I’d told the girls I was turning in early. Kuril wasn’t too happy about that—I could tell she’d been trying to get me alone for a day or two—but let me escape this time. I’d been conspicuously yawning as we all sat in the library, and I made a show of stumbling out like I was asleep on my feet.
Kuril was really angling for me to take that secretary job. I could probably push it another couple days, but then I was going to have to think fast if I didn’t want to risk blowing my cover.
Alone in my room, I shuttered the ghostlights and pulled out the lockbox that allegedly contained my personal belongings. In reality it was just a combined transmitter and console. I didn’t even open it, just felt it out with my comm and ordered it to connect. My world expanded as my noetic bandwidth grew exponentially. I felt like a fucking wizard, reaching out across astral space with the power of my mind.
“Ops is online,” I told the team. “Syncing feeds.”
My comm code unlocked four bright points of light in etherspace. I ignored mine and focused on the other three: one a shining pool of liquid stillness, one the inviting flicker of a crackling bonfire, and one the cutting precision of a laser.
I synced Abby first, leaning against a wall and chatting up some black-bearded dude in a sparse shawl. I could tell she was talking on autopilot as her eyes scanned the crowd. The dude probably didn’t notice, since he wasn’t making eye contact. Abby had full vantage of two streets, including partial visibility of the bar the guys would be frequenting tonight, but Abby’s dude was big enough that she wasn’t immediately visible to the street.
“Abby, check.”
“Copy.”
Val’s feed was next, from his vantage point in a shadowy corner of the room. Leave it to Val to pull a fucking Aragorn. I bet he’d have gone for a hood if that was fashion-appropriate here. The bar had one wall exposed to the open air, and from the way his eyes were tracing the buildings across the street I could tell he was thinking about enemy firing positions. There were a lot of fit dudes in here—we were close to the arena, it was a popular spot for the athletes to hang out—who Val was mostly ignoring. I got the sense he’d already performed a sweep and judged there was nothing more to learn. As I watched, he caught a new guy walking in, efficiently checking him over for concealed weapons.
“Val, check.”
Val’s field of view bobbed precisely as he nodded.
I reached for Markus. Elements of his experience came into view—an older woman with a sharp expression, a room lit by candles and the orange glow of a forge, a really nice-looking dagger. The fluttery pulse of excitement in his chest, the feathery itch of a presence somewhere behind him. Markus was haggling. He paid for the dagger, bowed to the forgemistress and her husband, and left. I felt his body shifting as he walked, the quiescent power of his augmented muscles propelling him along. The world felt smaller from his perspective. He was on his way.
“Markus, check.”
He snapped his meaty fingers with a force that had me momentarily wondering if I’d bruised my own hand.
“All feeds synced,” I said. “I’m loading diagnostics now.”
“You’re doing great,” Markus subvocalized.
The praise made me smile. It was my first time on ops—normally senior team members are supposed to handle it, but the logistics worked out this way.
“Thanks, big guy.” I called him that all the time, but man it was different being on the other end of things. Being taller than everyone else—if vicariously—was jarring in a good kind of way. I idly wondered if I could pilot one of Markus’s spare bodies for a day or something. But then… I’d have to flash. So no. Not happening.
The feeds all ran through the ops console—that was way too much data for one mind to process, so the console took on some of the load for me. For each team member, biosensors relayed diagnostic information through their comm sockets, piping through the translation barrier to where their comm rested in etherspace. There it was interlaced with their experiences and transmitted to the ops console, where I received it as a holistic package. I felt Markus’s heart beating and knew it was 83 bpm and those were the same thing. I felt Abby’s hand (muscle tension within parameters, pylons operational) near her pulser (100% charge) and the calm with which she was prepared to draw and fire it. I tasted the unexceptional/4.26% grain alcohol/beer in Val’s mouth.
I couldn’t feel my own body. I felt panic rising up—where? In my chest? It should be in my chest, where was my chest?
“Commander, I think something’s wrong!”
“It’s overwhelming at first,” Abby said soothingly. “You’re safe. You can check your own feed if you need to.”
Reluctantly, I regarded the guttering neon of my own comm signal. It couldn’t seem to decide on shape or color, though the chaotic variance definitely gave off a sense of danger, so that was something at least.
It was pathetic. No wonder I didn’t get any respect around here.
I didn’t go for a full sync, just checked in to limit the feeling of dissociation. My vitals were good. Opening my eyes took a moment of clumsy maneuvering, but it was enough to confirm everything was alright. The panic subsided a little—I got to watch it happen, heart rate dropping, hormone levels stabilizing, spirit regaining equilibrium. Seeing myself calm down calmed me down faster.
“Lilith? Status.”
“I’m good to go, commander. Let’s kick some invisible ass.”
*
Markus arrived early, or at least earlier than we thought Cades would show. He spotted Val immediately—really, brooding in a dark corner wasn’t subtle—and swept his eyes over the crowd with an efficiency that felt like the result of decades of practice. I knew he’d probably just mapped out the social dynamic of the entire room—a reminder my teammates were good at what they did. In moments he was ordering a round of drinks from a skinny little kid with a harried expression and not enough hands for all the stuff he was carrying.
“Thanks,” he said, handing the kid a couple drobol. He was overpaying, which was another way to say he was buying goodwill. Markus’s lips quirked just so, his attention on the kid’s reaction. A feeling of satisfaction told me he’d accomplished whatever he was trying to accomplish there. Probably just trying to make sure the kid knew it was a tip and not overpaying out of ignorance, but Markus had a deeper understanding of the arcane art of friendship than I ever would. Having such intimate access to my teammates’ experiences without knowing their thoughts was really weird.
Drinks secured, Markus barreled through a group of men that had earned his attention earlier. In moments he was the most popular person there. My millennial ass was reeling from the sight of him just taking over a group of strangers like that. Markus was in his element, all right. The excitement was just pumping through all of his signal channels. Every so often his attention turned back to the presence outside the bar and that excitement would wane. I guess it was about hanging out with Cades tonight.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Lirian was playing it conservative. That was expected; we had the entire area covered by MDOs and she really didn’t like hanging out in detection range. After probing the edge of Markus’s detector range, her presence faded out.
“Lost contact. Anyone getting anything from Lirian?” I asked, as if I didn’t know the answer already.
Abby pinged negative, laughing convivially with her conversation partner.
“Lirian,” said Val, and I felt a cold satisfaction, the resolution of a tactical question. “She’s not in the bar.”
She could have a confederate in here, of course, and that could be anyone, but over the past month she’d been the only one to trip the MDOs.
I sifted through the sensory data of three different people, looking for female faces, but the few I located belonged to people who had been here the whole time. I was suddenly distracted by a burst of attention from Markus.
Cades had arrived. And I had a front-row seat as Markus checked him out.
“Markus, what the fuck is going on with you?”
“Isn’t he gorgeous?” Markus subvocalized. He focused on particular details: the shape of the face, the pectorals underneath a fine shawl, good, strong arms—Markus’s muscles shifted as though preparing for a hug—his posture, the way he walked—
“Okay okay! Enough!” I said. “Do you all feel like this all the time? How the fuck do you operate?”
Abby cut me off. “Stand down. Focus on the mission.”
The feeling in Markus’s throat was so sharp, like some kind of pleasant ache. I couldn’t get any space from it because it wouldn’t fucking stop. Every time some aspect of Cades caught his attention, his whole reward system shouted “yes please!” in clouds of dopamine and norepinephrine. It was just way too much.
“Cades!” Markus bellowed, raising a mug.
“Thala!” Cades shouted back. “A joyous night!”
They met in a bear hug, which Markus really liked and I merely endured.
“I got you something,” said Markus, untying his new knife from his belt. “In honor of your victory yesterday.”
Guilt crossed Cades’s face. “There was no need for this.”
“I’m happy for you.” Markus smiled. “That’s need enough.”
Markus offered his arm in a warrior’s salute. Cades took it with a resigned smile. Their eyes met, and I realized Cades had it just as bad as Markus. This was totally a date. This had been a date the whole time. And I was gonna be stuck playing brain jockey like some kind of fucking creep all night.
“Someone shoot me now,” I said.
Abby pinged vigilance, which usually meant “everyone needs to look out” but in this case probably also meant “I’m watching you.” Veleans like doing double meanings like that sometimes. I watched Markus hand the knife over to Cades—their fingers touched, blegh—and get everyone drinking to Cades’s victory.
“We should figure out if Lirian’s actually here,” I said, mostly to distract myself from the hormone stew in Markus’s brain. “Commander, do you think we should do a sweep?”
“Good call,” she subvocalized. “Give me a minute. Val, stay in range to support.”
Time for why we were really here. We were in a cold war with Lirian, and the first step of winning that war was from good old Sun Tzu: know the enemy and know yourself. Lirian had established some ground rules—staying out of detection range, following us whenever possible—so we were going to give her some openings and see what she did with them.
But first we had to find her.
Abby ditched her cover dude and ducked out of the busy street. She pulsed a possible witness so no one would see what came next. I felt a buzz of etheric activity in her legs as she activated the kinetic translators installed in her femurs. Then she launched into the air. I felt everything—the colossal force of the jump, the air streaming past her and the sudden wind chill, the moment of weightlessness at the apex of the jump, the gradual settling of her body weight as her feet practically floated onto the roof.
“In position. Roaming.”
Below her, Val casually strolled down the street, subjecting every passerby to a comm scan. His feed supplied me with an endless deluge of etheric information—boredom, self-importance, worry, pride, excitement, bitterness—which I didn’t have to directly experience, so that was fine. Markus was over there trying to talk Cades into a private sparring session, and I fucking hoped I was off ops duty by the time that happened. Fortunately for me, Cades was demurring because the Voranetti had made some unhappy noises about his friendship with Markus. He seemed to wish he could, though.
Abby continued circling the area, getting no hint of Lirian. I tried to take in as much of everyone’s perspectives as possible, looking for that itchy feeling that indicated an MDO had found something.
“The MDO is set to trigger if the infrared finds a target but the soul detector doesn’t,” Val said. “If she’s evading the infrared, it won’t pick her up.”
“So we basically need line of sight to her,” I said. “She wouldn’t have spooked off just seeing us out in force, right? If we’re pulling an operation she needs to do recon.”
“Cades, you’re the best athlete I’ve ever seen,” said Markus. “Anyone would be happy to sponsor you. Surely someone else would treat you better.”
“Assuming no supernatural intelligence-gathering abilities, she should still be in observation range,” said Abby. “We didn’t pick anything up from the street or the bar. If she decloaked we would have seen her. Lirian. Yeah, she’s not here. One of our assumptions is wrong.”
“I’m no mercenary,” said Cades, which put Markus on edge.
“I almost feel something,” I said. “I think she might still be here.”
“She could be in a neighboring building, perhaps,” said Val. “The compound over there has glass windows and line of sight. Lirian could read lips without tripping the infrared.”
“At that range? How good are her fucking eyeballs?”
“I’m not saying that,” Markus said. “None of us are, right, friends?”
“It might explain why Lilith is getting a faint signal. It’s not on my end. Must be one of the emplaced detectors.”
“I know. But I pride myself on my loyalty.”
“I’ll infiltrate just to be sure,” the commander decided. “Val—flank left, get me an angle on those windows.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Markus changed the subject, but I could tell he wanted to keep arguing about Cades’s career choices.
“Hey,” I said, “do we know for sure that Lirian doesn’t have collaborators?”
“We know Lirian followed Markus to the op site,” said Val. “She would have had to hand off reconnaissance to a confederate.”
“What do you mean, you’ve never done a chariot race! Cades, we should be a team!”
“The confederate probably doesn’t go by Lirian, is my point.”
Val hmmed. “It’s worth considering.”
“We know she was here earlier,” said Abby. “If she’s gone, we’ve learned something either way. Lilith, can you narrow down which detector is getting the signal?”
“I can’t tell which one,” I said, digging through the firehose of sensory data to find it. “Fuck.”
“Just focus on it,” said Abby. “Let the console do the rest.”
“It’s not working,” I said. “Console’s doing fuck all! It’s, like, distant.”
My brain heard what I was saying. My stomach dropped in a horrible moment of cliff-plummeting epiphany.
“It’s not on the console,” I said. “It’s my personal comm.”
I unceremoniously cut the sync, waking up in the darkness of my room. My head was back to only housing one set of thoughts. There was an itch in the world up and to the left. That was the MDO signal.
I let out a stream of curses.
“Lilith, status!” The commander’s voice echoed in my head.
“She’s here,” I said. “She’s in the library.”