Rogue Ops: Rogue Agents of Magic™ Book 1 Read online

  Chapter Seven

  Diana was up before dawn the next day, as she always was. She gave Bryant a lengthy goodbye kiss, then portaled back to the base. A quick shower brought her to full consciousness, and she shoved some food into her face and filled her largest travel mug with strong coffee, sensing the day ahead would be one that would require the extra energy. She paused, considering, then dumped a couple of packets of sugar in as well. Going to need every boost I can get, probably.

  She was waiting impatiently when Kayleigh and Deacon showed up, arriving together doubtless after sharing breakfast. And maybe the same bed before that. Diana didn’t judge and carefully stayed unaware of exactly what romantic arrangements her people were making while stuck in the vimana. As long as they continued to do their jobs properly, she was fine with whatever. One more way my rules are different from what the government would have us do, I guess. Besides, it would be rather hypocritical of me to take a stand against it.

  Her inner voice offered, “Probably won’t be as easy to explain the whole ‘not handing over magical items and artifacts’ thing, though.”

  Shut it. From the moment she’d taken charge of the team, she’d done things her way, and she had no plans to change that approach. Rules were all well and good, and she followed most of them. But the exigencies of being in the field simply overrode some of the guidelines her nominal superiors had imposed. One of those is the need to understand these artifacts better and figure out how to use them against our enemies without getting compromised in the process. Which we can’t do if we hand them all over.

  Kayleigh stepped to her side and frowned. The tech’s blonde hair was in pigtails, a style she’d used even before Margot Robbie made it popular in Suicide Squad. Her tone was filled with sarcasm as she said, “Well, you look grimmer than normal. How lovely that you decided to grace us with your dour presence right at the start of our day.”

  Deacon laughed. He was in a Spider-Man T-shirt and jeans. He’d lost weight since joining them, the peer pressure of all the agents’ physical routines eventually wearing down his resistance until he felt compelled to join in. Kayleigh, too. Neither would win any bodybuilding competitions, but they were both fitter and healthier than before.

  Given the lack of social options here in Antarctica, exercise becomes far more appealing. Diana shook her head, not smiling at Kayleigh’s dig. “I have work for you guys. Breaking the encryption on a flash drive.”

  Deacon said, “My rig can handle it, whatever it is. Hand it over with all speed.”

  Diana cautioned, “This thing could have malware. Might try to send out a signal, or whatever.”

  The infomancer rolled his eyes. “Boss, handling toxic programs is my kung fu. And it is strong.”

  She frowned. “I recognize that.”

  Rath, who had crept in quietly behind her, a game he often liked to play to her detriment, said, “The Core. Come on, that one was easy.”

  Diana twisted and scowled at her partner. “We can’t all watch movies all the time. Some of us have to work.”

  Kayleigh replied, “So that’s what you call sleeping with Bryant? Work? I mean, I can see where it could be. He strikes me as the demanding type.”

  She flipped the tech off with one hand while Deacon plucked the flash drive out of the other. He said, “We don’t need you for this, Kitana. Go cause trouble elsewhere.”

  Diana laughed. “Oooh, burn.”

  Kayleigh responded with a theatrical scowl. “He’ll pay. You’ll pay. Everyone will pay. Except Rath, he’s the only nice one around here. Hey buddy, help me make them all pay?”

  The troll grinned and raced to the tech’s side. “You know it.”

  Diana shook her head and followed Deacon into his work area. A huge desk supporting lots of monitors, multiple keyboards, a mouse, some other interface devices, and several things she didn’t recognize at all greeted her. A chair set in the center of it, a large expensive one she’d bought out of her pocket, knowing how much time he’d wind up spending in it as their sole computer expert.

  Small opened bags of salty snacks and many cans of soda, also opened, littered the table behind his workstation. He detoured to a beverage cooler in the corner and pulled out a six-pack of Dr. Pepper, cracking one as he sat in his seat and depositing the others on the table. She sat in one of the two chairs at the table and watched as code flew on the big screen in the center.

  A folder popped up, and he poked through it quickly, finding personnel files, blueprints of the vimana and other ARES installations, and other similar data. She muttered, only loud enough that Deacon would be able to hear, “I see what Bryant was talking about. That’s a lot of stuff, but none of it is particularly secret.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Also, the schematics for this room don’t include the changes we’ve made. Maybe they don’t care about small alterations, or maybe they don’t know. Can’t be sure, either way.”

  She frowned, knowing she shouldn’t ask but equally certain that she had to, to be positive. “No one could have gotten into your systems, right?”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask such a stupid question because the shame you would feel would doubtless overwhelm your entire mind and render you useless.” He hit some buttons. “Okay, I’m sending in my cracking team. Let’s see what’s hiding on this flash drive.”

  The way he described his interface with the computer always intrigued her. Diana could never sense his magic at work like she did some other magics but knew he was using it whenever he interacted with a computer, even with his smartphone. It was as natural to him as breathing, as he’d explained.

  She couldn’t conceive of what it would be like to be an infomancer but was deeply glad Kayleigh had identified her online gaming partner as a potential member of the team. He’d been nothing short of indispensable from the day he joined.

  A few moments later, a new series of folders replaced the visual on the screen, each labeled with only a number. Deacon said, “Okay, now we’re into something useful. You were right. A cute little virus was attached to it. At the moment, it’s in a tiny cyber box, bashing itself against the walls and trying to contact the outside world. Maybe later I’ll take it apart and see if we can turn it against the senders.”

  “Well done.”

  He shrugged. “I am what I am, and in this case, it’s a white-hot white hat hacker.” He opened the first folder, and a picture of a young, redhead, pale-skinned woman popped up.

  Diana frowned, moving from irritated to angry. “Why the hell do they have records about Cali?” Diana and her team had helped the woman on several occasions, but not on anything that should’ve caught the government’s attention. “As far as I know, she’s in New Atlantis, being the head of her house or whatever, right?”

  Deacon nodded. “Yeah. As of our last regular check-in, that’s still true.” The screen showed a series of dates and locations. “This has records of most of the times someone from the team engaged with her. Including the check-ins.” His tone turned darker. “How the hell do they have that information?”

  Diana shook her head. “No telling. But we need to find out. Keep looking.” The second folder had detailed reviews of all the missions her unit had undertaken, from their inception up to the previous week's operations. “Okay, I’m officially starting to get pissed off. This is directed only at us, right? There aren’t any deep research records of the other ARES units’ ops?”

  He flicked through the rest of the documents in that folder and confirmed her suspicion. She leaned back with a sigh. “I’m almost afraid to find out what’s in the next one.”

  Deacon replied, “Right there with you, boss.” Nonetheless, he opened the next folder, and more personnel files popped up.

  “Of course. Ruby, Alejo, and the costumes in Magic City. Should’ve figured.”

  The infomancer nodded. “Apparently, we’re like typhoid Mary for the government surveillance teams. Look, these records have entries after we last did anything in Magic
City. Looks as if things have stabilized a bit there, anyway.”

  Diana slapped her hands on the table in anger. “I do not like the idea that people are watching us. I really don’t like the idea that they’re watching us hard enough that the surveillance is spreading to our friends and contacts. We’re going to have to figure out a way to put out the word, quietly, and let everyone know they’re under the government’s eye.”

  While she’d been talking, Deacon had been loading up another folder, and the document that arrived on the screen took her breath away. The infomancer said, “Oh, shit,” and magnified it to fill the entire display.

  “You’ve got that right.” In front of her was a list of options for “dealing” with her and her team. First on the list was a change in leadership, firing both her and Bryant and replacing them with others. The document referenced “Tier one” but didn’t explain what that meant.

  The second option was rolling all of ARES into the existing FBI structure, with lots of oversight, essentially demoting both her and Bryant and putting others in charge of them, with the same arrangement for the other bureaus. That’s not going to happen. I’ll walk before I work for some government chucklehead. Other than Bryant, that is.

  The third item was the most alarming one. It recommended disbanding the team entirely but also referenced criminal proceedings against its members. “Damn. Somebody really doesn’t like us.”

  The infomancer replied, “Everyone likes me, so it must be you, Boss.”

  Deacon’s joke, which easily could have come out of Kayleigh's mouth, given the similarity in their humor styles, fell flat. Diana stood with a growl. “None of those options works for me. Especially the last one. They’ll initiate criminal proceedings against anyone on this team over my dead body. I mean that literally. Figure out who’s behind this garbage and what their endgame is. And I need that information yesterday. Get to it.”

  Chapter Eight

  Deacon sighed and pushed himself back from the computer keyboards, reaching blindly behind him for his soda. The first can he found was empty. The second one was as well, and he turned with an annoyed grunt to find that the entire dozen he’d put on the table were empty. He didn’t know why his magic jacked up his metabolism so intensely when he was spending time inside the magical web or his systems, but he was equally starving and parched.

  He stood with a groan, muscles protesting the fact that he’d been sitting in the chair for something like eight hours without a break, and headed for the canteen. Along the way, he commed Kayleigh, who met him there. She said, “What’s up, working man?”

  He rolled his neck and winced at the cracking sound it made. “I’m getting too old for this.”

  She laughed. “Please. Compared to the dinosaurs around here, we’re newborns.”

  “Anyway, I think I’m good to go. Been making sure all my systems are sharp, and all my programs are as ready as they can be. Want to ride along?”

  His girlfriend nodded. “You know I do. Far more entertaining than a night watching movies while you work.”

  He made a face at her. “Yeah, the real-world danger involved makes it more amusing, right?”

  She treated his comment as serious, even though he hadn’t meant it that way. “Absolutely. Still, it’s not like you’re going to die in there or anything.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But, if I let anyone get into our systems, Diana will murder me, so it’s pretty much the same thing.”

  “Good point. For the record, I’m a spectator. If she comes in with guns blazing, I am not involved.”

  Deacon laughed. “That’s what I like in a partner. True loyalty.”

  Kayleigh smacked him on the arm. “You knew what you were getting with me when you signed up. How many times did I use you as cannon fodder playing online?”

  “Pretty much all of them, if I recall properly.” He grabbed several wrapped sandwiches, a large bag of chips, and one of the ever-present carafes of coffee, then turned to leave. “Before you ask, this is all for me. Get your own food, leech.”

  She laughed. “Chivalry is alive and well in Antarctica, ladies.”

  A half-hour later, he was fed, hydrated, and seated behind his computers, ready to go. Kayleigh sat on the gaming chair she’d pulled in from her workspace, with her feet extended in front of her on the built-in rest. A glance at the camera that displayed what he referred to as his “meat space” when he was present in the virtual showed she had the VR rig on.

  Unlike setups with only goggles, this one had a full face covering that added sensory input appropriate to the scenario. Larger and more complicated suits existed, and they had one in the workshop to play with, but since they weren’t using an interface she could interact with, it didn’t make sense to spend the bandwidth on an increased connection.

  As if she was reading his mind, Kayleigh said, “It’s great to ride along and all, but I wish I could help.”

  Deacon paused for a second, considering it. “You know, I wonder if that might be doable. My magic is pretty strong. Maybe it could make that link work fast enough that a full VR suit could allow you to function as if you were inside. It’s worth checking out, but a question for another day, when Diana isn’t sharpening her sword in anticipation of my failure.” With her, it’s a literal sword, which adds an extra measure of pressure to the scale.

  He turned his attention back to his loading screen, positioned his hands over the keyboard, and extended magic into the system, funneled through the wand he wore around his wrist as a bracelet. “Here we go.”

  The initial sensation was like falling, dropping from the sky without a parachute toward whatever mystery lay below. An interplay between his desires and the system he was targeting would determine the personality of the virtual environment. In this case, it was a government server he shouldn’t have the address of, much less any chance of accessing.

  Diana had been good to him. Since he’d joined the team, every time she or Bryant had gone into any government building, their electronics had been gathering data, reams and reams of ones and zeros. When he wasn’t actively using his systems, they worked on that information, sifting and parsing it for any useful tidbits it might hold. It had provided his initial clue to the existence of this server, pulled from a conversation between IT personnel as Bryant had walked past them.

  Once he had that first piece, he’d put his artificial intelligences on the lookout for ways in. They’d found one through a vendor that produced reporting software and hadn’t properly upped their security on the day of a new update. His bots had entered and created a foothold, nothing more than a path to the server, but it was enough.

  I’ll do the rest. He landed, his avatar finishing with the Ironman superhero pose. Kayleigh materialized standing beside him. His main view was first person, but a window off to the side of his visual field held a third-person view, and he saw that his character wore a cowled cloak, with black leather armor underneath and Middle Ages weapons on his belt.

  He turned in a full circle, examining the scene. “Cool. Dishonored. I’ve been playing a lot lately, and I guess my subconscious and the system found common ground there.”

  Kayleigh, whose avatar’s outfit matched his, replied, “Is that the one with the swarms of rats?” Her voice held an obvious edge of distaste.

  He grinned. “Yeah, but they’re usually good guys. Anyway, here’s the deal. The tower up there,” he gestured, “is our destination. We’ll have to move through the city without getting noticed, and if someone does spot us, they need to die before they can give the alarm.”

  “By die, you mean?”

  “I need to kill them in the system. No big deal.”

  “By people, you mean?”

  He laughed. “Most of the beings we’ll see will be programs, ranging in sophistication from simple guard dog bots to actual artificial intelligences. It’s not a ridiculous thought that an infomancer could be watching the place. Probably not more than one, and I doubt this would be their only
gig, but we need to be aware of the possibility of advanced AIs and a magical human presence since this is the government. Who the hell knows what they’re up to at any given moment, right?”

  Kayleigh's avatar shrugged. “Right. Although you could say the same about our team, I think.”

  He didn’t reply, only moved down the cobblestone street. Shops made up the left-hand side, and a large wall ran along the right. From playing the game, he knew an ocean or harbor lay on the other side of the wall, separated from it by a sandy expanse. He assumed the map would be similar to the ones he was familiar with, probably identical in fact, since it was his subconscious driving the illusion. However, the enemies, and the tricks and traps they might’ve left for him, wouldn’t align with the game at all.

  Deacon found his first problem when a guard dog—literally, a canine watching over the street—lifted its snout in his direction. He froze, calling up a concealment program that would blend him into the shadows of the wall. He’d already engaged camouflage programs to make his cloak match the surroundings, and it was voluminous enough that he could keep it wrapped around his armor.

  His pistol crossbow climbed upward ever so slowly to point at the dog without alarming it. The weapon gave a muted thwack as it sent the projectile hurtling forward. The bolt caught the beast in the throat, dropping it. He moved ahead to conceal the body, but it pixelated suddenly and faded from existence. He muttered, “Oh, that’s handy. Thank you, subconscious.”

  Kayleigh asked, “You can’t simply make that happen?”

  As his avatar continued forward, he replied, “No. I can’t consciously set the rules of the environment. That would require a whole different kind of fight, and it’s much more stand-up, force against force, than this sort of incursion, which only looks for weak spots to exploit.”

  “’Kay,” she said, her standard response when she didn’t understand what he was talking about but figured some kind of sound was necessary.