There was a shocked disbelief in the room. Alicia wanted to laugh at Max and Zack mostly. It looked like there was something that the great X-5's couldn't do. Actually, they probably could, but the technique was something she'd been taught. She'd seen the Eyes Only broadcasts before, and had scanned his retinal pattern. It was something she'd done to anyone whose identity may need to be confirmed later. She never thought she'd actually meet Eyes Only, but hey, stranger things had happened, especially in the last day.
"What are you going to do about it?" Logan finally asked.
She shrugged. "Nothing really. Exposing you would mean breaking a promise, and my word has always been my bond." They obviously didn't believe her. "If I decided to tell, there's absolutely nothing you could do about it. Then again, to expose you would mean exposing Manticore, so I believe the situation is termed a standoff. You keep quiet, and so do I."
It made sense to Logan. Nobody in the room could stand exposure. Even Bling would end up killed for his access to the Informant Net. Max and Zack had their own reason to keep quiet, and this wildcard would not allow public exposure to come to Manticore. Max was incredibly tense beside him, and he didn't want another fistfight in the apartment.
Alicia waved her hand in dismissal. "It's irrelevant to my mission in any case. Except that I need to make a contact, and I need a computer to do so."
"Everything I have is built to detect any kind of tracing," Logan said defensively.
"One would hope you would be that smart," she replied in the same coolly dismissive tone she'd adopted.
Logan went to show her the room, and big surprise, everyone followed. She was really getting sick of it, even though she understood.
"Logan," she heard Max whisper. "She could be a hacker specialist. She could be able to do a trace, or give the location to Lydecker."
"She would have already contacted Lydecker by now," Zack whispered. Didn't they realize she could hear just as well as they could?
She sat down and logged onto the Internet. Logan was watching her like a hawk, but there weren't any needs for fancy moves. The beauty of this method was its simplicity. Nobody, not even Lydecker, had ever considered it more than a game Cole played occasionally. She logged into the game and started looking for messages addressed to the fair Gwendolyn.
Alicia saw Max move over to the electrical outlets. One word from Logan and she'd yank it all out. Alicia hoped Logan wouldn't panic. Zack had come up over her other shoulder. "How does this work?" he asked.
"I know who the others are," she said simply. "Then it's a matter of cracking the codes that we've established." She was scanning the messages quickly. Her fingers were racing over the keyboard, hoping to find something. Then she saw them.
Logan almost signaled Max when Alicia suddenly halted. The messages made no sense to him. A tiny smile touched her mouth, and she bit her lower lip slightly. She read some more and then a small laugh escaped her.
"What is it?" Logan asked.
"Just a few 'where the heck are you' messages from my siblings," she said softly, not wanting to show the emotion she felt from seeing them. "They just want to let me know they're worried about me."
She paged down a couple more times, and did a quick search. Another message came up, and Alicia felt relief flooding through her. "Thank God," she mumbled.
"Alicia?" Zack. He was still there, waiting for her to find what she needed.
"Shawna left a message about twenty minutes ago," Alicia replied. "That means twenty minutes ago she was okay." She hadn't realized how cold she was until relief warmed her. But, there wasn't a minute to lose if Alicia was going to keep her safe.
She scrolled back to the message that Cole sent. He was letting her know that he was going to be online, and under a certain persona. She sat there for a long moment trying to decode the message. Being stared at wasn't helping, but she'd been trained to push away all outside influences. Then it hit her.
She did a fast search, and found a chat area called the Map Room. She jumped over to it, and searched the people in the room. One named Shade was in there. Shades are known for their darkness. She checked the profile. Shade was a warrior, cast off from his own and abandoned by Gwendolyn the fair one.
Everyone could see Alicia visibly relax in her seat. She had logged in under the persona of Frigia the merchant's widow turned tavern owner. Silly, she knew, but it went well with the other personas in the game, and nobody suspected that it was a ruse. She went to make contact, and then realized that she better start doing a little translating before Max pulled the plug.
"Shade is also known as Cole," she said.
"You sure it's him?" Zack asked. She nodded.
"Who's Cole?" Max asked, still not leaving the wall.
"My brother. He can get to Shawna and keep her safe." Please, Alicia prayed, please let him be able to get to her before the traitor can. She'd never felt so helpless except for the day Dana died. It was the first time she knew one of the sixers was in serious trouble, and had to rely solely on the others to protect the endangered one.
She sent a private message to him with a sensual undertone. "People like to meet up, and umm…well, get personal on-line," she explained. But we know the words to say to let each other know identity.
The message was returned immediately. "Frigia, my angel of the dawn, hast thou come to seekest the watchers of the dark?"
Alicia tensed. "There's somebody watching him," she muttered, glancing at Max. Maybe it was an electronic watcher.
Suddenly the private message screen split into two sections. The first one began to type itself, both ends of the conversation. It went at the normal pace of two people in a very erotic conversation. The bottom one was where the real talking was.
Shade: 'Leecee?
Frigia: Confirmed. Status?
Shade: Watcher unknown. He's being kept busy now. J
Alicia let out a little snort of laughter. "Still the prankster," she muttered. The others had gathered around her to see the conversation. Even Max had ventured closer. "He's tricked whomever or whatever is watching him into thinking the top conversation is what's going on," she explained to them. "Cole's the best hacker I've ever seen. The watcher won't have a clue." The top conversation was getting VERY heated, and anyone watching would probably be very distracted by this point.
Frigia: Command compromised by persons unknown. All sixers go to ground ASAP. Shawna is to be put on status thee and me.
Shade: Confirmed. Your location?
Alicia felt the oxygen level in the room drop as everyone waited for her answer. Max was tensing to rip the keyboard from her if she hit one wrong key. It was so nice to be trusted after getting your ass kicked a few times trying to help.
Frigia: Undisclosed. Full Sixer Only status on all reports. No time now, I'll contact again soon.
Shade: Understood. We're waiting. No further losses acceptable.
Alicia had a hard time controlling herself at that simple statement as she logged out of the chat. They would do anything to get her back. She missed them. This was the first time that any of them had ever been out of contact in an unknown location. Before, another sixer could always get to them. She was really alone, and that was something no one else in the room understood.
Zack and Max might think they could understand, but they had spent years on their own. She'd always had the sixers. They had a bond far tighter than a fiver could understand, and being separated, not being able to tell them the truth, it was like having a limb missing.
Alicia leaned back in the chair, crossing her arms. "You can check it for tracers, or anything else you want."
To Alicia's surprise, she heard Max speak up. "Your sister taken care of?"
Their eyes met for a moment, and Alicia could see that it wasn't a prelude to a nasty comment. "Cole is going to make sure nothing gets to her," she replied. "The others know they're in danger, so they'll be careful." She shrugged. "It's all I can do for them."
Zack knew the pain in that. She couldn't take care of them personally, and it was killing her. "So now what?" he asked, wanting to hold her and let her know she wasn't alone.
"Now I leave."
They all gaped in disbelief. "Zack, you can keep Max safe. Max, you can keep Zack safe. If you need to leave Seattle, Logan can assist. No fivers will fall into Red hands. Mission objective completed." She stood. "I've done what I was sent to do. Now I've got a traitor to ferret out. It doesn't concern any of you, so it's time for me to leave." She walked out of the room.