6 Days Later. September 23rd, 2267. 09:30 Rose Building Roof

Elias leaning in his new favorite spot enjoying the morning sun. There was an unexpected warm front that rolled through the region causing the temperatures to be much more comfortable than expected. He was excited and had good reason to be excited.

What was agitating him this morning was how difficult it was to get a hold of Dale. His not being at work this morning was ruining Elias’ chill. Ten minutes later his call finally got picked up.

“Morning,” Dale answered gruffly.

“Where the hell are you? I expected you to be in your office,” Elias sounded excited but accusatory all in one.

“We’re in the process of shutting that section down. I was on a bit of a bender last night and fucking hungover,” the pain Dale was feeling was palpable.

“I have some great news, we’re only eight days out but we finally found some dirt on William.”

“Go on, I’m listening…”

“Before I get into this, I want to release this similar to how your bad deeds got brought to light. I don’t want you attached in any way to this,” Elias said.

“So, if this goes sideways I can disavow it and say I had nothing to do with it,” Dale’s tone morphed into a greedy one.

“Correct, but for this to work, I don’t want to share any of the pertinent details with you so can legitimately disavow the items.”

Dale paused then responded, “Do it, I’ll work on a pair of statements. If it gains traction, then we should look into the charges quickly and responsibly. If it doesn’t work the way, we want I can call out the third party that releases inflammatory data and such.”

“Consider it done,” Elias stepped forward on the roof, “Today’s going to be a good day my friend. A very good day indeed.”

Dale responded with a grunt and then a pained exhale before ending the call.

Elias hopped two and ran back into their building. He saw Alberic, the last member of his team, talking with Castor in the sparsely populated office. They both looked excited. Castor for being the one that ultimately broke the encryption and Alberic for reading through and finding a treasure trove of political dirt.

“My boys, this is the best news we’ve had in a long time,” Elias said with all smiles as he walked into the office.

“The Herald is interested in our news. None of the other tabloids seemed to care,” Castor said, “The bigger news places said they’d take it but would want a source and to validate the information before publishing anything.”

“On that note,” Elias turned to Alberic, “Have we confirmed anything in the file?”

“We don’t have any other images of these people together with him. Everyone has been identified and in the same location as he was,” Alberic paused uncomfortably for a moment, “Everything in this is plausible, but it’s moderately concerning to me that we can’t independently confirm anything we’ve found.”

“If it was one or two things, I don’t know if you run with it. But look at all of this!” exclaimed Castor, “There’s no way anyone can ignore this much dirt.”

Ellie then stepped inside the office and joined the conversation, “That data was found on Kaius’ body. Elias, if your assumption was true that he was murdered, couldn’t that drive be planted?”

Alberic shook his head, “Are you saying that the drive was made up of information by a disgruntled source? Someone with an axe to grind as they say here?”

“Precisely.”

Elias paused to think for a moment but then shook his head, “Even with an axe to grind they could still this election.”

“If it’s made up then not only, do we lose the election but we also could lose a potential seat on the cabinet. If for no other reason, we should be clinging on to that to ensure the gate isn’t negatively affected.”

“She’s not wrong,” Castor said as he looked somewhat surprised by the well-reasoned counterargument, “But I’m not sure we even need him on the cabinet, to be honest. With the correspondence we faked we made it all but impossible to put the breaks to that project.”

“Run with it, I didn’t clue Dale into the particulars,” Elias said, “It may be too late to do anything, but we could sling some mud onto William’s campaign just before their victory. In the event it blows up in our faces, it’s some mindless troll that shared the information with some news sources. They eat the blowback.”

Ellie then walked over to Elias and handed him a data slate, “I finished my review of the coroner’s inquest into our people. I don’t find anything unusual or out of place. There was a trace amount of alcohol in all three of their systems, but the amount was so low it could have been created post-death.”

“Thank you for the review. And for the counterpoint. If we had more time, we could do a better job at verifying this information,” Elias smiled as he shifted his gaze to Alberic, “Send this information to anyone who will take it.”

Ellie shrugged and then left the office. While the crew was greatly reduced, they were as energized as they once were before everything had befallen them. The next few hours flew by, with their excitement not unabated in any way.

Many in the media were willing to take the data. The one negative aspect of this was the relatively few numbers of them that were willing to immediately print the salacious accusations. The tabloids with less stringent requirements immediately went to print with them. There was a great delight to those who were in the Xenuian headquarters seeing those printed.

16:45 Rose Building – Kitchen

Elias was beginning his preparations for dinner. Linus walked in looking dazed and confused, he had been up nearly twenty hours at that point following a subject. He was only awake to get one more meal in before crawling into bed for the better part of the next day.

“You look like hell,” Elias said bluntly.

“I am tired. I followed William’s secretary after breaking into her home and placing a data bug in the primary terminal,” Linus then yawned, “If I’m reading these things correctly, the two have never been together in the same building aside from a pair of traveling meetings. The intel you gave me seemed to suggest a long-term fling.”

“Come again,” Elias stopped with the prep work and stared at Linus.

“There are no messages between the two, outside of their normal contacts. The messages that are between contact are entirely about work and generally, aside from like five messages this year, are during the workday.”

“They aren’t an item?”

“I don’t claim to be the most intelligent when it comes to dealing with women or trying to understand what they say. But if there is any code in here for sexy time, I’m just not seeing it,” Linus began to look as exasperated as he was tired, “I can’t speak on anything else, but the secretary is in a very happy and by all accounts it looks like a fulfilling marriage with her husband and three kids. Doesn’t seem like she wants to risk that. Plus, if I’m reading the situation correction, she isn’t William’s kind. Look at all his exes.”

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Elias looked confused, “I don’t follow.”

“William looks like, and I don’t think I’m stretching it here, a fucking troll. He is not a handsome man at all. But the women he is romantically involved with are stunningly gorgeous,” Linus turned to face Elias, “Like supermodels left and right. Have you seen his wife?”

Elias shook his head.

Linus then moved over to the wall terminal and clicked a few things. Two images appeared. The first was his secretary. She was in her mid-forties with light graying hair. It was apparent that she was overweight by some forty pounds. The woman on his right was Maryann, his wife, who was in her early thirties with bright blonde hair. Unlike the secretary, she looked in peak physical shape.

“Look boss, I don’t care how much of a horndog this guy may be, but he’s not tapping that,” Linus pointed at the secretary, “When he has her at home. No man on this planet would cheat on that wife of his.”

“So that accusation is an unfortunate set of circumstances. What of the others?”

Linus shook his head, “No clue. But I don’t buy this supposed affair with his secretary.”

Elias watched Linus shrug and then walk into the living room. The television was turned on and changed to one of the local sports stations. Elias continued to work on dinner but the euphoric feelings he had felt began to diminish over time.

After an hour of work, a big pot of spaghetti was finally being put in a large serving bowl. A side salad was also prepared for everyone in separate bowls. Throughout the preparation, Elias couldn’t help replaying the actions of the day. Were they right?

The food was prepared well, but the taste was off. However, that wasn’t the fault of Elias’ preparation. Elias knew something was off. Confirmation of that was given shortly afterward when the soccer match was interrupted. Elias set the fork down and held his head as he stared down at his plate of pasta.

“Good evening, this is Marcus Timbal of the Source News. We apologize for the inconvenience but an important development on a building news item. An anonymous third party was distributing potentially compromising materials surrounding one of the candidates for colonial governor today. While we received the same information, we have not yet finished fact-checking and due diligence on the materials.”

Elias looked up and leaned back in his chair to see the screen in the other room.

“Some of the accusations contained therein have been proven false. Others we have not been able to prove or disprove. We do believe that there is at least one story that is backed by evidence, though that affair was known of and disclosed by the candidate as it occurred during his last divorce. Source News believes, at this point, that the anonymous source was attempting a last-second smear campaign.”

“Shit,” Elias said before sighing loudly.

“Source News is continuing to investigate the data that was provided. Our initial presumption is subject to change. We did reach out to both campaigns for official statements. Dale Rosberg’s official response was short and succinct. ‘We were made aware that a story like this was brewing, given my history with William and how well I know him, I found it to be both fanciful and shameful. Our political process is more dignified than this. It did not come from my campaign, and we condemn this type of behavior in the strongest of language.’”

Elias just shook his head. The gig was over. More worrying is the data was wrong. Kaius died for nothing…”

Ellie sat her plate down next to Elias and rubbed his shoulder, “I would’ve done the same thing as you. But it was too good to be true.”

“He died for nothing…”

“William Marven responded in a much less dignified, but not at all surprising, manner. His direct quote was, ‘The accusations continued in the information shared to be are a load of bullshit. We won’t be commenting on them beyond this.’ I can’t say that I wouldn’t respond in kind if these accusations were leveled at me. More of this story will be shared on our ten o’clock newscast. For now, please enjoy the soccer match.”

The food continued to taste bad. The last-ditch effort to win failed. Not only did it fail, but it failed utterly. Elias shoveled in his meal and retreated to his office for the evening. He’d stay there until nearly midnight, ruing all of the decisions that he had made to get the team to this point.

One positive was the method with which they chose to disseminate the tawdry dossier could not be linked back to them. Or Dale. Elias kicked himself for not stating the obvious with Dale, but at least he had the political know-how to deny and come out strong against the story. While he may have been a failed candidate, he at least knew how the game was played.

Eventually, Elias made his way to his room and went to bed. It was difficult to get to get to sleep, and when he did there was no quality rest. A common theme for him these days. The last thought Elias had that evening was when he’d feel good going to bed or waking up.

September 24th, 2267. 08:15 Third Floor Office

Elias looked and felt tired as he sat on an empty desk. The full team was assembled. That everyone could fit in this room comfortably shocked Elias. Six people, technically seven people, still lived, but Daphne was living in exile at the moment, which was all that was left beside Elias.

“So, we need to discuss the elephant in the room,” Elias spoke in a defeated tone.

“Ellie, do the Confederates have the ability to seal small wounds? Such as from an injection?” Linus asked.

Her eyes bulged when Linus asked the innocent-sounding question. She turned and frantically began logging into the terminal she had been leaning against. Something she remembered spurred her memory.

Castor leaned over, “What’s up?”

Ellie ignored the question and pulled up the autopsy report she prepared on Kaius. Her eyes poured over the documents. She closed them and angrily slammed her fist on the desk before taking control of the wall monitors in the room. An area of his back was circled.

“This area is so similar to the others that I just presumed that they were like the others. But if you zoom in the markings no longer look similar,” Ellie looked like she was on the verge of tears, “As you can see here in a side-by-side, the left image appears to show the skin being pierced, then glued together. It isn’t perfect, but unless you have equipment like ours you wouldn’t detect that.”

“Would the civilians here be able to detect that?” Viviana asked.

“No, no they wouldn’t.”

Elias nodded, “It isn’t your fault Ellie, none of this is. This is the first evidence that an enemy agent was working against us.”

“He was riding a motorcycle,” Castor said, “Wearing a helmet too. Looks to be roughly six foot three or so. Wide shoulders.”

The image of the rider appeared on the screen.

“There was a blind spot by our garage at the previous site. But here we see him moments after Kaius drove through. How did we not see this before?”

“Because no one believed any enemy agents could have done this,” Elias said as he stared at the screen, “If he knew where we were, why didn’t he attack us?”

“Holy shit, Kaius deactivated the security system temporarily. He could have slit our throats one after another,” Heva said.

“You remember that crazy bastard?” Linus asked, “Well, he fits the size of that rider…”

Elias turned and frantically logged into the terminal he was sitting on. He pulled up their surveillance system and looked for any tracking on Steven Hart. Sadly, he hadn’t been to the colony for several days before that day. He did travel to the colony the day after the murder of their friend and compatriot.

“Linus, I want you to plant some more trackers out near the highway before it ends,” Elias said, “Heva, you’ll be covering him. If he shows up, shoot him dead. Castor, I want a full report of his movements. I also want you to do some research on our friends’ deaths. Was he, or someone that fit his size, in the area?”

The two men nodded.

“Viviana, I want you and Ellie to assist me in packing up our gear. We’re going to need to abandon this location to our tertiary building,” Elias paused, “On that note, Castor check that facility to see if he’s been in or around there.”

“When are we moving?” Ellie asked, “And this is the last building we have set up.”

“I’m aware. In the night, it’ll be one trip,” Elias said, “It has to be one trip. If you leave this building presume you are being followed and try to shake off anyone that may be following you. We’re going to need to ramp up our aggression in handling this.”

The individuals began to work immediately. Linus and Heva went downstairs to the armory to grab their equipment, and more importantly their firearms. For the first time since they set foot in this world, it felt like they were going on the offensive. Ironic in a sense since they felt like they were in control all along.

But the recent revelation that Kaius had been murdered shook all to their very cores. Whoever it was they were up against was a pro. No, that isn’t true, this person was a savant. This enemy would be as good or even better than the best of their pros in Xenuian Intelligence. Heva and Linus both grinned with glee at being able to go to war against this agent.

The three agents they were able to kill at the advent of the mission left a hollow feeling in them. It wasn’t sporting at how easily they were uncovered and dispatched. Then again, in war, an easy win was preferable to a long drawn-out one. And it was clear that they were in the latter.

But one cannot fight a war without knowing who their adversary is. It was up to them to either confirm that this roid-rage hillbilly living in the middle of nowhere was their man. If it was, they were going to end him. Linus shook off those thoughts, true that was what they would do, but the first step was to verify. Once they did, they could move forward. The Xenuians were re-engaged on their mission. Now it was their time to succeed and win the final battle. For if they didn’t, all could be for naught.