Notes: Beta by Poicephalus, who was all too eager to inform me how long it would take someone to die from a severed aorta. If I ever get on her bad side, my body will never be found.
Shadow
Allison Argent has read Field Psychic Matt Daehler's file.
Matt was born on May 16, 1992.
At age six, Matt told his parents that someone cut his head open and left something inside. There wasn't a mark on him, and Matt was known for having a vivid imagination, so the Daehlers dismissed this claim as a dream or a game, and promptly forgot all about it.
If they'd taken Matt to the hospital, and if the doctors had seen fit to have his head X-rayed, they would have found a small metal sphere, about the size of a baby aspirin, implanted at the base of his skull.
By age twelve, Matt Daehler was considered a "problem child." He ranted to his parents and teachers about being taken in the night, cut open, experimented on. His grades plummeted. He rarely slept.
The Daehlers started shelling out two hundred bucks a week for counseling. After about a month, Matt's therapist tacked on an additional twenty dollars to cover the cost of replacing her tape recorders. They had a tendency to explode during Matt's sessions.
By age fourteen, Matt stopped "acting out" and "seeking attention." This doesn't mean the abductions stopped. He just learned not to talk about them.
The abductions eventually did stop, though. The last one occurred on May 16, 2008.
On October 8, 2010, Matt passed out drunk at a college party and broke his nose. Scans of his head revealed several unidentifiable foreign objects implanted in his sinuses and behind his retinas. They were determined to be benign, but also too dangerous to remove.
Matt Daehler's CT scans eventually landed on the desk of Kaitlin Radke, Director of Research for the Federal Department of Special Investigations.
On April 3, 2011, at 3 AM, a drunk and bored Matt Daehler found out about a small, obscure government agency, joint-funded by the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, and attempted to hack into their network. Less than an hour later, a SWAT team kicked down his front door.
Matt's interrogation was more like a negotiation. The FDSI wanted his talents. Matt wanted answers. They reached an agreement. Matt completed his training in December of 2011, and was sent into the field.
Four months later, he was shot in the chest. The arrow severed his aorta. He bled out within seconds, and died on April 8, 2012.
Allison knows everything there is to know about Matt Daehler.
She killed him. It's only fair.
111
There's a little black dress spread out on the hotel bed, next to a purse and a plastic bag full of odds and ends; Allison can see a driver's license in there, with her picture on it.
"Load everything in the bag into the purse," Lydia says. "Make sure you can find everything when you need it."
Allison turns the bag over and squints. "When am I going to need an old movie ticket?"
"Pocket litter. They're going to search your bag, and if it's too clean the guards will get suspicious."
Allison opens the bag and starts filling the purse.
"Your name is Irene Beukelmann," Lydia says. "Get used to saying it. Correct people when they pronounce it wrong. You've been using daddy's money to fund some start-ups but haven't hit paydirt yet, which is why you've decided to cozy up to Michael Ashton at his birthday party tonight."
"Who?"
Lydia grabs one of the files off the desk and hands it over. Allison flips it open. There's a photo attached, and Allison snorts. "Nice goatee."
"Tech guys tend to grow them. They all think they're Tony Stark." Lydia rolls her eyes and continues, "Ashton started off as a white-hat hacker and then branched out. Half of all computers in America have at least one piece of Ashton software installed on them. Rumor is, he's decided to try his hand at cyberwarfare next."
"And that's a problem?"
"If he's working on cyberwarfare programs, it isn't for us. So yes, that's a problem, and it's why every government agency with half a brain has been keeping an eye on him."
Allison snaps the file shut and hands it back. "Unless this Ashton guy is secretly a vampire or something, I don't see why you're so interested."
"Normally I wouldn't be, except that two weeks ago, a colleague of mine in the Chinese government contacted me. Apparently Ashton arranged to have something smuggled out of Shanghai. Something very old, and potentially very dangerous."
"And you want me to find out what it is."
"Yes," Lydia says, with a pleased little smile. "I can't act against Ashton without putting the department in a legally awkward position, not to mention the risk to my contact. But you…"
Allison crosses her arms and tries to ignore the lead weight in her gut. "Plausible deniability?"
"Exactly."
111
One Week Ago:
The last day of school ended about half an hour ago. It's officially summer.
Allison's on her way to the stairs, ready to dump her bag on the floor and collapse into bed, when she hears her dad's voice from the living room:
"Allison, you have a visitor."
He sounds like he's saying it through his teeth.
Lydia's sitting in the easy-chair by the fireplace, ankles crossed, a glass of water in her hand. Dad is sitting on the couch, directly across from her, elbows on his knees and keeping a white-knuckle grip on his mug of coffee.
"Allison," Lydia says. "Could we talk in private?"
"Yeah, sure," Allison replies, and wants to wince at how sugary-sweet-casual she sounds. "Dad, could you give us a minute?"
Her dad stands, slowly, and says, "I'll be right upstairs," in a tone of voice that suggests even upstairs is too far for his liking.
Lydia watches him leave, then turns her attention back to Allison. "I need to call in that favor."
"I figured."
Lydia stands, reaches into her pocket and takes out a matchbook, tossing it to Allison.
The cover reads:
Hotel Kun
Mountain View, California
"Meet me there one week from today," Lydia says on her way out the door.
111
Now:
Lydia's voice comes hissing through the earpiece: "Stop tugging your skirt down. You're drawing attention to yourself."
"It's too short," Allison whispers back.
"I've seen you wear shorter things."
"Yeah, with pants."
"Leggings are not pants."
Michael Ashton's house is huge. Exorbitantly lavish, while at the same time utterly tasteless. There are people all over the courtyard and foyer, drinking, chatting, and most of them seem to be ignoring Allison.
"The WiFi signal out here is too weak," Lydia says. "Find a router."
Allison heads inside, hangs a left, and winds up in chrome-and-marble Hell. The kitchen is just as ostentatious as everything else in the house, but looks barely used. There's a wireless router high on the wall above the fridge.
"Found one," she says.
"Okay, good. Take the phone out of your purse and stay put."
Allison pulls out the phone Lydia gave her. It looks like a normal smartphone—Lydia put a violently pink rhinestone case on the thing, presumably because she thought it was funny—but the hard drive is partitioned. The smaller partition has nothing on it but Android and a legion of apps, but the much larger partition is what Lydia's making use of now.
After a few seconds, Lydia says, "We're in. Kind of."
"Who's 'we'?"
"Can't say. We'll start poking around the network. Lay low for now."
Allison's on her way out of the kitchen when she—almost literally—runs into Michael Ashton.
Ashton steadies her and smiles in a way that Allison suspects was practiced in front of a mirror. "Not enjoying the party?" he says.
"Actually, uh—" Allison spots an antique sword mounted on the wall—why Ashton thought the kitchen was a good spot for it is anyone's guess—and nods at it. "I was admiring that."
Ashton grins, and this time it's sincere.
"That's a jian," he says, crossing to stand in front of the display. "Han dynasty."
"There's a lot of stuff like that around here."
"I have a deep appreciation for Chinese culture," Ashton says, and Allison resists the urge to roll her eyes. "I'm sorry, what was your name again?"
"Irene Beukelmann," Allison says, too eagerly, but Ashton doesn't seem to notice.
"Irene. Maybe we could—"
Ashton's phone chirps.
He checks it immediately, an automatic gesture. His eyes widen with what might be fear.
"Excuse me for a minute," Ashton says, and walks out.
"Hmm," Lydia says.
"What?"
"Ashton's got everything wired into the network. Security cams, locks, lights. It's all running off some kind of server farm in the basement."
"Did you find what you're looking for?"
"Not yet, we're still working through the security. Stand by."
Allison follows Ashton back out to the foyer. She's curious.
It takes a bit of searching, but she finally spots him standing on one of the staircases up to the second floor, talking to a woman. Allison guesses the woman would be shorter than Ashton, but he's standing one or two steps below her so that she's looking down at him.
The woman's clothing is all clean, straight lines, wide in the shoulders, and she stands with her hands clasped behind her back.
"Lydia," Allison says. "Ashton's talking to someone. I think she's a soldier."
"Get me a picture."
Allison holds the phone up and snaps a photo.
"I don't recognize the uniform," Lydia says. "If that's actually a uniform, and not military chic. See if you can get closer."
Allison edges nearer to the staircase, and catches the woman saying, "I want to see it."
Without a word, Ashton heads up the stairs, the woman one step behind.
Allison waits long enough that she won't be spotted by Ashton or his friend, then follows them.
Once she's at the top of the stairs, she takes her shoes off and pads silently down the hall, listening. There are muffled voices coming from behind a closed door near the end of the hallway, and Allison puts her ear up next to the hinges, where there's a gap.
"—it's real?" Ashton says.
"Yes, this is authentic," the woman replies. "You said you had a lead on the second piece?"
"The government has it, which is where the asset I mentioned comes into play."
"How soon?"
"It'll be ready in a few months. Definitely less than a year."
"Not good enough."
"Sha—"
"We're not friends, Mr. Ashton. You will address me as 'Colonel' until I say otherwise."
"Of course, Colonel."
Over the comm, Allison hears a muffled "What the hell is—" before the lights go out.
She springs away from the door and ducks into a side room. "Lydia?"
"Ashton's network is under attack."
"Someone else had the same idea you did?"
"Don't think so. Security's being stripped away from the inside out. It's—hang on."
Allison checks the hall—all clear—before making a break for the staircase and rejoining the crowd. There's enough light coming in from the outside that everyone can still see, but there's a nervous murmur slowly filling the room.
"Well, this is interesting."
"What?"
"Permissions are opening up all across the network. We're grabbing as much as we can. Apparently Ashton's been storing some kind of malware on his servers, and that malware just turned against the rest of the system. Can you get down to the basement?"
Allison shuffles through the crowd until she reaches a hallway, leading toward the back of the house.
"What do you mean, 'they captured it'? That's not how—"
"Lydia?"
"Left the mic on. Stand by."
Allison peeks around the corner. There's one guard in front of the door to the basement. She's mulling over how to take him out when the guard's radio squawks: "All points to the foyer. We need to keep this crowd contained."
Allison dives into the broom closet, waits for the guard to go past, then heads for the basement door.
There's a card reader, but the light is green. The door opens when Allison tries it.
"Allison, it's faster if we just have some of these files sent to your phone and transfer them over later. Don't lose it."
"I'm in the basement."
"Look for a computer or something down there."
The basement is mostly unfinished, except for the air conditioning system that blasts out a steady drone of noise and cold air. The room is filled with server racks, and Allison finds a wheeled cart with a laptop on it, wired into one of them.
As she approaches it, the monitor blue-screens.
"Uh, did you guys do that?"
"Do what?"
"The computer just went dead."
"It's still showing up on the network."
A message appears on the screen.
"… 'Hide and Seek'?"
"What?"
"The computer, it says 'Hide and Seek.'"
The comm is silent.
"Lydia?"
"… 'Hide and Seek' is an FDSI code phrase," Lydia finally says. "It's our SOS. It means an agent is in danger and going to ground."
"One of your agents left this here?"
"That can't be right." There's another pause. "Are you kidding me?!"
"What?"
"It's the malware. Whatever is attacking the network is also sending messages to that machine."
Allison reaches for the keyboard and types:
WHO ARE YOU?
A second message appears:
777 024
Allison knows that number.
It's the number at the top of Matt Daehler's file, right next to his name.
"Allison, you need to leave, now."
"Not yet."
"There's a deletion order on the network. Ashton's wiping everything. He knows we're here. Security's probably sweeping the house. If they catch you, I can't help you."
"Lydia, it's Daehler."
"What?"
"The virus, or whatever it is. I don't know how he did it, but it's Matt Daehler. We need to get him out of there."
"You can't. There isn't enough time."
"We can transfer him into the phone."
"He—the specimen is massive. It wouldn't fit."
"How massive?"
"Over nineteen gigs."
"You told me this phone has twenty."
"Only if you format the hard drive and remove the partition." A pause. "Allison, don't."
"Why not?"
"There is vitally important information on that phone. We need it to know who Ashton's intended target was. If you do this, all that data is gone."
"And if we don't, Daehler dies."
"He's already dead."
Allison looks back at the number on the screen, and the cursor blinking placidly below it.
"Fuck it." Allison cracks the back of the phone open, grabs a safety pin from her purse, and jams the point into the factory reset button.
Then she grabs the USB cord out of her purse and plugs the phone into the laptop.
"Lydia, that SOS call. How do you answer it?"
"Answer it? Oh. You did it, didn't you?"
"When an agent calls in a Hide and Seek, how do you tell them help is on the way?"
"… 'Oly oly oxen free.'"
Allison types it in.
The phone's screen lights up white, and then both the phone and laptop go dark.
"I really hope that worked," Allison mutters, yanking the phone free and shoving it in her purse before she dashes up the stairs.
She's on her way out the back door when she hears the guard shout.
Allison sprints across the backyard and climbs over the fence, landing hard on the other side. (Stupid dress.) She starts running down the alley; if she can get out of the neighborhood and into the woods, she's home free.
She hears footsteps pounding up the pavement behind her a second before she's tackled to the ground.
Allison's cheek scrapes across concrete, leaving a bloody smear. She's flipped over, and Colonel Sha looks down at her, face blank and impassive, one knee on Allison's chest and one hand clamped around Allison's neck.
Sha's eyes flick between Allison's face and the contents of her purse, scattered across the alley. Her eyebrows furrow in thought.
An engine roars, tires screech on asphalt, and a gunshot echoes through the alley. Sha ducks and rolls away, taking cover behind a trash can.
Allison sprints for the car rumbling at the mouth of the alley, grabbing the phone as she goes. She dives into the passenger's seat. Lydia guns the engine.
"I thought you couldn't help me," Allison says, with a wide, relieved smile.
Lydia keeps her eyes on the road. "If anyone asks, I was never here."
"Got it."
Allison turns the phone on.
The screen is white for a very long time, and then a message appears:
Hello, World!
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Lydia says.
Through the phone's speakers, a tinny voice says, "Shut up, I'm hilarious."
111
This early in the morning, the park is more or less abandoned. It's also cold. Allison shivers and pulls Lydia's jacket tighter around her shoulders. They drove all night; there wasn't enough time to change.
There's a woman sitting on the park bench next to the trail, her legs crossed, an arm across the back of the bench. She's wearing a black suit, and looks to be in her mid-thirties.
"Director," Lydia says.
The woman nods. "Agent Martin. Check the perimeter. Make sure nobody's eavesdropping."
Lydia turns on her heel and continues up the trail.
"Sit down," the woman says to Allison.
Allison perches on the furthest end of the bench.
"My name is Miranda Lei," the woman says. "I'm Director of Crisis Intervention for the FDSI."
"Lydia's boss?"
"Only when something goes very, very wrong." She turns slightly towards Allison. "Agent Martin tells me you're to thank for Daehler's recovery."
Allison shrugs.
"She didn't phrase it like that, of course," Director Lei continues. "As far as Martin's concerned, the mission failed." She blows out a breath between her teeth. "Lydia Martin is a good agent, and inherently manipulative, and a moral vacuum. These things are not mutually exclusive, but it means she needs partners with a bit more moral fiber to keep her human. Like you, for example."
Allison can't help but choke out a dry laugh. "I don't know what you've heard about my 'moral fiber,' but I killed a guy."
"And when you had to choose between the success of the mission and saving a life, you chose to save a life." Director Lei sighs. "You're not a bad person, Allison. You're not a good person, either. You're just human."
They sit there in silence for a while.
"We screwed up," Director Lei says. "We're distracted, and spread thin. We got so caught up in playing X-Files that we forgot what the FDSI was created to do. And now it might be too late. Something's coming, and we're not ready for it. Which is why we need you."
"Do I have a choice?" Allison says, bitter.
"Whatever debt you owed Agent Martin is paid up," Director Lei says. "I'm not giving you an order. I'm asking. Help us."
Allison thinks on it. Director Lei waits, watching the birds flit between the branches above them.
Eventually, Allison says, "Do I get a code name?"
Ω