Tag Archives: Circuit

Water Fall: High Resistance

Posted by natechen on

Author’s Note: Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s been pointed out to me that last week’s post was a duplicate of my last post before Christmas break. I’m not sure how that happened, but it’s not what should have been put up last week. Rather than repost I’ve just edited last week’s post with the correct chapter. You may want to read it before reading this. I apologize for the mistake. Now on with this week’s chapter!

Nate Chen

——–

Three Weeks Before the Michigan Avenue Proclamation 

Circuit

“Well?”

Hangman shrugged and shook her head. “There’s nothing for sure here, you understand. Not everything the Project does has to come through the Senator’s office.” She waved at a collection of e-mails and drafts of memos she’d pulled up. “But from the looks of things nothing’s happened.”

I drummed my fingers absently on the back of her chair until she gently put her hand over them to make me stop. “Replacing a regional director-”

“The technical term is Senior Special Liaison.”

“-or whatever they call them has to be something that requires the Senate Committee’s approval.” I snorted. “And I’ve seen Mr. Wells in action before. There must be half a dozen times he could have made a major bust if he’d just asked Helix what he should expect. He’s not going to give up his grudge just because the greater good is at stake. They’re not going for the bait.” I took her hand and raised her out of the chair.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” she said, smoothing down the front of her skirt. “And regardless of whether Helix is down south or at the regional office he’s not going to be in position to respond to our next move.”

“Yes. Our next move.” At some point they’d stopped being my moves. Not for the first time in the last few days I thought back to my conversation with Simeon. Time to take some distance again. “How is the shooting practice coming along?”

She tucked her hands behind her back and did her best to look innocent. “Heavy says I’m qualified to teach a course on handling and maintaining sidearms and I should be competent with submachine guns by the time we leave for Indiana.”

“Really?” I stared at her blankly. “I know that he’s a good teacher but not even I passed muster that fast.”

“You didn’t grow up in Wisconsin as the daughter of an important politician, Circuit.” She shrugged. “I’ve had self defense training since I was ten and, when I turned eighteen, I went through a basic shooting course, too. My father thought it would be good for my self-confidence, even if I never had to use any of it.”

“Have you?”

“Only the part about being aware of your surroundings.” She gave me a knowing smile. “Of course, I’ve always been good at that. As for the gun training, I never bothered to get a license in Wisconsin because I was going to school in California and who knew where after I graduated.”

“Sensible.” I led her out of the server room and into the antechamber outside my office. “Of course, I don’t suppose self defense training includes any lessons on stealth or insertion techniques?”

She shook her head. “Being highly visible is a part of self defense. Assuming, of course, you’re a law abiding citizen.”

“It’s amazing how many different aspects of life take that for granted.” We were back on the landing outside my office now, the locks clicking closed as I pulled the door closed. “How is the Sorting Algorithm of Evil coming?”

“Currently we can run comprehensive background checks on anyone from the lower 48 states and Alaska. Gaining access to Hawaii’s databases comes next, followed by the larger Canadian provinces.” She held up a hand to forestall questions as she thumbed her phone and consulted something there. “We also have access to some other, less official sources of information integrated already – all the contacts you’ve built in the south, north Africa and Europe, plus a few from Hangman’s heyday. I’m working on gaining access to some classified government stuff and maybe a few unsavory sources that won’t know they’re working for us.”

Once she gave me an expectant look I went ahead with my question. “What if we get people from Mexico?”

“Normal citizens with have to clear customs and get this far north, which means we have some time before they get to us and need vetting. If they don’t come through legal channels or they’re not normal citizens then we already have the contacts to vet them via your southern crime rings.” She pocketed her phone and gave me another knowing look. “Or whatever it is you call them.”

“Extralegal resources.” I considered what she’d told me. “Check with Heavy or Grappler about scheduling some basic breaking and entering training. We may need you ready to pick some locks or otherwise help with petty larceny in the near future, provided you intend to continue working in the field.”

She laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, Circuit. Doing data analysis here for you is way more interesting than any college course I ever took, but I wouldn’t miss being in the front seat of history for anything.”

She swept off across the walkway and down the stairs to the ground floor where she would no doubt begin bugging Heavy until he stopped whatever he was doing and showed her some of his very, very wide arsenal of criminal techniques. I felt bad about sending Hangman after him but I thought it best to keep some space between us for a while. It was a delicate time for – well, everything, really.

There was plenty to do for my part, too. New maglev relays to check out, the EMP countermeasures to install and a personal visit to the Chainfall site to schedule. Our last major job before beginning Operation Chainfall was in two days and there were a million details. But before I could loose myself in them first I had to do something I hated. Manage my people.

There was an odd patch of shadow at the top of the wall. I turned to it but purposefully didn’t look up. “You can come down now, Grappler.”

There was a soft whisper of fabric and then she dropped to the ground from about shoulder height, landing with a barely audible thud, the beads in her dreadlocks rattling softly as they swished through the air. She was wearing her typical non-burglary clothes, a variation on pants, blouse and a knee length vest ensemble. This vest was a pale blue, with silvery plant life embroidered in it and she was wearing a matching bracelet.

Her grim expression was a stark contrast.

“That girl’s toying with you, Circuit,” she said with a huff. “You should just tell her to be on her way. Or better yet…” Grappler slid closer and laid an arm on my shoulder, leaning until she was almost brushing against my chest. “Show her you’re already taken.”

Simeon had mentioned that someone suggested the possibility Hangman was sweet on me to him, now I knew who to thank for that. I gently, but deliberately, took her arm and moved it off my shoulder, forcing her to straighten up to maintain her balance. “Grappler, I’m not in the habit of lying to people. When we transform from smalltime crime to serious business we’re going to need her information gathering skills more than ever, she can’t be nearly as effective as she is at that if she’s ‘on her way.’ And I’m not taken.”

Grappler tilted her head to one side and gave me a dazzling smile, the kind she used when she got caught casing a job and needed to talk her way out from security or suspicious property owners. “Not even a little bit taken?”

“If I wasn’t the time you showed up while I was in the bath I’m certainly not going to change my mind just because you flash a smile at me.” I shook my head. “Grappler, I don’t know what your problem with Hangman is.” I was guessing it was jealousy but I didn’t know that for sure. “But you’re not going to change my mind. She stays. She keeps doing what she has been. And that is all she’ll be doing.”

Grappler took a step back and gave me a critical look, as if trying to decide if I was the real Open Circuit. “Please don’t tell me you trust her.”

“Grappler…” I heaved a sigh and glanced around once, just to make sure we were still alone on the walkway. When I was sure we were I went on. “Just because you and your late husband lied to each other for four years doesn’t mean everyone is automatically untrustworthy.”

“I know that, you idiot.” To my surprise she wasn’t angry, but almost laughing. “I trust you, don’t I? And Heavy. Maybe even Simeon, when I understand what he’s saying. Your problem is, you trust too much.”

“Me?” I did a mental inventory of all the paranoid security measures I’d taken in the last twenty-four hours. It was a lengthy list. “Sorry, I’m not sure I follow that one.”

“Well, let’s see. You got four people you really count on right now.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “One is a guy who thinks he’s a butler out of an Agatha Christie movie.”

“Simeon prefers the term ‘office manager.'”

Finger numbers two and three. “Two of us were professional thieves who also managed to somehow miss the serial killer right under our noses.” Finger four. “And one is the daughter of a U.S. Senator who probably learned to lie before she learned what the truth was.”

“Davis will be disappointed to hear he wasn’t on that list.”

“Except you’re not going to tell him, because not even you’re dumb enough to trust that guy.” Grappler planted her hands on her hips. “Sometimes I’m amazed one of us hasn’t just clubbed you with a candlestick and had done with it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Why would Simeon do that?”

“He’s a butler.”

“Office manager; and that’s an unfair stereotype.”

She gave me a frank look, her dark eyes boring into mine. “You want to go big time, you need to trust less, Circuit. Everybody’s going to be after you when these gigs are done. I don’t care about your crusade, but at least you pay the bills. So do me a favor and be a little more careful, okay?”

“I never thought I’d hear that advice from you.” I smiled and put one hand over my heart. “But I swear I will take no more risks than are absolutely necessary. Does that satisfy?”

“You swear with your right hand over your heart, Circuit.”

I glanced at my hands in mock surprise. “Is that a fact?”

Grappler watched me in poorly concealed amazement. “There’s something wrong with you lately. You were never like this before. Maybe it’s too late for you already.” She sighed and turned towards the stairs. “Just keep your head, okay, Circuit? All I’m asking.”

“I’ll try.” I watched her until her head disappeared down the stairs, then added, too softly for her to have heard, “But you’re right. It’s already too late for that. Far, far too late.”

——–

Helix

“Please tell me you have something in here.” I poke cautiously at the enormous pile of paper on Teresa’s desk, not entirely sure there wasn’t something alive in there. It certainly seemed to have a mind of it’s own, with files and stacks of paper occasionally rustling or sliding around without apparent cause.

She waved a hand vaguely at the assorted mystery papers on her desk. “I have a lot of somethings. Pretty much anything you could want. Care to be more specific?”

“Something on Circuit would be ideal…”  The labels on the folders mostly faced one way and I browsed over them, just for kicks. Most of them covered parts of the case I was already familiar with, a few of them were flagged from the Southern office and it was probably best for my sanity to ignore them, since Wells wouldn’t me do anything about them anyway. One near the bottom caught my eye and I started carefully fishing it out.

“Your friend has been keeping a low profile for the past week. Aside from the vandalism in Charleston and Atlanta the only peep from him has been that stunt in Phoenix.” Teresa shrugged and closed down whatever she had been doing on her computer so as to give me her full attention. “Of course, Analysis isn’t sure that was Circuit but…”

“But it’s another case of a weird symbol turning up in a place connected with me in a high profile manner. This time as a hacking attack, in the same place Circuit made his first big cyber attack. And Hangman, or someone like him, helped break the story. That can’t all be coincidence” I started browsing through the file, which was a summary of the various leads Pastor Rodriguez – excuse me, Agent Samson – had been following up while trying to locate Senator Dawson’s daughter. There were a lot of false leads and he’d found couple of women with similar appearances, but no sign of Elizabeth Dawson herself. “Are you still working this case?”

“Just keeping tabs on it.” Teresa sighed and leaned back in her chair, staring into the corner of the cramped office. She hadn’t had enough time, either here or in the old building, to accumulate the mountains of assorted crap that supervisors always seem to wind up with. But in it’s own way that just made the office seem more bleak. “After the talk you and Jack had with the Senator it’s pretty clear there’s not much more we can do, for the moment.”

I closed the file and tossed it down. “Sorry about that. We probably should have discussed that ahead of time.”

She waved me off. “There wasn’t time, and you’re points were valid. It would have been different if we knew Brahms was coming ahead of time.”

“If it’s not too much to ask, how do you know the Senator and his family?” I closed the file, since there didn’t seem to be anything important there that I didn’t already know. “Seems a bit odd for a girl from the West Coast to know the family of a Senator from Wisconsin.”

“I met Elizabeth when we were in school. She was on the school paper and interviewed me as part of a series on adopted kids at Berkley.” Teresa smiled and her stare went off into the past. “After that she didn’t leave me alone. I think she knew a little bit about what her dad’s role on our Oversight Committee was about, and realized I’d brushed up against something similar. We talked about it a lot. She brought her dad to meet me when he made a campus visit, and the rest is history.”

“So you’re here to catch the bad guys thanks to a chance meeting in college?”

“Except I can’t quite seem to get the catching bad guys part right.” Teresa picked up the folder and glared at it, like she could somehow make it show her where her friend was through sheer willpower.

I sat down across from her and gently took the folder out of her hands. “Welcome to the real Sumter experience, Teresa. We’re not supermen. We’re just people with weird abilities.” I set the file aside again and said, “Let it bother you. You wouldn’t be human, otherwise. But remember that it’s not your fault. Ultimately, the problem here isn’t that you can’t fix this – it’s that Circuit broke things in the first place.”

Teresa laughed and it was surprisingly giggly. I wondered if she was more tired than she looked. “You make a good point.” Her smile faded almost as quickly as it came. “How did you meet the Templetons?”

“Darryl was my field stress test oversight agent. We worked off and on over the next two years when I was out west; then he agreed to go migratory when I needed a new oversight agent. That’s when he met Mona, she was in the Analysis office here.” I sat down in one of the chairs by the desk and leaned back. “They were a weird couple but it worked out.”

She leaned back in her chair, giving me an evaluating look. “And now they’re both gone. Are you going to be okay?”

“Maybe one day. You can never tell for sure.” I sighed and picked up a huge stack of fliers and promotions for historical sites and events around the nation, leafing through them for a distraction. Everyone had gotten them when Circuit’s pals had hit the historic Fort Sumter in their vandalism campaign. With the Phoenix airport on the hit list, too, historic sites seemed a lot less relevant all of a sudden. “I guess I just wish Darryl hadn’t left on some sort of a vendetta. I would get leaving because the job reminds him of Mona. But he just wanted to hunt Circuit. It’s like something out of a bad movie…”

I trailed off as came to a brochure from the Lincoln Financial Foundation, a finance group that had named itself after the president and started collecting related memorabilia. Since it seemed like I was done Teresa said, “You know, you could take a little of your own advice. Darryl is his own person, and while he’s not in the best place right now he is qualified to make his own-”

“I don’t believe it.” I shoved the rest of the pamphlets and junk onto the desk, jumping out of my chair with the Lincoln Financial brochure clutched in one hand.

Teresa got to her feet a little more slowly, a confused look on her face. “What’s wrong?”

“We need to go,” I said, holding up the colorful, glossy piece of paper for her inspection. “I know where Circuit’s going to be.”

“What?” She snatched the flier out of my hands and glanced it over. “Indianapolis?”

I flipped the paper over and pointed to the right panel. “Right state, wrong place. He’s going to Allen County. He thinks he’s Nicholas Cage.”

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Water Fall: Loose Wires

Posted by natechen on

Five Weeks, Three Days Before the Michigan Avenue Proclamation 

Circuit

I climbed out of the back of the van, wiping my hands on a rag. Davis was a couple of steps behind me. “The tweaks to the maglev relays are good, but if we add in your new toy it’s going to necessitate rewiring the whole vehicle. Again.” He tossed his own rag back into the van without bothering to look where it landed. “I’m not saying that it’s a bad move, but it might be easier if we just pulled out the computer and communication gear from them. That would solve most of the load issues.”

“That’s fine.” I tucked my own rag into the back pocket of my coveralls. “I’m not entirely sure we’re going to be able to keep these vans after the operation. It’s best we leave as little nonessential equipment on them as possible.”

“And it helps us with another problem.” Wallace, my mechanic, was still poking around in the back of the vehicle. “I’m not sure that thing you want us to install would fit with everything else you want to bring along. If we take all the IT stuff out that should help with the crowding some. Even so, it’s going to be a tight squeeze. Are you sure we need it?”

“It’s an EMP-countermeasure, Wally,” Davis said in exasperation. “If they want to keep using any of the electronic gear after clearing the perimeter they’re going to need it.”

“And after all the trouble I went to get it, I’d hate to leave it behind,” I added. “How soon can we start duplicating it?”

“The lab has a preliminary knock off ready for testing,” Davis said. “If you want we can-”

“Excuse me, sir.” Simeon carefully picked his way through the garage. “Do you have a moment?”

I sighed. There was always something and we were getting ready for out biggest job yet, but the constant interruptions were beginning to wear on my patience. “Yes, Simeon. What is it?”

“New development on the news, sir. I thought you’d want to know.” He offered me a tablet. “I don’t know to what extent it will affect your current plans, but fore the long term it may be relevant.”

Wallace took Davis by the arm and gently pulled him away saying, “We’ll get started pulling all that computer gear out of the vans.”

“The auxiliary vans, Wallace,” I said absently. “Not the good vans. We’ve lost one of those already, we’re going to need all the mileage we can get out of the others.”

“You got it, boss.”

I acknowledged Wallace with a grunt, most of my attention on the tablet Simeon had just handed me. It was cued up to a news clip. The reporter was interviewing a familiar face.

Pastor Manuel Rodriguez looked a lot different from when I’d first met him. Then, he’d been dressed more like a janitor than a man of the cloth, his short sleeves revealing tattoos that would have been at home in any ghetto or barrio in the city. But for this interview he was wearing a conservative suit and tie that wouldn’t have been out of place on an office worker or a Sumter agent.

Neither appearance hinted at what truly made him dangerous: The way he sided with the establishment and backed it with inexplicable physical strength. I had personally witnessed him throwing a desk that must have weighed at least a hundred pounds two city blocks. He’d then ripped the back door off of one of my armored vans one handed.

Actually, in terms of total destructive potential nothing he’s done holds a candle to someone like Helix, who can melt concrete if he wants to, but he’s also inhumanly fast and, unlike Helix, who’s powers take some time to get going and are kind of unwieldy, Rodriguez is contained and fast. On top of that, I have no idea how his talent works. I was not happy to see him on the news and I was even less happy once he started talking to the reporter.

“I’ve spent the last twenty years working with the misguided youth of the city,” he said. “When I was young I made my share of bad decisions. Whether it’s dealing drugs, getting into fights or running away from home, many young people act out simply because they’ve never seen a better example. As a pastor, it’s my job to present the example of Jesus Christ as that better alternative. But when-”

“If you just wanted me to know about Rodriguez, I kind of guessed he would wind up in this sooner or later,” I said to Simeon. “If someone with his background and talents wasn’t involved with Project Sumter somehow I’d have been very surprised.”

“That’s not it, sir,” Simeon said, directing my attention back to the video feet. “Look, it’s coming up now.”

The reporter had asked the pastor something during that brief exchange. Now the video showed a series of pictures as Rodriguez’s voice answered. The first half dozen or so were of Hangman – or rather, Elizabeth Dawson – over the last year or so of her college career. “The Senator spent quite a bit of time here in town last month and it’s not unreasonable to assume his daughter might have come down here to visit him as a surprise.”

Anyone who thought that obviously didn’t know them very well, but then it did sound well enough to the general public. “Over the years I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in the community,” Rodriguez continued. “And when kids drop off the radar for whatever reason and worry their families there are people I talk to. I’ve found that people are more willing to speak to a leader in the church than the police. In this case, they were also willing look through pictures.”

I sucked in a breath as the pictures changed from Hangman as a graduate in cap and gown to pictures of her in Millennium Park. She wasn’t actually the focus of them, it looked like she’d just wound up in the background of a picture or two, but it was definitely her. In the first she was seated by an artificial stream, kicking her feet in the water. “You can see Ms. Dawson here, in Millennium Park, the day her disappearance was reported, that’s a day and a half after she was last seen by anyone who knew her.”

The next picture was timestamped a bit later in the day. I mentally cursed digital cameras and their wealth of useful information. There were some days it felt like technology companies were deliberately trying to make my job harder. “In one of the photos shared with us you can see Ms. Dawson speaking with an unidentified man in a suit. Investigators are beginning to-”

I paused the playback and looked up at Simeon. “How complete of a description do they have?”

“Not a very good one, sir,” Simeon hastened to assure me. “You were only photographed from the back and that’s not your natural hair, so all they really have is your build. But they know someone was with Ms. Dawson shortly before she disappeared.”

“Not that they didn’t suspect that already,” I muttered. “But now they can definitively prove it. Was there anything else of importance? Other than the fact that Rodriguez is involved with this somehow.”

“Somehow?” Simeon quirked his eyebrows. “You don’t think he’s directly connected with Project Sumter?”

“Oh, sure. He has to be.” I shrugged and handed the tablet back to Simeon. If there had been something else I knew he would have brought it up immediately instead of asking about Rodriguez. “But the fact that he can be about it so publicly is annoying and unexpected. As is the fact that he’d be working on Hangman’s case rather than mine.”

“To answer you directly,” Simeon said, tucking the tablet under his arm, “no, there’s nothing else of note in this news broadcast. But I thought you would like to know all the same.”

I rubbed my chin absently, trying to focus my thoughts. “We need to get the media’s focus on something else.”

“That would be convenient,” Simeon agreed. “I don’t suppose you have a way to do that on hand?”

“In fact, I have a few thoughts on how we might do just that. Let me try and decide how to best implement them.” I refocused on the present. “If that’s all, I should really-”

“With all due respect, sir, it’s not quite.” Simeon hesitated for a minute, which was surprising enough, then he took the tablet, turned it over in his hands and then firmly clamped them behind his back. “Sir, this may not be any of my business but have you spoken to Miss Dawson since you returned from your trip out west?”

After all the fidgeting I had expected something a little more significant than that. “Not since the after the fact analysis. I’ve been quite busy. My other persona had an appearance to make, the EMP-countermeasure needs-”

“Yes, sir, I’m aware of your schedule.” He didn’t outright say he had written it but it was implied in his tone. “But… Sir, do you remember what you said to me when you first hired me?”

“I was going to give you the biggest administrative challenge you’d ever faced?”

That got the ghost of a smile on Simeon’s typically serene face. “After that.”

I sighed. One of the reasons I rely on Simeon as much as I do is because I know he makes up for many of my weaknesses while also understanding me well enough to function as a proxy in most situations. Unfortunately he has this mysterious compulsion to try and fix my failings in his spare time. I’ve learned to suffer through it as part of the price of keeping his most excellent services.

And that means playing along with him when he wants me to. “You’re better at judging people than I am.”

“And as such, I am in charge of managing your staff.”

I glanced around the garage and sighed. “Perhaps we should move to my office for this conversation.”

“If you prefer,” Simeon said.

“I do.” The garage was on the ground level of the compound and my office was on the second floor so I headed towards the stairs on the far wall, Simeon walking beside me.

“Sir, I know it’s not your habit to overanalyze the history of your employees unless you think it has a direct bearing on your plans.”

He paused like he was expecting a response; but it was a very cryptic statement and I climbed half the flight of stairs before saying, “Okay, I don’t quite follow you. I know that, outside of Davis and maybe you, none of us are exactly ordinary. But what does that have to do with Hangman?”

Simeon nodded, like that was about the response he’d been expecting. “Sir, you are aware that her father’s stance on unusually gifted individuals is very… strict.”

“If you’re saying that her father is an idiot who believes natural talent, of any kind, is an offense of some kind then yes, I’m familiar with Senator Dawson’s stance.” I shrugged. “He takes the nature versus nurture conflict too seriously. If he really believes all we need to do to build the perfect society is crush human nature under a system of education that acknowledges no differences between people he’s crazy.”

“Maybe. But his insanity has had serious repercussions on his only child. After all, Miss Dawson demonstrated exceptional talent for mathematics and programing from a young age, an ability her father actively discouraged her from pursuing. Am I correct?”

I nodded, fishing around for the set of keys that would let me into the office and records part of the complex. With my abilities, electronic locks seem more like a liability that a properly built set of mechanical locks. “She had to teach herself, which only made her better at what she does, in my opinion.” I slipped the two keys into the door’s locks, one at waist height one at shoulder height, turned them and opened the door into the antechamber. “So on the whole, not a bad exchange.”

“Except she had to do it with no affirmation from her father. Children who have lacked a meaningful father figure in their lives have a tendency to seek a surrogate.”

I paused with the keys half out of the locks. “What, you mean me?”

“Well…” He shrugged, a distinctly uncharacteristic thing for him to do. “That’s the most immediate result of it, yes. But more than that, you told me she had ‘bought in’ to your ambitions.”

“In the long term, as she understands them, yes.” We were still in the open platform over the workshop and garage so I stepped into the antechamber and motioned Simeon in after me, then closed the door. Something made me keep my voice down despite the fact that we were alone in the small chamber, with the only exits being my office, the server room and back out into the main part of the complex. “I haven’t explained Operation Chainfall to her yet. Or the Thunderclap Gambit.”

“To say nothing of Thunderbird?”

“To say nothing of that.” I shrugged. “She is a very, very good analyst. She might have guessed at what Chainfall aims to do. Possibly even Thunderclap.”

SImeon nodded. “I guessed as much, so I can only assume you did as well, and find it to be acceptable. Are you going to tell her about Thunderbird?”

“Of course not. It’s not relevant.” I scowled. Hangman hadn’t been exactly thrilled when I’d held back information on our last jaunt but surely she understood I couldn’t tell her everything. I didn’t mind if she figured things out on her own, independently drawn conclusions aren’t nearly the liability my spelling things out could be. And I don’t like spreading deliberate disinformation among my own people, it cuts down on trust and makes running an efficient operation harder. “What does this have to do with Hangman?”

“You and Miss Dawson had significant disagreements about operational parameters after your first joint field effort, did you not?”

I rubbed my forehead for a minute, willing myself to be patient. For some reason I was getting fed up with Simeon’s roundabout approach. Normally he didn’t upset me at all. We had the best working dynamic of any two people in my organization. It could only be because I was getting so close to my endgame. “Okay. Yes, you’re right. She was impulsive, and it could have blown the whole operation if she got caught outside of the van. I don’t think she’s ready for field work yet, but that’s not her fault. She doesn’t have the experience Grappler and I have, or the upbringing Heavy did. We’ll just-”

“You’re missing the point, sir.” Simeon drummed his fingers absently on the side of the tablet he held. “You see, based on the… extreme measures Miss Dawson took to engineer a meeting with you, the way she’s behaved since you met, the time she’s spent in planning and analysis with you…”

I frowned. “You think she wasn’t sincere when she said she was joining for the cause?” Suddenly I stood straight as a new idea leapt into my mind fully formed. “Do you think she’s trying to get a picture of Thunderbird? Turn it over to her father and prove herself somehow?”

“No.” Simeon said it quickly and firmly. “No, I think she was entirely truthful about joining so that all people of talent could find the freedom to use their talents. From the time we’ve spent together it seems that’s all she’s ever wanted to do. You’ve given her that opportunity and you value her contributions. Not only that, you encourage them and try to help her be better at them.”

“So she’s loyal.”

“Loyal is not the word I would use, sir.”

I stared blankly at Simeon. He was waiting to be prompted again. “What word would you use, Mr. Delacroix?”

“I…” His mouth was open for a moment, then he closed it and cleared his throat before trying again. “Understand, I thought her behavior was odd at first. But I didn’t understand it until… Well, something was said to me that suggested it. Once I came to study the problem from that perspective it made more sense.”

“What perspective, Simeon?”

“Love, sir.” He sighed. “I believe that, at the very least, Miss Dawson has a very strong crush on you. Maybe her feelings are more mature than that, but I can’t say for sure right now.”

“What…” My voice trailed off as my brain tried to assimilate that idea. “Simeon, I’m at least fifteen years older than she is.”

“Thirteen years, two months actually.” He shrugged again and the motion made me dizzy. Or maybe it was just my head spinning. “Sir, in my experience that doesn’t matter as much as you might think. Especially to the kind of young woman who gets caught up in a romantic cause like the crusade you’re on.”

“Simeon, I’m trying to conquer North America, not save the world. What kind of woman-” I caught myself. As Simeon had just pointed out, he’s better at reading these kinds of situations than I am. Best to assume he was at least partially correct. “Fine. But, Simeon…” I shook my head. “That just means Thunderbird is…”

“Yes, I know.” He sighed and put a hand on my shoulder. I stiffened. “Sir, forgive me but I’m about to be very blunt and very personal.”

I stared at him a moment, wondering if I should just electrocute him and make a run for it. I’ve made more impulsive decisions. But they were all a long time ago, when Thunderbird was still a vague idea in the back of my head, not an endgame that was only months away. “Go ahead, Simeon.”

He nodded and seemed to gather himself up for the final push. “Sir, I’m telling you this mostly because you need to start taking it into account. If I’m right then yes, Miss Dawson is going to hate the ideas underpinning Thunderbird. But more than that, she’s going to actively try to insert herself into your plans. To get your attention and win your favor, regardless of what she knows.”

I nodded. “Yes, I can see that. And not speaking to her for several days after our last argument just because I have been busy is not going to be acceptable to her.”

“Agreed. But I’m sure you can find a way to deal with any fallout from that quickly enough. Assuming Miss Dawson hasn’t taken the initiative on that as well.” Simeon leaned a little closer and dropped his voice down to a murmur. “What I wanted to say is… I think you might need her.”

“Of course,” I said, baffled. “I’ve been relying on her data-”

“No, sir,” Simeon said, cutting me off. “As you’ve just said, your goal is to conquer a continent. Your reasons for doing it aren’t even all that selfish. But they’re still not something many are going to understand. One of the few who will has come and found you, and might even be interested in more than just helping out.”

He took his hand off my shoulder and stepped back, resuming a more normal tone. “I’ve seen you take on challenges and stress that would break a dozen lesser men, but even you must have some limits. And not even I really understand your motivations. If you want to see this through, a companion who does ‘get it’ is something you’re going to need. If you’ll excuse me for saying so, you should think about it.”

Having said his piece Simeon gave me a slight nod of the head and let himself back out. I didn’t really acknowledge him leaving, in fact I didn’t surface from my thoughts until a few minutes later. The whole idea just seemed so preposterous. I didn’t have time to think about romance, much less a romance as preposterous as wooing a woman a decade my junior.

In fact, without Simeon’s calm presence there to reinforce the idea it was starting to look truly absurd. But he might be right about the father figure idea. I did need to go and talk to Hangman, let her know I still valued her abilities in spite of her impulsive decisions in the field. I nodded to myself. I would do it right after checking a few things in my office.

So I unlocked my office door and let myself in to find Hangman sitting behind my desk, her feet up on the writing surface, fiddling with her laptop. 

“Hi, Circuit,” she said, putting her feet down as soon as she saw me come through the door. Then she fished her earbuds out and I mentally breathed a sigh of relief. At least she probably hadn’t overheard the conversation out in the antechamber. “I wanted to talk to you.”

I felt a moment of sudden awkwardness, Simeon’s words still fresh in my mind. So instead of demanding to know how she had gotten into a locked office to which she didn’t have a key, or why she thought I would have time for her with all the other things on my plate or any of a dozen other potentially relevant questions, all I managed was, “Oh?”

She looked back down at her laptop. “I’ve been sorting back through all the jobs you, Grappler and Heavy have done in the last year.”

“Yes?” Another part of the far-flung Chainfall plan which she hadn’t been told about. Apparently she was still trying to run down the various elements of that on her own. “What about them?”

“Three bank jobs by you, focusing on electronic sabotage, five heists by Grappler where authorities are still trying to figure out how a catburgler could have climbed in and out without leaving traces – which she doesn’t leave, of course – and one massive water system shutdown by Heavy Water.” She glanced up from her laptop. “At least, I’m assuming that taking place at the same time as the warehouse raid where you picked up those superconductors in Memphis wasn’t a coincidence. The cause of the water company’s difficulties was never officially found.”

“Because turning normal water, even sewage water, to gelatin without the addition of any chemicals isn’t the kind of thing Project Sumter likes getting around.”

She set her laptop to one side of the desk so she could lean on it and give me a mischievous look. “And then there was the Stillwater job just a few days ago, where Grappler actually went in to steal equipment and didn’t bother shutting down any of the cameras in the security system. Sure, it was a smalltime company with small time security, but still. Circuit, why does it look like you’re deliberately doing jobs in ways only people with your unique talents could do?”

“Because I have talented staff?”

“But you never did that in the past. Just in the last year or so.”

I crossed to the desk and rested my hands on it’s top, scowling down at her. “Hangman, why are you here?”

She ignored my attempt at intimidation. “Circuit, you’re trying to end the Masquerade. Trying to tell the world talents exist. And you’re doing it wrong.”

The scowl grew deeper. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, no one’s going to care about robbing banks or warehouses unless they own them. If you want the public to know you exist then you’re not stealing the right stuff. You need to get creative. Send a message. Trust me, I might have hated studying journalism but one thing I’ll always remember is the importance of having a point to a story and getting it across by any means necessary. You want to deal with Project Sumter, built on Lincoln’s Law and dedicated to keeping talents a secret? You don’t steal money, superconductors or sound equipment.” She turned her laptop so I could see the screen. “You steal this.”

As I read the information on the screen I didn’t follow what she was saying. At least, not at first. But then the pieces began to fall into place and I felt a manic grin sneaking it’s way across my face. By the time I was done I could see what she wanted me to do, so I looked her in the eye and said the first three words that came to mind.

“That is brilliant.”

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Water Fall: Live Wires

Posted by natechen on

Six Weeks, Three Days Before the Michigan Avenue Proclamation

Circuit

My life would have been a lot easier if the soldiers had decided to do something stereotypical and stupid, like using their rifles. However, real soldiers get warned about things like ricochets and so they came after me with knives instead of shooting up the inside of an armored tin can so I was forced to deal with them without the benefit of stupidity.

On the bright side, a magnetic can was an environment that I was practically born to work in.

There was a light in the center of the vehicle, just behind the soldiers who were coming at me, but a cursory examination, which was all I had time for, revealed no other places I could hijack current from the APC’s battery. I had exactly two seconds to figure out how I wanted to get to it. There wasn’t time for anything fancy and the fact that we were still in a moving vehicle cut down on my options, too. So I kept it simple and fired up the magnetic boots and vambraces again, using them to grab onto the side of the vehicle and throw myself towards the ceiling.

Unfortunately I couldn’t get both arms in good contact with the ceiling and I wound up swinging sloppily from one arm. But it was enough of a surprise to the guards that none of them managed to get their knives around and stick me before I crashed into the one on the right and sent us both to the floor. I was getting quite used to seeing the floor of the APC and it wasn’t exactly an experience I recommend. At least the guards weren’t wearing body armor, which made it a lost easier to drop an elbow into the soldier’s gut before shoving him under his companion’s feet and scrambling back and to my feet.

The other two guards stumbled just enough to give me time to get up without interference. In the process I grabbed a small device from my belt, a miniaturized version of the lightening funnel I’d used against Helix just a couple of weeks ago. The principle was simple. Using a precisely balanced set of magnetic fields I could change the balance of magnetic potentials over a much greater range than any other fusebox I’d heard of before. While the one I was holding wasn’t nearly strong enough to arc lightning out of storm clouds it was more than enough to let me hijack the APC’s electrical systems and arc them through people and into the floor of what was essentially a large metal box.

I reached up to the light fixture and switched it on. A second later there was a sizzle of ozone, a quiet pop and the other two guards dropped to the floor. Just to be sure they wouldn’t be any more trouble I gave all three a quick kick to the head, fairly certain that would keep them quiet. Then I switched the lightening funnel back off and I slipped it back into my belt. With my other hand I smashed the light fixture, throwing the compartment into darkness and siphoning much of the vehicle’s battery charge into my harness.

That gave me more than three quarter’s charge, enough to risk switching the maglev harness back on and feeling around. Unfortunately the weird, slippery feeling that I’d felt just before it went screwy was still there, which meant I couldn’t count on it for an escape if I needed one. Since there was no point wasting charge I switched the harness back off and cranked the volume of my headset back to conversational levels. “Hangman, something’s gone wrong with the maglev rig.”

“I tried to tell you earlier,” Hangman yelled in my ear. “You’re too low!”

“Stop yelling!” I yelled. “I turned you back up. What do you mean I’m too low?”

“The highway’s dipped too low,” Hangman said, her voice back at a manageable volume. “There’s only one maglev relay that’s low enough down for you to push on. That means-”

“Yes, I follow the theory, thank you.” Getting aloft using maglev relies on making a three point triangle. Magnets can only push directly away from each other, so if there aren’t two of them to balance your maglev array against you just wind up sliding along the path of least resistance – which usually means bouncing awkwardly along the ground getting lots of fun new bruises. But this was even worse, instead of pushing myself up with the relays they were now positioned so that I was a between two of them, and the weird slippery feeling from before was the repelling force of the maglev relays pushing against each other – and me. Until I could get some more altitude I was grounded.

“Okay back there, Donner?” That question came from the APC’s driver, who was looking back over his shoulder. I realized that draining the vehicle’s batter had also fried something important and the vehicle was stopped, probably totally inoperable. When he realized I wasn’t one of his buddies his expression changed from concern to hostility. “What the-”

I grabbed the first handy thing, which happened to be a shoulder bag sitting on one of the benches, and swung it around into the driver’s face. He went down, the rest of his sentence lost in the whump of the bag making contact. It sounded like there was something fairly weighty in there but I didn’t have time to wonder about what it might be.

Now apparently a man mysteriously landing on top of a vehicle in your convoy is not a valid reason for the Army to circle the wagons but one of said vehicles stopping unexpectedly is, because that’s exactly what the rest of the convoy proceeded to do. It didn’t take quite as long as fully subduing the driver so I had a few seconds to get the lay of the land. “What are they talking about, Hangman?”

“Why your APC is stopping. Why they’re not getting any response over the satlink. What they’re going to do when they find out who’s responsible for sending things so far south. Not very pleasant talk, that last bit.” There was some kind of strange background noise mixed in with Hangman’s voice. “I don’t suppose you could have your driver call them off?”

I finished dragging the soldier in question out of his chair and laying him none-to-gently on the floor. “I’m afraid he’s a bit indisposed.”

“I figured.”

“Hangman, are you moving?” I straightened up and looked out the front window of the APC. The lights of the rest of the convoy were getting close, blocking off the highway. Absently, I wondered how soon we could expect to start backing up traffic. I was actually rather surprised there weren’t a few civilian cars out there already. “I’m not ready for extraction yet.”

“No, you’re not. You’re in the middle of what you’re new friends would call a Charlie Foxtrot, when they’re in polite company, and it’s time we changed plans.” There was a squealing sound that sounded a lot like tires spinning on pavement, then, “I can be there in two minutes.”

“That’s-”

“You can’t solo this one, Circuit,” she insisted. “You don’t have time to keep those soldiers jumping and grab the goods. All eyes are going to be on you, so I’ll make the grab.”

“They’re going to see you coming.”

“You’re in the middle of a highway. It may be 2 AM local time but you’re still going to be ankle deep in cars in just a few minutes.”

“Corporal Donner,” a voice called from outside the APC. “I want all your men out of there now!”

“Fine. We’ll do it your way, but keep your head down and don’t get hurt. You have the lot number we’re looking for?”

“‘Course.”

“Good.” I grabbed the step that swung down from the APC’s topside hatch. “And Hangman? We’re going to talk about this after we’re done here.”

“Of that I had no doubt.”

I vaulted myself up and clambered onto the top of APC. Since the silhouette of a man in a fedora and suit is much different from that of a soldier, even when he’s not in full battle dress, I got a lot of attention quickly.

“Up top!” One of the soldiers shouted.

That was my cue to leave. With a quick mental command I switched the maglev harness back on then bent my knees, ignoring the popping noise because I wasn’t that old, and jumped. Then I pushed as hard as I could against the closest maglev relay, sending myself slipping sideways across the highway and into the grass in the median. Of course, since I started a good ten or twelve feet off the pavement and the median was much lower than that, my meeting with the ground was fairly abrupt. Even with padded body armor and my best fall breaking techniques I was pretty winded but the scattered gunfire from the highway told me I really need to get moving. I’d probably just surprised the soldiers into shooting just then but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be making very deliberate attempts to punch me full of holes in the near future.

So I pushed up and scrambled along the side of the road in a crouch. The only light was coming from the vehicles in the convoy and any other cars that had come along and gotten stuck behind them. In the wild crisscross of high beams it couldn’t be easy to see anything out in the dark. Unless one of them had infrared goggles or something, and wouldn’t that be just my luck?

Fortunately the arrival of civilian vehicles gave whoever was in charge of the convoy something to think about besides finding the guy in the hat and beating him until he admitted to being a terrorist. There was a lot of yelling going on up there but I did my best to ignore it. Hangman might think she could get ahold of the package we were there to pick up by herself but she apparently didn’t know how big it was – one way or another I was going to have to be there to help out. Might as well start looking for the thing myself.

My luck held as I scuttled along the pavement and over to the nearest truck, no one spotted me even though it felt like the whole world could hear my feet scraping on the pavement.

Magnetic boots are not exactly built for stealth.

Any hope of getting in and out without being observed was now long gone, so I felt no regret at slicing through the canvas and into the bed of the truck. I clambered in, produced a small penlight from my belt and took a quick look around. Thankfully the box I was looking for was fairly large, at least four feet long, and the boxes in the truck weren’t large enough for that. I wasn’t sure what all I was looking at but I was pretty sure it wasn’t what I was after.

The next truck in line was similarly devoid of my objective but I hit pay dirt in the third. The box was strapped to the truck bed and the rest of the vehicle was empty. I couldn’t see the whole identification number on the box but I really didn’t need to. If this wasn’t what I was after I would eat my hat. I was about to climb into the truck bed when I heard boots coming around the side of the truck. I slipped down the side of the vehicle and moved as quickly as I could, although it still wasn’t all that quiet.

The soldier came around the side of the truck before I could get up to the corner; so unfortunately he had enough time to shout “Hey!” before I could slap him with the taser. Then it was up into the truck bed. I threw my suit jacket off then fumbled the maglev harness off and looped it over the four corners of the box and switched it on. Voices were yelling outside the truck as I slashed the box free of the truck bed and sheathed my knife.

“Hangman,” I whispered. “Are you here yet?”

“Out of the van, sneaking along the side of the highway.” Her answering whisper was almost lost in the background noise of a idling cars.

“Well get back in the van,” I hissed. “I found the package and we’re ready to go, but the van needs to be running, with you leaning on the brakes, in order for this to work.”

“Wha-”

“The van has a relay built in, Hangman.” My voice was rising and I took a moment to throttle it back down to a whisper. “It comes on when the motor is running. I need the van running but stationary if I’m going to maglev this piece of junk out of the truck bed and into the van.”

Hangman cursed and I heard quiet scrabbling noises over the headset. Then one of the convoy guards poked his head through the canvas truck cover and I got distracted.

Option one was to shoot him, but if you don’t want to be killing a cop before you’re ready to deal with all the cops in the county then you really don’t want to be killing a soldier unless you’re ready to deal with, at a minimum, whole infantry divisions. Option two was to close the distance and go with the tasers in my gloves. But I didn’t have the element of surprise this time so my chances of coming out of that in good condition were much, much smaller and I needed to stay near the harness to make it work anyways. So I went with option three and slipped out one of the two magnesium flares I kept on my belt, closed my eyes and lit it with a snap of the wrist.

I’d packed them with the idea that Hangman might have to move the van and the come find me later. The flares were to make the finding part easier. Well, she’d moved the van but we were close enough that finding me shouldn’t pose any problem, and it would be a shame to let a perfectly good flare go to waste. From the pained noise the soldier made when his night adjusted eyes were blinded by the brilliant glare, it had definitely been put to good use.

The flare wasn’t much use now so I threw it down and grabbed hold of the box and nudged the maglev harness to life. For a few nerve-wracking seconds there was no sign of the van’s maglev relay, then it sprang to life. There wasn’t anything to do but hope that Hangman had already set the brake, flip polarity on the harness and push it to life.

With polarities reversed the harness was no longer repelled by the maglev relay, but rather attracted towards it. Although the combined weight of the package and myself was nearly three times what the harness had been carrying before; I figured I could afford to turn the power up since the battery only had to get us a few hundred feet to the van. So I pushed as hard as I could and spared a little attention to make sure nothing important shorted out from the extra current load. And I did my best to hang on, twenty miles an hour is pretty fast when all you have to hang on to is an improvised set of straps on a large wooden box.

Of course, the van wasn’t parked directly behind the truck so I actually wound up sliding across the truck bed and into the canvas on the side – not the side I’d cut through on my way in, either. But as soon as I got my knife free and started cutting the force of the box pushing against the canvas tore things the rest of the way and the box and I went flipping over the side of the truck. For a moment I thought the box would land on top of me and that would be the end of it, but we wound up rotating just enough that the edge of the box caught on the pavement and it flipped one more time, sliding across the pavement with me on the top and not the bottom, accompanied by the surprised profanity of half a dozen soldiers.

For the second time in five minutes surprise was on my side, none of the guards managed to react in time to make a grab for me or the box and then I was beyond them and skidding through the cars that had come up on the stopped convoy and gotten stuck there. There were only ten or so civilian vehicles there and the soldiers had thankfully been in the process of clearing them off the highway, otherwise my trip could have come to an abrupt end against some hapless family’s Toyota, doing no good for them or me. Then the van loomed up, the back doors already open, and I flipped the polarity of the harness back around, letting up on the pressure on the maglev system some, so that the magnets repelled again and acted as brakes. The box slowed, tilting precariously up on one side. I hopped off and, at the last second, killed the maglev harness entirely and put my shoulder behind the box and pushed it. That, along with the last of the momentum from our mad rush out of the truck, was enough for it tip over into the back of the van. I gave it a good, hard push and got it the rest of the way into the van, then jumped up and swung the doors closed behind me. Not a moment too soon, either, as the guards were already starting to take shots at us.

But with the doors closed and all the armor in the vehicle’s chassis between us and them they weren’t really a threat anymore. I clambered over the box and into the front seat, saying, “Drive!”

Hangman wordlessly floored the gas and we took off down the highway against traffic. The vehicles I take with me on jobs are hardly stock vans, however, and between four wheel drive and upgraded suspension crossing a grass maridian like you find on the typical divided highway is no big deal. We were driving with traffic soon enough.

I noticed as I was settling in that the front windshield had taken a bullet, leaving a small impact crater in the bullet resistant glass. It wasn’t until Hangman fished the spent round out of her lap and tossed it in the back with shaking hands that I realized it was on the inside and not the outside.

I studied her carefully. She was pale, but seemed to be in possession of her faculties. “Are you alright?”

“Sure.” She spared a glance away from the road. “When were you going to tell me the package was so big we had to lift it by maglev?”

“When it became relevant,” I said testily.

“We have a bit of a drive before we can switch to a less conspicuous vehicle,” she said, matching my tone. “Maybe we can talk about that.”

“No.” I stood up and climbed into the back. “We’re going to keep all our attention on the road so that no one can sneak up on us. But believe me, we will talk about that, and a number of other things, once we’re out of the field.”

The promise followed us all the way back to base. A part of me would have almost prefered another disaster to deal with instead.

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Water Fall: Shock and Awe

Posted by natechen on

Six Weeks, Three Days Before the Michigan Avenue Proclamation 

Circuit

It was dark. Not just middle of the night dark, but honest to goodness, clouds in front of the moon and not a light on the side of the road dark. You wouldn’t think there was a part of America where there are no lights on the side of the road, but the fact is that in many of the more remote parts of the country no one bothers with them.

Nebraska certainly counts as remote.

However, roads with no lights on them at all are not the kind of thing used by the U.S. Army. No, on this particular night the lightlessness of the road had nothing to do with age or infrastructure and everything to do with yours truly. The clouds over the moon were coincidental, but handy.

I was drifting along the side of the road at about twenty miles an hour. Some work with the maglev relays the day before had let me push the top speed back up to something that wasn’t quite as embarrassing as the jogging pace we’d had when testing things. Still, things got touchy if I tried to move much faster than twenty miles an hour, so ambushing a convoy moving at highway speeds was going to be tricky.

I mentally flicked my headset active. “Any sign of their calling for help?”

“No,” Hangman said, her voice sounding unusually tense. “So far they’ve just been grumbling about the maintenance the highway gets. Wait.” A moment’s pause. “Okay, somebody just floated the idea.”

“Have you found their satellite uplink?”

“It’s cracked and being monitored.” A hint of exasperation replaced some of the tension in her voice. “There’s a trojan in there that will let me shut off the feed at any point without tripping any automatic alarms. But Circuit, you know as well as I do that there’s no accounting for human eyes. If someone notices that the convoy hasn’t checked in in a while it could be even more of a problem than their complaining about the lights along the road being out.”

“Believe it or not, that has occurred to me. I’m more worried about what will happen once they start reporting flying men landing on the trucks. The Army has a notoriously slow response time, it’s part of being a huge bureaucratic institution. But if Project Sumter is listening and has someone nearby we could be in trouble before we can successfully cover our tracks.” I narrowed my eyes as headlights appeared in the distance. “I have visual.”

“They still haven’t touched their satellite uplink,” Hangman said. “Do you want me to cut it now, or wait?”

“Cut it now.” I eased up slightly, letting myself drift down so I was closer to the road. There was a bigger chance I would be spotted but the fact is keeping the maglev system working required constant pressure from my talent. It’s a lot like keeping a muscle flexed for a long period of time, you can do it easily enough with the right conditioning but it’s still tiring. The plan didn’t call for a lot of talent use once I was in, but it was best to be cautious and keep as much of it available as I could.

“The satlink is cut,” Hangman said. “Just out of curiosity, what are your countermeasures for their cellphones?”

“Bureaucracy again.” I said, trying not to stare into the headlights and ruin my night vision. It was difficult, since I needed to keep an eye on the vehicles and in the near total darkness the light could be almost hypnotic. “If they’re calling over an unsecured line they’ll need to run through a whole identification routine and it will take them time to get up the chain of command. If anything, it will slow their response time even more.”

“Point.” A moment’s silence. “Okay, they’re satellite link is now cut. Home base is getting a false signal.”

The headlights were getting larger and larger. “I’m getting ready to go down. This could be loud, and I’m going to need my concentration. I’m turning down the volume on the headset so if you have something to say be sure it’s nice and loud.”

“Or I could…” Hangman’s voice faded beneath the noise of rushing air.

The manifest we’d intercepted said there should be half a dozen vehicles in the convoy  I was planning to ambush. Unfortunately which vehicle the piece of equipment I wanted was supposed to be in hadn’t been clear. Worse, since I was after an electronic component, I couldn’t risk disabling the convoy with an electromagnetic pulse, as that had a chance of damaging it. I’d known all this before I came out and had cooked up a number of different ways to try and slow down the convoy so I could get on board one of its vehicles without injuring myself.

Unfortunately only one of those schemes had actually been practical.

It involved another piece of brilliant Davis engineering, a motorized cable and winch that I had strapped over one shoulder. It contained three hundred feet of light weight line that could easily support five hundred pounds of weight. The weighted magnetic grapple at one end could be fired via electromagnets at a speed of about sixty miles an hour. In theory, all I had to do was get it attached to a vehicle and let the crank slowly bring me up to speed and then along side the truck.

But, as any well trained sniper will tell you, it’s always best to hit the last person in a line first. If you start at the front, the people behind him will notice what’s happening. The same principle applies to sticking a grappling hook into an Army convoy. I would only have one chance to snag the last truck in line. That wasn’t my favorite part of the plan.

Drifting along the side of the road at twenty miles an hour it looked even less appealing. Even though some work with the maglev harness earlier had made it more comfortable, and even though I’d practiced this while moving at different speeds and under different conditions out at the base camp I had in Wisconsin, I was still not entirely confident that I could hit on my first try.

There was a back up option, of course, in the form of a roadblock a few miles down the road at the limits of my maglev range. But not only would it take time for me to catch up to the convoy if they got past, the roadblock would put them on alert. I wasn’t really ready for a confrontation with the armed forces just yet, it would be much better if I could do this quietly.

The convoy passed below me, looking deceptively sedate. From that far up a speed difference of forty miles an hour didn’t look like much but as I dropped closer and closer to the convoy things started to happen fast.

Forty miles an hour is a big speed difference, and the first three vehicles were past before I even had the winch lined up. I got a brief glance of an APC and a couple of covered trucks as they went by and then I was lining up my shot. Unfortunately, firing a grappling hook at a moving vehicle mostly consist of pointing it in the right direction and hoping for good luck. While I could possibly recall the grapple using the magnets built into it there was only a slim chance that I could do it before the convoy was out of reach.

So there was nothing to do but suck in a deep breath, drop a few more feet until I was about a dozen feet off the pavement and just as far to the left of the oncoming vehicles, and trigger the launcher.

There was a troubling moment of uncertainty, then the grapple clanged into something important on the last vehicle in line and I was suddenly being dragged along like the world’s strangest parasailer. To be precise, the winch was still letting out line but giving some resistance, so I was picking up speed gradually, instead of having my arms ripped out of their sockets. It wasn’t fun, but it sure beat the alternative. Still, the jolt managed to send a twinge of pain shooting through my recently dislocated right shoulder. I grit my teeth and focused on the motor in the winch, reversing it so it began cranking the line in and dragging me closer to the vehicle I’d snagged.

Unfortunately, the vehicle in question was another APC. It looked like the convoy consisted of four trucks sandwiched between two of the armor carriers, which was sensible from a security standpoint but made my life more difficult. The equipment I was after was most likely in one of the trucks, which meant I’d have to work my way forward. Worse, the APCs probably had a bunch of cramped, bored guards in them, people who would probably notice and take violent offense to my hopping from truck to truck and rummaging through the contents.

I was trying to work out some way to deal with that without bringing the whole convoy down on my head when the winch pulled me down to within a half a dozen feet of the APC’s roof and something suddenly changed. For lack of a better term the magnetic forces keeping me aloft suddenly wobbled and turned slippery; then I was falling, not in freefall but actually shooting downwards towards the vehicle below. I had just enough time to toss the winch aside and throw my hands up to catch myself before I crashed into the armored surface of the APC.

The first thing I did was kill the maglev harness. Getting it up and working again would be much easier than trying to get Hangman to shut down and reboot the entire relay system. Since that was no more work than a quick nudge of talent in the right direction I was able to do it before I even started collecting my wits.

The second thing to do was shake the stars out of my vision and begin collecting said wits.

Ideally, that would have been the end of the things I had to do, at least for the next minute or two. Unfortunately, life and ideals have longstanding  issues with one another. That is how I wound up face down and in pain on top of a moving APC in the first place.

So instead of getting a few minutes to recover, I got an overly-clever guard poking his head through the hatch a few feet away, probably wondering what all the banging was.

I should have tried to kick the hatch down on his head, or just kicked him myself. Unfortunately I was still flat on my stomach and doing my best to get my breath back, so soldier boy had enough time to notice me and yell something to his buddies down in the truck. While that was bad, in that it put the entire load of soldiers on notice, it also gave me enough time to get my breath back.

Even with the main part of the maglev harness off, my standard rig included magnetic boots and vambraces. So the next thing to do was check the charge in the batteries in my rig. There was still enough charge for about fifteen minutes of constant use, which would be enough if I avoided using my taser. On the other hand, the average truck has a battery that should have enough charge to refill about a third of my reserves.

Since things were, as the fellows in the APC below me might say, already FUBAR I decided to burn the charge and plan on topping off from a couple of the vehicles in the convoy. Roadblock or no, I suspected we’d be stopped soon enough.

Which shows how little I understood military strategy. Looking back at it, I suspect the boys in the convoy were expecting an ambush and resolved to push on as much as possible in an attempt to avoid it. These were soldiers, after all, not security guards, they had different priorities. So the APC kept going and the guard started to haul up his sidearm.

Now engaging on in wild struggles on top of a moving vehicle is actually on the list of things that aspiring villains should actively avoid, but in my defense I hadn’t meant for any fighting to happen at this point. Actually, there wouldn’t have been any fighting at all if I could have had my way. But again, that would be an ideal situation and those are in chronically short supply.

Fortunately I was magnetically attached to the top of the APC and that reduced the chances that I would go airborne unexpectedly. Unfortunately, I’d have to release those magnets in order to get in reach of the guard. There was a heart-stopping moment when my hands slipped free from the APC’s roof then I grabbed the edge of the hatch and dove down in, grabbing the guard’s belt to act as break.

There was a moment of tangled limbs and grunts, then we collapsed onto the floor of vehicle in a heap. Almost without thinking I dug my hands into the guard’s guts and emptied my taser. He spasmed once and went still.

I gave the guard a shove and rolled to my feet. Three disgruntled soldiers were recovering from shock and getting ready for me just a few feet away. I gave a half-hearted smile and tugged my hat brim down a bit farther. “Good evening, boys. Sorry to drop in unexpectedly. I don’t suppose you’d believe I was just looking for the restroom?”

One of the soldiers gave me a sidelong glance, but other than that they gave no sign of stopping to chat. I sighed. “Yeah, that line never works anyway. Let’s dance.”

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Water Fall: High Voltage

Posted by natechen on

Six Weeks, Four Days before the Michigan Avenue Proclamation

Circuit

“The obsession some people have with human flight mystifies me.”

“Circuit.” Hangman’s voice came distant and a little scratchy over the modified Bluetooth headset I was wearing. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.”

“Try something for me. Ask ten people at random what superpower they’d want to have and at least half of them will tell you flight.” I looked down the side of the stone outcropping I was standing on and down into a shallow gorge carved by a creek that only existed during rainstorms. “I think people assume it’s freeing to be able to fly. Do you think it ever occurs to them that flight is little more than a constant, life or death battle against gravity? One wrong move and you’re just a mark on the pavement.”

“Much like the rest of life.”

“True. And to be fair, they never think of life in those terms, either. Yet more proof that the average American suffers some kind of brain damage at some point in their life, a troubling trend that I’ll assign someone to study as soon as I’ve achieved unquestioned authority.” I ignored the muffled snort from Hangman and backed up from the edge of the ridge a few steps. “Regardless, I suppose we have no choice this time around. Are all the connections ready to go?”

There was a moment of silence, then, “Everything looks green. Tell me, how were you planning to test all this by yourself?”

“I was actually planning to bring Davis along. This whole system is his baby and he’s been dying to find a practical testing ground for it.” I glanced towards the east, where the van Hangman was in had been parked. She couldn’t see me from there, of course, but some instincts are hard to suppress. “But since you volunteered I kept him at the Chainfall site. He’s not happy about it, but it’s a more efficient use of personnel.”

“You keep mentioning the Chainfall site…”

“Yes, I do.” I left it at that. “Review. How long do we have set aside for this test?”

“Twenty minutes, maximum, so that no one will notice the current drain.” There was a moment’s pause. “Twelve would be optimum, allowing for the most possible testing with the least chance of detection.”

“Excellent.” I took a deep breath and readied myself for the jump. “Activate the maglev system, please.”

“Maglev is active.”

As Hangman said it I felt the harness I wore tighten slightly and it suddenly felt like I was about forty pounds lighter. I pushed slightly against the electromagnets in my harness and the power cranked up. My feet bobbed off the ground a half inch and I grimaced. “We have buoyancy. How do things look?”

“Eighty percent green,” Hangman replied. “Some circuits in the yellow, two leaning towards orange. At what point am I supposed to become worried, again?”

“Let me know when we’re in the orange, and where,” I replied. “Red means we’re borderline failing, and I want to avoid those spots until I can overhaul it.”

“We’re orange at relays 12 and 27. You’re good everywhere else.”

I quickly ran through where the bad connections were in my head and plotted out a route that would avoid them. Then I grit my teeth and dashed towards the ridge. There was a moment of primal fear as I went over the edge and pushed out along the magnetic fields covering the ground below, forcing more power into the electromagnets we’d spent the last few days installing. As the power increased my own harness produced fields of the same polarity. The opposing fields pushed me back upwards and over the ground at a fast run.

It was a lot like what a rubber ball must feel like when it’s thrown along the floor. I grunted in discomfort.

“Something wrong?” Hangman now sounded like she was trying not to laugh.

“Are you watching this somehow?”

“External camera with a telephoto lens,” she said in amusement. “Very graceful, Circuit.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying and failing to keep discomfort out of my voice. “I’m sure this gets easier with practice.”

“I’m sure.”

And it did, although only slowly. I estimated that I’d only be able to get through two thirds of the relays I’d set out before we needed to shut down, even pushing the system as hard as I could I wasn’t getting much above fifteen miles an hour. Davis had assured me that I would get at least thirty, but prototypes are just prototypes. There was time to make tweaks if I could find any that were practical while we were still in the field.

After about five minutes of fiddling I was confident enough to start talking again. “Anything new I need to know about?”

“A few more yellow connections,” Hangman said. Her amusement was gone and she was all business again. “Nothing beyond that.”

I swept over the highway, twenty feet below, keeping an eye out for headlights. Reports of a flying man over the interstate probably wouldn’t be considered credible, but it’s best to be cautious. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

A brief pause. “Which part of it?”

“Organization.” I tweaked the potentials a bit and dropped down to below tree level, slowing my speed and practicing fine control. Not pancaking into a tree trunk was great for my concentration. It just wasn’t focused on the subject at hand.  “Never planned to have you on hand, been trying to work you in.”

“That?” She laughed. “Well, of course you wouldn’t have counted on that. I didn’t know about it until a few months ago.”

I threw my hands up and slammed into the side of a birch tree, bending it out of my way with a grunt. Once I was clear and my ears stopped ringing I said, “No?”

“I’d thought about it for a while,” she said. “But I didn’t work out a way to make it happen until a few months ago. And even then, I wasn’t sure it would work. There were a lot of variables. We’re approaching the nine minute mark.”

“Noted.” Trying to maneuver through the trees was feeling more and more like a fools errand so I eliminated permutations of my plan that called on approaching under cover of the forest and pushed my way back above the treetops. “Let’s return to the original subject.”

“Organization,” Hangman said without hesitation.

“Specifically your place in mine,” I said, angling my way back towards the ridge I’d come from by a different route. “My first instinct would be to observe you for a time to see exactly what your strengths are.”

“Except you’ve employed me as an informant for two years, so you should know that very well,” she said. “That means the next logical step would be to give me tasks of increasing sensitivity in an effort to gauge how trustworthy I am.”

“Irrelevant. You already know enough that your trustworthiness is academic.” I bobbed back and forth in an attempt to get a better handle on precision maneuvering but the system still felt very sluggish and the harness dug into uncomfortable places so I gave up on it. Some tweaking was still needed apparently. “You’re here now and I have to deal with you. That’s at least half the reason you’re here in the first place.”

“Friends close and enemies closer?”

“And the unknown closest of all,” I added, powering down my harness and coming to a stop on the top of the ridge. “Power down the system and meet me at relay 27. You might as well learn how to strip down and overhaul these things, in case we need it tomorrow.”

“On my way.”

——–

“Okay, we’re close now. Are you going to get to the point now, or do I have to sit in your lap or something?”

I gave Hangman an irate glare over the connection board we were currently up to our elbows in. “Are you paying any attention to the theory here?”

She gave an exasperated huff. “Yes. Magnetic fields, when they overlap it creates something like an electric circuit which you manipulate to create a maglev effect all quite genius.”

“Also not my invention,” I felt compelled to point out. “This was cooked up by my head engineer-”

“Maximillian Davis, yes.” Hangman crinkled her nose. “What kind of name is Maximillian, anyways? Were his parents touched in the head?”

“Possibly. As I’ve never met them I couldn’t say for sure.” I stopped rummaging around in the innards of the maglev point and leaned on the edge of the machine, which was basically a waist high reinforced plastic box. “Okay, I’ve obviously managed to bore you. Or, at the very least, chosen to focus on the less interesting but more important details.”

Hangman mimicked my pose and smiled slightly. “They’re usually about the same thing.”

“Then let’s talk about you for a minute.”

“That is one of the subjects I find most interesting.” She leaned closer until we were practically nose to nose and whispered, “What do you want to know?”

I felt almost cross-eyed looking at her so I straightened up, putting a little space back between us, and spread my hands. “I plan on expanding my organization soon. And not just a small expansion, either. I’m looking at a large scale adjustment in personnel and scope of operations. I can’t take the same amount of time and care in vetting new additions to my roster as I have in the past.”

Hangman straightened with an annoyed look on her face. “So you want me to come up with some kind of mass background check system for you?”

“Why?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Do you have a problem with that? Feel it’s beneath your skills?”

“No!” She struggled for a moment with whatever was bothering her, then sighed. “Okay, fine. I’ll get started on a rough protocol tonight straight off. When do you want to see a final draft?”

“By the time we get back from this little job.” She looked a bit taken aback by that so I said, “You were the one who pointed out we’re in the big leagues now. We’re facing Project Sumter, a branch of the U.S. Federal Government. There’s a lot of ground to make up if we’re going to compete.”

“And you plan to do this through strength of numbers?” She shook her head. “I have to confess, Circuit, I am a little surprised. And disappointed.”

“The numbers are necessary, but not the key,” I said in a soothing tone. “Another key aspect of this gambit is information security, so I’m afraid I can’t say much more than that.”

She shrugged and leaned back over the open top of the maglev relay. “I have to admit, I knew it wasn’t all glamour and high adventure but this isn’t exactly what I expected.”

I laughed. “The mundanely of large scale data mining doesn’t appeal to you?”

“No. Well, yes, but not what I was talking about, exactly.” She looked back up from the connections we’d been testing for the last ten minutes. “It’s just… you do so much of your own legwork. Carting these gizmos around, positioning them yourself, leeching electricity off obscure public grids…”

“It’s more like a shoestring budget, basement office operation, isn’t it?” I asked ruefully.

She wrinkled her nose. “Not exactly what I was going to say, but…”

“You’re not wrong.” I went back to testing my share of the connections. “But when you joined up you told me I needed you because you were a true believer, not someone like Simeon or Heavy, who are just in it because they want a paycheck and maybe, possibly think I’m an alright guy, too. Well, if you really think this is worthwhile the shabby beginnings won’t bother you that much. So are you going to do this or not?”

Hangman sighed. “Right. One crazy gizmo, fully functional, coming up.”

“Maybe that’s part of your problem,” I said with the hint of a smile. “This isn’t just any crazy gizmo. It’s both a lever, and a place to stand.” The smile grew until it was all teeth and malice. “And with them, we shake the world.”

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Water Fall: Three Way Switch

Posted by natechen on

Seven Weeks, One Day before the Michigan Avenue Proclamation

Circuit

Picture this tableau. There is a man, well dressed and handsome, standing in the center of a group of people in the middle of a vicious argument.

To his left, Heavy Water tries to restrain an African American woman almost as tall as he is with one hand while still keeping a hold on the large box slung under his arm with the other. He is having little success in keeping the woman from pushing past him, more in keeping ahold of the container. For her part, Grappler is more interested in yelling at the younger woman, who is safely seated on the other side of the table the rest are standing around, than messing with Heavy. Elizabeth Dawson, daughter of a U.S. Senator but better known to us as a hacker who goes by Hangman, leans back in her chair and fiddles with a tablet.

Who is this man, and how does he come to be so calm when in the presence of these very dangerous, experienced criminals?

His name is Simeon Delacroix, and on those increasingly rare occasions where I stray into my public identity he is my office manager. When I function as a criminal mastermind he serves much the same purpose but without a title, as “office manager” does not inspire quite the same degree of respect from the hard types he sometimes deals with. In addition to doing all the things a normal office manager is expected to accomplish, Simeon is also expected to keep all of my employees from engaging in criminal acts against each other.

At this particular moment, Simeon is wishing he was on vacation. His job is full time and very demanding. His pay, while generous, is not exceptional and the other benefits are impressive but rarely used. For example, he has not had a true day off outside a few holidays for three years. Perhaps he is resenting the employer that puts such incredible demands on his time. Perhaps he is merely daydreaming about taking an attractive lady strolling along the beach.

Well, to tell the truth I’m not sure if he was thinking about a vacation or not. I do know that when I walked into the middle of the scene, still rubbing the remnants of my disguise makeup off my face, he was paying almost no attention to the argument going on. Of course, since I could hear Heavy and Grappler shouting before I even got in the room, it was no surprise. In fact, those two argue all the time, so Simeon and I have gotten used to tuning it out. I had just given Hangman credit for enough sense not to join in herself. But apparently she had.

“-has no right to tell me how to run a job,” Grappler was saying.

“Easy,” Heavy said, trying to get her to sit down. He threw Simeon a pleading glance, but he was busy with the book he had in his hands. Then Heavy caught sight of me and said, “Hey, boss.”

I knew a cue when I heard it, even if I had absolutely no idea what was going on. “We don’t look as ready for immediate action as I usually like to see things when I plan for immediate action.” I placed a hand on Grappler’s shoulder and she backed off a bit, then I glanced over at Hangman, then finally at my office manager, who’s failure to diffuse the situation was truly mystifying. Simeon usually breaks out in hives whenever anyone’s speaking in a voice louder than a whisper, I make light of his distraction now but at the time I was seriously worried because he didn’t pick up on Heavy’s cue, or mine, and picking up on cues is part of his job. “Mr. Delacroix?”

“I’m sorry?” He flipped the book closed and looked up. “I didn’t hear you come in, sir.”

“I noticed.” I waved my hand around at the table. “It doesn’t look like we’re doing much here.”

“Well, sir, that’s something of a point of contention at the moment.” He hefted the book he was holding. “Ms. Dawson has provided me with a very unusual document. After consulting it I decided it would be best if we waited to show it to you before we went our various ways.”

“Really.” I took the book from Simeon, then glanced over at Hangman. I wasn’t sure what I found more amusing, the obvious relief Simeon showed at finally finding someone who was as comfortable being referred to by her real name as by an assumed working name or that Hangman had zeroed in on him as the weak point of the group on their first meeting. Or that she had apparently thought this far in advance and had something prepared with which to prove herself to the rest of the group, which was what I assumed was going on.

I looked down at the book, which was a largish ledger like you might still find for keeping accounts in some office supply stores, and flipped it open. As I did, Hangman said, “You’ll find the part starting on page sixty three particularly interesting.”

“Now listen-”

“Quiet please,” I said, cutting off Grappler before she could get a full head of steam. Hangman had repeatedly exceeded my expectations before demanding, quite forcefully, to join our ranks. This is not the usual method for joining my inner circle. I was particularly interested in what it was she would bring to the table, and at the same time a little wary of someone who was shaping up to be a bit of a loose cannon. At the same time, Grappler is a very good burglar, a reasonable accountant and very decorative, but she’s not a great judge of character. For example, she married a serial killer. I was not interested in hearing whatever problem she had with Hangman, it would probably just give me a headache and I wanted my full attention to be on sorting out how best to incorporate Hangman into my inner circle without compromising the very tight schedule I was running.

The entries were dated, and it only took a page or two for me to recognize the pattern to the dates. This was a record of all my major crimes for the past six years, nearly three quarters of my career. I looked up long enough to give Hangman a skeptical look. “You can’t have been following me this long. You were what, sixteen when this starts?”

“Seventeen,” she corrected me. “And about a third of what’s in there was reconstructed after the fact.”

“I see.” Looking over a complete history of my activities was not exactly a pleasant endeavor. I’ve had my share of miserable failures, and like so many people do I made the bulk of them at the beginning of my career. To make matters worse, most of the entries were followed by a brief analysis of what went wrong with the operation in question. I also felt I had been incredibly petty in my early days. A large part of that had been deliberate. I knew I would need operating capitol and I preferred to keep legal my activities totally separate from my illegal ones, so funding one lifestyle with the other was out.

In short, I had needed cash and with Heavy’s connections finding simple, profitable employment for my talent had been easy. But it had also been beneath me and seeing it written out in ink didn’t make me feel any better about it.

That only lasted about a year, and thankfully, while Hangman was an expert hacker and information gatherer she was not omniscient and her information from that far back was spotty. By page sixty three I had moved out of establishing basic infrastructure and into the important crimes. It was my second major move against the U.S. Government, my first made with the current long term plan in mind, and it also marked a turning point in my relationship with Project Sumter and their foremost agent.

The plan had been simplicity itself: Try to steal an Apache helicopter using a very elaborate hacking program and remote control device that only functioned because of the way my innate ability to manipulate electrical circuits interacted with magnetism while, at the same time, Heavy, Grappler and a handful of others stole a set of improved armor plating intended to upgrade Army vehicles in Iraq. The helicopter theft would provide a distraction more than significant enough for Heavy’s team to break in and escape and, in the event that I could actually get away with the vehicle, the Apache would make a nice addition to my motor pool. Perhaps as an interesting paperweight.

In practice, helicopters are difficult to fly, a fact I proved by nearly smashing my stolen Apache four times in the space of three minutes, difficult to maintain and not particularly subtle. It’s not as if you can repaint an attack helicopter as a delivery vehicle, after all. But given the base we were stealing from and the level of competence the Air Force in the region could be expected to show, I honestly didn’t expect the chopper to stay in the air more than ten minutes. I overestimated by about seven, but I also hadn’t been counting on Special Agent Double Helix being able to create an updraft so powerful it could toss a helicopter like a stray leaf. I hadn’t even known heat sinks existed at the time. But Hangman had managed to gather all these details together and reached a surprising conclusion.

“You think we could have kept the helicopter intact.”

I didn’t say it as a question and Hangman knew better than to take it as one. “You failed to utilize your greatest strengths in that job. And that’s not the clever distraction or the ability to manipulate electrical circuits with your talent. It’s your skill in information warfare. Why did that base even have working radar when your job went down? You were aware of the existence of Project Sumter by that point. Why didn’t you tap the Army’s communications and watch for their arrival?”

I shrugged. “Perhaps because keeping the helicopter was not a priority of mine?”

“Fair enough.” She leaned forward and gave me an amused smirk. “But that’s been a consistent failing in your operations ever since. For some reason you seem to want to establish your criminal self and your hacker self as separate. That’s a weakness, Circuit, and I don’t know why you have it but you need to deal with it. But as bad as that is, it pales in comparison to your phobia of Helix.”

“Now hold on!” I had expected an interruption soon, if for no other reason than Grappler’s having a hard time holding her peace for very long, but I hadn’t expected one from Heavy. He’s usually pretty quiet at strategy meetings. For once he looked downright angry instead. “You’re obviously pretty smart, since you got the boss listening to you, and he has been for a while. But you’ve never seen what it’s like to have that guy in your face. He turns up everywhere!”

“That’s not his doing,” Hangman said, waving the objection off. “Project Sumter has a whole department devoted to analyzing your activities and sending the right man to thwart them. I suspect they keep sending Double Helix because his ability to sense and manipulate heat gives him an extra way to locate the strange electronics you keep cooking up and get rid of them.”

“The man can burn paper just by standing nearby when he’s pissed,” Heavy said, thumping his box on the table for emphasis. “I mean, did you even get near Diversy Street after the punch-up there? You could smell the asphalt melting for miles! I don’t think he’d even die if you lit him up with a flamethrower.”

“He does need to breath,” I put in. “I’m sure the smoke would get to him eventually.”

“Look, I know that Helix is like a boogieman for you guys. I’ve seen a lot of the stats, even if I’ve never personally been there to see him ruin something. But I don’t suppose any of you could tell me the background and qualifications of the three man support team that’s been with him for the last five and a half years? Or what any of the other Midwest Sumter talents are capable of? Did you even know the name of the woman you killed last week before you went to her funeral?” Hangman shook her head. “Thanks to that, you need to know all that and more.

“Before, there was one Project agent and his team looking for you between other major cases. One team, and you thought it was bad enough that you built dedicated countermeasures for him into practically every plan you’ve cooked up in the last six years. There are fourteen operational teams assigned to the Project’s Midwest district. Do you even know the codenames for the talents in them? And there are seventy-nine talents employed by the Project nationwide.”

“We’ve had our hands full with one,” Grappler snarled. “Why would we want to pick a fight with all the rest?”

“Like it or not, you’ve got one,” Hangman snapped back. “They’ll throw everything they can at you, for no other reason than you killed one of their own. If you aren’t ready to play with the big leagues then it’s time for us to dig a hole, crawl in and pull it in after.”

I could tell that this conversation was going to be a lengthy one, and since Hangman was still seated I decided to join her and took one of the empty chairs. Setting the book to one side, I laced my fingers together and said, “There’s a lot to what you’re saying. Let’s concede that not everything I’ve done has gone as well as I’ve hoped. What does? But you don’t sound like you want to pack up and go home – in fact, as I understand it you no longer have one to go back to.”

Hangman laughed bitterly at that, which I thought more than a little sad. Why a politician wouldn’t encourage talents like those Senator Dawson’s daughter obviously had was beyond me, but his loss was my gain. Since she didn’t seem about to add anything else, I went on. “You obviously think there’s something you can add to the equation overcome most of these problems. Care to share it?”

The look on her face suggested she’d like nothing better. She reached out and thumped one hand on the book. “This is basically it. But I’ll summarize, because these are busy times, and it’s a long book.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t look as bad as some of Davis’ engineering reports,” I said lightly.

“There’s one major difference between you and Project Sumter. Know what it is?”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I would think ideology.”

“Personnel management,” she corrected. “Although ideology is a big factor in that.”

“Explain.”

“Project Sumter talents don’t work alone. They work in groups, with highly trained support personnel to assist them in using their talent to it’s maximum. They have analysts who are on the scene with them, sorting out clues and picking up on things they might be missing. And they have oversight agents, to keep them from making rash decisions and keep them on task. You have… well, you. You think that should be enough, because you want to prove talents don’t need normal people looking over their shoulder half the time. Problem is, you can’t beat a well coordinated group working alone.”

Hangman shrugged helplessly. “About half the problems you face in the field could be overcome if you just had people to help you with the higher thought functions, rather than relying on the abilities of these two,” she waved at Heavy and Grappler, “to think on their feet. They’re not bad at it, but with you taking point in the field most of the time and no one to coordinate between you and them things spiral out of your ability to control more often than not.”

“Granted.” I felt no shame in admitting to it, I had puzzled over the issue many times in the past with Simeon. “But, at least for the next month or two, Simeon needs to maintain my public face and there’s no one else I trust enough to do such a job. We don’t have the resources of Project Sumter, we can’t simply pour over the HR files from a dozen government agents and ask for the ones we want. Of course, I’m sure there’s more too it than that, but the basic principle remains. How would you propose to solve this little problem?”

“She wants to do it,” Grappler put in. “Apparently she thinks she’s qualified to tell everyone what’s best now that she’s in.”

Grappler hadn’t really approved of the idea of adding another person to the inner circle at all. I wasn’t about to try and explain my reasoning to her, of all people, so I’d just tabled the matter and went about my business. Sooner or later that was going to become an issue, but I didn’t have the time to deal with it right that minute. Which made things even worse, because Hangman’s idea had merit. I hadn’t reckoned on having her as a resource at my disposal when I formulated the current version of the Chainfall plan two years ago. I shot a glance at Simeon. “How soon do you have to be back in the city?”

“Three days,” he said, his thoughtful expression suggesting he was already tracking with my line of thought. “But I could stretch it to four, if we’re willing to take a hit to public sector earnings in the third quarter. I’ll have to miss a few meetings. And you need to be back within six, don’t forget that.”

“I remember.” I thought for a moment, drumming my fingers absently on top of the book. “Then let’s do this. Hangman will have a trial run as control agent-”

“What?” Grappler shouted.

“-for me,” I said, as if nothing had happened. “Simeon, you’ll go up north with Heavy and Grappler on their little run. Hangman and I will go west, and get ahold of our objective there. We’ll compare notes, see whether adding a control operative had any benefits at all and go from there.”

“You sure, boss?” Heavy gave our newest addition a skeptical look, then glanced back at me. “That’s an awful lot riding on one job.”

By which he meant I was the only one who knew what all the puzzle pieces in the grand plan were. At least, that’s what he assumed. I was quickly coming to question such ideas now that Hangman was more than a shadowy presence on the far side of an Internet connection. What’s more, I was the only one who was really committed to the idea of picking a fight with the government, the only one who felt that it was time to end the hiding, the lying and the endless belittling of our talents. But a glance at Hangman reminded me that once again, that might not be entirely true. I could tell by the look on her face that she wanted in. And I was not at all opposed to giving her a shot. “I think we’ll be fine, Heavy. But your concern is appreciated.”

“If you say so.”

That was Heavy-speak for extreme skepticism. “If nothing else, there’s no way that Simeon could go out west with me and get back in time for his other obligations. Hangman has to come with me or the timing won’t work. And as has already been noted, I’m used to having many things in the air.” Heavy looked about as serious as he ever got, which is more serious than most people would give him credit for, but he nodded to show he understood. I could, and would, watch my own back. “Good. Now, get going. We’re running behind as it is. Hangman? Grab anything you can’t do without for the next week and meet me in the garage in ten minutes.”

Instead, she met me at the door, the shoulder bag she’d brought with her when we first met in person a few days ago slung over one shoulder. “Ready when you are, boss.”

I gave her a quick once over. After a brief stint as a wannabe streetwalker she was once again dressed like a pert and perky college student, Her straight brown hair pulled into a ponytail over one shoulder, her face, while attractive, now all over missing persons files going out nation wide. At least her ability to gather information and extrapolate on it still appeared to be working full force. “Then come along. And don’t call me boss, only Heavy does that and only because I can’t make him stop. Do you know what we’re doing next?”

Hangman shook her head. “All I’ve managed to gather is that you’re buying up real estate and 3D printing equipment. So far the connection between the two eludes me.”

“Ah.” I allowed myself a small smirk, it was nice to know I could keep a few secrets. “Well, in that case you’re in luck. This is actually an excellent test case, since in many ways it duplicates your own example a few minutes ago.”

Her face scrunched up in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

“We’re going to rob from GI Joe, Hangman. The Army itself.”

“Of course.” Hangman laughed. “It’s just like you to get someone shot at by the end of their first week on the job.”

“Relax.” I waved the thought off. “If everything goes well they won’t even get the safeties of their weapons.”

I really shouldn’t have said that, but it was done before the thought occurred. And really, what was the worst that could happen?

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Water Fall: Ashes to Ashes

Posted by natechen on

Seven Weeks, One Day before the Michigan Avenue Proclomation

Helix

Normally I don’t leave funerals too mad to see straight. But burying Mona Templeton, my friend of four years and wife of a man who had been my friend for even longer, after she was killed in the line of duty a week before was not a normal experience. Sometimes life seems monotonous, but death – that’s different every time you see it. The fact that Mona was dead was bad enough, the fact that she had been killed by what is known, in official government circles, as a conspiring traitor but we field agents tend to call a megalomaniacal asshole just made it worse. On top of that, since Mona’s job was as a field analyst for a government agency that doesn’t technically exist, she couldn’t even be given public credit for all the great work she’d done. It’s not just a case of waiting until the files are declassified before the truth is told, the Federal Government’s official stance was that nothing we did would ever be made public. Being an unsung hero may sound romantic, but when one of your friends become one it looses some of that shine.

But the real kicker was the whole Senate Oversight Committee, that nonexistent government body overseeing our nonexistent government office, putting in an appearance. They stood around and looked stricken, shook hands with the family, mouthed platitudes, gave a dozen and one offhand lies to explain their presence. Then they came and shook hands with me. Told me they were sure this tragic situation would be handled soon. They had every confidence in my ability to see things through. As if they had any idea what the real situation was. As if I needed any encouragement to find Open Circuit, who had been slipping away from me for eight years, who had just killed my friend and fellow agent.

It’s not like I didn’t lay them out on the ground because I wasn’t angry. Or because I had a weird sort of mutual respect/dislike society going with their ringleader, Senator Brahms Dawson. Or even because, for all their inability to see the forest for their egos getting in the way, they were still United States Senators and technically due some sort of respect for that.

It was because Mona and Darryl Templeton, and their families, deserved better than that.

I took hold of that reason, simple but sturdy, and wedged it between myself and my temper and somehow made it through the memorial service. But as soon as it was done I stalked out of the funeral home and into the parking lot, where I found the first luxury car around and kicked it’s tires until my foot hurt. Then I sat down on the sidewalk and sulked. Throwing a tantrum wasn’t helping any, but my dad said it never did so maybe that shouldn’t have been a surprise.

“You’re lucky all the security guards are inside.”

The voice barged into my thoughts, prompting me to come back to reality. I looked up to find a tall, athletic African American man, my former boss Robert Sanders. We went way back, me and Sanders, and the memories were not exactly fond ones. “What do you want, Sanders?”

“To talk to you,” he said, taking a seat on the curb next to me. “Although I’m regretting it more every second.”

“So make us both happy and go away.”

“You know sidewalks outside funeral homes are built six inches higher than standard?” He fished around in one of his suit’s jacket pockets and pulled out a lighter and a package of cigarettes. “It makes it easier for men to come out and cry on them.”

I snorted. “Really?”

“I just made it up.” He tapped out a cigarette. “You listening now, or you want to go break your foot on another tire? I can wait.”

“Since when did you start smoking again? I thought you gave it up.”

“Since Mona died.” He flicked the lighter and a flame popped into existence.

Unreasonably annoyed by it, I reached out and stuck my finger into the flame, barely hot enough to register as a dip in the flat, low expanse of the surrounding temperature. Thanks to my native gift with heat, instead of getting a nasty burn I forced the temperature of the flame back down to a moderate seventyish degrees, extinguishing it. “Don’t use Mona’s death as an excuse for your bad behavior.”

Sanders shot me a look that was pure venom. I met him with my normal sour face. For a minute, to anyone passing by, we probably looked like we were about to start pounding each other. In fact, for a brief second I thought that’s what it was going to come to, and I was okay with that. At five foot three, one hundred and thirty pounds, I was easily loosing to Sanders in terms of reach, weight, muscle and to be honest, probably skill. However I could also bend a two inch thick bar of iron with my bare hands just by forcing it to melt, and he couldn’t. Being able to push the thermometer around has its perks.

But whether he just wanted to avoid third degree burns, he was still a little more into the spirit of the occasion than I was or he was just too tired for a scrap, after a minute or two of glaring Sanders threw his cigarette on the ground and tucked his lighter away. “You know, I said I wasn’t in the mood for this today.”

“To who?”

“I gave it up for Mona, you know.” I assumed he meant smoking, as the statement didn’t really apply to his mood.

“I didn’t.” I thought about that for a second. “Wait, wasn’t that two years ago? Or have you been on-again-off-again when I wasn’t looking?”

“I didn’t know you cared enough to pay attention, Helix.”

“I don’t.” We were dancing around some issue that Sanders obviously wanted to avoid but I didn’t know enough to guess at what that was, so I played along.

“It was actually almost three and a half years ago.” He fidgeted for a minute. “She said I couldn’t stick with anything and I wanted to prove her wrong.”

“So you quit smoking for three and a half years.” I stared at him for a minute. I knew Sanders had been interested in Mona back when she joined the Project. There wasn’t anything unusual about that, Sanders was interested in just about any woman that joined the Project. But Mona already knew Darryl at the time and most of us considered their marriage just a matter of time. Until that moment I’d never suspected Sanders had been any different. “That’s a little bit extreme, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. I guess.” He forced a weak smile. “But that all’s probably pretty boring to you, isn’t it?”

And now he was concerned about me. I wasn’t sure how many more shocks my system could take, especially since I was pretty worn out as it was. So I got to my feet and motioned for him to do the same. “Come on Sanders, you need to get the heart moving. There’s obviously not enough blood going to the brain right now.”

“Funny.” He slowly climbed to his feet anyway.

“Like you’ve been doing any better.”

“My jokes are usually good. Yours never are.” He was still subdued but some of the usual animation was coming back into his features. “Helix, I need you to back us up on something.”

“Alright.” Sanders wasn’t my boss anymore, but he’s entitled to a certain amount of solidarity just because, like me, he’s been doing this job practically forever. Still, there are certain questions to be asked. “Who’s us?”

“Darryl and I. We need you to help us convince the Senate Committee to-”

“Hold up.” I cut him off with a raised hand. “We are talking about the Committee headed up by Senator Dawson? The man who hates me? Who’s handpicked protégé joined Project Sumter and got me as a watchdog to make sure she wasn’t causing mischief? That Committee?”

“That’s the one,” Sanders said with a grim nod of the head.

I laughed in disbelieve. “Sanders, where in all that did you hear anything that makes you think those people are going to let me convince them of anything?”

“Because you’re the talent with the highest case closure rate and most talents discovered in the Midwest. If we go by talents found, you’re highest in the nation, at least on active duty. Darryl’s head of the Midwest Analysis department. I have the most seniority among field team oversight agents.” I snorted but Sanders pressed on before I could say anything more. “At least as soon as the paperwork goes through and I am officially oversight for Gearshift, that new guy you found a couple of weeks ago. The Committee isn’t a monolithic group, Helix, there’s only one other senator firmly on Dawson’s side. One usually sides with Voorman and two waver back and fourth. Getting Teresa into the Project used up a lot of Dawson’s political capitol, if we push now he’ll have a hard time standing up to three very senior agents if we present a united front.”

That actually sounded legit. Sanders is better at political manipulations than I am, in fact he’s been the point political agent for Michael Voorman, our Senior Special Liaison, since he made Senior Special Agent, so I was willing to take his assessment on faith. Not that I was about to admit that. So I adopted a skeptical tone and said, “Right. What exactly are we convincing them to do?”

“Let Darryl join one of our field teams and participate in the hunt for Open Circuit.”

“What?” 

A note for those thinking of joining Project Sumter or any other secretive branch of the Federal Government’s alphabet soup: No matter how preposterous the things that come up in the course of doing you job, you should not scream when discussing them. Especially in broad daylight while you are standing in a public place.

I grabbed hold of myself and lowered my voice back to a low murmur. “That’s a horrible idea, Sanders! Why would we do that? Why would they let us?”

“Because we’re going to-”

“No, we’re not,” I snapped, grabbing him by the front of his jacket and pulling him down to something a little more like eye level. “Listen, Sanders, they make those rules for a reason. Usually, good reasons, and the rule that an emotionally compromised investigator gets pulled off a case is one of the good ones. Darryl’s wife has been killed. If that’s not emotionally compromised, I don’t know what is.”

Sanders retaliated by grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking, which left me a little woozy since he still definitely had all the reach and mass over me. “I know all that. But don’t you think he deserves a chance to see this to the end?”

“Deserves? Don’t give me deserves, Sanders.” I shoved him back a step, or more likely I pushed and he took a step back to humor me. “Nothing in Project Sumter runs on what people deserve. Talents don’t deserve to hide their whole lives, they don’t deserve to have no future in the ranks than Special Agent just because Abraham Lincoln wanted to make a symbolic point a hundred and fifty years ago. Mona didn’t deserve to get killed in the line of duty. But we’re trying to do things right, and if Darryl goes back out into the field he’s going to miss things, make dumb decisions and possibly even get more people killed. That’s not right, and I’m not going to help you two make it happen.”

“And that’s the end of it?” Sanders shook his head. “Helix, he’s been on your side since the day you joined up.”

“I know. That’s why I’m on his now. Whether he realizes it or not.”

With a sigh, Sanders held up his hands. “I get you, Helix. Really, I wasn’t expecting much different. But I said I’d try.”

A group of four other people were coming out of funeral home, one split off and came our way, the other three went in the other direction. I nodded at them, smoothing my suit out as I did. “We should probably get back in there. People will wonder where we went.”

Sanders nodded, performed a similar check on his own suit and followed me back towards the entrance. As we passed him, the man coming our way reached up, as if to tip a hat he wasn’t wearing, and said in a gruff voice, “My condolences, Mr. Hoffman.”

I wavered a half step, giving the man a closer look. He didn’t seem immediately familiar – I’d remember if I ever met anyone with hair that red. Then he was past me, heading down the sidewalk. The rear door of the car at the end of the street popped open and let him in, then he disappeared from view when it slammed closed.

“Did he think you were someone else?” Sanders asked.

“Daniel Hoffman is the name on this year’s fake driver’s license,” I replied, still staring at the car as it drove off. “But I don’t know why he’d know it.”

“Maybe he knows the Templetons, and they mentioned it?”

“Maybe.” I shook my head and started back towards the funeral home. “Not important right now. Let it go.”

——–

Circuit

I climbed into the back seat of the car, resisting the urge to take my nonexistent hat off. I was heavily disguised with makeup and wig, and that’s pointless if you continue to dress like you always do, so I had given up my hat with reluctance.

“You look strange with red hair.”

I glanced at the young lady who had made the pronouncement. “I would look even more strange if we were pulled over and the police found me with black hair and red eyebrows.” Although I very nearly had to sit on my hands to keep from scratching at the makeup holding the false eyebrows and built-up bridge of my nose in place. Instead, I cleared my throat, trying to get a more normal tone of voice back after the gravelly accent I’d used the few times I’d spoken in the last two hours. “And I’m not sure you’ve really known me long enough to be a reliable judge of whether I look strange or not, Hangman.”

“I’ve been following you a lot longer than you think, Circuit. You look strange.” She absently flipped her hair over one shoulder and began working it into a braid. Even dressed in worn and frankly tacky clothing, the gloss in her brunette hair, manicure on her fingers and general air of good health stood out as hints to her upper middle class upbringing. She was just as out of place in the beat up old car as I was, which worried me as we couldn’t afford any kind of scrutiny from anyone at the moment. There was too much that was too close to completion to deal with complications at the moment.

I leaned forward in my seat to talk to the driver, Heavy Water, a massive African-American man who ran point on most of my field operations. “Heavy, is this car safe?”

“Bought with cash two weeks ago, six states away, boss,” he said without hesitation. “So far as I can tell the closest it’s ever gotten to breaking the law is going a few miles over the speed limit – and I’m not sure it can even do that anymore.”

“That’s fine then.” I sat back in the car seat. “I just wanted to be sure you didn’t use your own unique abilities to find us transportation. Not that I normally object, of course.”

“Sure thing, boss. I know how to lay low.”

Hangman fidgeted for a moment, then said, “So, were you seen?”

“Of course. I could hardly help that.” I gave her a reassuring smile. “But I wasn’t recognized, and I don’t think I will be again.”

“Oh. Good.” She glanced away, but I could see the curiosity eating away at her, so I was prepared for the next question when it came. “What were the loose ends you were taking care of?”

I was prepared for her to ask the question. That didn’t mean I wanted to answer it. For a moment I indulged in cowardice and just stared out the window at the city streets rolling by. Then, finally I said, “I went to pay my respects.”

“To who?”

“A woman who died recently.” The buildings outside were more rundown than when we had started out but as we went along they were slowly improving again. I took a deep breath, reminding myself it was foolish to believe in signs, especially when I only payed attention to those I liked. “She was killed in the line of duty. I didn’t know her personally, but she was a very admirable woman.”

“Oh.” She paused again and I laid my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes. “What killed her?”

Water Fall: Prologue

Posted by natechen on

It’s amazing how quickly a car running a red light can turn into an international incident.

At 7:42 PM, Central Time, on a Friday in late October a van pulled into an intersection along Michigan Avenue, cutting off traffic to the blaring of car horns. It was a nondescript white vehicle, with a decal touting a company called Hoffman Plumbing. Later investigation would reveal that no such company existed in the city. It was the first of four vans, which quickly positioned themselves to cut off all traffic entering the crossroads. The drivers were apparently not worried about property damage, as they collided with more than one other vehicle in the process of blocking traffic.

The driver of the lone car that had gotten stuck in the intersection with no way of escape sat there for a moment, confused, before the he and his passengers were hustled out of it by men from the vans. In the confusion no one was sure exactly how many there were, although based on estimates of the vehicles’ carrying capacity and eyewitness interviews there were somewhere between fifteen and twenty people, total.

However many people there were, they were well coordinated. In less than two minutes traffic along the busy street was completely blocked, the intersection itself was clear of cars and pedestrians, and large speakers were being unloaded from the back of each van.

Those watching carefully might have noticed the woman breaking off from the main group of interlopers and climbing straight up the side of a nearby storefront at this point. The fact that she was wearing all black, and climbing without aid of any kind of visible equipment, would definitely have helped her get attention if it weren’t for the fact that all eyes were on the intersection.

Most of the men that had piled out of the vans were dressed in black coveralls and wearing ski masks. But the two who were moving into the center of the intersection were still dressed to stand out.

One was of average height, with broad shoulders and wearing a three piece, pinstriped suit. Witnesses agreed that his clothes seemed to bulge slightly, as if he was carrying some kind of concealed gear. He also wore heavy, knee high boots that didn’t really match the rest of his clothes. Instead of a ski mask, he wore a fedora and a scarf wrapped around the bottom half of his face, and his gloves had wires running into them.

The other had clearly started with the same outfit as the stage hands. But over his black coveralls he’d strapped a bulletproof vest. He rested one hand on a pistol at his waist. And he was big, about the size of the average football linebacker. All together, combined with the fact that four men with shotguns were hanging a few steps behind, it was enough to ensure the complete attention of anyone on the street.

So there were plenty of witnesses when the man in the hat raised one hand, snapped his fingers and all the lights on the block went dead.

In fact, an EMP hit everything within a quarter mile. It disrupted phone lines and ruined cellphones, knocked out power, fried computers, shut down cars, caused the loss of most of the day’s record of business in over a hundred stores and, perhaps most importantly to the person who caused it, destroyed the CCTV footage of every security camera and automated traffic monitor in the area. All records of what happened next were reconstructed from eyewitness testimony.

The speakers that had come from the vans crackled inexplicably to life, apparently protected in some way from the magnetic attack that had just destroyed the surrounding electronics. The voice of the well dressed man boomed out across the road and could easily be heard by most people in the crowd.

“People of America,” he said, his voice as cultured and controlled as any politician or highbrow actor. “I welcome you to a moment in history.”

A troubled murmur rolled through the crowd, but the leader of the band spread his hands wide as if in welcome. “You wonder what I mean, and rightly so for we all live in the midst of history every day. But most of us take no notice of it, because we’ve been told that history is made by those with power and who here can claim much of that?”

There was second shifting in the crowd’s attitude, from worried to vaguely belligerent. The well dressed man smiled and gestured to his much larger accomplice. “Some might say power comes from physical might backed with modern weaponry. Others would argue that it is money and the influence it brings that gives one control of history.” He chopped a hand through the air dismissively. “Lies, all of them. Told by people who prefer you living in quiet desperation to stretching yourself to you utmost and discovering you are strong! I come here to day to bring the lie to light. I come here to tell you there are other kinds of power in the world, and with them freedom and opportunity the likes of which would never have been possible just one year ago! Open your eyes and see!”

With that, the well dressed man shot into the air. One moment his feet were solidly on the ground, the next he had risen to a height of nearly twenty feet, arms fully spread, his fingers splayed out like a stage magician who had just finished his trick. “There are among you men, women and children who have abilities that surpass the thing you call common sense. Some of you know them, and work to help them remain hidden – friends, neighbors, brothers and sisters, daughters and sons! Some of you are like me, able to challenge the very notion of normal but forced into living quiet lives, afraid to use your gifts because you do not know how others might react. Some of you have never seen a person such as me before, and either wonder at the possibilities or tremble at the implications. But regardless, you all now know one thing beyond the shadow of a doubt: We exist, and now the world must adapt.”

The crowd was really worked up by that point, some people crowding the vans and the handful of black clad men who manned them like makeshift roadblocks, others yelling questions lost in the noise, some ignoring the scene entirely to yell at one another. A few were trying to take pictures of the flying man and discovering that their cellphones were dead.

Of course, with a crowd that was growing by the minute all squashed into what was supposed to be a major thoroughfare of a large city, the attention of the police was inevitable. In fact, according to reports the first officers arrived on the scene less than five minutes after the first van moved to block traffic, just after the well dressed man began giving his speech. The numerous traffic violations and the unauthorized public address, to say nothing of the flagrant firearms violations, gave the officers plenty of cause to take the whole group into custody.

Unfortunately, dispatch had been laboring under the impression that they were dealing with a traffic accident and not a brewing riot, and had only dispatched one cruiser, which had a hard enough time making it to within a block of the scene due to the way traffic was backed up. By the time headquarters would have any idea the situation was different it would be a moot point.

The two officers from the dispatched cruiser traveled the last block to the intersection on foot, arriving as just in time to bump into a pair of officers who had been patrolling the area on bicycles. The four of them together managed to work their way to the front of the crowd just in time for the flying demonstration.

Say what you will about the police, they are well trained to quickly and efficiently react to a mind-boggling array of possibilities, most of which the general public never even contemplates. Flying men is not on that list, but after a certain point one simply becomes jaded. They showed no signs of being disturbed at seeing a man hovering twenty feet off the ground, seemingly under his own power. In fact, they were paying more attention to his armed companions.

In this they may have been behaving more wisely than the crowd. Not that outsmarting groupthink has ever been a great achievement.

Three of the policemen casually rested their hands on their weapons. The last officer cupped his hands and called out, “Sir, I need you to come down from there with your hands in the air.”

Some in the crowd called out, “They’re already there! Along with the rest of him!”

Ignoring hecklers is another core cop skill, and all four officers had it in spades. The officer turned his attention to the armed men. “You five there need to put your weapons on the ground slowly. We’re going to get ahold of the precinct and arrange for you all to be taken somewhere we can talk about this nice and privately.”

The first rule of volatile crowd situations is to deescalate things as quickly as possible.  That only four officers would attempt such a thing may seem surprising, but the fact is that the vast majority of people accept police authority, even when they’re upset that it’s being directed at them. Most people accept that law enforcement is a necessary thing, and they’re not out to cross it.

They also realize that cops have to assert their authority against anyone who levels a direct challenge to it or they’ll quickly loose it. In short, messing with the police is never a good idea, and when the city police department has more people in it than the standing armies of most countries the idea starts to look downright ludicrous. The structure and psychology of the system says that one cop is fairly safe in most situations and two should be downright invincible.

Later analysis suggested that the rabble rousers were counting on this mindset.

“Ah!” The floating man twisted twenty degrees in midair, without making any kind of obvious movement, so that he faced the police more or less directly, wavering uncertainly for a moment or two and then coming to a stop. “The keepers of law and order. I’m afraid there’s little you can do to contain the situation now.”

“Look, I don’t know what you want,” the spokesman officer said. “But you’re not going to get it by shouting at the crowd here. Come on down and stop blocking traffic. We can-”

“You are absolutely right!” The other man replied, his artificially amplified voice easily drowning out the officer. “What I want is an end to secrecy! What I want is an end to lies! What I want is an end to injustice! What I will settle for is…” He raised one hand over his head.

Every piece of iron within a city block rattled in response, the bicycles two of the officers had arrived on actually slid into the crowd and knocked several people over and the four vans rocked slightly on their wheels.  A large, flat iron and plexiglass case flew out of the back of one of the vans, came to a stop a few feet in front of the floating man then shot up another dozen feet before flying straight down and burying itself six inches into the pavement with a teeth-rattling bang. For a split second there was total silence as the man viewed his handiwork. Then he spread his hands high and wide, saying, “Freedom!”

He drifted a few feet higher and seemed to stretch his hands even further, as if he could somehow grab the edges of the city and carry it away with him. “If you chafe in this world of secrets and silence, then I offer an alternative. This is the age of information, and with it we have been controlled. But one circuit out of place ruins a whole computer, and a single weakness is the end of a network. I am the Open Circuit, the fatal weakness in the status quo! If change is what you desire, then there is a place for you with me!”

“That’s enough.” The cops were starting to look nervous, well aware than their authority was growing more and more tenuous in the face what appeared to be a serious Messiah complex. But the spokesman maintained a calm façade and pressed on. “If you won’t come willingly we’ll place you under arrest and-”

He was cut off by a series of rapid gunshots. The sudden noise panicked the crowd and cause the police to rapidly unholster their weapons, a move that just caused more panic around them. Only one officer managed to spot the source of the gunshots, the woman in black, her bare feet clinging impossibly to the fourth story of a large building, firing a submachine gun into the air. No bullets were found anywhere near the scene, so it was concluded that the weapon was probably loaded with blanks. According to the officer’s report, once her clip was empty she crawled across the side of the building and disappeared around the corner.

This ploy succeed in creating quite a distraction. When taken together with the way all four vans that had been driven into the intersection burst into flames a few seconds later, there was no one paying any attention to the people in black, who had completely vanished by the time anyone thought to look for them again. The only indications that it hadn’t all been some kind of mass hallucination were the burning vans and the display case, still buried in the ground and quickly surrounded by people who presumably had more curiosity than sense.

Any evidence the case might have offered was destroyed by gawkers long before it could be secured.

A cordon of additional police cars arrived five to ten minutes after the departure of the flying man and his accomplices. They did their best to contain the crowd, reassuring them that they were being asked to stay as witnesses, and secure the scene. Paramedics arrived as well, though there were thankfully few injuries to deal with, mostly people knocked over in the panic caused by the gunshots and burning cars.

Just behind the paramedics came a trio of plain, unmarked gray vans. These contained another fifteen to twenty people in rather nondescript business clothing. But they didn’t look much like businessmen or businesswomen. They were wearing earpieces, carrying sidearms and generally handling themselves like people who expected respect, not polite chit chat. In short, they didn’t seem out of place.

Most of them fanned out to check in with the police and paramedics, presumably to assist however they could. Three pressed their way through the crowd, which quickly made way for them.

The largest was a huge bear of a man, Hispanic, with gray salted through his dark black hair and neatly kept mustache. He looked like nothing so much as a retired wrestler and people easily yielded to his size alone. Beside him a blonde Pole, just as tall if not as big, walked with a careful, measured step. A few steps behind trailed a much shorter, wiry man who carried a megaphone and seemed to burst with nervous energy, absently cracking his knuckles or fiddling with the handle of the loudspeaker he carried.

The intersection itself was clear, and once the three men were through the crowd they split up. The two taller men went to look at the steel case buried in the street while the shorter made a loop around to each of the vans, still leaking occasional tongues of flame and smoldering as the last of their upholstery burned. As the short man passed by each van the fires seemed to vanish and its chassis would groan and creak as it rapidly cooled.

With the fires out he walked over to his two companions, who were studying the case intently. It was about waist high on them, and the clear top let anyone with eyes see the sheet of paper within. He looked it over then sighed and glanced up at the biggest of the three and said, “We need to take it in.”

The big man nodded and bent his knees and got a good grip on the case. Then, without even a grunt of effort, he ripped it out of the pavement and laid it gently to one side. The short man just shrugged and turned his attention back to the crowd.

They were already staring at him. So he raised the megaphone to his mouth and said, “Alright, people, listen up. I’m Special Agent Double Helix, of Project Sumter, your  government’s formerly secret agency for dealing with these situations. As we’ve had permission to work directly with the public for about ten minutes, we’d like to ask for your understanding and cooperation, since we’re all a little new at this…”

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A Letter, From Open Circuit to His Colleagues in the IRS

Posted by natechen on

Gentlemen,

I am distressed to see the way your organization has taken such a pounding among the media and news pundits in the last few weeks. Undoubtedly all this has done a great deal of damage to an otherwise sterling reputation for solid, respectable work among the people of our community. It is disappointing to see a group once the first weapon of war in the arsenal of the iron first reduced to blathering about Easter egg rolls on the White House lawn. There were such hopes for the place you could have in the new order. But perhaps the IRS can still make an impact on the future.

I have taken the liberty of applying my unique talents to borrowing this modest media platform and contacting you (knowing, of course, that people of your resources cannot possibly overlook it.) Please do not be dismayed, the normal blather usually posted in this section will be resumed next week and none of the so-called content will be lost, although I doubt that will make an impact on your work in any way, as it certainly wasn’t creating revenue.

In the mean time, I present you with a few suggestions as to how you might regain the initiative in the battle for public opinion and restore your reputation for ruthless efficiency in the face of the protests of the populace.

  1. Remind Congress who’s in charge. They don’t have the power of the purse unless you fill it, but you can’t go around not collecting taxes because then people will forget who you are. So you should audit all those who have been asking questions. The best part about this is that, with all the free stuff they get from lobbyists there’s bound to be something, and probably a lot of somethings, you can charge them with. It takes one to know one, especially where corruption is concerned, so if Congress wants to go there, go right there with them.

  2. While you’re at it, remind the accountants who’s in charge. If anyone tries to dispute your findings while you’re carrying out step one, remind them you can always start playing hardball with all their clients. You’re publicly funded, so bankrupting a few private accountancy firms through litigation is child’s play.

  3. Audit the president. Figureheads are only so useful, sooner or later they outlive their usefulness and you’ll need to have distance between you when that happens. It might be time to take a few steps away.

  4. Pull out all the stops on the media obfuscation campaign. Harassing Apple about using tax shelters was a good start but too many people love that company for it to work well. Time to pick some new targets. Might I suggest GE, Microsoft, Ford or perhaps Warren Buffett? That last comes with the added bonuses of working against the ideological demagoguery people are using against you and, since he already says he doesn’t pay enough taxes, he won’t fight you!

  5. Weigh in on issues that have nothing to do with your normal sphere of influence. The EPA does this all the time, and you should study their recommendations to developing nations for further insight. Just to give one example, you could offer to help build third world tax systems from something that crushes the population into poverty into something that confuses them into paying others to help the process along! (This also proves you’re playing hardball with American accountants only because you have to, not because there’s some kind of personal or political grudge in play.)

  6. Begin mandating some kind of distinctive identifying mark or piece of clothing for your agents. Armbands were popular last century, hats for a while before that. Perhaps a particular style of glasses or a unique cut of suit jacket, something that will make your agents highly visible to the public so that they become more aware of your constant and invasive presence in their lives.

  7. Set visible, incremental objectives to expand your influence and be seen doing it. Taking over healthcare the Department of Education “to ensure fair treatment of all parties” would be a good place to start. A national tax on income from the Internet would also work well!

  8. Most importantly, stop apologizing. No one will ever bend the knee to a government who apologized for something in recent memory. Own that policy with a scowl and they’ll back away. Then you can take all you want.

In short, with a few simple steps that I know are well within your abilities and temperament to execute you can quickly solidify your position and stand ready to quash dreams like never before. The IRS has been a powerful force of confusion and oppression for over one hundred years, and I have high hopes of working with you personally in the future. I look forward to your good work,

Open Circuit 

Heat Wave: System Shutdown

Posted by natechen on

Circuit

According to my research, a diggle is a small, yellowish, subterranean birdlike creature that burrows around using it’s rubbery nasal appendage. Ornithologists consider it to be among the worst minions ever. Of course, like most words in the English language, diggle has multiple meanings. However, of all the available options, I was pretty sure this was the one I wanted. Comic book authors and small villages in England are not usually turned into plush toys, after all.

I’m not sure if there was some kind of meaning in Hangman choosing to bring a stuffed diggle toy to our meeting as his signal for how I should recognize him. It was set a couple of days before the end of my disastrous operation at H.S. 44 so choosing the world’s worst minion probably wasn’t some kind of commentary on how badly that had gone. That left the possibilities that it was a comment on my abilities in general, my organization or some kind of inside joke.

With Hangman I’ve never been quite sure where the games end and the real business begins.

So it was that, four days after making myself one of the most wanted men in America, I found myself strolling through Millennium Park, looking for a drill-nosed plushie. The life of a professional supervillian is not always satisfying but it is guaranteed to be bizarre.

As you might expect, Millennium Park was conceived of by the city fathers around the beginning of the millennium, on the assumption that the people of the city might like to see some small part of the exorbitant taxes and fees that came with dwelling in its limits devoted to the construction of giant, reflective, stainless steel coffee bean sculptures. It is but one example of why one of the first things I intend do when I establish my new order is to have all city planners rounded up and exiled to a small island off the New England coast. The handful of people who haven’t starved in five years may prove useful.

Since another one of the park’s many features are large waterfalls with TV screens behind them that display eight to ten foot tall images of nearby people taken by hidden cameras, I elected to confine myself to the outdoor amphitheater and many walking paths, and avoid that area altogether. Hangman also comes from a profession that tries to avoid the public eye so I wasn’t really expecting to find him there.

And I was right. In fact, I spotted the stuffed animal I was looking for sitting next to a small, artificial stream that ran down one side of the gardens. It was perched next to a young woman, in her early or mid twenties I guessed, sitting on a board walk and dangling her feet in the water. The diggle was standing sentinel over a pair of flip-flops and the woman was wearing a red tank top and Capris. A messenger bag sat open beside her, revealing a couple of notebooks of the spiral bound variety and a lot of the random detritus that accumulates in student’s pockets and carryalls. She didn’t look much like an electronic information broker who’s services were in demand the world over.

That was my first clue I had the right person, and there weren’t simply two people with a strange preference in plush toys in the park that day. The second was her hair. As I got closer I could see that, rather than being cut in a short bob as it had first appeared, her pale brown hair was actually tied into a loose pony tail and pulled over one shoulder. Rather than an elastic hairband, she’d used a piece of string tied in a hangman’s noose.

I’d managed to get close to her without drawing her attention but as soon as my shadow fell over her shoulder she glanced up. I rested both hands on the silver topped cane I’d brought with me, the upside down power symbol engraved at the base of the handle serving to confirm my own identity, and gave her a more critical look. There was a quick intelligence in those eyes and a slightly pinched cast to her mouth, but otherwise a pleasant face. It seemed vaguely familiar, like I’d met her somewhere but hadn’t bothered to try and remember her name. She seemed to be regarding me with the same evaluating gaze.

Finally, I indicated the boardwalk next to her with the end of my cane and said, “Is this seat taken?”

“Not until you arrived,” she said. “But we don’t have to talk here, Circuit.”

“No, this is fine. I don’t want to look like I’m propositioning someone in broad daylight.” She giggled lightly, whether at the popping sound my knees made as I knelt down or the idea of me propositioning someone, I wasn’t sure. Absently I rubbed at one knee through a pinstripe pant leg and said, “I do feel overdressed, but there’s nothing I can do about that now.”

“You’re very dignified, but not exactly dressed for dangling your feet in the water,” she admitted. Her voice was surprisingly deep, I suspected that if she wanted to she could make herself heard from the other side of the park.

I smoothed my dress shirt down and got settled. The boardwalk was just far enough below the ground level of the rest of the park that I could rest my feet on it comfortably. “I wouldn’t want to, either way. I’m afraid I have a number of rather nasty blisters from my last few days activity and they’re best kept out of sight.”

“Vain, are we?” She grinned and playfully kicked a little water at me, prompting me to heft my cane up and lay it to one side where her diggle could keep an eye on it.

“Let’s not get the electronics wet, shall we?” I said, ignoring her dig. “There’s a small fortune in lithium-ion batteries in that, and I’d hate to have to replace one before it’s even seen use.”

“I apologize.” She pulled her feet up and tucked them under her, clambering up to sit beside me on the cement embankment. “Now, I believe you have an agreement to uphold. I want to know exactly what it is you plan to do with all the materials you’ve been gathering for the last eight months, and-”

“Actually, Hangman, what I’m here to do is resolve a problem.” I folded my arms over my chest and gave her my best frown, which oddly enough prompted her to smile. “You have become increasingly… involved in my activities over the last few months, to the point where you have come to have a more up to date knowledge of my activities and their consequences than anyone other than myself. Sometimes, it seems you even know more than me. A person of your intelligence surely realizes that makes you potentially very inconvenient.”

“Oh, of course I do, Circuit.” Hangman crossed one leg over the other, folded her hands and rested them on her knees. “I also realize that you give me enough credit to know you’re smart enough and ruthless enough to assume that the easiest way to deal with that inconvenience would be to kill me here and have done with it, so you mention this only to hear what steps I’ve taken to stay alive.”

I inclined my head in acknowledgement and she went on. “So I’ve arranged for files implicating you in my disappearance will be placed in the hands of my father by the end of the day today, unless I take steps to prevent it. I’ll not say much more than that, but you do see how that’s a problem for you, yes?”

“Your father?” I hesitated for just a second, and then I knew why she looked familiar. “Elizabeth Dawson.”

“A man of your capabilities can easily evade a small organization like Project Sumter, even if they were at Condition One, which, by the by, they are not. But if they’re not the only one’s looking for you then things get more complicated. As soon as you’re implicated in a mundane crime like kidnapping, one which you talent played no part in, the people looking for you will increase exponentially.” She began listing points on her fingers. “My father employs a private security firm that will want to find me as quickly as possible, if only to avoid bad PR. The FBI will be under a lot of pressure to find me, since I’m the daughter of a US Senator. Local and state police agencies all across the country will take up the case and there will be tips phoned in to hotlines from all over the country. The law of large numbers says that sooner or later someone is going to catch you.”

It took a great deal of willpower but I managed to resist the urge to grit my teeth. She was undoubtedly right in her assessment. If Hangman was telling the truth about having ways to inform Senator Dawson of what she’d been doing, and I had no reason to doubt her, then killing her would be the worst thing I could do. Even if I left at that moment without even bothering to try and threaten her into silence, I’d be better off than otherwise. Then at least she’d have to explain herself to her father and the Project, diverting manpower from chasing me, and it was unlikely that very many normal law enforcement agencies would bother to try find me afterwards.

“Very well played, Miss Dawson,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Now, tell me, other than keeping my reputation as a trustworthy business partner, what reasons do I have for explaining myself to you? Or, at the very least, for being honest about it.”

“Because you need me.” She held up a finger to forestall my coming objection. “Not merely because you don’t want me running free. If nothing else, the possibility that you’re responsible for my disappearance has to have occurred to someone by now, and that possibility makes direct action against you less appealing that it might be otherwise. The human shield factor, if you will. At the same time, Project Sumter will be under tremendous pressure to divert resources from searching for you to look for me.”

“Until they can prove that the two things are one and the same.” I shook my head. “No, I don’t see as that really offers me any tremendous advantages, Hangman.”

She gave an exasperated huff. “I wasn’t finished, Circuit. I also offer you something no one else you currently employ does.”

“You know, Hangman, I did do my own information gathering once upon a time. And there are other brokers out there, admittedly less well connected but also less meddlesome.” I did my best to match her nonchalant posture but it was a front. I liked this conversation less and less by the minute. Hangman had this planned out far too well. “What exactly can you offer me that my other employees do not?”

She smiled, at once charming and deeply disturbing. “Conviction.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Hangman leaned forward and dropped her voice dropped to a conspiratorial tone. “Ten years ago, my place as a digital information broker was filled by a hacker and cracker known as Hard Scrabble. In addition to selling information, Hard Scrabble was well known to the metahuman community, what Project Sumter would call ‘talented individuals’. If you noticed that you had unusual gifts and asked the right questions in the right places you’d be pointed to him and he’d do his best to figure out which talent you had and what was known about it.”

She paused for a moment, waiting to see if I had anything to add, but I just motioned for her to continue. “Hard Scrabble was around for about two and a half years before he was contacted by a water worker on the west coast. His brother and sister-in-law had just gone through some sort of falling out, possibly the trigger event that turned a normal African-American delivery driver into a serial killer called Lethal Injection-”

“He was always a sadist,” I interjected. “The worst ones are always the best at hiding it.”

“Well, either way Hard Scrabble didn’t like him much. Didn’t like him enough to enlist his brother and track him half way across the West Coast, inland and eventually to Phoenix, Arizona, where he cracked the Sky Harbor airport control systems and shut it down to prevent Lethal Injection from flying out of the city.” She straightened up and folded her arms over her chest. “And that’s when Hard Scrabble disappeared and Project Sumter started investigating a talent codenamed Open Circuit.”

For a moment my mind wandered far and away. I don’t think about those days much anymore. Sometimes I wonder why that is. “Things were simpler then. Fewer wireless connections, different security protocols, less need to go places in person.” I forcibly turned my attention back to the present. “I was young and foolish.”

Hangman laugh softly. “Having met you in person, I’d guess you were still older then than I am now.”

“So I was.” I plucked her plush toy off of the grass and gave it a once over. “At the very least, I had given up stuffed toys.”

“But never developed a fashion sense.”

I arched an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

She laughed again. “No one wears fedoras anymore unless they’re interested in the dodge bonus.”

“That statement is so nonsensical I’m going to pretend you didn’t say it,” I said, handing her the stuffed animal. “Scrabble didn’t refer to the board game, you know.”

“I guessed as much.” She set the diggle in her lap and rested one hand on its stomach. “But the reference had to be oblique or someone might make the association before I was ready.”

“Ready?”

She absently began kneading the plush in one hand. “Before Hard Scrabble disappeared entirely, and Open Circuit became the only identity you used, you left a message in some of your old venues.”

“The world has been lying to us for over a hundred years.” I said, recalling the message, more of a brief note than a manifesto, like I had written it yesterday. “It says we are all the same, and pounds us into it’s mold with a thousand merciless hammers. The nature of our education, entertainment, work and government all serve to make us like one another. But we are not. And the longer we pretend we are, the more tragedy there will be. We must change.”

“Brahms Dawson lives to be the opposite of everything you are.” She dropped her gaze down to her bare feet and idly dipped her toes into the water, as if that could wash away the guilt and revulsion she was obviously feeling. “When I was in junior high I had the opportunity to take advanced mathematics and basic computer programming. He wouldn’t let me. Said advanced course work sent the wrong message, arbitrarily made some people winners and others losers just because they were born with a knack for something.”

“So you learned on your own.” I nodded to myself. The idea sounded surprising to me, but I knew enough very smart people who had reasoned themselves into believing equally surprising things. For Hangman, junior high would have probably been about ten years ago, the same time I was starting to build my own reputation. “How long did that go on?”

A choked laugh. “Oh, until about three days ago. I was very, very good at it. Got my undergraduate degree in journalism. Haven’t touched a computer science course in all my life.”

“And are doubtless a better programmer for it.”

“I was never going to be anything else. Certainly nothing he could be proud of. He’ll manage without me. I found him a replacement, a daughter who’s everything he expects. I’m a little worried about my mother, but she’s always been defined by what’s best for him. I’m done with that life.” She lifted her head and looked me in the eye. “You were right, Circuit. We must change. I can see that- I’ve lived that need, and I want it done. How many people working with you can say that?”

It was true. Simeon was incredibly competent and farsighted, but for all that I enjoyed his company he was still an employee. It was doubtful he would try and continue my work if I suddenly dropped dead. Heavy Water and Grappler had lived through Lethal Injection’s rampage and written it off as a part of life, like a drug addiction or a gang war. They had some sort of strange affection for me, but they rarely thought farther than the end of the next day. Changing society wasn’t even on their radar. Davis and the other engineers were just a means to an end, with little knowledge of what the end of all their work was going to be, much less why I wanted done.

For all the Enchanters and Double Helixes in my life sometimes it felt like my greatest enemy was the enormity of what needed to be done, and how alone I felt in trying to do it.

She was right. I needed someone who shared my conviction. And maybe Hangman was that person. “So,” she said. “Do we talk about how you intend to change things? Or was all that for show?”

“In fact, the next part is all show.” I collected my cane, clambered to my feet and held out my hand to her. “So it will make things a lot easier if I just give you a sneak preview. But first, you’re going to need a change of clothes. Something people who know you won’t recognize.”

Hangman picked up her bag and let me help her to her feet, slipping her sandals on in the same motion. Then she patted the side of her bag. “I bought two sets of clothes with cash from a Salvation Army store four blocks away. I just need a place to change and then I’ll be set to change the world.”

I smiled and offered her my arm, which she took, and led her out of the park. “You know, you almost make it sound like you plan to charge off and be a hero.”

“That’s not how you see it?”

“Heroes generally come from the other side of things,” I said. “If they’re allowed to, that is. And I rather think people like your father wouldn’t much care for one of those working with him.” Unless we gave him no choice. But I left that part out.

“Well, that’s true. Still, that really only leaves us the option of being villains.”

“Supervillains,” I said. “That first part is important. It’s why we get all the nice equipment, loosely defined working hours and ambitious pay scale.”

She gave me an amused glance. “Medical?”

“Only if you’re well connected, which fortunately I am. Trust me, the longer you do this, the more you’ll be convinced. Pretty much all the perks are on our side of the equation.” She laughed and began trying to worm some hint of where we were going out of me. I was glad for the change of subject.

It was surprising, really. Until she pointed it out to me, I’d never felt the need for someone who shared my views. I had never even thought there might be such a person and I was gratified that one had taken the time to find me and throw in. But at the same time I worried. Hangman was ready to take on the world now, young and foolish like I had once been. It was at once charming and disheartening. I couldn’t find it in myself to tell her then, although maybe I should have. For all the perks we supervillains have, there’s one we never get.

For us, there is no happy ending.

Heat Wave – Fin

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