Lycaon nimbly scooped Belle back into his arms before she could face-plant into the asphalt. This wasn't right. She needed a physician, but a wolf thien dropping off an unconscious human woman to a random hospital might gain both of them a lot of undesired attention. But then again: Lycaon didn't know how threatening Belle's condition might be, and he could not risk Belle permanent harm by delaying her medical care over concerns of propriety and optics. In a very rare moment, Von Lycaon was unsure of what he should do.
"Von Lycaon," said Rina's voice in Lycaon's earbud. "The Client is inquiring as to the human woman's condition."
"She's lost consciousness again," said Lycaon, his eyes already searching the buildings around him, trying to pinpoint his own location in the city. He can't well find the woman a hospital if he didn't know where he himself was. Rina would have to point him in the right direction and-
Something nagged at Lycaon's mind. "Rina, how does the Client know about the woman? Victoria Housekeeping Tenet number twenty-one is-"
"Decorous silence until debrief," finished Rina with mild indignation. "Sir, I know. I did not inform the Client. The Client knew."
That gave Lycaon pause. Open, unpaired communications could not breach the border of a Hollow- but specifically paired devices could. The most common of such paired devices being a bangboo and its operator's HDD computer. However, other things could theoretically exist. Things like the OldKnott server block itself. It could well have been paired with any number of things.
"The Client wishes you to remain where you are," said Rina. "They are arriving shortly with aid."
"How-?" began Lycaon, but before he could even ask, his ears zeroed in on the unmistakable approach of helicopter rotors. With some mild trepidation, he waited, the unconscious Belle still in his arms.
The noise grew louder. His ears picked out the subtle but unmistakable sound of a multi-rotor craft of some sort. Then a dark blue government tricopter soared from around the nearest skyscraper and was on an obvious descent path to Lycaon's lonely parking lot.
Lycaon moved towards the edge of the pavement, wanting the pilot to have as much space for the landing as possible. If The Client was able to commandeer a government resource like that tricopter at their whim, then that made two things obvious: something important was afoot and secrecy was no longer considered a possibility.
He looked down at Belle in his arms, her facial features sharp and delicate. What had this woman stirred up with her botched hack job? Did she even have any idea? Not that he did, either. But as Lycaon watched the tricopter set down, he presumed he was about to find out.
The tricopter settled, but the rotors didn't fully stop. A door opened and a petite woman stepped out nimbly. She wore the dark blue uniform of PubSec and her most striking visual feature was two pigtails of almost absurd length. To Lycaon, her scent was the strangest thing about her as the spinning tricopter rotors blew it in his face. He wasn't sure what this small woman was, but she wasn't entirely human, he was sure of that much.
"Von Lycaon? Of Victoria Housekeeping?" shouted the woman as she neared, the parking lot loud with the sound of the impatient tricopter.
Lycaon nodded, hiding his trepidation from his face. "At your service, my lady. How do you favor your tea?"
That was the code question to identify a true Client. Much would depend on this small woman's answer.
Victoria Housekeeping Tenet #13: Associates of the Client must provide the Client's Code.
"Water just simmering," said the small woman. "A floral scent with sweet milk and maple biscuit."
That was the right answer, Lycaon relaxed inwardly slightly. "Victoria Housekeeping lives to serve you. How may I be of service, Lady-?"
"My name doesn't matter. Give me the girl."
Lycaon blinked, surprised, looking down at Belle lying peacefully in his arms. They wanted the girl? She was just some hollow raider. Maybe a concern for a single PubSec patrol car, not a tricopter and the urgent arrival of this… this…
Lycaon again eyed the pigtailed woman who was dressed to appear as a PubSec officer. But- he suddenly realized- she was not PubSec. Not really. This was a government operative. That was part of the smell on her: bureaucracy. And why did the government want this small woman now in his arms? He looked down at Belle briefly, her face serene and almost fae-like in her features.
Victoria Housekeeping Tenet #45: Clients in conflict must be mediated.
"I do apologize," said Lycaon. "I fear I cannot do that. This woman is also a Client, and I cannot surrender her to you."
The not-quite-human, not-quite-PubSec woman blinked at him and narrowed her green eyes. "What?"
Lycaon could narrow his eyes, too: "The lady's hearing is surely too sharp to require a repetition of my statement."
A long tense silence stretched between them, punctuated by the continued chop-chop of the idling tricopter.
"Fine, come with her, then, Mr. Von Lycaon. And you can call me Qingyi," said Qingyi as she turned back towards the tricopter without a backward glance.
Lycaon followed obediently. That was a request he could follow and still maintain loyalty to both of his clients, both the governmental and the unconscious. He could hear Qingyi talking to someone via some sort of communication device, offering terse explanations about Von Lycaon's obstinate behavior. Well, that was her problem. She may be a Client's agent, but she was not the Client- which meant that, in Lycaon's estimation, Client Belle outranked Qingyi in his current internal hierarchy of relative importance.
They boarded the tricopter and shut the door, cutting off almost all the sound of the whirling rotor engines just above them- a wonder of engineering, that. There was no one else aboard except the pilot, and so Qingyi took a seat and indicated that Lycaon should see to himself. He sat across from her and held Belle securely in his lap as the tricopter smoothly took off.
"This woman needs a physician," said Lycaon.
Qingyi put her chin in her hand and leaned on an armrest, eyeing Lycaon curiously. "Why? Do you even know what is wrong with her?"
"No. Do you have that knowledge?"
"Yes," said Qingyi, and then went silent, watching him, waiting to see what he would do.
Lycaon recognized that he was being pressured. He didn't like that. It made him angry. But he could not afford to be angry. He must always be cool and collected and calm.
Victoria Housekeeping Tenet #67: Have pride, but let not its pursuit result in a client's harm.
"Lady Qinqyi," said Lycaon, forcing a deferential tone to his voice. "If your expertise and knowledge could aid my lady here, I would be most gratified for it."
"Oh, 'most gratified', so fancy," said Qingyi. Her tone was not one of mockery, but her word choice did the job just fine.
Lycaon failed to stop his own lip from curling briefly.
Qinqyi saw his canines, smirked at him, and then stretched with an unconcerned yawn. "Relax, Von Lycaon. We are already going exactly where that little hacker needs to go to get all better."
"And where is that, pray tell?"
"Scott Outpost."
Lycaon's anger vanished into curiosity. The Hollow One research camp? Of all the possible government destinations, he had not expected that one. He'd thought prison to be more likely, for Belle- and perhaps for him, at this rate. Sometimes Clients did not take mission failure very well. But now, he was entirely unsure. Was his commission regarding the server block over, or not? There was a way to find out.
Lycaon took out the tiny wonder drive HDD from his pocket and tossed it at Qingyi with a somewhat absurd amount of strength. The little device shot across the narrow distance between them like a bullet. Qinqyi caught it effortlessly and smiled.
So. Qinqyi was not just a government agent. She was a government field agent; the public sector version of himself. He resolved to be more wary around Qingyi in the future. She was not one to take lightly.
"Thanks, Von Lycaon," said Qinqyi, obviously aware she had just been tested and knew she had passed easily. "But you can keep it, if you like."
Qinqyi flung the highly sensitive and likely absurdly expensive device back at him, her throwing motion and the speeding mini-HDD moving faster than an untrained eye could track. Lycaon caught it just as easily as she had, but with more style (just between index and ring finger).
"Thank you, but it is government property. I am not worthy of the honor."
He threw it back. Qinqyi caught it again and smiled, this time without any sardonic undertones. Perhaps she was satisfied that he had passed the same test as herself. Perhaps his finger play had amused her.
"The quartermaster will be relieved to have this back," said Qinqyi, pocketing the device. "I don't think the man has slept in two days for worry."
"Please extend my gratitude to him for the requisition."
"Of course."
"Unfortunately," began Lycaon, trying to fish for information in this new thawing of his relationship with Qinqyi. He wanted to know about his own current standing with the Client whom Qingyi represented, and his own commission. "That device was unable to fulfill its purpose."
Qingyi's finger tapped idly against the side of her own face. She was quiet for a moment, as if considering whether or not to share something. Then she said: "That's because your woman there fulfilled its purpose first."
Lycaon looked down at Belle and then back at Qingyi. "Would you please elaborate?"
"The server stack that your little friend there beat you to? It had alarms all over it. Alarms that this-," Qingyi took out and held up the micro-HDD again and shook it lightly, "-was programmed to overcome. Quietly.'
"But the little mouse in your lap strolled right in and blundered through every tripwire possible, and that little server honked all over what's left of the OldKnott. Anyone that could know, does know. And we know that those who we know don't want us to know- whatever was on that server… hit the purge button immediately."
Lycaon remained silent and recalled how the electrical current had arched through the server stack. So that had not been an accident. Someone had remotely purged the system, and that is what destroyed Belle's equipment and blew her right off the top of the server tower and into his arms. That would explain why the power surge had seemed to originate in the server itself and not in Belle's equipment.
But that didn't quite answer what Qingyi meant about Belle fulfilling the mini-HDD's purpose. He opened his mouth to ask the question, but Qingyi continued:
"The server stack was from the old government, and they had these foundational safeguards built in. The servers constantly maintain backup files in encrypted compression. If a data purge is triggered, these super dense backup files are sent out on any and all available pathways of transmission- the idea being to preserve the data at all costs."
"That seems contrary to the ideals of confidentiality," observed Lycaon, not much for computers, but he imagined in his mind that everything looked like manila folders full of secret documents, and that got him close enough to the concept to understand.
"True, unless you consider that the files in that format are impossible to decode on an unofficial machine. The idea being that only the rightful owners of the data would be able to decrypt these 'escape pod' files, so they were theoretically safe to be cast all over the place and found later."
Qingyi pointed at Belle's unconscious form. "The purge protocol burned the only OldKnott exit out from that server stack. So the only pathway left for the 'escape pod file' to travel was into the pretty little head in your lap."
Lycaon looked down at Belle and frowned.
"So," said Qinqyi. "That brain of hers is so full of encrypted state secrets, we could probably classify it as federal property."
"And you are going to fix this? At Scott Outpost?"
Qingyi shrugged. "We are going to try. We need that data. And she needs to get it out of her head. If all goes well, she won't be worse for wear."
That seemed ominous to Lycaon. "What will happen if you cannot?"
"She'll die," said Qinqyi, matter-of-factly. "Or if that data was somehow ether-corrupted, she'll go insane and transform. And then die."
Lycaon frowned down at Belle. He did not know the woman at all. He'd exchanged perhaps ten sentences with her and she seemed reasonably polite, but she was still just a stranger to him. All the same, he felt remorse that Belle was not awake to hear all of this.
It was going to be an unpleasant reality to wake up to.
