I want to do something about it. Who are you?’

  ‘Just a visitor,’ Rico said. ‘Not in town for long. I was at Palantir — you know the club?’

  Samuel shook his head.

  Rico said, ‘Bottom line is, I’m pissed off too. Some dickhead took my gun and slapped me around in front of all my friends. I have a reputation to uphold, you know? Piece of shit needs to get what’s coming to him.’

  ‘Did you get his name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Know where he is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Damn.’ Samuel paused and turned his face to the night sky. The bone around his eyes was protruded, and the sockets were deep and hollow. The shadows plunged into them, lending him an even more macabre expression. Eerily, he looked back at Rico and said, ‘You on drugs?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You got some?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Rico reached into his jacket pocket and came out with the small baggie of cocaine. An involuntary shiver rippled through him. Something close to phantom pain gripped his chest. Not a heart attack, not a palpitation — just his brain delivering a warning. Don’t you dare.

  He handed it over. ‘Here you go.’

  Samuel took it and stared long and hard. ‘You don’t want it?’

  ‘I’ve had plenty.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Rico held up the flask. ‘Mind if I take this, then?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  They ingested their substance of choice in unison. Rico lifted the flask back to his lips and drained the whiskey. There was plenty of it, and his throat burned as he finished the last drop. He lowered the flask to see Samuel rubbing white powder into his huge gums. There was residue peppered across his left nostril from where he’d snorted some, too.

  Rico smiled.

  Samuel smiled back. His smile was a hundred times more sinister.

  He stepped forward, wrapped a friendly arm around Rico’s shoulders, and roared with manic laughter.

  Then he said, ‘Let’s go kill somebody.’

  Rico shrugged, deep in madness.

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  Why not?

  With an arm looped over each other’s shoulders like long lost brothers, they set off into the city.

  26

  King had to admit he was underwhelmed by the HQ.

  But that was the nature of the twenty-first century, wasn’t it?

  Black operations were a different beast entirely. Separate from the official military structure, informal, without all the stringent rules and regulations and codes that dictated what could legally be accomplished. Today’s warfare took place on screens, in algorithms and in lines of code. The world of combat and warfare was now a place where the most important individuals in uniform were the ones who weren’t in uniform at all. They were the tech prodigies, dressed casually, responsible for keeping the peace from behind a desk. There were maybe a dozen of them here now, surrounded by enough hardware to destabilise emerging markets, if that’s what was required.

  King didn’t pretend to know what he was looking at. He saw rows of desks set up in a space fashioned out of three tenement-style apartments laid end to end. The dividing walls had been knocked down long ago, creating a massive interior room with the same floor space as an empty church. The light was low, emanating only from the screens and a couple of weak desk lamps. Arched windows faced out, offering a plain view of the street below and the opposite apartment block. Inside the room, King saw stacks of CPUs and triple-monitor set-ups manned by an assortment of men and women that couldn’t have had a median age far above thirty.

  They were operating at warp speed. He didn’t know whether they were hopped up on Adderall or other, more refined stimulants engineered by a separate wing of the government, but he certainly suspected they were. He’d never seen anyone work so fast. Not a single person looked at him or Slater as they stepped into the room. Their pupils flashed across the monitors like a bug watching flies. They tabbed from program to program, and when their fingers touched their keyboards intermittently they typed at a speed he could barely comprehend. There was the faintest murmuring between them when they opted to talk to each other, but it was interspersed with long periods of silence and int
ense focus.

  King kept his voice low and said, ‘This is the future, huh?’

  ‘They’re trying to figure out what’s happening,’ Violetta said. ‘And doing anything they can to prevent it.’

  King noticed Slater was equally slack-jawed, even though King was technologically challenged in comparison. Slater said, ‘What are we even needed for these days?’

  Violetta said, ‘You’ll see. Follow me.’

  She led them to the very end of the room, where partitions squared off a space the size of a respectable corner office. She ushered them inside, where they found a plain desk and four dull office chairs. King took one on the left-hand side, and Slater took the other. Violetta sat across from them, and switched on a weak desk lamp.

  King said, ‘So you’ve got an emergency generator, too.’

  ‘It’s kind of necessary.’

  ‘You knew this was coming.’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘How?’

  Violetta sighed and interlocked her fingers on the surface of the desk. She said, ‘Can I be honest with you?’

  Slater said, ‘We damn well expect you to be.’

  She said, ‘An incident of this magnitude has never happened before on this planet. Right now, every software engineer in the country employed by us, as well as a significant portion that aren’t, are trying to work out our options. That includes the NSA, the DIA, feds, the CIA. All of the big ones, and a handful that don’t officially exist, including us.’

  ‘Okay,’ King said.

  ‘You don’t seem very concerned.’

  ‘Are we supposed to be?’

  ‘I just need to hammer home—’

  Slater said, ‘You don’t need to hammer anything home. We’re not amateurs. Maybe something of this magnitude hasn’t happened before, but it’s all the same to us. Every time we’re needed, our life is on the line. That’s the greatest magnitude you can get. So don’t beat around the bush and just tell it like it is, Violetta.’

  She said, ‘Okay. This is your official briefing.’

  They nodded, one by one.

  ‘Right now, we don’t know who’s behind this,’ she said. ‘We don’t know what they want. We don’t know who they are. They’re hackers, and they’re rogue. They’re not affiliated with any terrorist organisation. They’ve used malicious code to seize control of every transformer in a number of critical substations. We only realised they were inside once they had complete control. That’s what the computer worm was for. They hoodwinked the engineers at these substations into thinking everything was normal, and—’